Hermione's Sigh

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 89378

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Robert Jones" 
<jones.r.h.j at w...> wrote:
> In OOTP, ch. 26, p. 572 (US ed.), Hermione is explaining 
Harry's  problem with Cho to him, and says that he should tell 
Cho that he  thinks Hermione is ugly.  He says he doesn't think 
she's ugly and  then Hermione says he's worse than Ron and 
sighs ". . . maybe not"  as Ron walks in.
> 
> Can someone explain the significance of the sigh to me?  Not 
being a  15 year old girl, I don't understand.
<snip possible explanations>

Well, full disclosure, it's a long time since I was fifteen. But what
I thought was significant was that she first laughs "Harry, you're 
worse than Ron," and then sighs "Well, no you're not," as she 
sees Ron stumping into the Hall, "splattered with mud and 
looking grumpy." 

I think she's sighing over the fact that neither boy seems to have 
the emotional intelligence of a doorknob or to have read the 
manual as far as courtship is concerned. She thought she was 
making some progress with Ron when he gave her the perfume, 
but Ron is obviously still losing his head on the Quidditch field  
*and* he hasn't cleaned himself up before meeting Hermione at 
dinner. 

Hermione's a girl who wants to be courted, IMO. She doesn't 
have quite the confidence that Cho does to cut her fella out of the 
herd and rope him, so to speak. I think it is jealousy of this
ability, rather than a desire for Harry per se, that led her to 
sabotage Cho's date though perhaps she'd like to elicit a little 
romantic interest from Harry, just to prove to herself that she has 
what it takes. 

Pippin