Opal Necklace and Dumbledore

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 169764

JLyon wrote:
<snip> 
> The other thing that I really noticed listening to HBP is that Harry
keeps smelling flowers. This starts in his room in #12 where he smells
flowers and gun powder (wonder where he ever smelled fired gun
powder?). Then he smells it again with Ginny, then he smells it ove
the love potion in Slug's class, and then he again smells it when
Ginny comes up to him. I know JKR won't do it, but it sure seems as
though Harry (and many other people) are under the influence of a love
potion or other mind altering concoction. I have "shipped" H/G since
book 1, but HBP was just not believable and I almost hope that book 7
not only clears things up but gives Harry are believable love
interest. Right now, just based on canon characters, I still think
Ginny is a good fit for Harry, but the relationship just wasn't "real"
in the book.

Carol responds:

I'm snipping your first paragraph simply because, while I understand
how you feel, I don't share your feelings, nor do I dislike Dumbledore
or consider him "dumb." I can't alter your feelings, so I won't try,
but I understand clearly where those other characters' doubts were
coming from (and, of course, it was necessary to the plot for Draco to
succeed in fixing the cabinet).

But regarding the smell of flowers, my reading is that Ginny wears
some sort of flowery cologne, which Harry was dimly aware of and
associated with her in his unconscious mind, so that's what he smelled
(among other things) in the Amortentia potion. When he encounters the
smell again, Ginny is actually present, wearing her cologne, and he
eventually recognizes it as Ginny's "scent." I don't think that any
characters other than Ron after he eats the chocolates intended by
Romilda (a semi-bad Gryffindor like McClaggen, hooray!) are under the
influence of a love potion.

As for Harry and Ginny, I agree that they've been intended for each
other since Book 1 (why else have the little girl running after the
train?), but I haven't liked Ginny since OoP, and I agree that the
romance or whatever it was was badly handled and badly timed--blooming
just as Harry is serving his detentions and supposed to be regretting
using an unknown curse that almost resulted in another student's
death. (I didn't like Ginny's reaction to Sectumsempra as "something
good," either. Wonder if she still feels that way now that she knows
it was invented by Snape, whom she thinks is an evil murderer?)

Carol, wondering if Harry will reject all of the HBP's useful spells,
even Muffliato, now that he knows who invented them