When I joined my SHIP

[Ebony AKA AngieJ]

I pair up *everything*.  I've done it since I could walk, I think.  
Real-life people.  Storybook characters.  Movies.  Cartoons.  Comic 
books.

I'm not an advocate of hero+heroine formulas... I don't form a 
consistent pattern at all.  It just seems to me that some characters 
are just *right* for each other.  And others aren't.

Most of the H/Hers I talk with on a regular basis say they've been 
that way since PoA, but had no ship preference before then.  Here's 
my shipper story... I've told it before, but I will tell it again.

I read 1-3 in the space of a weekend, sometime in late January or 
early February 2000... and thought the books were just darling.

I've since been so corrupted by fanon that I can barely remember 
my "pure" impressions of the characters.  I remember despising 
Draco... wanting Harry to be happy and safe... wanting Hermione to 
lighten up before she had an ulcer... wanting Ron to realize his 
innate value and have peace.  Being amused by Hagrid, learning from 
Dumbledore and the other teachers... being angry at Snape (sorry, his 
character in PoA and GoF disgusted me) but afraid I was a lot like 
him.  Thinking Sirius sounded... well, a bit too sexy for a character 
in a book marketed for 8-12 year olds.

And when I closed PoA, I had a sudden thought--"wouldn't it be the 
cutest thing if later in the series Harry and Hermione..."  Then I 
thought, "You're doing it again, Eb!  Stop pairing *off* everyone!"

Never considered R/H prior to GoF... all the bickering to me seemed 
indicative of a sibling relationship.  Considered H/G in CoS, but 
again, didn't think much of it... Ginny was all of eleven in that 
book, and I've told my students of that age what I think of 
their "liking boys".

I found online fandom that spring when I decided to use HP in the 
classroom... but the part I found was all kids.  Jenna's UHPFC.  It 
was nice, but... for the space of some months, I thought I was the 
only adult who liked these books a bit too much for my own good.  I 
went to www.fanfiction.net, which I was familiar with from other 
fandoms--and there I read some fanfic.  Gypsy.  Samantha.  
Alicia/Sue.  Others who I forget.

Then I started reading rumors about the next book.  Every time I read 
or heard about the Harry/Cho thing, I got a little annoyed... just a 
little, though.  Incurable matchmaker that I am, the idea of H/C just 
struck a wrong chord with me.

And then I read GoF... and got an even worse shock.  I loved the book 
to bits, everything about it... but I was really disquieted by a 
couple of issues.

I went ISO of HP-addicted adults on the day GoF came out because of 
two reasons.  1)  I couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to 
Harry than met the eye... by page 734, I was convinced this wasn't 
some ordinary orphan-kid story.  2)  I couldn't shake off the 
wrongness of the R/H I saw coming.

I searched, and searched in vain.  Jenna banned all talk about GoF at 
the UHPFC for one week after the release.  None of my search engines 
came up with a way to talk to grown-ups who liked HP.  But I just 
*had* to talk to someone about it--so I went back to ff.net.  

Meanwhile, the week after GoF came out, my summer school students 
were all talking about the book.  That's when we had our FITD 
conversations... see main list archives, as I've talked about that 
already.  I went to ff.net every evening that week.  I found some 
decent teen authors... as an English teacher, I can deal with reading 
a lot that your average bear can't.

Then the Friday evening after GoF came out, I found Chapter 12 of 
something called "The Paradigm of Uncertainty".  I remember very 
clearly that I'd read several Evil!Harry fanfictions before it... and 
when I first opened PoU, I was expecting that Harry to be evil too.  
When he wasn't... and when I saw that the fic was a little bit 
different than the rest in the pack, I went back to chapter 1.

And then I sat for two hours and read.

And then I immediately e-mailed Lori.

And then I joined the PoU list... and annoyed them with my GoF 
questions until Sister Mary Lunatic gave me links to 
harrypotteranonymous and HP4GU.

And then on PoU later that month, when I expressed my extreme 
disappointment that GoF had foisted R/H upon us, Penny went into H/H 
Missionary Mode.

And then I compared that to what my students said.

And the rest is history.

For the record, I wasn't as militant of an H/H shipper as I am now 
until December, when I posted my Freud theory to the list.  After 
that night, I knew that there was no turning back.

So GoF didn't help my shippiness much... it almost knocked me 
completely out of it.  Strictly speaking, had there been no Internet 
this year, and had I been something other than a teacher, I'd be a 
confirmed no-shipper (and like the books just a tinge less, as I feel 
that a hint of romance is the salt and spice of life).  

Enough rambling!

--Ebony (who regrets that she was not an HP4GU on GoF release 
weekend, but now feels as if she's been around forever)