Something I really have no explanation for.

Given how much I screw with canon (HP canon in particular), I really don't have any explanation for why certain HP/Buffy (or HP/Charmed) (or Buffy/Charmed) crossovers drive me up the wall, but they really do.

The ones where the author of the crossover doesn't seem to understand that Buffy and Harry are the same age. Or that the Halliwell sisters are about ten to fifteen years older than Harry and Buffy.

An example of this type of story was one I started reading earlier : Harry Potter and The Key of Dagon.

Harry has just finished his fifth year, and yet somehow Sunnydale is already a lagoon. Meaning that the story (from Buffy's perspective) must be set after May 2003 (when Sunnydale was destroyed).

Which (if you can't do the maths yourself) would make Harry just two months shy of being 23.

Or - just to show I am exploring all the options - it would mean that Buffy destroyed The Hellmouth in 1996 - when she was fifteen years old and had (at best) only just become a Slayer, and was over 18 months away from meeting Willow, Xander and Cordy. And (depending on your point of view) Dawn was four years away from being created (Although, since the modification of memories was flushed backwards through history, Dawn would've been 10).

And as for a story where Harry goes to school with The Halliwell sisters....... the less said about that, the better.

See - I have no problem with time-travel stories. So that if Buffy was dragged backwards in time to be in school with Harry, that would be fine. And if Harry went back in time to be in school with Piper, Prue and Phoebe - again, no problems.

And while I can screw with canon with the best of them, the idea of moving things around in time just seems wrong.

But the thing that bugs me the most is when the authors don't even acknowledge they've done it. Leading me to think they just don't KNOW they've done it - which just makes me despair somewhat.

Anyway. It bugs me, and I don't think I have found a single HP/Buffy crossover that doesn't jump all over these rules, which is pretty sad and pathetic, if you think about it.

Compliance in HP

When someone says a story is "Book 6 Compliant", what does that make you think? And if someone says it is "Set after book six", does that invoke a different image in your head?

The good thing is, there is no set standard. Which is also a bad thing, but mostly it's good.

Compliance, to me at least, indicates that the key events in a book took place, but not necessarily exactly as they happened. And also that the key events of all the books previous to it took place, but again, they might have happened differently.

So - for example - a story that is Compliant to Book 5 would indicate that Voldemort is back, there is a prophecy about how to defeat him, and that The Order exists.

A story Compliant to Book 3 would indicate that the traitor was revealed (though not necessarily that it is Peter), and Book 2 would indicate that the Basilisk was freed, that someone was tricked in to doing it and that the diary was used to do it.

However, a story set after Book 3 would require it to be Peter, that Black was vindicated (though not publicly), and a story set after Book 2 would mean it would have to be Ginny.

This has apparently caused confusion, because I said a story was Book 5 compliant, and yet had some changes (albeit minor) in history that people felt were bad, evil and wrong in light of my "B5C" statement.

Book 1 : The Stone, A Possessed Teacher, Harry doing the hero bit.
Book 2 : Basilisk, Diary, Possession, Harry killing snake, Harry talking to snakes.
Book 3 : Traitor unmasked.
Book 4 : Tournament, Voldemort Returns.
Book 5 : Order, Prophecy.
Book 6 : Horcruxes.
Book 7 : Voldemort Dead, Deathly Hallows exist.

Those are what I consider to be compliances. Now - there might be more (for example there is no reason the prophecy can't be The Prophecy), but this is what I define as a minimum.