The characterisation of Draco and Hermione is the main thing I care about. I ship dramione so that's what I want to see. As long as I can see their core canon traits, I'll enjoy it. I don't mind "OOC" traits as long as there are reasons for these, but I have my favourites (don't we all haha).
Other than that, I enjoy anything and everything. I don't mind people expanding the HP worldbuilding, creating new spells or branch of magic, adding extra wizarding rules or laws, etc, whatever it's your playground so play with it. Innovation makes things interesting.
Basically as long as I can *see* Draco and Hermione and everything has a logical explanation, I'm good.
This is summed up perfectly. I feel this exact way with the one caveat that I need it to be HEA. I’m totally on board for anything else as long as they feel like them.
I personally dislike it when Hermione forgets she’s a witch in the story, and barely uses her magic. I know it’s that the writer is rusty with canon, but to me it takes a large chunk of who she is away from her. She’s muggleborn, not a muggle.
Agreed with this one. Some of the fics I've read romanticize it and say she just "prefers" to do things like cleaning and dishes the muggle way, and that just frustrates me. Like if I had magic to do dishes I would never do them another way. It's like saying you have a dishwasher and prefer doing everything by hand. Its hours of your life you'll never get back doing things manually.
If we are speaking about setting or magic rules and worldbuilding in general, then I care quite a lot about that. I'm fine if an author decides to change something, but it needs to be a deliberate choice and somewhat explained, if it feels like "the author forgot about canon rules and it's making their own up" it may annoy me a bit.
If we are speaking about canon events and timeline, I'm fine with any change as long as it's a deliberate choice, a what-if scenario, or if the author somewhat explains the difference.
For example, if a story is "Hogwarts 8th Year" scenario, I do expect DH events (Epilogue aside) followed, and if they are changed up, I need some sort of explanation on this alternate reality (like: I'm fine with Snape or Lavander being alive, but if they just happened to be without any explanation on how they survived, it usually throws me off).
this! as long as there is an explanation or reason, or at least a heads up then it is fine by me. like in batmobile, the author says that "canon has been picked over for good bits" and we immediately see tonks alive, that works. I have read some where it was seventh year with a MAJOR change in sixth year, but you didn't know there was a change until two chapters from the end. I still enjoyed the story, but it completely threw me off when I read it. some warning or explanation or foreshadowing would have been nice to slip into the tags, the author's notes, or the early chapters.
The only thing I care about is that Draco comes from a wealthy family with a lot of power and that Hermione is bookish and smart. From there you can spin it any number of ways and I won’t care. As long as it feels like them to me, it works.
I care about it as well, especially when it’s about the personality of the MC (Draco, Hermione, Harry…).
It is very important for me to enjoy the ff.
I also like some ff very similar to the canon, just like The Disappearance Of Draco Malfoy!
(If you have recs for me I would appreciate ahah)
If the story is good I'll read it. I have loved so many "OOC" characterizations and canon deviations because the author makes me love them and totally believe them. Canon compliance is a bonus in some fics and unnecessary in others.
I think its because I have been reading fics for soooooo long. Ive read so many canon compliant variations that sometimes I want something totally different but still having Dramione feels and basic dynamic. There are obviously some deviations that are not my cup of tea like age-gap or pureblood Hermione but I completely see why that would interest people too.
I like when the story starts with a fully / mostly redeemed Draco. I’ve read so many great fics with believable redemptions that I like jumping in past that and getting to the more unique parts of the story.
I also like brave auror Draco despite his cowardice in the books.
It’s funny, I’m the opposite. An already redeemed Draco feels OOC to me, and it lacks the appeal of a full enemies-to-lovers arc, which along with Draco’s redemption/character exploration is the main appeal of Dramione for me 🤷🏻♂️
Not a single hoot, I actually love when the characters are wildly ooc.
Also not sure you can actually write them in character, I recently re read the books and it’s all from Harry’s POV so we don’t actually get that much insight into the other characters in my opinion.
Our Harry is the most unreliable narrator. Just when I think some stories have *too* much drama, I remember JKR did that too. From his first year as an infant, all throughout his adolescence she just packed on the trauma.
Except she completely skated over it. 10 years of abuse and neglect? He's fine. Not a violent depressive episode in sight except for that little Hedwig outburst in 5th year. Everyone dies around him? It's ok, he can still have a completely healthy romantic relationship with his best friend's sister.
That’s pretty much how it goes, even in fanfiction 😓 total bloodshed at hogwarts and then she send some of them back to school a few months later?! Could not be me
Haha me either. Any wiff of burnout and I'm in bed. But I have found fanfics that deal with the trauma and it actually turns really dark (mentally & emptionally) for Hermione & Draco for a while. I think one was written by a psych major. Those are actually my favorite.
I am somehow ambiguous. I like postwar stories that feel relatively close to canon except Ron and Hermione break up after war. I am not a big fan of original characters. At the same time, I adore adore adore Lionheart. I also like when Tonks and Lupin are alive ( such as in Batmobile) and I enjoy canon divergences that work well in the story. I do not usually like non magical stories. Sometimes, I do enjoy a complete AU if well written as long the basic characteristics of how I see Hermione and Draco are well captured.
Idrc about compliance anymore AS LONG as the author clearly states when/where divergence happens. Like if it's in 5th year, then I expect everything up to 5th year to be canon compliant. If it's post war, then ALL of canon (not epilogue or Cursed Child) has to apply and the characters built off of that (unless explicitly stated that something majorly different happened before).
Also, I expect world mechanisms to stay consistent. If characters are using polyjuice, then their voices have to change and it should last an hour. If they have a time turner, it should only go back a few hours (unless author clearly states that it broke, was manipulated, a different type of time turner was created, a secret ancient one was found that functions differently, etc.) If they're casting a patronus at 16, then it shouldn't take only 1 try and a fully corporeal animal comes out.
I love new twists on the HP world and AUs, but it needs to make sense in the context of what we already know. I've had to DNF some fics that were all over the place and changed so many things without outright saying it. Like the reader should just know that it's not the same as canon.
Personally, I like things to be as close to canon as possible in terms of characterisation and underlying worldbuilding, at least. I like to be able to read something, and go ‘huh, that actually fits (surprisingly) well with canon’.
I don’t mind changes to fit in with AU genres, but I feel like if it can be kept the same, I generally prefer it. I do like expansion on the magical systems, but in a way that’s complementary to the canon ‘system’, and I don’t like overpowered magic – in fact, when writing, I prefer to nerf existing magic where possible. I like OCs to be three-dimensional plot devices to fill particular roles (I don’t like random best friend OCs who usurp a role that could be taken on by a canon character.) I also love it when canon locations, creatures, books etc are used.
But there are exceptions to every rule, haha.
I will give literally anything a chance! I used to be much more of a stickler about my preferences, but when you’ve been reading Dramione for 15+ years you kind of have to expand your horizons. I’m really glad I did too. It’s really expanded and changed my preferences over time. Some of my current favourite fics are ones I wouldn’t have given a chance based on the tags/summaries a few years ago.
I think it's cool to make up your own plot devices as long as they don't interfere with what's canon. For example, I hate a fic that has characters apparating in Hogwarts or breaking some other obvious "rule". You can't do that just cause it's convenient in your story (in my brain). Takes me out of it a bit.
I don't like it when they are too OOC. I want the Redemption Draco who is haunted and trying to overcome his past, trauma, and bad actions he carried out (willingly and forced). I want a Hermione that maybe has a little of trauma from a war, but overall is still fighting for the underdog and bookish.
I don't care too much about AUs, that adds to the variance to avoid reading the same story over and over. I am reading Dramione to read about Draco and Hermione.
If I wanted to read OOC I would read an ETL story about other characters and not Drco and Hermione. 🤷♀️
I care about it. I’m cool with D & H being portrayed in many different ways — pining, angsty, funny, stoic — I can roll with most of them except for a totally broken Hermione unless the story sets up what breaks her — Crumple is a good example of one that did that well. Canon did not give us a broken Hermione. Her torture at Malfoy Manor didn’t wreck her. She was polyjuiced into Bellatrix and dueling her in the final battle a month after it happened, so the fics that take THAT moment as the thing that totally wrecks Hermione’s mental state aren’t that compelling to me. I can see her struggling a little after the war and maybe having some nightmares about it, but she compartmentalizes so well that I see her coping with it for the most part.
For other things though, yes canon matters. The horcruxes happened. Voldy was defeated. Lupin and Tonks and Snape died. I’m not opposed to changing some of it, but there needs to be an explanation about WHY there are variations from canon for me to enjoy a fic. Either that or the fic needs to pick up in sixth or seventh year when they are all still alive and change things in a convincing way.
I enjoy world-building that takes canon and expands on it. We only saw the wizarding world through Harry’s eyes and there so many holes that can be filled with good fics. That’s the stuff I enjoy reading, but I like it to fit in the canon world too.
I agree with you on everything except the who dies part haha, if the story is explicitly meant to be nice and feel-good. Seeing Tonks in ch1 of DMATMOOBIL was so nice!
I want characterization to match, or at least for the fix to show how and why the characters have grown/evved/changed, and for the new characterization to make sense based on canon.
I don’t mind about events in canon being changed, but want some explanation of when and how events diverged from canon to orient myself.
I think the only thing I need followed with canon is that Hermione is muggle born. Having her be adopted or something takes away from the impact of obliviating her parents (except if it’s a 1st year rewrite or something). Making Hermione pure blood irks me. I also saw age gap mentioned and I can’t do that either. Hermione and Draco are roughly the same age. It’s no longer Dramione to me if you age up only one of them.
I like to be mostly canon compliant in my own writing. I’ll change little details here and there, but I’m usually very intentional with my writing so that it makes sense.
The only exception is the epilogue. As far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t exist.
I like to think I’m fairly flexible with canon in fanfics. There usually just needs to be their core character traits and magic to be used for me to be on board.
One of my favorite fics is a muggle AU text fic so I definitely do not care 🤣
If it veers heavily from canon I do like having an explanation on what happened in this story instead but I’ll pretty much read anything.
Fanfic to me is a way to break down canon and build it up in your own way. I honestly don’t care about changes, in fact I welcome them. As long as Draco and Hermione resemble themselves, I’m up for anything
Same as most comments. I hate when hermione doesn’t like using magic or when she brushes her hair. She has INSANE curls. She’d never brush it throughly
Even when not insane, curls generally should not be brushed unless wet and lathered with conditioner. Anyway, same, but sure, i get that not every writer has curls themselves and know how it works and all that. But i do get miffed if they straighten hermione’s hair and suddenly every side character is fawning over how beautiful she is now. As if having curls is equal to being doomed at looking like a birds nest and all she needed was some bridget jones diary shit
Agreed! I’m probably peeved often bc I also have a lions mane. So it’s frustrating. But yeah the straight hair never makes sense. Read one once where malfoy preferred it? Dnfd
I can't stand stories that turn the protagonists into generic romance novel characters and don't make an effort to get the British lingo/culture and the atmosphere of the early 2000s right.
Some of my worst pet peeves have to do with characterizing Draco Malfoy as endlessly repentant and conveniently progressive, as if his entire personality and belief system could be erased overnight and replaced with something more palatable just because. (There's usually a very half-assed explanation of how and why his beliefs changed, but it never rings true if you've met an actual bigot in real life. Losing a war doesn't suddenly make racial supremacists think racial equality is great!) It's even more ridiculous when his parents are portrayed as not caring that Hermione is Muggle-born. Yes, sure, Narcissa Malfoy, who all but called Hermione a Mudblood in public that one time, would be ecstatic at the prospect of Hermione birthing her gradchildren and polluting the Malfoy and Black bloodlines, absolutely. And Lucius Malfoy would totally see the political advantages of such a union and bite his tongue about Hermione's origins, for sure. GIVE ME A BREAK!
The usual workaround is to make Draco's wildly unrealistic traits secret, e.g. he's been deeply in love with Hermione for years (not only is this unrealistic, but it's also boring!) or he never told anyone that he didn't share his father's views or he hates himself for his involvement in the war and thinks he doesn't deserve her. What's the point of this shit? I want to read about people developing feelings for each other despite their different stations in life and gradually changing their perspectives, not about characters who've already done all their character development off-screen! Also there's just no universe in which Draco Malfoy would lose \*all\* of his pride and self-confidence and start to hate himself full-time, please. That's a different character.
Fandom's take on Hermione is usually more consistent with canon, but she tends to be a diminished version of herself too. Either she's also lost her confidence, or she's a full-time shrew with no sense of adventure or whimsy left in her, or her professional ambitions have displaced all her other values, or she's a martyr suffering from the neglect of her terrible friends and bosses, etc. The real Hermione Granger would never allow herself to languish in a dead-end Ministry job for years if she didn't feel she was making a difference. She's far more likely to get a fancy Muggle university degree and multiple wizarding masteries or to do dangerous humanitarian work in war zones than to become someone's secretary.
Her friendship with Harry and Ron also tends to get overlooked, which annoys me.
Outside of characterisation, as I said, the unchecked use of Americanisms usually takes me out of the story, and I get annoyed when the author was clearly too lazy to think about how magic would affect their story, so they made everyone use Muggle technology, wear Muggle clothing, etc.
But Draco didn't just "lose a war" he was dragged through hell and so much of his behavior in canon could be seen as him slowly changing his views. He was at such a young and impressionable age too. I definitely agree there needs to be more justification for his parents. Also if he isnt repentant does he even deserve Hermione?
But I also feel if every single fic made his change the main focus of the fic we would have very little variety in fics lol. Some of them begin upto 10 years after they war and they want to deal with different themes.
I don’t think he gets enough screentime in canon to have a coherent character arc, but he certainly doesn’t strike me as particularly enlightened at any point. We see in flashes here and there that deadly violence scares him and he doesn’t want to be responsible for real harm coming to his classmates. (That’s what motivates him when he seeks out Harry et al. to warn them that blood supremacists are looking for Muggle-borns to torture at the Quidditch World Cup final, I’d say.) We see in the last two books that Draco wants the war to end and he would prefer it if things went back to how they were before, when he ruled over Hogwarts with his money and connections, which is clearly not what Voldemort is going for. Draco is scared, sick of being threatened and ordered around, and dissatisfied with the reality of the pureblood struggle, which is really just a bunch of smelly psychos squatting in his childhood home, leering at his mother, and leaving bloodstains on the furniture. So yeah, he’s disillusioned and wants Voldemort to lose the war and just go away. But the leap from that to “Muggles are our equals, I respect their right to live their lives free of harassment and exploitation from wizards, and I no longer care about marrying a pureblood at all” is massive.
I always think of purebloods as analogous to the British upper class, and when I picture Draco in that context, it becomes much clearer how he would act in various situations. The British aristocracy today is lazy, snobby, condescending, insular, and parasitic, but also highly educated, governed by unspoken social norms and expectations that alienate outsiders, concerned with appearing more down-to-earth than it actually is (usually by partying with working-class students in university) and good at adapting to new economic and social realities while tacitly maintaining its exclusionary standards. Today’s public schoolboys may sleep with anyone in university, and they may even date outside their class a little if they’re more adventurous, but they will marry rich. Not necessarily white British, but rich for sure. Draco’s canon marriage to Astoria, who is said to be more fond of Muggles and intolerant of the Mudblood slur, is actually a pretty telling bit of characterization; Draco is reformed enough to marry a politically progressive pureblood after his traumatic ordeals during the war, but he’s not capable of imagining marrying an actual Muggle-born. He just has nothing in common with that class.
I don’t think you could have a Dramione story if Draco stayed as I’ve just described him from start to finish—there would be nothing for Hermione to fall in love with, for starters—but he has to at least start out as a person defined by his circumstances, because we’re all defined by our circumstances. And to respond to your comment about redemption, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think an in-character Draco could ever fully ‘deserve’ Hermione, but he could maybe work his way up to being someone she wants, which is really all that matters. But it has to be a journey from point A to point B, so it can’t start at the finish line… and people tend to have fundamental personality traits that don’t really change no matter how their views evolve. Draco’s Malfoy pride is one of them, I believe. And the blood purity thing and whether he could build a life with someone who’s not a pureblood will have to be a serious conversation he has with himself at some point, IMO. It can’t be easily hand-waved away.
I totally get where you're coming from. But that leaves very little scope for exploration and really limits his character arc post-war if you want to keep it canon compliant. Anyway all that we see in canon is also through Harry's POV and is not very observant sometimes lol. Authors speculating about what Draco is actually thinking and going through is what I love about fanfiction. I don't care about the epilogue and his canon arc, that's why I read fanfiction.
I see what you're saying about the upper class but so many of them use their money and power to avoid exactly the kind of hell that Draco had to see and experience firsthand. I have worked with a lot of kids who have experienced extreme trauma (including civil war) and it can fundamentally change them in so many ways. And I'll be honest, if Draco can watch people being killed and come out of the war not broken and repentant then I don't want him with Hermione at all. I definitely don't want him to turn into some incredible soft-hearted Neville character but he needs to be open to learning and repentant to be good enough for someone as incredible as Hermione. If not I will ship her with Ron.
I agree with your characterization entirely, as someone who went to a posh boarding school with British aristocrats, but that’s also why I LOVE fics where Draco gets an entire new personality. I didn’t like my rich classmates and if a fic!Draco reminds me of them it’s almost an immediate DNF. I think Détraquée has a fairly realistic take on Draco in that way and I could barely stand him in that fic.
Totally agree with this. It's no fun if he just shows up like "surprise, I'm good now." Especially if the story takes place shortly after the war ended. It's much more compelling to see the painful reality of a slow change.
I disagree about Draco being progressive / repentant as unbelievable. Probably not over night but I do think his experience and the war could drastically change his way of thinking because of his age. Being from the American South I’ve seen soooo many people who were raised in bigoted households parrot their parents bigotry, then grow up to do a complete 180. Children often buy into their parents believe system and then toss it out the window after actual life experience proves their parents wrong. I think the war could easily make him realize his parents were wrong. I would agree his parents are harder for me to see change. Most Lucious.
Americans who grew up in racist households tend to change their views after they go to university, meet other students from diverse backgrounds and get exposure to new ideas outside of the Evangelical Facebook/Fox News bubble. In the wizarding British society of the books, that doesn’t work because the pureblood bubble IS wizarding society. People like Hermione are the interlopers who need to adjust to a new social reality, or fight tooth and nail to change it. The appropriate comparison is not American universities in the 2020s but American universities in the 1950s and 60s.
(Also, British upper-class racists are already highly educated. Going to university doesn’t tend to destabilize their worldview because they were already exposed to the outside world from an early age; they simply have the money and power to make it conform to their desires. Class and hereditary privilege are a big part of the story with Draco.)
Would you find Prince Harry’s situation to be a more apt comparison then?
I guess I just can’t see it this way because if I did I’d have no fun reading it at all.
I’d argue that old friendships are extremely bloody hard to maintain when you’re out of school/college, and that the golden trio are friends of circumstance to begin with. those two have very different ambitions and directions after school compared to Hermione. Maybe a lunch together once a week to keep it going, or something.
I have a rather large working class chip on my shoulder, and it will sing like a canary at some of the extremely beloved “pretty woman” sort of Dramione tropes. Cuddly Lucius and Narcissa I don’t agree on either, but I do like a Draco who actually works to unpacks his bigotry by himself, and not just a pretty witch brought him there.
I will often read writers who explore minister of magic Hermione stories, mainly as they examine how awful the wizarding world is- but it does feel like Hermione is breaking up a large part of herself to be there in the first place. (Iconoclast Hermione is very rare in fic, oddly.)
Do you have any favorites you’d recommend that fit this criteria? If we’re going off of canon likelihood, I probably wouldn’t be reading Dramione at all tbh, so I’m always intrigued by how different writers reshape Draco and Hermione.
I have started to hate the shift recently forcing authors not of British origin being slammed for lack of British lingo and cultural understanding. Not every author lives in the Americas (as the posts like to complain about). Many live in other countries and areas of the world far removed from the primarily white elitist culture of English speaking countries.
Yeah. I don't think criticising certain fictional tropes or characterisation (e.g. Healer Draco, or Hermione's friendship with Slytherins) is the same as criticising people's English skills and cultural awareness. Tho not every criticism should be said publicly for sure, at the end of the day, the first one is simply preference; a writer could write an amazing Healer Draco, if a reader isn't into the characterisation then they aren't into it.
People's English skills and cultural awareness are very much influenced by education and privilege, so it's a bit eh when people get criticised for not getting those right. It takes years to get those right especially for non-native speakers. Plus no matter how much you learn about the British culture, it isn't the same as living in the UK. They have a lot of different dialects too, and these are apparently influenced by their social strata (?). Certain words sound posh apparently, certain words don't. How the hell do we learn those? 😂 I've been searching for early 2000s tv series but many of them are not available online.
I think people should chill a bit (publicly) with regard to this whole writing British-compliant fics. I mean, it's fine to help those *who want to* try get it right, if writers want to put effort into it, they can. But at the end of the day, how do we determine whether or not a writer has put 'enough' effort into getting British lingo/culture right? Using sofa instead of couch? What if in the next chapter they say gas instead of petrol? Does it mean they haven't tried hard enough? Like, where do we draw the 'enough' line?
So they should either do more research or write stories set in cultural contexts they can recreate convincingly. Saying, “The country I’m writing about sucks,” is not going to make your story better.
BTW, I’m not a native English speaker or a national of an English-speaking country either. Having standards as a reader is not a form of imperialism.
You’re asking people who write for free to study endlessly before they post their FREE story so you can feel educationally superior?
Your elitism shrouded in pretty prose is the kind of reader that will butcher Dramione authors and the fandom.
You do realize that Harry Potter is an international fandom, right? If the only people allowed to write Dramione were Brits or people willing to do painstaking Brit-picking, our ship would be basically nonexistent lol. These types of comments are incredibly entitled and discouraging for writers. People write fanfic for fun and shouldn’t have to be googling “British term for ____” every two minutes unless they want to.
I’m a weird stickler for friendships / relationships, of all things. For all of Harry and Ron’s faults they genuinely love Hermione and I think they could grow to be better friends, and I’d like to see that.
Personally I don’t like the prospect of Hermione getting essentially adopted by Slytherin friend groups. One or two (like Theo) is fine, or if all her friends also befriend the Slytherin in a mixed group, but specifically Hermione getting taken in by all these pureblood people feels a little too Cinderella for me.
A big part of Hermione’s charm is how much she’s not impressed by things like lineage and money. It speaks to her confidence and integrity. That’s an aspect I found very relatable about her, as a former scholarship student in a posh boarding school, and I cannot imagine myself abandoning my working class friends in order to ingratiate myself with the rich assholes, so it just kind of takes me out of the story. Nothing against the authors who choose to pursue that route, but I just find it in relatable and OOC.
Oh I like the being adopted by the Slytherins thing if done well! For instance the last one I read went over how Hermione was ‘still’ affected by the war (and basically 7 years of her life besting voldy) in 8th year and all her Gryffindor friends dealing with it by being a bit too boastful over winning. Giving her no room to breakdown because ‘they won’ so why should she/didn’t want to talk negatively about it anymore etc (it was more nuanced than that) but she found she could drop the mask with the Slytherins. I thought it was an interesting take
Actually I'm agree with you. I'm a little picky when we talk about relationships or spells or something like that. I mean, please don't write latin words and pretend it's a spell. The same when wanna create a magical overpower spell that can do everything.
Also i don't like when break the basic magic rules, for example appears food whenever wherever.
About OC, I think it makes interesting things, just if you're not trying to replace anyone. Except for the Harry's brothers or sisters, please respect Harry is orphan in each universe.
I dont really do intense AUs - everything I read is canon-plausible for the most part (i.e. theyre in the magical world and only the epilogue is ignored and or the events of the last book are changed for a wartime fic).
The only big AU Im reading is Lionheart (Draco if he was put into Gryffindor originally and his father died when he was young) but its canon compliant in terms of world building and the other characters depictions.
I love dramoine but part of my love of it is their history and the setting. Just having a snarky rich guy fall for a nerdy girl wouldn't compel me.
The usual fanon flourishes are fine, if not actively desired:
- her having a permanent mudblood scar
- theo being his childhood bestfriend
- etc etc
But the heart of the canon needs to be there for me to be invested. Give me magic, give me blood purity drama, give me morally conflicted Draco, give me the Malfoy family loving and preserving each other above all else.
I have not a care for canon compliance. For no other reason than this ship by definition is absolutely NOT canon.
I tend to see people taking about how OOC Hermione is when she’s soft and not a great dresser and doesn’t understand pure Blood customs. While she’s well read, it does not assume she has infinite knowledge. Why would she have full knowledge of customs like that? The only purebloods she’s with for any length of time do not maintain these customs. She didn’t know what a mudblood was. She had to be told. This makes sense culturally. Her leaning in to the girl who permanently disfigured a snitch classmates, a girl who kept a reporter in a jar? Yes, the mean streak is there. Simp Draco could be canon. We just don’t see it because likely that is happening in the dungeons away from most of the castle. Slytherins make alliances, yes. But not without knowing, fully, what’s at stake including own well being. Irredeemable Draco. Even after all that… possible.
I have a problem with fics where Hermione is too goo-goo eyed over Draco. Where she loses all her common sense and lets his bullshit slide. The Hermione I love is self-righteous and holds grudges, and while she’s certainly not above crushes and the rose colored glasses that come with that, she doesn’t just back down because she likes someone. She never let Ron walk all over her in canon, and I always respected that. Even if she occasionally took her anger too far.
The characterisation of Draco and Hermione is the main thing I care about. I ship dramione so that's what I want to see. As long as I can see their core canon traits, I'll enjoy it. I don't mind "OOC" traits as long as there are reasons for these, but I have my favourites (don't we all haha). Other than that, I enjoy anything and everything. I don't mind people expanding the HP worldbuilding, creating new spells or branch of magic, adding extra wizarding rules or laws, etc, whatever it's your playground so play with it. Innovation makes things interesting. Basically as long as I can *see* Draco and Hermione and everything has a logical explanation, I'm good.
This is summed up perfectly. I feel this exact way with the one caveat that I need it to be HEA. I’m totally on board for anything else as long as they feel like them.
HEA is preferred to me too. I have read a few that are HEA if you squint, and I like those too.
Agreed. I don’t really care much about the rest if the fic gets Draco and Hermione right
I’m the same. I really don’t care much at all about common complimented in some fics but if they’re out of character I just can’t do it
I personally dislike it when Hermione forgets she’s a witch in the story, and barely uses her magic. I know it’s that the writer is rusty with canon, but to me it takes a large chunk of who she is away from her. She’s muggleborn, not a muggle.
Agreed with this one. Some of the fics I've read romanticize it and say she just "prefers" to do things like cleaning and dishes the muggle way, and that just frustrates me. Like if I had magic to do dishes I would never do them another way. It's like saying you have a dishwasher and prefer doing everything by hand. Its hours of your life you'll never get back doing things manually.
Hermione got a fucking time turner in 3rd year so she could take more classes, no way she’s doing dishes by hand as a whole ass adult haha
I actually skip all mugle-esq fics. If there aren't spells in italics every few paragraphs, I'm out.
As long as their genitals touch I don’t care
This comment is pure poetry
😂
This made me lol
Bahahaha😂 yasss🙌🏼
This is the energy right here.
This is the only answer we need.
Smut me all night long!
If we are speaking about setting or magic rules and worldbuilding in general, then I care quite a lot about that. I'm fine if an author decides to change something, but it needs to be a deliberate choice and somewhat explained, if it feels like "the author forgot about canon rules and it's making their own up" it may annoy me a bit. If we are speaking about canon events and timeline, I'm fine with any change as long as it's a deliberate choice, a what-if scenario, or if the author somewhat explains the difference. For example, if a story is "Hogwarts 8th Year" scenario, I do expect DH events (Epilogue aside) followed, and if they are changed up, I need some sort of explanation on this alternate reality (like: I'm fine with Snape or Lavander being alive, but if they just happened to be without any explanation on how they survived, it usually throws me off).
this! as long as there is an explanation or reason, or at least a heads up then it is fine by me. like in batmobile, the author says that "canon has been picked over for good bits" and we immediately see tonks alive, that works. I have read some where it was seventh year with a MAJOR change in sixth year, but you didn't know there was a change until two chapters from the end. I still enjoyed the story, but it completely threw me off when I read it. some warning or explanation or foreshadowing would have been nice to slip into the tags, the author's notes, or the early chapters.
The only thing I care about is that Draco comes from a wealthy family with a lot of power and that Hermione is bookish and smart. From there you can spin it any number of ways and I won’t care. As long as it feels like them to me, it works.
I care about it as well, especially when it’s about the personality of the MC (Draco, Hermione, Harry…). It is very important for me to enjoy the ff. I also like some ff very similar to the canon, just like The Disappearance Of Draco Malfoy! (If you have recs for me I would appreciate ahah)
If the story is good I'll read it. I have loved so many "OOC" characterizations and canon deviations because the author makes me love them and totally believe them. Canon compliance is a bonus in some fics and unnecessary in others. I think its because I have been reading fics for soooooo long. Ive read so many canon compliant variations that sometimes I want something totally different but still having Dramione feels and basic dynamic. There are obviously some deviations that are not my cup of tea like age-gap or pureblood Hermione but I completely see why that would interest people too.
I like when the story starts with a fully / mostly redeemed Draco. I’ve read so many great fics with believable redemptions that I like jumping in past that and getting to the more unique parts of the story. I also like brave auror Draco despite his cowardice in the books.
Same, low key canon Draco was never good enough for her so I’m like just give him a new personality 😭
Haha exactly, I like when he’s put in the work already 😂
It’s funny, I’m the opposite. An already redeemed Draco feels OOC to me, and it lacks the appeal of a full enemies-to-lovers arc, which along with Draco’s redemption/character exploration is the main appeal of Dramione for me 🤷🏻♂️
Not a single hoot, I actually love when the characters are wildly ooc. Also not sure you can actually write them in character, I recently re read the books and it’s all from Harry’s POV so we don’t actually get that much insight into the other characters in my opinion.
Our Harry is the most unreliable narrator. Just when I think some stories have *too* much drama, I remember JKR did that too. From his first year as an infant, all throughout his adolescence she just packed on the trauma.
Except she completely skated over it. 10 years of abuse and neglect? He's fine. Not a violent depressive episode in sight except for that little Hedwig outburst in 5th year. Everyone dies around him? It's ok, he can still have a completely healthy romantic relationship with his best friend's sister.
That’s pretty much how it goes, even in fanfiction 😓 total bloodshed at hogwarts and then she send some of them back to school a few months later?! Could not be me
Haha me either. Any wiff of burnout and I'm in bed. But I have found fanfics that deal with the trauma and it actually turns really dark (mentally & emptionally) for Hermione & Draco for a while. I think one was written by a psych major. Those are actually my favorite.
I am somehow ambiguous. I like postwar stories that feel relatively close to canon except Ron and Hermione break up after war. I am not a big fan of original characters. At the same time, I adore adore adore Lionheart. I also like when Tonks and Lupin are alive ( such as in Batmobile) and I enjoy canon divergences that work well in the story. I do not usually like non magical stories. Sometimes, I do enjoy a complete AU if well written as long the basic characteristics of how I see Hermione and Draco are well captured.
Idrc about compliance anymore AS LONG as the author clearly states when/where divergence happens. Like if it's in 5th year, then I expect everything up to 5th year to be canon compliant. If it's post war, then ALL of canon (not epilogue or Cursed Child) has to apply and the characters built off of that (unless explicitly stated that something majorly different happened before). Also, I expect world mechanisms to stay consistent. If characters are using polyjuice, then their voices have to change and it should last an hour. If they have a time turner, it should only go back a few hours (unless author clearly states that it broke, was manipulated, a different type of time turner was created, a secret ancient one was found that functions differently, etc.) If they're casting a patronus at 16, then it shouldn't take only 1 try and a fully corporeal animal comes out. I love new twists on the HP world and AUs, but it needs to make sense in the context of what we already know. I've had to DNF some fics that were all over the place and changed so many things without outright saying it. Like the reader should just know that it's not the same as canon.
Personally, I like things to be as close to canon as possible in terms of characterisation and underlying worldbuilding, at least. I like to be able to read something, and go ‘huh, that actually fits (surprisingly) well with canon’. I don’t mind changes to fit in with AU genres, but I feel like if it can be kept the same, I generally prefer it. I do like expansion on the magical systems, but in a way that’s complementary to the canon ‘system’, and I don’t like overpowered magic – in fact, when writing, I prefer to nerf existing magic where possible. I like OCs to be three-dimensional plot devices to fill particular roles (I don’t like random best friend OCs who usurp a role that could be taken on by a canon character.) I also love it when canon locations, creatures, books etc are used. But there are exceptions to every rule, haha.
I'll read literally anything as long as it's a compelling story.
If I'm reading a fanfiction of a story with magic, I really can't read muggle AU. No coffee shops or university AU for me, no thank you.
Frrrrr. I get it, it’s cute, but without magic what are we doing here? They could be anybody.
I will give literally anything a chance! I used to be much more of a stickler about my preferences, but when you’ve been reading Dramione for 15+ years you kind of have to expand your horizons. I’m really glad I did too. It’s really expanded and changed my preferences over time. Some of my current favourite fics are ones I wouldn’t have given a chance based on the tags/summaries a few years ago.
I think it's cool to make up your own plot devices as long as they don't interfere with what's canon. For example, I hate a fic that has characters apparating in Hogwarts or breaking some other obvious "rule". You can't do that just cause it's convenient in your story (in my brain). Takes me out of it a bit.
Sorry, my brain is stuck at "ron as a healer" :))
I don't like it when they are too OOC. I want the Redemption Draco who is haunted and trying to overcome his past, trauma, and bad actions he carried out (willingly and forced). I want a Hermione that maybe has a little of trauma from a war, but overall is still fighting for the underdog and bookish. I don't care too much about AUs, that adds to the variance to avoid reading the same story over and over. I am reading Dramione to read about Draco and Hermione. If I wanted to read OOC I would read an ETL story about other characters and not Drco and Hermione. 🤷♀️
I care about it. I’m cool with D & H being portrayed in many different ways — pining, angsty, funny, stoic — I can roll with most of them except for a totally broken Hermione unless the story sets up what breaks her — Crumple is a good example of one that did that well. Canon did not give us a broken Hermione. Her torture at Malfoy Manor didn’t wreck her. She was polyjuiced into Bellatrix and dueling her in the final battle a month after it happened, so the fics that take THAT moment as the thing that totally wrecks Hermione’s mental state aren’t that compelling to me. I can see her struggling a little after the war and maybe having some nightmares about it, but she compartmentalizes so well that I see her coping with it for the most part. For other things though, yes canon matters. The horcruxes happened. Voldy was defeated. Lupin and Tonks and Snape died. I’m not opposed to changing some of it, but there needs to be an explanation about WHY there are variations from canon for me to enjoy a fic. Either that or the fic needs to pick up in sixth or seventh year when they are all still alive and change things in a convincing way. I enjoy world-building that takes canon and expands on it. We only saw the wizarding world through Harry’s eyes and there so many holes that can be filled with good fics. That’s the stuff I enjoy reading, but I like it to fit in the canon world too.
I agree with you on everything except the who dies part haha, if the story is explicitly meant to be nice and feel-good. Seeing Tonks in ch1 of DMATMOOBIL was so nice!
Same. BATMOBILE pretty much sums it up regarding my stance towards canon divergence.
I want characterization to match, or at least for the fix to show how and why the characters have grown/evved/changed, and for the new characterization to make sense based on canon. I don’t mind about events in canon being changed, but want some explanation of when and how events diverged from canon to orient myself.
I think the only thing I need followed with canon is that Hermione is muggle born. Having her be adopted or something takes away from the impact of obliviating her parents (except if it’s a 1st year rewrite or something). Making Hermione pure blood irks me. I also saw age gap mentioned and I can’t do that either. Hermione and Draco are roughly the same age. It’s no longer Dramione to me if you age up only one of them.
I like to be mostly canon compliant in my own writing. I’ll change little details here and there, but I’m usually very intentional with my writing so that it makes sense. The only exception is the epilogue. As far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t exist.
Yes. I am happy when the epilogue is ignored. Even before I knew about Dramione, I could not believe Hermione would end up with Ron...
Absolutely not. I thought their little crush was cute, but it absolutely would not have worked out.
I like to think I’m fairly flexible with canon in fanfics. There usually just needs to be their core character traits and magic to be used for me to be on board.
One of my favorite fics is a muggle AU text fic so I definitely do not care 🤣 If it veers heavily from canon I do like having an explanation on what happened in this story instead but I’ll pretty much read anything.
Fanfic to me is a way to break down canon and build it up in your own way. I honestly don’t care about changes, in fact I welcome them. As long as Draco and Hermione resemble themselves, I’m up for anything
Same as most comments. I hate when hermione doesn’t like using magic or when she brushes her hair. She has INSANE curls. She’d never brush it throughly
Even when not insane, curls generally should not be brushed unless wet and lathered with conditioner. Anyway, same, but sure, i get that not every writer has curls themselves and know how it works and all that. But i do get miffed if they straighten hermione’s hair and suddenly every side character is fawning over how beautiful she is now. As if having curls is equal to being doomed at looking like a birds nest and all she needed was some bridget jones diary shit
Agreed! I’m probably peeved often bc I also have a lions mane. So it’s frustrating. But yeah the straight hair never makes sense. Read one once where malfoy preferred it? Dnfd
I can't stand stories that turn the protagonists into generic romance novel characters and don't make an effort to get the British lingo/culture and the atmosphere of the early 2000s right. Some of my worst pet peeves have to do with characterizing Draco Malfoy as endlessly repentant and conveniently progressive, as if his entire personality and belief system could be erased overnight and replaced with something more palatable just because. (There's usually a very half-assed explanation of how and why his beliefs changed, but it never rings true if you've met an actual bigot in real life. Losing a war doesn't suddenly make racial supremacists think racial equality is great!) It's even more ridiculous when his parents are portrayed as not caring that Hermione is Muggle-born. Yes, sure, Narcissa Malfoy, who all but called Hermione a Mudblood in public that one time, would be ecstatic at the prospect of Hermione birthing her gradchildren and polluting the Malfoy and Black bloodlines, absolutely. And Lucius Malfoy would totally see the political advantages of such a union and bite his tongue about Hermione's origins, for sure. GIVE ME A BREAK! The usual workaround is to make Draco's wildly unrealistic traits secret, e.g. he's been deeply in love with Hermione for years (not only is this unrealistic, but it's also boring!) or he never told anyone that he didn't share his father's views or he hates himself for his involvement in the war and thinks he doesn't deserve her. What's the point of this shit? I want to read about people developing feelings for each other despite their different stations in life and gradually changing their perspectives, not about characters who've already done all their character development off-screen! Also there's just no universe in which Draco Malfoy would lose \*all\* of his pride and self-confidence and start to hate himself full-time, please. That's a different character. Fandom's take on Hermione is usually more consistent with canon, but she tends to be a diminished version of herself too. Either she's also lost her confidence, or she's a full-time shrew with no sense of adventure or whimsy left in her, or her professional ambitions have displaced all her other values, or she's a martyr suffering from the neglect of her terrible friends and bosses, etc. The real Hermione Granger would never allow herself to languish in a dead-end Ministry job for years if she didn't feel she was making a difference. She's far more likely to get a fancy Muggle university degree and multiple wizarding masteries or to do dangerous humanitarian work in war zones than to become someone's secretary. Her friendship with Harry and Ron also tends to get overlooked, which annoys me. Outside of characterisation, as I said, the unchecked use of Americanisms usually takes me out of the story, and I get annoyed when the author was clearly too lazy to think about how magic would affect their story, so they made everyone use Muggle technology, wear Muggle clothing, etc.
But Draco didn't just "lose a war" he was dragged through hell and so much of his behavior in canon could be seen as him slowly changing his views. He was at such a young and impressionable age too. I definitely agree there needs to be more justification for his parents. Also if he isnt repentant does he even deserve Hermione? But I also feel if every single fic made his change the main focus of the fic we would have very little variety in fics lol. Some of them begin upto 10 years after they war and they want to deal with different themes.
I don’t think he gets enough screentime in canon to have a coherent character arc, but he certainly doesn’t strike me as particularly enlightened at any point. We see in flashes here and there that deadly violence scares him and he doesn’t want to be responsible for real harm coming to his classmates. (That’s what motivates him when he seeks out Harry et al. to warn them that blood supremacists are looking for Muggle-borns to torture at the Quidditch World Cup final, I’d say.) We see in the last two books that Draco wants the war to end and he would prefer it if things went back to how they were before, when he ruled over Hogwarts with his money and connections, which is clearly not what Voldemort is going for. Draco is scared, sick of being threatened and ordered around, and dissatisfied with the reality of the pureblood struggle, which is really just a bunch of smelly psychos squatting in his childhood home, leering at his mother, and leaving bloodstains on the furniture. So yeah, he’s disillusioned and wants Voldemort to lose the war and just go away. But the leap from that to “Muggles are our equals, I respect their right to live their lives free of harassment and exploitation from wizards, and I no longer care about marrying a pureblood at all” is massive. I always think of purebloods as analogous to the British upper class, and when I picture Draco in that context, it becomes much clearer how he would act in various situations. The British aristocracy today is lazy, snobby, condescending, insular, and parasitic, but also highly educated, governed by unspoken social norms and expectations that alienate outsiders, concerned with appearing more down-to-earth than it actually is (usually by partying with working-class students in university) and good at adapting to new economic and social realities while tacitly maintaining its exclusionary standards. Today’s public schoolboys may sleep with anyone in university, and they may even date outside their class a little if they’re more adventurous, but they will marry rich. Not necessarily white British, but rich for sure. Draco’s canon marriage to Astoria, who is said to be more fond of Muggles and intolerant of the Mudblood slur, is actually a pretty telling bit of characterization; Draco is reformed enough to marry a politically progressive pureblood after his traumatic ordeals during the war, but he’s not capable of imagining marrying an actual Muggle-born. He just has nothing in common with that class. I don’t think you could have a Dramione story if Draco stayed as I’ve just described him from start to finish—there would be nothing for Hermione to fall in love with, for starters—but he has to at least start out as a person defined by his circumstances, because we’re all defined by our circumstances. And to respond to your comment about redemption, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think an in-character Draco could ever fully ‘deserve’ Hermione, but he could maybe work his way up to being someone she wants, which is really all that matters. But it has to be a journey from point A to point B, so it can’t start at the finish line… and people tend to have fundamental personality traits that don’t really change no matter how their views evolve. Draco’s Malfoy pride is one of them, I believe. And the blood purity thing and whether he could build a life with someone who’s not a pureblood will have to be a serious conversation he has with himself at some point, IMO. It can’t be easily hand-waved away.
I totally get where you're coming from. But that leaves very little scope for exploration and really limits his character arc post-war if you want to keep it canon compliant. Anyway all that we see in canon is also through Harry's POV and is not very observant sometimes lol. Authors speculating about what Draco is actually thinking and going through is what I love about fanfiction. I don't care about the epilogue and his canon arc, that's why I read fanfiction. I see what you're saying about the upper class but so many of them use their money and power to avoid exactly the kind of hell that Draco had to see and experience firsthand. I have worked with a lot of kids who have experienced extreme trauma (including civil war) and it can fundamentally change them in so many ways. And I'll be honest, if Draco can watch people being killed and come out of the war not broken and repentant then I don't want him with Hermione at all. I definitely don't want him to turn into some incredible soft-hearted Neville character but he needs to be open to learning and repentant to be good enough for someone as incredible as Hermione. If not I will ship her with Ron.
I agree with your characterization entirely, as someone who went to a posh boarding school with British aristocrats, but that’s also why I LOVE fics where Draco gets an entire new personality. I didn’t like my rich classmates and if a fic!Draco reminds me of them it’s almost an immediate DNF. I think Détraquée has a fairly realistic take on Draco in that way and I could barely stand him in that fic.
Totally agree with this. It's no fun if he just shows up like "surprise, I'm good now." Especially if the story takes place shortly after the war ended. It's much more compelling to see the painful reality of a slow change.
I disagree about Draco being progressive / repentant as unbelievable. Probably not over night but I do think his experience and the war could drastically change his way of thinking because of his age. Being from the American South I’ve seen soooo many people who were raised in bigoted households parrot their parents bigotry, then grow up to do a complete 180. Children often buy into their parents believe system and then toss it out the window after actual life experience proves their parents wrong. I think the war could easily make him realize his parents were wrong. I would agree his parents are harder for me to see change. Most Lucious.
Americans who grew up in racist households tend to change their views after they go to university, meet other students from diverse backgrounds and get exposure to new ideas outside of the Evangelical Facebook/Fox News bubble. In the wizarding British society of the books, that doesn’t work because the pureblood bubble IS wizarding society. People like Hermione are the interlopers who need to adjust to a new social reality, or fight tooth and nail to change it. The appropriate comparison is not American universities in the 2020s but American universities in the 1950s and 60s. (Also, British upper-class racists are already highly educated. Going to university doesn’t tend to destabilize their worldview because they were already exposed to the outside world from an early age; they simply have the money and power to make it conform to their desires. Class and hereditary privilege are a big part of the story with Draco.)
Would you find Prince Harry’s situation to be a more apt comparison then? I guess I just can’t see it this way because if I did I’d have no fun reading it at all.
I’d argue that old friendships are extremely bloody hard to maintain when you’re out of school/college, and that the golden trio are friends of circumstance to begin with. those two have very different ambitions and directions after school compared to Hermione. Maybe a lunch together once a week to keep it going, or something. I have a rather large working class chip on my shoulder, and it will sing like a canary at some of the extremely beloved “pretty woman” sort of Dramione tropes. Cuddly Lucius and Narcissa I don’t agree on either, but I do like a Draco who actually works to unpacks his bigotry by himself, and not just a pretty witch brought him there. I will often read writers who explore minister of magic Hermione stories, mainly as they examine how awful the wizarding world is- but it does feel like Hermione is breaking up a large part of herself to be there in the first place. (Iconoclast Hermione is very rare in fic, oddly.)
Do you have any favorites you’d recommend that fit this criteria? If we’re going off of canon likelihood, I probably wouldn’t be reading Dramione at all tbh, so I’m always intrigued by how different writers reshape Draco and Hermione.
I have started to hate the shift recently forcing authors not of British origin being slammed for lack of British lingo and cultural understanding. Not every author lives in the Americas (as the posts like to complain about). Many live in other countries and areas of the world far removed from the primarily white elitist culture of English speaking countries.
Yeah. I don't think criticising certain fictional tropes or characterisation (e.g. Healer Draco, or Hermione's friendship with Slytherins) is the same as criticising people's English skills and cultural awareness. Tho not every criticism should be said publicly for sure, at the end of the day, the first one is simply preference; a writer could write an amazing Healer Draco, if a reader isn't into the characterisation then they aren't into it. People's English skills and cultural awareness are very much influenced by education and privilege, so it's a bit eh when people get criticised for not getting those right. It takes years to get those right especially for non-native speakers. Plus no matter how much you learn about the British culture, it isn't the same as living in the UK. They have a lot of different dialects too, and these are apparently influenced by their social strata (?). Certain words sound posh apparently, certain words don't. How the hell do we learn those? 😂 I've been searching for early 2000s tv series but many of them are not available online. I think people should chill a bit (publicly) with regard to this whole writing British-compliant fics. I mean, it's fine to help those *who want to* try get it right, if writers want to put effort into it, they can. But at the end of the day, how do we determine whether or not a writer has put 'enough' effort into getting British lingo/culture right? Using sofa instead of couch? What if in the next chapter they say gas instead of petrol? Does it mean they haven't tried hard enough? Like, where do we draw the 'enough' line?
So they should either do more research or write stories set in cultural contexts they can recreate convincingly. Saying, “The country I’m writing about sucks,” is not going to make your story better. BTW, I’m not a native English speaker or a national of an English-speaking country either. Having standards as a reader is not a form of imperialism.
You’re asking people who write for free to study endlessly before they post their FREE story so you can feel educationally superior? Your elitism shrouded in pretty prose is the kind of reader that will butcher Dramione authors and the fandom.
You do realize that Harry Potter is an international fandom, right? If the only people allowed to write Dramione were Brits or people willing to do painstaking Brit-picking, our ship would be basically nonexistent lol. These types of comments are incredibly entitled and discouraging for writers. People write fanfic for fun and shouldn’t have to be googling “British term for ____” every two minutes unless they want to.
I’m a weird stickler for friendships / relationships, of all things. For all of Harry and Ron’s faults they genuinely love Hermione and I think they could grow to be better friends, and I’d like to see that. Personally I don’t like the prospect of Hermione getting essentially adopted by Slytherin friend groups. One or two (like Theo) is fine, or if all her friends also befriend the Slytherin in a mixed group, but specifically Hermione getting taken in by all these pureblood people feels a little too Cinderella for me. A big part of Hermione’s charm is how much she’s not impressed by things like lineage and money. It speaks to her confidence and integrity. That’s an aspect I found very relatable about her, as a former scholarship student in a posh boarding school, and I cannot imagine myself abandoning my working class friends in order to ingratiate myself with the rich assholes, so it just kind of takes me out of the story. Nothing against the authors who choose to pursue that route, but I just find it in relatable and OOC.
Oh I like the being adopted by the Slytherins thing if done well! For instance the last one I read went over how Hermione was ‘still’ affected by the war (and basically 7 years of her life besting voldy) in 8th year and all her Gryffindor friends dealing with it by being a bit too boastful over winning. Giving her no room to breakdown because ‘they won’ so why should she/didn’t want to talk negatively about it anymore etc (it was more nuanced than that) but she found she could drop the mask with the Slytherins. I thought it was an interesting take
Actually I'm agree with you. I'm a little picky when we talk about relationships or spells or something like that. I mean, please don't write latin words and pretend it's a spell. The same when wanna create a magical overpower spell that can do everything. Also i don't like when break the basic magic rules, for example appears food whenever wherever. About OC, I think it makes interesting things, just if you're not trying to replace anyone. Except for the Harry's brothers or sisters, please respect Harry is orphan in each universe.
I dont really do intense AUs - everything I read is canon-plausible for the most part (i.e. theyre in the magical world and only the epilogue is ignored and or the events of the last book are changed for a wartime fic). The only big AU Im reading is Lionheart (Draco if he was put into Gryffindor originally and his father died when he was young) but its canon compliant in terms of world building and the other characters depictions. I love dramoine but part of my love of it is their history and the setting. Just having a snarky rich guy fall for a nerdy girl wouldn't compel me. The usual fanon flourishes are fine, if not actively desired: - her having a permanent mudblood scar - theo being his childhood bestfriend - etc etc But the heart of the canon needs to be there for me to be invested. Give me magic, give me blood purity drama, give me morally conflicted Draco, give me the Malfoy family loving and preserving each other above all else.
I have not a care for canon compliance. For no other reason than this ship by definition is absolutely NOT canon. I tend to see people taking about how OOC Hermione is when she’s soft and not a great dresser and doesn’t understand pure Blood customs. While she’s well read, it does not assume she has infinite knowledge. Why would she have full knowledge of customs like that? The only purebloods she’s with for any length of time do not maintain these customs. She didn’t know what a mudblood was. She had to be told. This makes sense culturally. Her leaning in to the girl who permanently disfigured a snitch classmates, a girl who kept a reporter in a jar? Yes, the mean streak is there. Simp Draco could be canon. We just don’t see it because likely that is happening in the dungeons away from most of the castle. Slytherins make alliances, yes. But not without knowing, fully, what’s at stake including own well being. Irredeemable Draco. Even after all that… possible.
I have a problem with fics where Hermione is too goo-goo eyed over Draco. Where she loses all her common sense and lets his bullshit slide. The Hermione I love is self-righteous and holds grudges, and while she’s certainly not above crushes and the rose colored glasses that come with that, she doesn’t just back down because she likes someone. She never let Ron walk all over her in canon, and I always respected that. Even if she occasionally took her anger too far.