I'm agreeing with a few of the guys above; it just won't die. We'll see more time-turner and dimensional travel fics, to be sure, but we'll also get ones that are done originally and in a refreshing manner. After all, if a huge section of the fandom focuses on a few categories, the trash index will shoot high as the clouds, but the treasures will be bumped up, too.

Besides, fanfiction is based on the premise that things can be changed if you seriously hated how things went in canon. Think Harry should have been more active in defense or searched for more avenues to destroy Voldemort? Make it so. Think Harry Potter would be a bad ass crossover with the Dresden Files? Then rape canon until everything clicks together.

An example would be the sixth book. A lot of people hated it. But it also brought new things to the table that, despite not being groundbreaking, totally gave us new material to work with. No one really even considered the concept of something like a horcrux until it came out. No one thought of a potion that basically made your luck incredibly good to reality bending proportions despite the fact that it really wasn't that implausible.

Even if the Seventh book does suck, new stuff will be available to work with, and the fandom is huge enough that it would take a very very long time before it died out. At least, I'd probably loose interest in it before that happened.

 

Unless some how Jk completely pulls a 180 and surprises us all with a truly epic story... more than likely those of us here at DLP will just ignore the 7th book stories.

I don't see an issue with that... If something is so shitty that we can only stand to read it once, if only out of obligation, why not leave it at that and continue to do what we've already been doing.

I mean really, how much of the fanfiction we read now, is completely cannon. I'm not even going to talk about the ships... as that alone would make all our story's AU as JKR has basicly killed off any other possibility.

Right now I'm reading sheeza's denarian fic... nonjon's Black comedy, MeghanReview's story on ravenclaw harry with a twin...

I don't think I have one story on my favorite list that could even be considered cannon compatable. And I'm willing to bet good money that many people on this site are basicly the same.

My point is... even if JK's epilogue was designed to completely cut off all avenues of a sequal.... Who amongst us will care?

 

She has a long way to go before she returns to story to its former greatness.
After GoF she had a story that could be great. OotP was a little downhill but the ending could have been used to make it truely epic and instead she gave us the Half Baked Plot.

 

Im surprised no ones mentioned Harry's death in the new book yet...

When GoF came out, I read it through in one sitting the night it came out, and looked forward to the next book in the series.

When OOtP was released I did the same thing...

When HBP came out, I was almost physically sick when I read it through in one sitting. I can handle Harry going out with Ginny... if Rowling actually fleshed her out into something. but she wasn't fleshed out at all, just left completely bland with nothing to define her. I could even handle a year with dumbledore teaching harry about tom riddle... for very little reason other than fleshing out his enemies character. With no preparation whatsoever for harry to defeat the dark lord with 50 years of world experience.

What I truly couldn't handle was Harry's death, which I saw clearly from the end of HBP. I am still about 90% positive that Harry will die in DH, and to me that means that Harry lost. I almost never read books where the main character loses, I always get far too angry. Harry will most likely be the last horcrux, and his death along with Voldemorts death will destroy fanfics that continue from the books. We will be reading AU fic after AU fic 6 months from now, and I will feel hollow for being tricked into reading the series once i finish the 7th book.

I am debating with myself on whether I should even read it honestly... I'll buy it, stare at the cover for a good 5 minutes and wrestle with myself over whether I should just skip to the end and see if harry dies or not. I'm still hoping that I'm completely wrong. Harry lives and wins, as long as that happens I will feel at least content and I can crawl back into my world of fanfiction.

If he dies, whether in the epilogue, or in the final battle, I believe that harry potter fanfiction will survive for another 2 years or so before going stagnant... but if he lives i can easily see another 5 years of life or more to it.

Thats all I really hope for.

 

Whatever happens in DH, the Golden Age of fanfiction has passed. We have to accept that fact. After HBP 's release it has been a steady decline and I don't doubt it'll continue that way whatever happens in DH.

For one thing, JKR would end the story one way or the other. Either Harry or Voldemort or both will be killed and then the reader interest will be halved. I agree that another book would give more material to exploit in stories, but who the hell wants to read about Draco (who has been thrashed and treated worse than house-elves by Harry) becoming the next Dark Lord or Harry's child being hunted by remaining Death-Eaters? Not me certainly.

Another major factor which keep fanon running is the uncertainity. We are all anxious and we cannot say which way the things go right now. So we turn to fanon to get a relief or to get different ideas about how it can be or just plain fun. But once/if JKR shuts this series tight like Tolkein, HP fan-fiction will lose a good percentage of readers. I mean I followed Lord of the Rings so avidly and has seen the movies atleast 5 times by now (they are so good), but I still haven't read one of the LotR fanfiction in FF.net. I mean I can't even see a plot hole or something that can be exploited or could have done a different better way. Maybe thats because when I read it series was already complete unlike HP but it still, if JKR ties up every loose end in a satisfactory way, would people be still interested in fanon? I doubt it.

One can say JKR won't shut it that tight, but she doesn't seem like the sort to miss anything. If our DLPers hope comes true and Harry abandons Ginslut, get Lordship (this time he really is of age), trains somewhere sufficiently and kills Voldy in nice long fight, what will we do? Oh and I know JKR won't do as I said but I can hope for one more day na.

About post-Hogwarts fics, I have seen only very very few which has something worth wasting any time. But maybe as times change and people change, we may find some gems emerging.

As is often said, its the hope of a better tomorrow that makes us go forward in uncertain times....