I don't mind stories that give the prophesy the finger, if the explanation is good for why the prophecy is being sidelined or the prophecy is simply ignored entirely and never mentioned. It's not so bad and sometimes the story turns out all the better for it.

It's just when an author tries to play up to the prophecy, yet their 'Chosen One' doesn't fit the bill of the actual prophesy, that I find the choice of messing with the prophesy annoying.

Either the prophesy exists as it is or it doesn't exist at all.

Agreed, but Harry doesn't ever catch a break, does he?

 

Fluff. I hardly give such fics a second glance before the bright red cross is hit by me.

 

I have the same with Post-Hogwarts fics, even if they are extremely good.

 

Writing good Fluff is hard , but there are some good ones out there

 

Post DH and hogwarts is the only way we can see a realistic powerful Harry Potter. What's the point of Harry kicking some serious ass when he does come back to 'school' at the end?

If well written, post Hogwarts stories are the most interesting for me because it's uncharted territory even today in the world of Harry Potter fandom.

 

While I see where you are coming from and you have quite reasonable arguments about it, Post-Hogwarts or Post-DH stories just aren't my thing.
I can recognize their merit if they are written well, but they are simply not my cup of tea.
I'm probably in the strong minority here, but I don't like Independent!Harry all that much.

 

I personally like Harry that has a self-consistent personality. Canon one doesn't and it is probably the reason so many people jumped in to the whole Independent!Harry wagon.

 

A pet peeve is stories that radically alter the magic system and/or canon, but keep the horcruxes. They started out boring, got worse and are now intensely frustrating. Unless it's something awesome like The Mad Mad Reviewer did and have the horcrux be Silent Hill, then you should come up with something new.

Have Voldemort's heart be kept inside a thrush inside a swan inside a boar inside a bear, and each time you open one up the next runs away and has to be chased down. Or have Tom Riddle create a really useful spell and keep his life inside it, so that at long as people use the spell it keeps him alive. Make the Dark Marks be anchors to this world. Make something more of Harry's connection and Lily being the only one ever to be self-sacrificing enough by changing it so that one of the three times she defied the dark lord was in messing up an immortality ritual so that they were linked, and so killing the link temporarily banished him while transferring the link to Harry. Or something so that you don't have the exact same horcruxes each time.

 

Well, unless you change Tom's childhood and the way he grew up, I think the horcruxes he makes are going to be the same. A change in magic system isn't going to change that.

While I am not a big fan of the 'horcruxes', without them, killing off Voldemort would be too easy and remember, Voldemort's biggest fear is death.

 

No, he's saying that if you're altering the HP magic system, horcruxes start to stand out, and not in a good way. They might not "fit" with all the other examples of magic in the fic, so Voldemort will have to go about attaining immortality in a different way that fits into said magic system. This might mean not even using objects, or breaking apart his soul, or ____________. You get the point.

 

Got it now. *sheepish grin*.

Also, @Menace, are you still 15 years old? You certainly don't sound like one.

Back to the topic of Pet Peeves, Harry, no matter what, would never side with Voldemort and while Dumbledore is slightly manipulative, he is a good soul. He definitely isn't some evil chess master or a master manipulator. He certainly had his heart in the right place. Also, Voldemort is definitely not sane.

Harry siding with Voldemort is pure blasphemy. Take that @Firephoenix8 and Lady Khali. I am beginning to doubt if something is wrong with the former now that I think of it.

 

Hedwig never getting along with anyone before Harry enters the shop to buy her.

If I remember, Hagrid bought her in canon. Not Harry.

 

Edit: Stupid comment begone, I has a peeve.

Anytime that Harry resolves to become a powerful wizard capable of defeating Voldemort and actually does, with no significant obstacles whatsoever. If it were really as easy as wanting to be strong and picking up a few books from Diagon Alley, Voldemort wouldn't have been a problem in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I love a good shape up fic, but there have to be challenges.

Make it so magic isn't really just swish and flick, or at least not the advanced magic necessary to fight at Voldemort and Dumbledore's level. Make it so Harry actually has to go further than a public god damn bookstore to unlock the secrets behind that sort of power. Hell, just make it so he has trouble with some things. I swear to god, if I see another "Why didn't you do this in the books, Harry!?" fic where all it takes is some determination and a summer of personal training to take down Voldemort, I'm gonna hit something.

 

While this bugs me to an extent, I have a bigger problem when the author makes Hedwig into a 'white' phoenix in hiding as an owl or, in one horrifying instance that I've come across, she was an owl that could transform into a human and became Harry's subservient, creep girlfriend.

Hedwig is Hedwig, damn it! She's Harry's super awesome owl, not an owl that is super powered.

 

I'm just amused by this statement on DLP of all places.

 

Are you talking about Harry Potter and the Autumn Swan? 'cause I remember liking that story... a few years back. Granted, that was an... odd turn.

 

I, for one, though they meant More Than Familiar.

But then I remembered it actually had Hedwig as a witch locked in her animagus form by Dumbledore.

 

I don't remember the title of it. I just know that it caught me off guard and sent me into WTF mode, until I decided the story had taken a terrible, terrible downturn that had no redemption in site and dropped the story.

 

That story had Sirius in love with the Hedwig-turned-witch.
So, yeah. :facepalm

 

It sounds like that's a crack fic. Tell me it is a crack fic. I hope for my sanity that it is.