SHIP! H/G indicators of Harry's feelings for Ginny (+ Emma)

[Marianne S.]

No: HPFGUIDX 136692

I think maybe people are making much too much out of the simple
truth of Harry and the Love Potion. 

To Harry, the POTION that smells like Ginny. He does not fall for 
her because of this, but quite the opposite... he smells this 
because he has already fallen for Ginny and doesn't realize it. 

Ginny is not wearing or trying to deliberately recreate the scent 
of the potion. (No one was even aware of what the scents were but 
Harry.) If she was wearing Amortentia, wouldn't she also smell like 
treacle and broomsticks, not just flowers? (Side note... I can't 
help wondering what of Ron Hermione's third scent was... hope
it wasn't his socks!)

Harry finds the flowery scent to be of something vaguely familiar, 
something from the Burrow. It seems to me that it is because of 
the time they spend together at the Burrow that Harry grows 
accustomed, and then attracted, to Ginny. His interractions with 
her over the last couple years lead up to it just as JKR wanted them 
to. Harry's subconscious ) know he's attracted to the scent because
 it is Ginny's scent before even Harry knows it knows it. We know this 
because Harry smells the scent in the Great Hall... thinking that 
someone got the scent from the classroom.... He still isn't quite 
making the connection to Ginny. I, for one, enjoyed reading how 
he got there. 

I also see no evidence that Amortentia is the love potion that Fred 
and George sell. It is the most potent love potion, yes, cleverly made
 this way because it acts on smell, our strongest memory evoking 
scent. It seems like the love potions that are ordered from Fred and 
George are ones that are ingested in food or drink, and probably not 
as powerful or long lasting. Otherwise, Romilda Vane would have just 
worn the perfume/potion, rather than put something into Gilly Water.

Another thing I find very interesting is all the shipping for 
characters that you have to read deep into JKR's subtext to find.
 Although I think there ARE some things that JKR intends us not 
to know for sure...  I have said before that I think there are 
definitely things JKR intends us to be undecided about... such 
as Is Snape ESE! or Good!, but relationships, which are in the 
background of the story, are meant to be as clear to us as they are 
to the Characters themselves. She has been building up to Harry/Ginny 
and Ron/Hermione for years. Many readers saw this in the books, 
even before JKR validated it in interviews. 

Those readers looking for an Emma like twist... If there's one 
to be found, I think we already GOT it. Harry spent around 2 
years pining for Cho, and then fell for the girl who was just a 
Friend and his Best Mate's Sister at that... the girl who was 
always there. Mr. Knightly fell in love with his friend Emma even 
though she was pursuing other suitors. Although I don't believe 
Dean is secretly engaged to someone, Harry does definitely get 
jealous of the time Ginny spends with him, much like Mr. Knightly 
gets jealous of the time Emma spends with Frank. I don't think 
that we have to worry about other Emma like twists, such as Luna 
being similar to Harriet and falling for Harry... and if by some very
slim chance it did, I think Harry would still find a way to let her 
down gently and stay with Ginny. But even this, what I think is 
the most probable of remote Emma correllations, is highly unlikely
because Luna does not seem as concerned about finding love as 
Harriet is. Nor do I think Ginny has been offering advice to Luna, 
and I don't think Luna's the type to ask for it. The other only 
remotely likely Emma-like twist could be how we are led to believe 
that Mrs. Weasley wants Tonks for Bill or Harry believing that 
Tonks was in love with Sirius. Again, though, I think it's a stretch. 
Perhaps JKR aspires to have Emma like twists only in her MAIN plot, 
which does not have to do with specific ships. I think she's woven 
her story very well, in fact, but but perhaps people are confused 
because the main plot of Emma had to do with love relationships, 
so they take JKR's words to mean she is trying to have twists in her 
romantic ships, where I think they are meant to be twists in the 
relationships between Harry/Dumbledore/Snape/Lily/James/Petunia/
Sirius etc. 

All of this makes me wonder how and why people are able to see 
things and ships like H/Hr or H/L when they are clearly not what
the author intended, and go not only against canon and the author's 
implied pointof view, but the point of view she has explicitly stated 
in interviews. That is, we are not meant to imagine ships between 
characters that she doesn't intend ships with. The one exception here
is Tonks/Sirius/Remus... I think we are meant to follow Harry's train 
of though on that one. Anyway, it just seems rather dissatisfying to
imagine the convoluted ships that the authorhas not intended, and 
I fear it makes some people miserable reading the books when there 
is so much more to enjoy!  Because, as we know from the dementors, 
misery can breed. 

Marianne S - hoping that more people will enjoy the ships that 
are there (or just not care), and not be so bitter about the ships 
that were never meant to sail.