The Ultimate Guide to Harry Potter Fanfiction

Dramione: The Dos and Don'ts

Ah, Dramione. That one ship we all secretly ship, though most of us would deny it. What is it about their mutual hatred that seems to make them so perfect for each other? I don't know, and a lot of Wattpad Dramione authors don't, either.

Dramione fanfics have been done so often that they're riddled with cliches, and I can't fully cover them all with a simple 1000 word example. In fact, I don't know that I'll fully cover them here, and I may have another Dramione chapter in the future. I give you:

The Dos and Don'ts of Dramione

1. Don't make Ron cruel to make Dramione the best option.
He can be anything from a mouthy jerk to clearly abusive in Dramione fanfics. Now, granted, you probably haven't met Mr. Ronald Weasley. Let me tell you, he treats his wife like a queen. He loves her. He would never act that way. And I know you're trying to make Dramione even better, but that's not the way to do it. You can't build something up by tearing something else down. It doesn't work in politics and it definitely doesn't work in fanfics. It just makes every Ron fan hate your story. And this is breaking rule number one of when not to change canon: someone's personality (see the last chapter for further details).

I hate how Ron is portrayed. In every Dramione fanfic, he's always a jealous prick who becomes the Draco of the story. It's like the two boys switched places. Is that necessary? No. Should it be done? Absolutely not! I truly hate it.

Ron is an amazing person, and some of those Dramione authors truly hate him, and say so. I'm all for people having different opinions on characters (I have about a billion on Snape, Draco, Dumbledore, even Umbridge, mainly because if I don't like a character (or don't know why I do) I try to look at things from their perspective and then I understand their position better). However, you can't change a character like that. He ceases to be the same person. He becomes someone else that we all absolutely despise, while still liking the "Ron" part. We like him in name only, and that's awful.

So, don't ever make Ron a cruel person. Yes, he would probably be quite upset if Hermione suddenly sprung on him that she was starting to like Draco Malfoy (see #8). Harry would, too. It's quite possible that the two of them wouldn't speak to Hermione for a while. But Ron wouldn't suddenly become an abusive maniac, and give Draco a chance to swoop in and save the day.

Actually, if you do it just so Draco can swoop in and save the day, you're changing all three characters' personalities... Hermione is obviously a lot tougher than Draco (remember when she slapped him third year and he ran away?). She would probably be smart enough to whip out her wand and do a quick Petrificus Totalus on Ron, and then by the time Draco showed up to save her she'd have already finished her Arithmancy homework, and would be starting on Transfiguration, using Ron as a footstool.

Anyway, moral of the story is don't change any personalities, but this one is especially important, because making Ron cruel and abusive is a huge cliche in this type of fanfiction.

2. Do make Hermione extremely conflicted about where her feelings for Draco are headed.
A great time to not make Ron such a prat, too. If you give her a perfectly good second choice, she'll feel that much more conflicted when she starts falling for Draco, and that would make the story so much better.

A lot of the fanfictions tend to gloss over how much Draco and all his friends despised Hermione, and how terrible they made her life (at least, hey do after Draco and Hermione start liking each other). Once she starts liking him, all is forgiven and they move to an alternate Hogwarts called Super-Unicorn Fairy Romance Dream World where no one seems to think its weird that they're dating now (except Pansy Parkinson and Ron Weasley) and Hermione doesn't care that in fourth year, Draco was actively feeding the news lies about Harry and herself and Hagrid, or how since second year he's been treating her like literal dirt and calling her a mudblood. Is that not going to bother you after you stop making out?