I was just wondering: what are your favorite scenes in HP fanfiction? It needn't be from one of your favorite fics, since occasionally you find gems inside a story with too many flaws to be a top fanfiction.

So I'm asking: are there any particular scenes in HP fanfiction which stand out to you, for example because they're especially poignant, or exhiliration to read, or an impressive culmination of a plot line, or maybe deeply touching or oddly emotional?

For me it's a scene from Stages of Hope, a fic which has its problems - but which contains what is probably my favorite scene in all of fanfiction. For some context: Harry, Hermione, Neville and Luna are in an alternate universe (Ginny and Ron are dead). In this alternate universe, Ginny died in the Chamber of Secrets whereafter Ron stayed at home to take care of his mother, while Hermione never came to Hogwarts. In this scene, Hermione is in a conversation with Bill, and at some point he slowly discovers how close Hermione was to Ron in her universe.

Excerpt:

Spoiler

"Ron, my brother, asked me to give you his best," Bill finally said in an attempt to revive the conversation, and this time it was Lily who flinched, knowing very well that this topic would only deepen Hermione's misery.

"He was meaning to talk to you and Harry, but Christmas is kind of a thing in my family, and Mum relies on him so much…"

Hermione blinked. For a moment, she looked worlds away.

"I understand," she said quietly. "Family is the most important thing, especially for Ron. I get it."

Bill eyed her with surprise, but there was also a slow realization growing on his face. Bill hadn't been one of the youngest curse breakers ever employed by Gringotts for nothing. He was an excellent observer.

"That's good," he then said, yet unsure what he was seeing. "Most people think it's weird, actually, the way he cares about family. He was given grief over it in school, so he's often worried others won't understand…"

"Oh, no," she interrupted him. "Ron's always felt a bit unsure what his role in life was, and being the youngest son, he thought he didn't really matter. It must have been a comfort for him to take care of your mother. I'm glad he found his place in your family."

Now Bill was eyeing her with something approaching shock.

"That's exactly what my father said," he commented. "You must know him very well in your dimension."

Hermione went pale, and her eyes flickered across the room as if searching for an exit.

"We…" she stuttered. "I… We grew up together, I guess. He was…" Her voice wobbled and nearly drifted away. "He was my… friend."

"I'm glad to hear that," Bill said quietly. "After Ginny's death, he became a bit of a loner. He's got friends, of course, but sometimes I think they don't know him very well."

"Yes," Hermione said, still in that dying voice. "It's not easy, getting to know the real Ron. He's hidden deeply."

She paused, and half turned away as if to end this conversation, but then her eyes sought and found Bill again, and there was something pleading in the way she touched his shoulder.

"Bill," she asked, "Is he… Is he happy?"

Bill's face softened, for a moment echoing the grief visible in Hermione's eyes. He reached up and covered the hand still touching him with his own, pressing down on it steadily.

"Yes, Hermione," he said, and there was a new quality to his voice, an intimacy usually reserved for his brothers and his parents. "I believe he is. Although I'm sorry this Ron missed out on getting to know you. You would have made him a better person, I think."

Lily did the only thing she could and left the two to their family business.

 

Good question! Now I have to skim through all my favorited stories to remember epic scenes from them.

In canon, Molly screaming "Don't touch my daughter" during the final battle gets me every time, btw.

I'll get back to this soon with an update.

 

I have went back and reread fics just because I remember a particular, powerful and enjoyable scene.

Off the top of my head, Black Comedy comes to mind. The pensieve loop. A lot of things, really. It's a very memorable humor fic.

"Drip, Drop, lover." heh. Classy, Nuhuh.

Some Sorting Hat moments from The Lie I've Lived.

The problem with this is that I really haven't kept count. I couldn't even tell you my favorite fic. But I'm sure there have been plenty of awesome, epic scenes.

 

In Forging the Sword, when Ron pummeled Malfoy to the ground, and Harry watches impassively until authority arrives.

 

In Renegade Cause, when the Italian delegate to Voldemort is revealed to be Dumbledore. That scene was so full of win. Harry returning as Fallen Angel!Harry in Shezza's The Denarian Lord. Or the scene in Taure's plan for Lords of Magic, where he performs his first Lord-level spell.

 

My favorite scene might be from Shezza's Denarian Knight with harry leaving grimmauld place on christmas to find a kid from a similar background to his own, ending with Harry giving him some money.

 

This scene from Forging the Sword is one of my favorite beats. It's a character study, more than anything else:

This isn't HP, but fuck it. One could pick any part of The Game of Champions, but two scenes are blazed upon my memory. Both from the same chapter, ironically enough.

The first is the culmination of the Skyeater fight:

Spoiler

The second is another character moment, about Professor Oak:

Spoiler

 

Stages of Hope is so, so gay. Sorry, just had to say it.

One of the most memorable fanfiction scenes for me is from Professor Riddle and the Quest for Tenure.

 

Well yeah, there was a reason why I stipulated that your favorite scene needn't necessarily be from one of your favorite fanfics...

 

When Harry withdrew his guitar, Fuckslayer, from a dimension where all screamed for naught.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2554200/3/HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

There's a couple that come to mind immediately, although I'm tempted to write off one of them as being a simple product of recency bias.

I'm talking about the scene from A Long Journey Home where Ron and Hermione visit the tomb of Myrddin on Avalon. Others have said it far better than I could in its library thread, but I'll just say that words can't really do that scene justice in terms of how powerful and emotionally jarring it was.

The other one would be Cauterize. A series of scenes, through the lens of a camera, each caught in a single moment, each wonderfully crafted. I think I speak for a lot of people in saying that it stands as the "real" epilogue to HP, and indeed, I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

Heartlands of Time, Chapter 8:

Spoiler

Harry and Voldemort fighting back to back against the Atlantis guards.

 

A few scenes from both The Sorting Cat's Harry Potter The Last Avatar, and Control by Anonymous58 stand out,

Spoiler

The Nargle and Dementor scenes, but I felt like they both could've built up to the point more

but I remember the poignant plotline of Freedom in the Eye of Another

Spoiler

Naruto grabbed his arm, giving Sakura the distraction she needed to jump at him, throwing her entire body weight against the Rock nin’s chest. She thought she saw Naruto kick the back of his knees, but either way the enemy fell hard, his skull cracking against a tree root.

Her dagger bounced off his throat, skittering like she’d tried to cut stone, so Sakura dropped it and drove her thumbs into his eyes. They felt hard at first, but then she felt his concentration shatter. She pushed through the resistance, piercing the thick membrane of his eyes. The left one broke first, spurting up her wrist, her thumb sinking into the suddenly pliable organ.

The man was screaming. Sakura shook her head, instinctively, from habit. Her hair wasn’t in her face; she didn’t have hair that could get in her face because she didn’t know when to shut up.

He hit her, but it was weak, barely worth noticing. Sakura snarled, her lips cracking open, and shifted her weight, jamming her thumb into his right eye until it split apart into a wet, goopy mess.

The Rock nin didn’t stop squirming, hitting her with the arm Naruto wasn’t holding. It was frustrating. Daiki and Kenta had died, easy-peasy, so why wouldn’t he? Sakura jerked his head up and slammed it against the tree root underneath. “Die,” she whispered in encouragement, something wet dripping down her face.

She did it again and the Rock nin went limp, but she could still feel him breathing. The skin under her hands softened, became malleable. Sakura yanked a hand free and took up her dagger, sawing across his throat. It split open, gushing red and hot all over her.

He wasn’t breathing anymore.

Sakura shook. His blood was cooling on her skin and she was cold. They didn’t tell you how messy it was in the academy. She checked on Naruto, patting his hand until he uncoiled from the corpse’s arm, blinking sleepily as the black stripes on his cheeks thinned.

 

Glad to see we're still in the age where gay is a term of insult.

 

It's the current year!

 

In Forging the Sword where that one teacher (forgot who exactly) schools Hermione on just why exactly muggles have no chance compared to wizards.

 

There's really just one scene I can think of. Maybe not the best written, technically, but by far the most cinematic.

Spoiler

Dumbledore's execution

Spoiler

from jono's A Stranger in an Unholy Land, starting at page 827 here: http://strangerinland.weebly.com/uploads/3/4/3/8/3438268/a_stranger_in_an_unholy_land.pdf

Frankly, all of his battle scenes are incredibly well done, but I think the way he sets the mood here is perfect.

I also really love Harry's duel with Grindelwald in the sequel.

 

I wish you'd spoiled that.

 

Methods of Rationality. When Harry and Prof. Quirrel are brewing the Potion, and Quirrel talks about his past.

 

IIRC there was once upon a time a thread for best duels/fights and such. For the sake of variety, I won't include any of that here, though some action scenes are among my favorites.

It's actually kinda hard to pinpoint a scene as "favorite" when you've read enough fanfiction that things get blurry, or there was a scene in a fanfic that you liked, but maybe forgot about it. Still, I'll throw out some standouts. Don't take the order for ranking.

In Circular Reasoning, one of the coolest bits is already in the prologue, the conversation between Harry and necromancer La Muerte. Swim made up a character out of nowhere, but he fits into the setting of a desolate London so well that I just bought it right away. La Muerte's dialogue in that scene is just great.

In What You Leave Behind, the transfiguration lesson when Harry is grasping at the edges of an epiphany. It's utterly brilliant. I admit to borrowing heavily from that in my own fic.

In Renegade Cause, when Voldemort turns the tables on Harry and

Spoiler

sexually assaults Hermione while controlling Harry's body.

Damn, but the balls there. In a fic as full of punchy moments as RC, that was the moment of realization.
I knew Voldemort was a bastard, but that was something else.