Harry, Hermione & Ron [SHIP + CRAB]

[Doriane]

No: HPFGUIDX 74616

Charlie Moody wrote:

> Indeed, I'll bet that Cho caught his eye in the first place because 
> she's so different in appearance from Hermione - he's never had to 
> do without Hermione (as he had to do without Ron in Book 4), and so 
> he's never had to weight the impact of a Hermione-shaped hole in 
> his life.

Unless your "never" means "since book 4", I'm afraid you're wrong. He 
had to do without Hermione in PoA, when the boys threw a major 
tantrum at her over the Firebolt Affair, and sulked at her for weeks 
on. And even when Hagrid told them how miserable Hermione was and how 
she was crying and everything, neither of them relented. They were 
doing quite fine without her, and they didn't care about hurting her 
feelings.

But the most telling thing for me is precisely that time when he had 
to do without Ron. If he was interested in Hermione, he would have 
been happy to spend some more time with her. But he wasn't ! In fact, 
he was bored with only her around.

So : he doesn't suffer when he sees less of her, and he's not happy 
when he sees more of her. I can hardly see how this can be twisted 
into : he's romantically interested in her.

> Re-read the Yule Ball chapter from GoF - even when she's with 
> Viktor @ the Ball, she's focusing as much attention on Harry as on 
> him. 

Of course she is. Harry is her friend, Viktor is only her date. I 
think we all agree that she's not in love with Viktor. Which means 
that, though it's probably nice to spend some time with him, still it 
doesn't compare to spending time with her best friends, which happen 
to be Harry and Ron.

> Viktor is, instead, jealous of Harry - because Harry's all she 
> talks about, 

Yes, I can imagine that she would, for one obvious reason : she's 
*scared* for Harry. She knows the tasks can be dangerous, so she's 
scared for him. She also knows that whoever put his name in the 
Goblet wants him dead. So you bet she's scared ! And so she's bound 
to talk about him to Viktor.
Moreover, you're interpreting the books here : nowhere does it say 
that Harry is *all* she talks about. I'll bet she only mentions him 
once in a while, which she is bound to do, considering that they 
spent most of their life at Hogwarts together. So how could she avoid 
the "Oh, one day, Harry did something so funny, let me tell you", 
or "Harry says that", or "With Harry once we did this", etc... And 
you know what ? I'll bet she mentions Ron just as often. But because 
Ron is neither a celebrity nor one of his opponent in the Tournament, 
Viktor doesn't care about him.

> she's always trying to catch Harry's eye,

Do you have examples of that ?

> and that's not good enough for Viktor -  he responds w/ jealousy.  
> (Just as Cho responds jealously to every reference Harry makes to 
> Hermione.)

Yep, and both Viktor and Cho are being silly :-) Harry can't figure 
out why on Earth should Cho be jealous of Hermione, and I guess 
Hermione can't either figure why Viktor is jealous of Harry. For one 
simple reason : they are not in love with one another.

> (Yes, Ron pitches a truly spectacular jealous fit in there, too, 
> but Hermione's too pre-occupied to notice him winding up - and her 
> surprise when he lets loose is portrayed as genuine.  If she were 
> actually interested in Ron "that way", and doing all this as a way 
> of winding him up, she could only pretend surprise - and it's been 
> made pretty clear in the books that she doesn't pretend very well.)

I don't think she did all this to wind him up. I think she went out 
with Viktor because he asked her and he's a nice guy and *he made her 
feel like an attractive girl*. From what I see, she got really upset 
when she realized that in Ron's eyes, she'd never even been a true 
girl : even without having any romantic interest in a boy, it hurts 
*mightily* to realize that kind of thing ! I know : because I'm fat, 
I'm not a woman for most men, I'm just a pal, and believe me it hurt, 
even when I wasn't interested in them at all. And when Ron and 
Hermione get in the big fight after the ball, I think she's mad 
because Ron is telling her she shouldn't have gone with Viktor, which 
for her at that time translates into : can't you see how ridiculous 
you are acting, thinking that a guy can truly be interested in you, 
thinking you can truly be an attractive girl ? And when she tells him 
that next time he should invite her first, what she's saying is : it 
hurts me that you deny my femininity, please open your eyes and start 
acting like you're a boy and I'm a girl. She needs to *please*, she 
needs to know she can seduce a guy. She's a teenage girl.

Del

ps : the fact that she's granting so much importance to Ron's 
opinion, though, seems to me to indicate that he's got a special 
place in her heart. She doesn't care anywhere as much that Harry 
doesn't see as a girl...