Incidentally, on the topic of Hogwarts as a magical building, when you guys read the books did you picture the staircases as actually physically moving through the air, like in the movies? I always read it as the floorplan of the castle shifting and changing, like a classroom being in one place on a Monday and another on a Wednesday, then completely disappearing on a Thursday evening. So I was quite surprised when I saw Philosopher's Stone and the staircases were rotating around.

 

I always assumed they did this out of sight. Not just a staircase moving like it's on rails, but one day leading up to the 3rd floor and another day leading up to the 7th floor, even if that shouldn't be possible, because it's still the same number of steps. (It's magic!)

 

I saw the movie first, so regarding PS I always imagine how it is in the movies.

 

Back when I first read Philosopher's Stone I thought of it as similar to you, the relative position of everything changes through the day, time, season, mood and so on.

I even considered people had to pay constant attention to where they are walking otherwise it could very well go somewhere else. No warning whatsoever of a change, one moment going up a stair from the third floor to the fifth and looks down to take something from a bag then arrive to see the first floor. Turn back and it might still be a stair going down to the third floor or might have changed to one going into the dungeons instead.

To be honest physically moving staircases were pretty disappointing in comparison.

 

I agree.

I do know of one story where the final battle was told through the eyes of Hogwarts. That's a different take that's worth thinking about, at least. But far from SentientBabe!Hogwarts.

 

Do you have the link?

 

I was extremely surprised by the way the movies pictured it.
I like to think she added the changing architecture initially to give that feeling of exploring the unknown to hogwarts that you got as a child when you were somewhere new, hence hogwarts changes so you never lose that sense of adventure; it is eternally 'magical'.

 

I assumed it was both. The staircases floated around and reconnected to things, and rooms would randomly appear in new places. Though always on the same floor.

 

Woah, woah, woooooaaaaah!

Let's not act like there's another type of story. That's just crazy talk.

 

I'm guilty of this myself, but nonetheless: Halloween 1981 prologues. So incredibly tired of time.

 

I think that any fic that start in 1981 has a serious disadvantage when it comes to retention of readers. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good ones but I've read the process of Harry getting introduced to the Wizarding word etc. so many times that I usually become bored unless it's seriously AU or excellently written.

 

Am I supposed to respond to this?



Fine. I like it when stories don't include: Harry meets X who tells him he's a wizard and takes him to Diagon Alley. Fast foward a bit and Harry meets Y and Z on the train ride(He might meet them in Diagon Alley for "variety") who will become his fast friends and possibly affect his sorting. Panorama of Hogwarts(ooooh pretty) awestruck first years enter to the sorting ceremony and hears that god damned song every single time and proceed to get sorted to the same houses with some minor variations.

Do you understand me now or are you still confused?
EDIT: There are always exceptions to this rule and I like plenty of stories that include some or all of these things.

 

Chill out fella, was just saying I was confused because Taure was talking about the night James and Lily died, whereas you went on about... what you just went on about, something that occurs 10 years later. No big deal.

I would state one of my own pet peeves here, but I really got nothing I can think of at the top of my head that hasn't been posted before. I did recently come across a couple stories in the last couple days that have the main character/s dimension hoping (or alternate versions of themselves coming to their dimension) for a short period of time that really have no relation to the main story at all, and it seriously throws me off.

It would be nice if they did that as a side story, as in actually posted that as a separate story and have it called outtakes or something. But that is more of a personal preference because I know some people don't have a problem with it.

 

God, I was being stupid. I missed the 1981 highlight. I thought Taure's original post was 1991... well sorry about that.

 

I wrote a story and had it start at Harry meeting someone critical to the plot during his first trip to Diagon Alley. I then got reviews telling me I should have started it at Dudley's birthday and done a rehash to where I started it because that's where canon starts.

Mind you, this was one of my first stories and it was pretty awful but still even then I knew that was tedious.

 

How did this whole "Ice Queen Daphne" bullshit even start?

 

I'm assuming one of the first writers for the pairing wrote the idea and everyone that wrote stories after it had read the existing stories and just copied it thinking it was canon or some shit.

The cycle continues.

 

Next in line. Harry's been paired off with every other witch. "Ice Queen" had to come up at some point.

 

Jeconais's HP/DG story. A decent fic (which is more than can be said about his ten thousand or so imitators).