Hermione's Amortentia smells (was: SHIP! H/G indicators of Harry's...)

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 136551

Susan McGee wrote:
"2. We find out that the potion is Amortentia, the "most powerful love
potion in the world"

Hermione said '"it's supposed to smell differently to each of us,
according to what attracts us, and I can smell freshly mown grass and
 new parchment and ----' But she turned slightly pink and did not
complete the sentence." (p. 185)

Smell is one of the great indicators of erotic attraction
.question,
what was Hermione's third smell? Something that reminded her of Ron? 
Love to hear other's thoughts here.."

Del replies:
I found Hermione's smells very interesting.

1. Freshly mown grass. That's something that I really wouldn't have
expected. It's also something that most probably reminds her of home,
of either herself or one of her parents mowing the lawn on Saturday
morning, or something like that. I found that little bit quite
endearing and quite informative.

2. New parchment. Now that one is very significant for me. Many people
have stated that Hermione is in love with books, but this bit
contradicts this. It's not the smell of old books that she likes, but
the smell of new parchment. That's not the same thing at all. Old
books, to me, suggest knowledge and passivity, someone sitting in a
library for hours on end, while a new parchment suggests to me
creativity and activity, someone writing or drawing or making plans.
Not at all the same. This bit confirms me in my belief that Hermione's
love of learning is not an end in itself. It's only a means to do what
she really loves: *do* stuff, whether by reproducing or by inventing.
Hermione is not learning for the sake of learning, she's learning for
the sake of making life (hers and that of all those she cares about)
better and easier. We don't see her showing off her knowledge just for
the sake of showing what she can do (unlike the Twins and their
overuse of Apparition in OoP, for example), but we do see her using
her knowledge to arrange things or to make them easier (making the
snow melt in front of the Trio so they don't freeze, enchanting the DA
Galleons, repairing stuff, preparing the essence of Murtlap for Harry,
and so on). As such it makes complete sense to me that she would love
the smell of new parchment.

3. The mysterious smell. I agree that it is most probably something
that reminds her of Ron. My bet goes to the "unusual perfume" that Ron
offered her at the previous Christmas.

Del