What got me was Draco trying to get out of bed (quoted roughtly)

Up!

All right, too ambitious.

Along, then.

And the HeteroYay yelling across the room. Is that the proper form for when male and female are Yay-ing at each other? Lord, we've got our own dialect.

Bless the Draco/Hermione. Bless.

Oh, god, I'm almost done with that story! It is too bloody fucking funny. My sisters keep asking what the hell I'm screaming-laughing at.

Hey, Fay, by the way, incoming in a sec.

Hubby kept asking me what was so funny, and I couldn't think of a way to tell him I was reading Harry Potter fan fic without making him think his wife had gone totally around the bend, so now I have a headache from suppressing laughter.

Poor Seamus! And Dumbledore's brother!

Heh! Yes, poor Seamus. Also Dean. Fanon!Draco is great fun. (Go on - try Lust Over Pendle. You know you want to.)

t / pusher

So is no-one writing plain old Hermione with Harry or Ron when they grow up, or life at Hogwarts from Hermione or Ginny's POV? Because I really don't think I could buy any of the Gryffindor kids with Draco. Sometimes hate is just plain old hate rather than a disguise for lust, y'know?

I don't read HP fic, so I'm just asking this out of idle curiosity, but why is Draco such a popular character in fanfic? I've seen that he gets paired with Harry constantly and with Hermione occasionally, and I just don't get it. In the books (and the movies for that matter) there's nothing likable or redeemable about him. He doesn't seem like a conflicted villain, or a character with hidden depths. He's just a cruel adolescent.

Yeah, but in the movies there seems to be more potential, I suppose.

I still like Ron, myself. He doesn't seem to get much play in fanfic. Not that I've read much HP fic, really. I'd like to see some Wood fic, or Weasley twin fic.

What can we say? We like evil blonds. We're shallow like that.

I'm sure there must be good quality Hermione fic out there, but I must confess that my forays into HP fic have been limited to a handful of authors based on recs. I have nothing like a comprehensive grasp of the fandom - indeed, I haven't read the BNFs, for the most part. I'll ask around, though.

I don't read HP fic, so I'm just asking this out of idle curiosity, but why is Draco such a popular character in fanfic? I've seen that he gets paired with Harry constantly and with Hermione occasionally, and I just don't get it. In the books (and the movies for that matter) there's nothing likable or redeemable about him. He doesn't seem like a conflicted villain, or a character with hidden depths. He's just a cruel adolescent.

Largely what Connie said. ;o) The appeal of villains is timeless

But also - Draco's popularity is, I think, due to a number of other reasons. In canon he's interesting in relation to Harry because Rowling sets up the whole hero-villain dynamic (see Clark/Lex, Mulder/Krycek et al), but then doesn't actually give Draco much time as the focus of attention - so there's an awful lot of leaway for fan writers. But also, if one's writing futurefic, Draco's potentially VERY interesting. Granted Rowling doesn't give him much depth, just as she cheerfully (thus far) uses Neville as comedy fat-boy-who's-totally-incompetent light relief. But based on what we have in text, Neville's actually a lot more interesting than that - Hall commented that in GoF it's noteworthy that nobody comments upon how horrendous it must be for Neville to realise that the teacher whom he'd thought was taking a friendly & avuncular interest in him was actually the very person who brutally tortured his parents and reduced them to the catatonic mess they're both in. Canonically, I was most surprised to realise upon re-reading, Draco isn't nearly as much of a shit as one supposes. He does make friendly overtures to Harry intially, and indeed the majority (not all - I'm not saying he's nice, but he's not nearly as ghastly as he's painted) of his instances of nastiness are actually reacting to rejection and/or snarkiness. I mean, Harry & co despise him, and we're told he's a shit, but in point of fact he doesn't do anything so very dreadful in canon - being rude is actually as bad as it gets. (eg. the 'mudblood' thing was in reaction to Hermione's assertion that he'd bought his way onto the team on the basis of gifts rather than talent - and yet clearly Draco is actually fairly good as a seeker. The initial nastiness on the train in HP: tPS is as a reaction to having his overtures turned down. Etc etc etc.) And once you take into consideration his home life - indoctrinated with anti-muggle sentiments and a sense of his family's worth, Lucius's icy and aggressive approach to fatherhood, his mother's self-involvement... and the fact that he's just a wee boy, well, basically there's a lot of scope for seeing Draco as a product of his enviroment. As he gets older, he's going to be obliged to assess his reality & make up his own mind more, and possibly face some very sticky decisions. Teenagers generally do rebel against their parents' beliefs and point of view, after all, and although he's obviously desparate for his father's approval & attention he could feasibly be driven in the opposite direction by sufficient unpleasantness once he's an adolescent.

But yes, that whole blond and snippy villain thing has a lot to be said for it...