Name: Virginia reviewed Single on Aug 12, 2005 04:48 pm

Wow, that was a hell of a theory! I'm not totally sure about it, because (as you said), H/G could've been just poorly writing romance as it could turn out to be a brilliant plot such as yours. I'm not holding my breath, though I'm quite curious about your next theory!

Name: Hermione Sweetheart reviewed Single on Aug 11, 2005 01:23 pm

Wow! That was so detailed and awesome. At first I thought it was insane, but reading through it makes perfect sense! Look at all the evidence!

Name: Padfootlover reviewed Single on Aug 11, 2005 11:03 am

Wow - that was amazing. People have called us JKR bashers, but I think what you thought of HBP is a mark of how much you trust JKR. If you believe she'd write something so bad without giving any excuse for it in the next book, then that shows you don't have much faith in JKR as a writer. I'm trying to believe there's some sort of explination for it, and, like you, I thought the Love Potion theory was just denial. Now that I see your evidence, I feel better about it. I really hope you're right, and this was a wonderfully written essay. Amazing job.:)

Name: Lysette reviewed Single on Aug 11, 2005 06:18 am

I still think Hermione did the whole thing out of a misguide sense of love. Hermione does love Harry, but has decided that Harry will never love her back, so Hermione took it on herself to pick out the perfect, ideal girl for her friend Harry, namely Ginny. Ginny is just like Cho, only a lot more cheerful and better. Harry needs Cheerful since Sirius died. It is for the best. Who cares that he has never shown ANY interest in her before, once he gets to know her, he will see that she is just perfect for him. Women do this sort of stupidity all the time, only it gets really funny when they do it for their Gay male friends, and men hate them for it. Men do it too, but they would rather have an accident with a cigar cutter than admit it. It is always for his or her own good, and it usually ends badly. That has never stopped Matchmakers before. I still thing the ultimate irony is if Harry really was falling in love with Hermione, and all her matchmaking destroyed it. As for Harry and Draco, I think the potions effects are wearing off there as well, and for the first time ever, Harry sees that Draco struggles to keep up appearances that everything is fine every day, when it really is not. They both have obligations to others that they neither understand nor did they chose to make, but they both have to keep going regardless of their personal feelings on the matter. It gives them both a common ground. It is like when it has happened that solders from both sides of a war celebrate Christmas together because they are all just men that are far from their homes and families during the Holiday Season. If only for a few days they are not Enemies. I think Harry finally saw Draco as just a boy who is in far over his head, and not some evil enemy that must be beaten at any costs.

Name: creamtea reviewed Single on Aug 10, 2005 10:47 pm

will write much more later - but on the gunpowder comment: the Twins hadn't been in that room for months. All their school time then setting up shop means they were out of that room for months not weeks. If they had 'popped back' then their workshop would still have been in Diagon Alley. IMO the smell wasn't from the Twins explosions.

Name: potterlovegood reviewed Single on Aug 10, 2005 04:09 pm

Absolutely brilliant creamtea!!! There are a few weak spots but overall I think you have definitely got something here. Two things I want to add: 1) I was a little skeptical about Hermione actually lying to Harry, but then I remember that we know for a fact after reading HBP that Hermione has already lied to Harry in the past. In OotP when she tells Ron and Harry that Ginny is over Harry, we now know this to be a lie. Ginny tells us at the end that Hermione knew all a long that Ginny was not over Harry she was just trying to move on. and 2) I think another strong motivation for why Hermione would have given Harry the love potion, was for Harry himself. Do you remember how invested Hermione was in Harry's relationship with Cho? She was actually trying to give him advice. I think Hermione, in her mind, was trying to help Harry, maybe given him a distraction. She saw how distracted he was with Cho, I think she was trying to give him a little push with Ginny, knowing that Ginny still liked him, so that he would have something else to think about other than Sirius' death and Voldemort. Again, trying to control the situation. I personally never thought Hermione had a romantic interest in Harry, I think she is more like his mother and she was trying to help her son by manipulating his emotions the best way she knew how, using magic.

Name: Kathryn reviewed Single on Aug 10, 2005 02:09 pm

Wow. What a mind-blowing essay. After reading it I actually think a love potion theory is plausible! Especially how it explains Hermione's reactions to Harry whenever Ginny is mentioned, and why the whole relationship seemed clumsily written. Perhaps now D/G is a possibility after all! *clings to desperate hope* As a D/G shipper, though, one thing I noticed was that during the latter half of the book, Harry was obsessed with 2 people: Draco and Ginny! (albeit for different reasons). I thought it was kind of neat that his two best friends end up together (R/Hr). Maybe this means that the 2 more minor characters he was totally obsessed with will end up together too? Anyhow, LOVED your essay to death!!!

Name: Lysette reviewed Single on Aug 10, 2005 10:34 am

Creamtea and I discussed this several times and we agree on most points but one. Why Hermione would do this to her friend Harry? She thinks that Hermione is helping out her friend Ginny, while I think Hermione had far more personal reasons for doing this. I firmly believe that at the beginning of HBP, Hermione had been in love with Harry for nearly five years, since the Troll Incident to be sure. In CoS, we see just whom Hermione fancies her ideal man to be namely Lockhart, the “Great Hero” and idol to “millions.” Lockhart is proved to be a fake, but Harry her friend proves once again to be the real thing by saving her other friend Ginny in the Chamber. Given that Hermione spends her time at the Burrow staying in Ginny’s room, she has heard often about Ginny’s Crush on Harry Potter. Something she shares although unknown to Ginny. SPEW was partly because of Harry freeing Dolby, the House Elf, and Hermione is disappointed when Harry does not support her in it. Harry does think of her fondly because of it, but keeps it to himself. Notice SPEW is completely dropped by Hermione in HBP, and only Harry brings it up. Then there is the Yule Ball, and I do think Hermione went to the ball with Viktor and spent three hours getting ready because she wanted a reaction from Harry. One that was never spoken to her. Instead Ron spends the night jumping all over her for “fraternizing with the Enemy.” How many people in Great Britain remember the WWII posters about “loose lips sink ships?" Anyhow, Ginny might fancy that if only Harry would notice her, he would love her. Fangirl and rockstar, it’s the same thing. Hermione on the other hand has FIVE YEARS of being with Harry daily for up to eleven months out of the year, and Harry has never noticed her that she could see. She has no way of knowing how much she creeps into his thoughts every day. Hermione does not like Chance. She likes FACTS. The fact is after five years, to her knowledge; Harry does not feel any more for her than he does Ron. Hermione is forgeting that Harry is a year young, a boy so they amture slower as it is, and with his upbringing, recognizing love within himself would take time. Thes are two very proud and insecure people who are to frighten of rejection to risk putting themselves out there. Cho had to ask Harry, not the other way around. Then in OotP, Hermione learns first hand what kind of a girl Harry does fancy, namely Cho. He likes a pretty, popular, athletic, small girl. Sadly Hermione is none of these things but small. She does not know about Harry’s breakdown at the DoM due to Hermione’s fall. She does not know that if she had died, he would have happily let the Death Eaters kill him and fall lifeless over her body. Very Romeo and Juliet, that, but I think Harry actually likes grand gestures. “Realizing” that Harry could never feel for her, what she feels for him, she decides on the plan to give Harry the ideal perfect girl he wants, Ginny. He just hasn’t figured out he wants Ginny yet. I suspect Molly may have planted some of this by her own Matchmaking efforts and complaining that if only Harry would just see how perfect Ginny is for him. Molly also likes to organize and control the lives of everyone around her without any regard for what they want. Molly always knows best. Hermione puts her great plan into action, but you can’t manufacture love that was never there to begin with. It just doesn’t happen. Harry never loved Ginny, and no amount of Love Potion (Insert Date Rape Drug) will change that. I firmly believe that the reason it takes so long for Hermione’s plan to work is because Harry was in love, only it was not with Ginny. It took Hermione attacking him about the attack on Malfoy while he was down, and Ginny defending him, no matter how stupid it was to get the potion to really kick in. Harry thought Hermione didn’t care for him anymore, and his lonely battle against the Love Potion was lost. In book seven we will see the aftermath of it all. Harry will be rightly furious that someone he cares for and trusted would use him so. They have told girls for years to never drink anything at a party or a club that they did not open themselves because of the Date Rape Drug. Well Hermione used it on her good friend Harry, just to “tweak the circumstances” to make them come out "right." Harry has been violated just like Ron was, and that is something you do not get over easy when it is someone you don’t know, much less someone you thought you loved and trusted with your very life.

Name: Caleythia reviewed Single on Aug 10, 2005 10:12 am

I've never been much into shipping, mainly because all of my ships are pure fanon and slash. The only thing I know about het ships are what I read while moderating VENOM. I've never cared either wya about H/G. After seeing all the talk about this essay, I decided to assauge my curiosity and give it a read. Let me say: I am impressed. From a purely structural standpoint, this is a very well written and organized essay. You've presented very clear and effective evidence and backed up all of your points well. On the issue of H/G, let me begin by saying that I did not like the way it was written in HBP, from the perpective of an out-and-out romance. The information you've presented, however, has made me reassess my view of the whole affair. Your logic on the topic, is, I think, flawless. Your essay makes perfect sense and I hope to see this come out in Book 7. Thank you for sharing this lovely essay. ~Caleythia~

Name: Myanceris reviewed Single on Aug 10, 2005 09:48 am

Wow. That is awesome. A lot of things certainly make a lot more sense. I remember thinking to myself while reading the book that a lot of things about the H/G ship didn't fit and I said myself that it was superficially clumsily done, but upon reading your theory, it seems much more likely that it was clever writing because we all know that JKR is a clever writer and the shallow trite-ness of the H/G ship in HBP seemed so out of character for JKR's writing that I was almost embarrassed to read it, but if we take what we know of her subtle blending of plotlines from the first few books then it is much more plausible that things with H/G aren't exactly as they seem. In any case, I hope and pray that you are right because if it turns out to be genuine, then it will well and truly be an iconoclastic revelation.

Name: Lutter reviewed Single on Aug 10, 2005 08:18 am

You, my friend, are a genius. I've never read anything like this. Every word of your essay makes sense, and my faith has quickly grown back. Once again, big time props! Harmonians won't be too happy with ur essay though, even more so then H/G shippers :D