No-ship Harry - GLBT - Reading Ahead - Gorgeous Granger

[Amy Z]

No: HPFGUIDX 20795

Rebecca asked:

>With all of that weighing on his mind, how much time is he going
>to spend thinking about dating and romance?

>And even if Harry did have the time and energy to include a girlfriend in
>his life, do you think he would really want to put her through all the
>struggles and dangers that he is about to experience?  <snip>

>I can see another teenaged boy throwing caution to the
>wind and starting up a romance anyway (*cough*Ron*cough*) but not Harry.  
>He
>thinks too much, and he worries too much, to do that.

All of this is perfectly reasonable.  However, the heart has its reasons of 
which reason knows nothing.  I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of 
conflict arose once Harry =was= in love with someone--i.e., nightmares that 
Voldemort will use his love as a hostage will become a fresh source of 
worry--but that it would actually keep him from falling for someone?  Or 
even from acting on his feelings, at least initially?  Harry worries, but 
when it comes to rushing in, he's just a step behind Ron.  Love has a 
particular talent for bringing out the impulsivity in people--you know, 
making them sleep with their potions professor, things like that <grins 
appreciatively at Rebecca>.

I'm actually a Harry no-shipper too, just because I can't really see him 
with anyone we've met so far.  (My favorite Harry/anyone pairing in fanfic 
is H/D, but do I really imagine that Jo is going to go there . . . ?!)  But 
his feelings could swing overnight.  Up through PA 12 we've never heard of 
Cho; in PA 13 we hear her name for the first time , and by the end of the 
chapter Harry has a crush on her; by GF we know it has dug in.  He could be 
deeply in love with someone by OoP chapter 2.

>David, jumping into the water

Terrific post, David--one of those that leaves me with nothing to say but 
"uh-huh!!"  As for being in the water, have no fear.  Shippers of all 
descriptions will be chugging over frantically to be the first to lower you 
a buoy.

Hermy Sue wrote:

>Hello, newbie here does anyone feel that jkrowling should have more
>lesbianism and gay stuff

::raises hand::  Not H/D, though--like Jo, I think that's just a wee bit 
improbable in canon.  What I would like would be to see gay characters, just 
as a matter of course, not necessarily with any plot lines or "explorations 
of gay culture" attached (yeesh, she has enough to do)--just a side comment 
about Dean and Ernie going to the next ball together (Seamus/Dean shippers, 
stop throwing things at me.  S and D are just friends!).  One source of 
anguish for gay teens in real life is invisibility at things like 
dances--wouldn't it be great to see a same-sex couple dancing and only the 
Slytherins having any problem with it?  If we didn't already see it with 
Mad-Eye Moody and Sex-Unknown Sinistra.

Anyway, I doubt JKR is going to pull the Invisibility Cloak off gay Hogwarts 
students and staff, as much as I might wish otherwise.

Re: reading the last pages first, I am so relieved to hear I'm not the only 
person who does this!  I almost always regret it, however, so I'm going to 
resist with this most awaited of books.  In the case of OoP, I know I'm 
going to get there within a matter of hours anyway, so what's the rush?  I'm 
not going to sleep from the moment I pick it up to the moment I finish it.

Andrea wrote:

>She thinks she's perfectly fine without all that mess of
>hair gel and whatever else she had to do in those
>hours she prepared for the Ball, and that's something
>to admire.

I do admire it, and it's the saving of this scene, IMO.  Also, I agree with 
whoever wrote that the brains-OR-beauty dichotomy is too common (in fiction 
and in life) and that it's nice to see JKR burst it.  The problem is that 
the Plain Girl Who's Just Lovely if She Puts on a Little Makeup and Does 
Something with Her Hair is a cliche too (all I have to do is think of Ally 
Sheedy in "The Breakfast Club" and I break out in hives).

I have a bunch more to say about this, but it's drifting OT, so bop on over 
to OT-chatter if you'd like to read it.

Amy Z

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His immediate reaction was that it would
be worth becoming a prefect just to be able
to use this bathroom.
                  -HP and the Goblet of Fire
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