Shipping thoughts and Ginny Weasley

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 33124

Firstly, I'm a ship-agnostic; I'm very much "along for the ride" and
whatever Herself comes up with is just fine with me.  I will be happy to
keep on reading no matter who ends up with who...although if Ginny, Hermione
and Cho Chang end up as Severus Snape's love-slaves, I will cough behind my
hand.  (Or say "What's HE got that I haven't got?"  :} )

That being said, I can see a problem with Harry/Cho that AFAIR nobody's
brought up much: age difference.  Back when I was a teenager (when dinosaurs
roamed the earth), a girl going out with a guy a year or so older was the
norm, but the only girl who would let herself be seen with a younger guy was
the sort who didn't mind being characterized by her friends as a total loser
in the Game of Girlness.  It's partly a status-thing, and partly because
girls do mature more quickly than boys do.  I imagine that Hermione took the
whole Yule Ball more seriously than her two best friends...and at Harry's
age, I'd have reacted to McGonagall's ukase about the Ball roughly as
follows:

"What am I planning to do, Professor McGonagall?  Oh, Hermione's been after
me to catch up on my reading, so I...Me?  A _partner?_  Go to the _Ball?_
Oh, ha, ha, you are humorous!  Wait a sec, you aren't laughing...you're
_serious?_  And _where_ do you expect me to find such a thing?  Oh.  Ask one
of my classmates?  *a beat*  Riiiight.  Seriously, my chances of finding
anybody who would scrape the bottom of the barrel hard enough to be willing
to be seen with the likes of me at the Yule Ball, or any other such
occasion, are about like those of a tissue-paper dog successfully chasing an
asbestos cat through Hell."  Detention, here I come! (And eat your heart
out, Edmund Blackadder!)

Still and all, though, if you can override the age problem, Harry and Cho do
have an advantage that either Ron/Hermione or Harry/Hermione lack...the very
fact that Cho is _not_ one of the Trio.  In a lot of ways, the relationship
between Hermione and her two best buds puts me in mind of Modesty Blaise and
her right-hand man, Willie Garvin...they don't ever sleep together _because_
what they have is so close and so very special that sleeping together would
change it for the worse and probably spoil it altogether.  The Trio might
feel, even if not consciously, that they're as close as siblings, and feel
the same disinclination to get physical that opposite-sex siblings do.
They're _already_ together almost all the time...if nothing else, for each
of them to take up with someone outside of the Trio would blow some fresh
air and some new viewpoints into their deliberations.

Ginny Weasley's behavior toward Harry in the first two books is admittedly
immature for a girl of about 10, but ISTR that age-regression is not unknown
among children faced with stressful situations.  Seeing the _last_ of her
brothers off to boarding school, even though Ginny's happy for Ron, would
also be a sad time for her, since she's probably never been without at least
one brother around for her whole life.  (Poor girl...to have GredandForge
for big brothers!  OY!)  Under the circs, a little age-regressive behavior
is not out of line.  Later on, when she has _The FAMOUS *HARRY POTTER*_
living _in her home,_ she's probably shy partly because she _hasn't_ met too
many people outside her family and partly because her mum's told her in very
certain language that she's _not_ to pester or bother their very famous
guest..."and I mean it, Virginia Weasley!  I don't want to hear you asking
him about You-Know-Who, or his scar, or those horrid Muggles he lives with!
You let that boy be!"  Harry, himself, has very little experience with
younger children and doesn't know how to put her at her ease with him---I
probably could, myself, but I'm old enough to easily have been at Hogwarts
with James and the Marauders.  (Double OY!)  Later on, in GoF, she seems to
be a lot more at ease with Harry, and he with her.

Eric, either a very Ravenclawish Slytherin or a somewhat Slytherinish
Ravenclaw, Hogwarts '79