Clearly the OTP of the series is Mr. Hagrid/Fridwulfa.

 

Umbridge/Mcgonogall is the ultimate pairing.

 

I see I'll have to be the one to say it: there is no purer love than Harry/femRon.

 

Oh my god.

 

Only Voldemort is his equal though... or Harry/fem!Harry.

If I had to choose a specific pairing would be Harry/Daphne because most of this pairing stories tend to be AUs

 

I'm still looking for a good fic that features Harry/OC Veela. Alas, I have yet to encounter one.

As for ships, if I'm forced to select a favorite it's Harry/OC. I prefer it when an author moves the story beyond the British Wizarding World.

 

I can't believe that some idiot chose to revive this thread. Seriously. Of all the necros possible, this is the one you choose.

I see we're talking about pairings. These days, I don't care too much. My only requirement is that Harry is the protagonist and there isn't slash. That said, Hermione is the one person that can convince me to avoid a fic if she is "paired" with Harry. Like just on adding some sort of realistic human interaction to the story, Hermione is the one character I would stay away from if I was Harry.

Y'all brought up some great points about the stuff that she did. Question to the guys on here. Thinking back to when you were a teenager, would you have a dated a girl like Hermione? Forget that, would you make any person like her (guy or girl) on of your closest friends. For me, the answer is a resounding no.

 

Oddly enough I'm coming around to Harry/Ginny. She's an athletic red headed hottie who's loyal, brave and jams well with Harry's sense of humor. Just the canon depiction of their relationship, the toxicity of the shippers and her seemingly never ending hero worship of harry have held me back. Give me a good adventure first, interesting story with a well depicted Ginny as a love interest and I'd be down.

Otherwise Harry/Fleur forever.

 

This is how I’ve always felt about Harry/Ginny- I’ve never understood all the hate this pairing gets. I understand that she is not super well developed in the books, but niether are fan faves like Fleur or Daphne.

Also, just to be clear, the greatest HP pairing ever is obviously Harry/FemDudley. I don’t understand why there is even a debate.

 

Remember that most Ginny hate comes from fan fiction, mostly written by women who identify with Hermione.

 

[citation needed]

 

If I had to take a guess at where the Ginny hate comes from, I'd blame the combination of the intense shipping wars back in the day and the relative weakness of the canon pairings in execution. Plus Ginny catches a fair bit of blowback from the section of the fandom that hates the Weasleys in general and think Ron is so evil that Voldemort and Harry should've teamed up to take him down.

 

Yeah that’s true- especially the part about Ron. Weasley bashing is probably the stupidest thing in the HP fandom, especially because it is usually paired with Snape and Malfoy wank.

It's interesting reading some older fics- and threads on this site (from like 2008) and seeing almost everyone bashing the Weasleys. I wasn’t a part of the fandom back then and I’ve wondered why there was so much Weasley hate from people who seem somewhat intelligent (as compared to modern Weasley bashers who can’t speak english)

 

This is a big part of how I attribute a lot of the antagonism towards the Weasleys, especially Ron and Ginny. Since they're part of Harry's everyday canon life - and, for Ginny especially, the domestic family situation we see in the epilogue, many readers associate these characters with the mundane. Friendship with them is the turning point between Harry settling down into an ordinary life after the series and the indie!Harry ideal of a globetrotting billionaire playboy philanthropist dark wizard hunter.

Which other student Harry befriends first is a very early and very prominent point of divergence which can be used to great effect, so we often see a "cool Slytherin" sidle in to take the place of Ron and Hermione. It's a shame that many authors cannot simply sideline them, but must go out of their way to bash characters.

We've rehashed all the reasons to possibly dislike a character a thousand times in threads before, but I also wonder if there's an element of the authors lacking agency in their writing: the path of least resistance for them might be to let a prominent character take on an antagonistic role in the foreground rather than fade to a neutral role in the background. A character can shift from good to bad much more easily than they can shift from significant to insignificant unless the writer is genuinely apathetic about them.

 

I realised a while back that I didn't actually hate Harry/Ginny as an established pairing. If they're already paired together at the beginning of the story, then it's a pretty enjoyable pairing as they seem to bounce off each other pretty well.

Unfortunately, watching the romance be established is till pretty hard to read about and cringe inducing. It usually includes overprotective Ron, stuttering Harry, Pranking Twins, Start Struck Ginny and whole bunch of other tropes.

On the other hand, it's getting quite hard to read any fanfiction where the couple isn't already together at the beginning of the story. Maybe it's cause I'm actually an adult now but watching 11-17 year olds try to serenade and seduce one another is pretty cringey. Not to mention that as how the majority of fanfiction seems to be written by teenagers that they can't portray romance well. People don't say "I love you" after the first date. Brothers of the girlfriend usually get along with the boyfriend. Asking a girl out is usually as easy as saying "Hey, do you want to grab a drink sometime". Sex is pretty shit the first time you do it and the second time isn't much better.

 

Probably because if they aren't an established pairing already it's a romance centric fic. And people as a general rule are terrible at writing romances, especially idealized, happily ever after type romances that harry/ginny tends to be. Whereas on the other hand established pairings skip most of those trappings and go straight to banter and sex often with an adventure focus.

Speaking of which I would love to see a Harry/Fleur or Harry/Narcissa established pairing, but I don't think I've ever read one.

 

Harry/Luna I find this pairing extremely cute.

 

Posting a fan art doesn't make it better or worse.

 

Also I request the mods to put a poll up. It would be interesting to see which is the most popular pairing.