SHIP: Reading With Hindsight ,D/H; Hermione's role in Draco's future development

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 50638


Heidi wrote:

> This, of course, leads me to the "meta" question I always 
> have about SHIPping. I read the books individually - in 
> other words, I read PS, and had to wait for the release of 
> CoS, then the release of PoA, then GoF and am, of course, 
> still waiting for OoTP. And it took involvement in the fandom 
> for me to see that Ron had a crush on Hermione in GoF - and I
> still can't see it anywhere before that. 

Huh.  It's an interesting meta-question, to be sure.

I first read the books right after the release of CoS.

I thought it clear that Ron had a crush on Hermione in GoF,
but it had not occurred to me before then.  Looking back on
it now, I do see signs of that interest beginning in CoS, 
but it's "reading through hindsight," as it were.  It did 
not occur to me at the time, and it is only in retrospect
that I interpret certain events in CoS and PoA as indicative 
of romantic foreshadowing for Ron and Hermione.

As for Draco, I do think that he has a crush on Hermione,
but this reading was only suggested to me post-GoF, by the 
conversations of adolescent boys on whom I was eavesdropping 
at my workplace.  (Is that as pathetic as it gets, or what?)
As with Ron and Hermione, I *now* see signs of it beginning 
in CoS.  But again, this is reading through hindsight.  I
didn't notice any such indications before GoF.

I do find Draco's behavior towards Hermione suggestive of a 
certain immature and ambivalent crush-y fascination.  I 
find it interesting that in all those scenes when he's 
pestering and harassing and baiting Ron and Harry, he
so very rarely addresses Hermione.  He very rarely speaks
to her at *all,* in fact, and when he does, I think that 
he does come across like a rather disturbed and nasty
little boy who has a bit of a crush on a person he knows
he's supposed to want dead. 

----------

"Oh very funny," Hermione said sarcastically to Pansy Parkinson
and her gang of Slytherin girls, who were laughing harder than
anyone, "really witty."

Ron was standing against the wall with Dean and Seamus. He
wasn't laughing, but he wasn't sticking up for Harry either.

"Want one, Granger?" said Malfoy, holding out a badge to
Hermione. "I've got loads. But don't touch my hand, now. I've just
washed it, you see; don't want a Mudblood sliming it up."

-----------

Nasty, yes.  Very nasty.  But surely a proper little pure-blood
shouldn't have initiated a conversation with her at all?  Far
less gone to all the trouble to cross those carefully established
gender lines along which the Slyth/Gryff conflict had been being 
conducted right up to that point?

I read a twisted little crush there, myself.

I don't think that we're ever going to see D/H in canon.  I
do find myself suspecting, though, that if JKR does have a 
Redeemed!Draco scenario in mind, then Hermione very likely
will have an important role to play in that plot development.

In fact, even if we *don't* see a Redeemed!Draco scenario,
I still think that Hermione is going to have a part to play 
in Draco's role in future canon, as I do think it likely 
that JKR plans to give him some further development in
the upcoming volumes.

For one thing, if the author were ever to grant Draco any
degree of self-reflection (which she really is going to 
have to do, one way or another, I think, because whatever
narrative utility Draco in his current state ever had as 
a peer rival for Harry has pretty much been exhausted at 
this point in the series), then Hermione would be the 
obvious hook to hang that on, not least of which because
of our main characters, she is the one who is Muggle-born.  
In many ways, the DEs as a group are far more firmly 
established as *her* antagonists than they are as Harry's.

Harry's enemy is Voldemort himself, and it is with Voldemort
himself that he is both most strongly textually linked and 
ultimately concerned.  Voldemort's mionions serve only to
deliver Harry to his final showdowns with Voldemort in
these books.  when the novel ends with a Voldemort 
confrontation (as it does in all of them so far save
PoA), then Harry winds up facing Voldemort himself 
and Voldemort alone.  Even at the end of PS/SS,
Quirrell is shoved out of the way in the final conflict,
allowing Voldemort and Harry to face each other 
unimpeded.

Ron and Hermione, on the other hand, strike me as more 
strongly pitted against the DEs -- and particularly against
the Malfoy family.  Draco is in many ways established more
as Ron's enemy than as Harry's.  Both Malfoy vs. Weasley 
and Draco vs. Hermione take center stage in CoS.  In GoF, 
it is Hermione who receives Draco's ambiguously stated
gloat at the QWC, and it is Hermione who is pitted against
Rita Skeeter (who is textually linked to the Malfoys by
virtue of receiving her information from Draco).  At the
beginning of GoF, JKR goes out of her way to establish 
Lucius Malfoy's revulsion towards Hermione at the QWC, 
just as she went out of her way to show him responding 
to the Grangers as well as the Weasleys at the beginning 
of CoS.

I find all of this very suggestive, particularly in
light of what seems to be a developing R/H ship in GoF.  
What it suggests to my mind is that in some way, the 
Malfoy family is being textually established as the 
designated enemy for both Ron *and* Hermione.

But surely that would be redundant, wouldn't it?  What 
would be the point of aligning Malfoy vs. Ron *and*
Malfoy vs. Hermione?

Well, the obvious answer, to my mind, is that Ron and 
Hermione are *not* in fact going to wind up in precisely 
the same relationship to the Malfoy family.  There will
be some subtle difference in how the drama of those
interactions will play out.

A Redeemed!Draco or BlowsHisChanceForRedemption!Draco 
or even a BetraysOurHeroes!Draco scenario in which Hermione 
plays the supportive/sympathetic/sucker role, while Ron 
plays the antagonistic function, does seem a likely 
possibility to me.

Especially since, as Heidi wrote on a different thread:

> 1. Hermione has occasionally been more concerned with What 
> Is Right than How Her Friends Feel (the firebolt, for 
> example) - thus, if someone on the Bad Side like Draco put 
> up a pretense of Moving Towards Good she would likely be the 
> first of the three to be willing to give him a chance, which 
> could lead her into a trap if Draco turned out to be Not So 
> good After All. 

Yup.  She keeps Lupin's secret for him.  She founds SPEW.
She holds no truck with the wizarding world's prejudices.  
She flouts the Common Wisdom.  She's a sucker for lost 
causes.  

As, you know, am I.


Elkins