Harry Potter The Inevitable Who Should Harry Be With Thread...

[SotF]

Personally, I really don't think that either Ginny or Hermione should end up with him. Some of the others fit, but with Ginny she seems wrong somehow and Hermione is a bit to controlling in several situations.

As for the love potion idea, well, we haven't seen how they all work, there could be other variants of it. It could also be the effects of a similar type based more on a specific suggestion. A friend of mine had made the comment that there could be something along the lines of the Imperious and the reason Harry can easily break that is because he's under the effects of something similar.

 

[jwang]

Insanity is the spice of life. Luna's the best choice in my opinion. ^_^

 

[SotF]

Insanity is the spice of life. Luna's the best choice in my opinion. ^_^

And I thought the spice of life was high explosives, goes to show you...

But yeah, I agree about Luna

 

[jaredstar]

personally i think they should throw all those girls out the window and put him back together with cho chang

 

[CaptainG]

Im for Luna.

Coz she's cool.

Like super cool.

And Harry needs something like that. None of the SUper!Hero!Worship!Ginny crap or that Study!Right!Now!Hermione.

I'm also all for Fleur or Tonks, because they are HOT!

And Harry needs a hot girlfriend, cos he is the coolest. Ever. Period.

 

[ttestagr]

I can't believe that Bellatrix got more votes than Ginny though. That is just wrong.

 

[Mereo Flere]

Let's see...sexually frustrated, evil, probably kinky nemesis, or your best friend's sister?

No, what's wrong is that Lily got more points than Ginny.

 

[nuclear death frog]

The votes for Bellatrix are incredibly disturbing to me. Frankly, I have to wonder if those people have even read the scenes that she's actually in, or if they're just following a fanon image someone else started.

The votes for Narcissa aren't quite as gut-punching but they're still wrong on a visceral level.

And as for Lily...no. Just no.

 

[Thardoc]

I'd say Luna since she strikes me as someone that can relate to Harry in terms of being an outcast. Plus the fact that she can pretty much ignore everyone's opinion of her makes her someone that keep up with Harry's rather turbulent reputation concerning the wizarding world's public opinion of said wizard. Sadly though I really havent found much Harry/Luna pairings being written. Though the Harry/Tonks pairing has some merit (Lorddwar wrote a pretty good story involving this pairing, i think the title was "Harry Potter and the Summer of Change" or something like that). Harry/Hermione pairing is one of the more popular/common/likely pairing i thought that would happen in canon, sadly J.K. Rowling thought Harry suddenly having a crush on Ginny out of nowhere was the way to go. I'm rambling again, well those are the pairings i like.

 

[SimmyC]

Though not exactly the most 'versed' in the Harry Potter universe, I'm voting for Luna since, reading up on her, seems preferable to the fangirl that appears to be his canon love interest.

Oh lookie, she's in the lead! ^_^

 

[Israfel]

Woot for my old thread being necromanced! And thus the originall poll thread returns, before all those wannabees flooded the board, imagine my surprise when I returned to my little home away from home here and found it to be flooded with new almost identical poll threads in nearly every forum...I was slightly irate. But anyway, I put all those odd choices in there simply because I love seeing just how many votes some off the wall character like Lily or Rowena Ravenclaw will get, 'tis fun. And if you ever need to be convinced of the Harry/Rowena thing read Lord Ravenclaw's story with that pairing, it'll make you a believer. Linkage

 

[Wonderbee31]

All right! Looks like Luna has opened a 50 gallon drum of kick-butt as far as the polling goes, which I'm glad of, as I really like Luna, more than Ginny, with Hermione being in second behind her. While she's spacey, I also think that she might give Harry that bit of fun and fancy-freeness that he's missed for so many years of his life.

 

[crazyducke]

Just felt like i should share my analysis for each of teh choices even if some of it seems rather redundant

Bellatrix: She's a crazy psycopath whom canon harry hates with a passion, i've not read a believable harry/bella that did not include her being under some sort of marriage control contract or control potion or what not. There is also the age difference to consider, it is never made clear the exact age of Bellatrix or any of the Black sisters and from fics that i have read it is assumed that Andromeda is the oldest but i'm never clear on whether it is Narcissa or Bellatrix next. I also don't see Harry getting over Bellatrix killing Sirius unless it was against her will. I've read some pretty good smutfics about this pairing though but most of them are Harry is the new Lord Black yadda yadda yadda with Bella as a slave.

Fleur Delacour: Impossible in canon now that she is gonna marry Bill and i doubt affair is an option in books geared for kids. Good for smutfics imo but not really good for relationships, her character is relatively unknown other than being a blonde bombshell that makes men drool partially because she's part veela.

Gabrielle Delacour: ew...too young imo, harry is 14 or 15 when he first meets her and she's under 11 because she hasn't started school yet assuming that the age a wizard/witch enteres school is the same in France as in the U.K. This pairing won't work until well after Harry gets out of Hogwarts unless your into pedo.

Ginny Weasley: I honestly hate this pairing the most out of all, not counting slash of course, being the pervert that i am. I'm sick of fics that do this pairing for the sole reason that all of those have Harry magically notice that Ginny grew up. If Harry does indeed see the Weasleys as family, then Ginny is nothing more than a little sister.

Hermione: This is a pairing that seems rather curious to me. If done well the fics that i've read are actually quite enjoyable, but too often has this pairing been reduced to Hermione says jump and Harry asks how high. The best friend to relationship idea does work in reality but i really hate it when writers abuse the whole hermione is the brain behind everything idea. Whiles its true that Hermione is the books smarts behind the "Golden Trio" that she is sadly lacking is street smarts, and she follows authority too much to be a leader of any sort.

Lily Evans: hmmm...strange pairing i have to say, but after reading some of Demon God of Chaos' fics i have to say that i am one sick bastard for liking this pairing even if there is no real way to make it believeable.

Luna: Awesome character, although a little too loopy for my tastes. Luna is a great character to balance out Harry but most of teh fics i've read with this pairing just doesn't seem to click with me

Minerva McGonagall: ew...no...hell no...this is just wrong. She's like 4 or 5 times his age...just wrong. Not to mention she was never mentioned as good looking, and i wouldn't even consider it even if she was younger.

Nymphadora Tonks: One of my favorite pairings, especially after reading the works by Lorddwar. There are a lot of ways to make this relationship believeable despite the age difference.

Narcissa Black: the same as Bella, hard to make it believable and she's old enough to be his mother, awesome for smutfics or fics where he does it to piss off malfoy, but other than that...not really.

Pansy Parkinson: hmmm...from what i have always seen is that Pansy is described with having a pug face, and if people haven't noticed, pugs are butt ugly. She's also Draco's bitch so i don't see her as a viable candidate for Harry.

Rowena Ravenclaw: this is a very interesting pairing which i have only seen done once by i think it was Master Slytherin on FFN where Harry traveled back to teh time of the founders and was the 5th unknown founder. That fic was done very well but other than that, it isn't likely that she'll be paired with Harry.

I also enjoy a lot of little talked about characters that didn't make the voting list.

Alicia Spinnet, Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell: all of these characters are all little known other than that they play quidditch with harry so they can't really be canon but i just seem to enjoy these pairings.

Padma Patil: I really enjoy this pairing even if it is rarely done because i hold the belief that she is the smart version of Parvati, not to mention that Ravenclaws just rule.

Cho Chang: Only good if its OOC, sadly, but canon Cho just seems to be all about appearance.

Daphne Greengrass and fem!Blaise: unknown characters who are in Slytherin, works in a lot of those political fics that i've read where Harry takes politics to the next level.

just my two cents that i felt like sharing

 

[Israfel]

Oh good, I'm relieved, when I started reading th above post I though it would another repeat of Kethean's little rant on the first page but you actually have some positive things to say, yay, that's good, otherwise I might have gotten annoyed...oh and Harry/Lily for the win all the way! Glad someone else out their likes this odd pairing.

 

[arcaellos]

While Hermione is by far my favorite, I also like a good Luna pairing as well. I did read a good Harry/McGonagall story by the name of Harry Potter and the Black Owl

 

[OniGanon]

Luna seems to be most popular by far, yet I haven't seen all that many H/L fics around... Anyone know of some that are fairly long?

 

[sirsmileybear]

i'm a luna fan all the way
i've been reading bungle in the jungle by jbern on ff.net very good read
is a harry/luna but seems realistic without that instant love crap :yay:
would love to hear others views on story :huh.: :help:
one word of warning it is written in 2nd person takes some time to get used to :sweat:

 

[Prince Charon]

I picked Hermione, but I really think that the poll needs a Harem option.

 

[ttestagr]

I stick with my vote for Ginny, but the poll also needed a fem-Harry option. For all of the stories where we see a female version of Harry, I've only seen one that paired Harry with her (and it wasn't good.)

 

[Trecklar]

I must admit I didn't vote because I like Susan Bones but if I had to I would have to take Luna as a strong second.

 

[easymoney0]

I have to say that I voted for Hermione for pretty much one reason, almost every other female character in Harry Potter is an original character in fanfiction. Even Ginny and Luna, whom we see the most of, simply do not have the depth that Hermione has received. Quite frankly I think she is the only female character that the reader has any true image of.

The main problem for choosing her though is that after the clusterfuck also known as HBP, I have no idea where the hell Rowling is going with the Hermione character. Hopefully she won't remain totally crazy.

Also for the record I have to state that the main reason I hated HBP was not the pathetic matchup or Harry and Ginny. Instead it was the fact that Harry did jackshit during the year. If you found out you were the only person that could kill Voldemort wouldn't you train or plot? Despite the prophecy all he did was play Quidditch and moon over the redheaded slut. WTF

 

[nuclear death frog]

I didn't see any significant difference between HBP Hermione and the Hermione of the previous books. She's always been highstrung, defensive, and shrill; and it's always been Ron whom her actions are most geared towards impressing. Frankly I think it's only been people with enormous HHr blinkers who haven't noticed Hermione's character in the books. The movies don't help; Steve Kloves, the screenwriter of the first four movies at least, is an admitted Hermione partisan, and he changes the plot in any way he sees fit in order to make her more significant. Even the actress who plays Hermione (Emma Watson) is in some sense a distortion; canon Hermione just flat isn't that pretty.

 

[Ringmaster]

I'm gonna go the route that everyone else went, and list them all.


Bellatrix Lestrange-Black:

Really, people. Unless this is a time-travel! fic, I DON'T THINK SO. She's, what? Mid forties? With prison time in a place that's trying to suck out your soul? She's NOT that pretty right now. Not to mention she's the most gung-ho kill-the-mudblood I'm-psycho-and-not-in-the-good-way of ALL of Voldemort's followers. Book six wimped her out in the beginning bit, but, as was stated before, HBP was alot like Naruto PTS.
So, unless you're going time travel, this option is out.

-
Fleur Delacour:

I'm all for getting-the-older-girl action, but as this is Who Should Harry Be With, not Who Should Harry Get Laid By, I'll say 'no' here. The interaction between these two over the course of GoF isn't even friendly, with the exception of the thank you kiss at the end of the Second Task. But, hell, even Ron got one, and he was one of the hostages. She was just grateful for getting her sister back.

-
Gabrielle Delacour:

Can we get a definite age on this girl? Seriously? I'm not digging through GoF for a birthday. Was she seven? Eight? Ten? Work with me here.
... ok, ok. She might be all Harry-worship, after all, did drag her from the lake, but then again, she might not. We don't know enough about the canon Potter-verse. Do veela mature faster than human? Physically? Mentally? Emotionally? Some of this only comes with experience, not just with age. If you can write it properly, sure, I can dig it. But if not, don't force upon me your corrisive garbage. Leave me my remaining brain cells, I need to keep the ones I've got. This girl has got so little story and character development that she's a blank slate. You could do anything with her. You could make her a clone of Molly Weasley or a Dark Lady who could eat Voldemort for breakfast and it wouldn't be OOC. There's no character development on behalf of JK here.

-
Ginny Weasley

...
No. Please, just... no. Was this girl even in books three through five? I fairly certain that if I took the first five books, I could count the number of times she's in a scene and it would come to less than a dozen. The number of times her name comes up would be less than twenty. Harry doesn't even see her half the time, much less think about her. I wanted to reach into HBP and slap her when she broke out that "You trusted something you read in a book" line. If I ever wrote an SI with me as Harry, I'd have set all her books on FIRE after that, knowing it's OWL year for her. "Ginny, you weren't going to trust something you READ in a BOOK, were you?"
There's been no REAL interaction between the two. Only die-hard Ginny fans want this. Why? I'm not sure. This girl rarely appears. Hell, she barely appeared in book two, and she was the person behind it all. I don't care what JK said about Hermione being like her, THIS is REAL SI. Hermione might be what she WAS like, Ginny is what she WANTED to be. This is her Mary-Sue. Please don't.

-
Hermione Granger:

I can go for this. It's better than Ginny, but you'll have to be careful, or she, Harry, or both will fly OOC faster than a Firebolt. The radical difference in personalities WILL eventually lead to a clash. It'll be a Supernova of an explosion, but if you can write it well, this can be a great ship. But it must be done right. I've seen too many examples of this done wrong, and I'm kind of jaded on it. Hermione's an activist. If there was a wizarding Greenpeace, I'm sure she'd be in it. Harry is not.

-
Lily Potter-Evans:

There is a difference between Mom I'd Like To Fuck, and I'd Like To Fuck My Mom. If it floats your boat, so be it, but it's not in the Harry Should Be With Her area.

-
Luna Lovegood:

Is it the Luna from book six, or is it the REAL Luna from the other books? The Not-In-Your-Reality Luna, not the... what was it? The Luna Who Has A Habit Of Speaking Uncomfortable Truths, and is Desperate For A Friend? If it's the actual Luna, then sure, she could do Harry a world of good. Her detatched viewpoint would give Harry a break from his more serious minded-friends (Hermione) without being a total slacker (Ron). She would be unperturbed by the things Harry considers to be troublesome, and seems to be rather dependable, and would be very fun to be with.

-
Minerva McGonagall:

I just don't see it.

-
Nymphadora Tonks
Maybe, but then, there's not much known about her. It's known that she's a junior Auror, but actual age is unknown. But she does seem very fun loving, and like to joke around alot. Harry could use someone mature to help balance the extremes his life puts him through.

-
Narcissa Malfoy-Black

C'mon, now, we're stretching if this is really in the line-up. There's nothing here, other than that she's Malfoy's mother. You can't really say anything about her.

-
Pansy Parkinson:

The die hard Slytherin fangirl of Malfoy? Isn't she referred to as Pug-faced Parkinson? I don't think so.

-
Rowena Ravenclaw:

Only in case of Highly Unreasonable!Time Travel fics.



The real problem here isn't a lack of female companions, it's that there are no girls, other than Hermione, with enough backstory and character development to make them reasonable for... well, anything. Only Hermione has been a consistant character. No other girl has. Writing ANY OTHER GIRL is almost automatically ACC, because there's so little canon characterization to work with. I'm sorry, but JK has given us many characters with so little to them. Even Hermione, the most developed if her girl characters, doesn't have a great deal to work with. We know how she behaves, but what's her story? Her parents are dentists... ok. What was her childhood like? Is she an only child? You could ask this stuff all day, the bottom line is, it's hard to say who Harry should be with, because there's so many girls, but so little to actually work with (canon-wise).

 

[pyu]

Personally, I think Harry's not going to make it past year seven in canon... so...

Anyway, even then, if you examine the text carefully, Harry's pretty much not very sociable. The only people he can reasonably call friends are not that many and he isn't very close to them. His buddy, Ron, is a git that gets jealous of small things and is ironically, the most well written character in the series.

Almost everyone around him seems to be a flat caricature, so its difficult to get a handle on them. Yes, even Ron and Hermione are caricatures, Hermione especially so.

Bellatrix Lestrange-Black - Based on canon, no. She's a Death-Eater and pretty insane as well.

Fluer Delacour - I wouldn't mind. Again, she's getting married to Bill. I always thought she would make a good sisterly figure.

Gabrielle Delacour - Too little information to go by. You can start with the Hero Worship part, but very little to work with. Seems to be a popular alternate ship since it would be easier for the user to write her.

Ginny Weasley - Frankly, I have never understood the rationale behind Harry/Ginny. For 4 books, we had little to zero information about Ginny, but she was always a favorite to become paired with Harry largely because Sugar Quill said so. In book 5, she actually had more screentime as a chaser, and I thought it was good to see one more character get developed. In book 6... I try my best not to invoke book 6 as it is the nadir of Harry Potter series.

I blame the One Big Happy Weasley Family syndrome. Harry goes with Ginny and Ron goes with Hermione. Everyone ends up happy.

I can't recommend any fanfic that actually gives this pairing justice. Most of it is so very cliche, even worse than Harry/Hermione. And since it has been around so long, most authors simply just jump in and say that one day, Harry noticed how gorgeous Ginny has become and wants to jump her bones...

Hermione Granger - I think this is possible, despite book 6. She's always concerned about Harry and she's a much better and loyal friend than Ron. Harry shows the same amount of concern for her, which is saying something considering he's an insular kind of chap. So there's the basis of taking it beyond mere friendship.

It doesn't hurt that some of the best fanfics I've read are centered around the two of them. I recommend the Paradise series (featuring adult!Trio) and Year of Rebellion.

However, I always get the feeling people are working with Emma Watson as Hermione and Daniel Radcliffe as Harry. They do look good together eh... but in canon, Hermione is no gorgeous babe and Harry is a tad too scrawny for his own good... was hoping people take notice of this...

Lily Potter-Evans - (Arcs an eyebrow). This brings Oedipius to a new level eh...

Luna Lovegood - I've read some good ones. Luna has alot in common with Harry, so I see this as perfectly reasonable. Luna's Year seems to be one. Year of Rebellion as a date scene between Harry and Luna and I like the Luna Full Pensieve wrote.

Minerva McGonagall - I think there's a reason why no one voted for her.

Nymphadora Tonks - Erm, again, she's with Lupin. She's seem to be the mischievous older sister type rather than girlfriend. Then again, I've read some that are quite good... then to be a bit smuty though.

Narcissa Malfoy-Black - read Bellatrix's entry.

Pansy Parkinson - There's a good one at fanficauthors.net... Is it by Jeconais? Not too sure...

Rowena Ravenclaw -... Eh, this is grasping at straws...

Some other options -

Cho Chang - I've actually read several good ones. Most of them revolve around Cho being actually a normal human rather than a weepy caricature shown in book 5.

The other girls - I've read alot of other stuff... but mostly require Harry to actually socialize outside of his established group. Not really feasible, but hey, if its well written, its okay by me.

 

[Sammi Rei]

I used to be a Harry/Ginny shipper, but to be honest books five and six more or less turned me off the pairing.

Nowadays I'm a Harry/Luna shipper, though I'll read a well-writen Harry/Tonks as well (Summer of Change is a good example)

As for a good Harry/Luna fic? I quite like Relations and it's sequals by DrT, and I think that Quazi Joe's The Blood Tipped Feather has good potential.