I read the first book when I was eight (20 now), and very briefly shipped Harry/Hermione--as an eight-year-old, it seemed "obvious" that they had to get together. I think when I was nine or ten I watched an interview on television where J.K. Rowling outright said she'd always seen Hermione ending up with Ron, and from that point on that was my ship. I got into fanfiction at about that time, and by osmosis sort of started shipping Harry/Ginny, which was only just starting to pick up steam at the time. After OOtP I shipped Harry/Luna for a while (I still sort of do, honestly). I shipped Harry/Ginny right up until the sixth book, which completely and utterly ruined it for me.
I confess that the bulk of my shipping centered around the younger characters, because they were always closer to me in age--I never did catch up. DH came out five days before my sixteenth birthday, in fact. I guess in a way, for me, the main characters were older characters. The main exception to shipping-only-main-characters was one I picked up from an ESL writer I beta-read for when I was twelve, James/Lily. Ever since, that has absolutely been one of my greatest OTPs. I ship it like burning and will not even debate with serious, it-should-have-been-Snape Severus/Lily shippers.
One of the more interesting things for me in having read the books as I grew up and then again now that I'm older is that I did sort of flip to your point of view. I care more about the older and secondary characters now and ship them like mad (in fact, I just converted tardis_coral into shipping Remus/Severus... don't even ask...) I've also found that I find books 5, 6 and 7 a lot more tolerable now that I'm older than the characters I'm reading about, because I understand.
But yeah, I'm definitely one of the kids that literally grew up with Harry Potter. Serious portions of my life were dedicated to it, from writing fanfiction to moderating for a fanfiction site to beta-reading to... Just.... lots of things. :|
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I confess that the bulk of my shipping centered around the younger characters, because they were always closer to me in age--I never did catch up. DH came out five days before my sixteenth birthday, in fact. I guess in a way, for me, the main characters were older characters. The main exception to shipping-only-main-characters was one I picked up from an ESL writer I beta-read for when I was twelve, James/Lily. Ever since, that has absolutely been one of my greatest OTPs. I ship it like burning and will not even debate with serious, it-should-have-been-Snape Severus/Lily shippers.
One of the more interesting things for me in having read the books as I grew up and then again now that I'm older is that I did sort of flip to your point of view. I care more about the older and secondary characters now and ship them like mad (in fact, I just converted
But yeah, I'm definitely one of the kids that literally grew up with Harry Potter. Serious portions of my life were dedicated to it, from writing fanfiction to moderating for a fanfiction site to beta-reading to... Just.... lots of things. :|
/sorry long-and-rambly-description-of-MY-ENTIRE-CHILDHOOD.