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MY STORY: HOW I CAME TO READ AND WRITE HARRY POTTER FANFICTION

I'm a twenty-three-year-old bloke from Québec, Canada. My native language is French, but I learned English as I grew up. I first began writing when I was fifteen, writing - or, rather, attempting to write - sci-fi stories in French (Later posted as archive on FictionPress.com).

I first became a fan of Harry Potter in my youth in the late 00s early 10s thanks to the movies. I was captivated by the magical world shown in the movies, especially that of the first three ones (Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban). Prisoner of Azkaban quickly became my favourite movie of the series, mostly thanks to the time-travel sequence (I just love time-travel).

I first read the books in French in 2016 (I think?) and would read a chapter or two each morning before going to school. I read the whole series two times in a row and then promptly moved on from it. In 2019, I came back to the books, reading the series again, this time while I had free time at work thanks to an e-reader. I then read the series a second time. By the third time, I still wanted to read it but, this time, I decided to do it in English to read the very original text by J.K. Rowling. I quickly fell in love with the English version, preferring it much more to the French one. Just like with the French version, I decided to read the English version two times in a row. Unfortunately, I never completed my second reading of the English version as the store I was working at closed about the same time as when COVID-19 took off in Quebec. Unemployed and quarantined to my home, I spent my time on my computer playing videogames instead of continuing to read a book series I was more than familiar with.

However, I was far from done with the Harry Potter franchise. I just didn't know it yet. My attention came back to the series much quicker than I had anticipated, and this time in the form of fanfiction!

From 2017 to 2020, my one, big time-consuming passion was online simracing on videogames such as rFactor and Automobilista. Unfortunately, I spent so much time on it that by the beginning of 2020, I was starting to get really sick of it. In April, as I visited the subreddit r/HarryandGinny, I discovered the link to a fanfiction series featuring many alternate stories where Harry and Ginny got together early. It was Harry Loves Ginny and Ginny Loves Harry by Epeefencer. I was curious, having never read any fanfiction in my life, I decided to read it.

I later (like 2021 much later) realised I was wrong to consider it my first ever fanfiction. Months earlier, I had stumbled upon a link to Philosopher's Stone but from Hermione's point of view. Since it was the same story as canon, I didn't consider it fanfiction at the time. I'd only read the first two chapters but it's enough to consider it my first read (if incomplete).

As for Epeefencer's story, I at first cringed and laughed at it. I couldn't believe the first chapter, thinking it was way too quick and unrealistic for Harry and Ginny to become a couple right after the events of Chamber of Secrets. Of course, back then, I was almost programmed to think fanfictions were cringy (to my current shame) so I never really thought much of it. Yet, after the first chapter, I decided to go to the second one to satiate my curiosity. And, slowly but surely, I read all of the small stories in the compilation.

Chapter Four of Harry Loves Ginny and Ginny Loves Harry is when I first began to understand the power of fanfiction. It was the first Harry/Ginny fanfiction story I truly loved and it made me realize that fanfictions could be very good reads. And that's when I found my next story.

A Different Beginning by Breanie was the first ever multi-chapter fanfiction I read. Before I read that story, I'd always wanted to know how Harry's childhood could have been had he been raised by his parents James and Lily Potter. And this fic gave me the answer. I fell in love with the story. It made me feel like I was reading the Harry Potter series for the first time because, in a way, I was. Half of the story is similar to canon while the other half is completely different yet canon compliant. It was the perfect fic to introduce me to Harry Potter fanfiction. This is the story that made me fall in love with fanfiction, and the Harry/Ginny ship. Once I was done with it, I, of course, quickly read its sequels A New Beginning, Why Don't We Just Dance? and Life is Fickle Like That. And then, because I wanted more, I decided to read other stories by the author. Once I was done with that, I checked the author's favourite stories and I read them (well, those that interested me). I then checked extensively r/HarryandGinny for other stories to read and found another story which I loved.

My next milestone story - so to speak - was Harry Potter and the Bonds of Time by Vance McGill. This story, along with it's sequels Bonds of Time II: Fighting Fate and Bonds of Time III: Age of Consent was my first foray into time-travel. I said earlier, I love time-travel so I loved this story and the trope of Harry going back in time and redoing his Hogwarts years, except with the knowledge of the future. When I read these stories, I wanted more so I went once again on r/HarryandGinny, found the mega-thread and read more time-travel stories. Once I was done, I also explored the trope of soul-bonds, which had been introduced to me by Harry Potter and the Bonds of Time.

I think, by that point, you can see where I'm going with that. In short, I fell into the downward spiral that is fanfiction.

The next story that changed my fanfiction path is Harry Potter and the Unexpected Blessing by JulesSC. Of course, before talking about it any further, I have to backtrack a little.

About a month before reading that story, while I was still trying to read as many Harry/Ginny soul-bond stories as I could, I came up with the idea for a story where James and Lily had gone through a ritual to save Harry's life if Voldemort attacked them, offering him an unbreakable protection powered by their sacrifice. That protection would also bind James and Lily's souls to Harry which would stop them from moving on to the after-life (almost like an Horcrux). However, all three would share Harry's body at once (though James and Lily wouldn't be able to control Harry's body, not that they wanted to) and it would allow them to communicate mentally. That idea wouldn't leave my mind so I decided to take a risk and write it myself.

You see, like I said at the beginning, I had written stories before. However, none of them had gone really far (no more than a few K words) and it had always been in French. Now, not only would I try to write a long story, but I would write it in English. I wasn't sure I could do it, but I still decided to try. And thus, The Three Souls of Harry James Potter was born.

The Three Souls of Harry James Potter was my first ever fanfiction. I began writing it in June (I think) and, for a time, I thought it was great fun. Unfortunately, my interest in the story quickly died on me, not because of the idea itself, but because of the way I was writing it. I made a large beginner mistake which was to reuse a lot of text from the original series. Since my story was sticking too close to canon, it was boring to both read and write, and I decided to scrap it. This story did give me a lesson in writing, though, and extensively using the original text and adding it to my story would not be something I would do in my next fanfiction, whenever I got an idea I wanted to write.

And an idea I got from reading Harry Potter and the Unexpected Blessing. In this story, Harry meet a girl named Sophia who moved next door and both become friends. The description of the story tell that it's a story where Harry and Sophia will have a child together during their teenage years, which would obviously change canon quite a lot. I loved the idea and was very disappointed that the original story only had two chapters written before it was abandoned. So, I decided to write it myself.

Thanks to this, The Girl Next Door was created. The Girl Next Door is the first fic I put a lot of effort in and, while I can safely say a year later after I first wrote it that it's not that great (mostly because of the writing), it's still a story that means a lot to me. It's the story that really taught me how to write and how to plan a story. Most of it I was going blind and half of the chapters have things happening simply for the sake of filling the story, and most of the chapters are way too short (1.5k) but I still love it. And, thanks to this story, I became a fanfiction writer, and I'm still continuing to do so to this day.

Now, let's backtrack again. So far, I've talked about Harry and Ginny yet, if you've read my stories, you'll know that I write Harry/Hermione almost exclusively. So, what happened, then?

Well, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure in hindsight. I don't remember the specifics of how Harry/Hermione became my favourite ship but it was about the same time as when I began to write The Girl Next Door. Unlike with Harry/Ginny, I have no idea which fanfiction really launched me into the Harry/Hermione ship, though I have a high suspicion it's More Important Than Any Broomstick by witowsmp. What I do know is that I first began considering reading Harry/Hermione thanks to Harry Potter and the Four Heirs by Sinyk, which features some romantic affection between the pair (though they never actually date in the story). By September 2020, two months after beginning The Girl Next Door, I wrote my first Harry/Hermione story (and first one-shot), which was The Time Travelling Potters.

Following this, I came up with more ideas for stories featuring Harry and Hermione and the rest is - as they say - history. :)

All my stories can be adopted by fellow authors as long as you indicate in an Author's Note (or similar) who or where it originated from. ;)