There's a number of things you should not be expecting in any of my fanfics. If an item appears on this list, that does not mean I dislike stories with these elements in play, just that you probably won't be seeing them in any of my stories. That being said, many of my favorite stories have some of these elements. The ones that I find almost unreadable have most or all of them. Unfortunately, the overuse of these elements is the main reason I find it difficult and frustrating to find good Harry/Hermione stories. I think the genre is worthwhile, though, and am hoping to avoid these cliches in my story.

Adults telling Harry to call them by their first names at the first meeting, if ever. This seems to happen in every harmony fic, most especially with the Grangers. Sirius is, I feel, the only real exception to this rule. I feel he gets a pass because he looks at Harry and sees more of a brother than the child of his best friend.

Moldy-shorts, Dumb-as-a-door, Dumbles, Dumbledork, the dark wanker, or any other 'cutsey'/insulting nicknames given to characters. Not only does it totally disregard the character as a threat, it takes away from the gravitas of the story. This should be done incredibly sparingly, if at all.

Evil Dumbledore. The headmaster is often rather aloof, and has made some very questionable decisions. This is especially true when it comes to Harry staying at the Dursleys. While Evil Dumbledore can be entertaining if its done right, he's usually turned into a dumbass who wants to 'control' Harry. How Harry being in his 'sphere of influence' will control him, or what he will do with that control is often not explored.

Evil Molly. This one drives me nuts. Molly Weasley is a force of nature, to be sure, but to make her a potions mistress, love potioning thief is so far out of character for her it would be like if I made Lockhart competent or something. Wait... Shoot. Well, Molly will be delightful in my stories, at least.

Slutty Ginny. This includes Ginny using potions to ensnare Harry. Yes, it is true that Romalda Vane tried this tactic and ended up accidentally potioning Ron instead, but for some reason this event seems to gets transferred over to Ginny instead.

Evil Ron. I make no secret of the fact that I don't really like Ron as a character, but he's not that bad. He is usually paired up with Ginny as her partner in crime to potion Harry and Hermione to go out with them. It seems like most writers who do this use it as a method of destroying any justification for a relationship between Ron/Hermione or Harry/Ginny, thus paving the way for Harry/Hermione. This turns Ron into a total dickwad, believing that he actually owns Hermione. Ron has enough flaws without adding to them.

The 'we're not worthy' scene. This is the scene in far too many fanfics where the Weasley twins do the Wayne's World 'We're not worthy!' bow to Sirius and/or Remus. Not only is it way overdone, but I think it takes away from the twins. I think they'd be more competitive and start comparing notes.

Flawless Weasley twins. This is done in the vast majority of fics as well. The twins are always Harry's friend, they're always brilliant and their pranks never go wrong. Don't forget, their stuffing Montague into the vanishing cabinet for weeks not only almost killed the Slytherin, but also gave Malfoy the idea for using the cabinets to sneak death eaters into the castle.

Twin speak. "This..." "is..." "where..." "Fred..." "and..." "George..." "talk..." "at..." the..." "same..." "time..." "interchanging..." "every..." "word."

Overly Helpful Goblins (Registered Trademark). (Disclaimer, I saw this phrase somewhere online and shamelessly stole it. It is not mine, and if anyone finds out where I stole it from, let me know so I can attribute it properly.) (Found where I saw this. it was from Breath of the Inferno, by Primordial Vortex.) The Goblins are so impressed by the fact that Harry or Hermione showed a modicum of manners that they fall over themselves to provide the best possible service they ever possibly can. They ally their nation to them because they had the decency to say please, or to remember one of their names. While I do think Goblins are more powerful than they seem to be, using them like this turns them into a convenient deus ex machina.

Lord Potter, owner of everything. Harry has some gold. There is no indication anywhere that he owns half of Britain, or 20 estates worldwide, or whatever. (Though I think I'm going to write a one-shot where he has all this money and uses it to bribe Fudge into believing him, since the Minister is so bribable.)

'Mione,' or the even more horrible 'Herms.' Mione was used one time in canon, by Ronald Weasley. His mouth was so stuffed with food he was incapable of pronouncing her name correctly. While I won't stop reading a fic if someone uses 'Mione,' I will never abide 'Herms.' I will always use her full first name.

Magical oaths and 'so mote it be'. I truly wish this never found it's way into fanfiction. It seems clear to me that someone decided to take the concept of the unbreakable vow, threw in a pretentious freemason phrase, and called it a day. And destroyed all of their plot arcs by doing so. Very much like a time-turner, once it's used it becomes a crutch. In my stories, magic is something that cannot be bound or taken away. It is part of life itself.

Dobby/Elf speech. This is where Dobby and/or other elves talk with babytalk. ’Hogwarties’, ’Grangey’, things like that. Dobby nearly always (if not always) speaks in the third person. Winky usually speaks in the first person, unless she is talking about Mr. Crouch, in which she either speaks in the third person or mixes the two. All of them seem to have some peculiar grammar structures, (’I is not liking heights’,) but the words themselves are perfectly understandable.

Bashing in general. You could argue that I kind of did a little bashing of Dumbledore in the very beginning of the first episode, but it really depends on your definition of bashing. To me, bashing is taking a characters 'bad' attributes and amplifying them for the sole purpose of making them look stupid/evil and then stomping all over them over, and over, and over again. Mild bashing is ok, over the top bashing is only good in crackfics. (The Champion's Champion is the best of these, in my opinion.

The f-bomb, or swearing in general. JK went the entire series with 'bitch' being the worst swear word used, and it was used in a massivily emotional moment. That will be my guideline to swearing in my stories. What you will see is world specific swearing, such as merlin epitephs, or whatever I find in star wars specific outbursts when the time comes.

Sex. Snogging will be the worst you will see, and even that will be extremely limited. I'm not writing anything worse than what you'd read in one of the Harry Potter books. There might be allusions to something more, but it will again be limited to what you'd read in the Harry Potter series. (Though what those students were doing in the rose bushes in Goblet of Fire is beyond me. Have you ever tried to just trim a rose bush? Ouch.)