Wow... The evidence does point to Hermione spiking Harry with love potion, and you've got me convinced that it's entirely canon and possible. However, I'm not quite sure this is the case... it may just be JKR's poor description of their relationship, and all references to the love potion spiking incidents are coincidents. I've never been one to believe in coincidences, though. Great theory, I loved it!

Wow, I'm so impressed with the thought and research put into this essay. It was something I never considered, something that I didn't think I could accept, but you've managed to show it in a very plausible way and I feel that it very well could turn out to be true. I'm looking forward to reading the last book and seeing how true your theory holds.

Potions 101 Generally, when you are doing any kind of magic that needs to target a specific individual, you need something personal of theirs, going by folklore. Often this personal idem is hair or nail clippings. In "Robin of Sherwood" magic, particularly Dark Magic, was all around, and people burned hair and nail clippings to ash before burying them to keep safe from having them used in magic against them. Having a lock of hair stolen could mean someone was in mortal peril, since Blood Magic was common. (Making Horcruxes is a form of Blood Magic, and the more powerful the Blood Magic the more blood need. I think you can't just kill someone, but you have to spill their blood. That would make it impossible for Harry to be a Horcrux because no actual blood was spilt. No time.) Potterverse doesn't seem to be that paranoid, so getting hair and nail clippings would be easy. Voldemort did use Harry's blood as part of the ritual to create himself a new body. Getting a few long red hairs to make someone fall in love with Ginny would not be hard for someone who shares a room with Ginny whenever she is staying at the Burrow.

Would just like to address some points in your response to me: you accused me of having an 'emotional investment' in the characters, and insisted that you don't?? what do you call this?? you're the one who's written up a REALLLLY long essay to support a theory that is probably never, ever going to happen!!! don't tell me that's the work of a dispassionate, detached mind!! I think you've probably got a lot more invested in D & G in terms of time, speculation and effort than i ever will in ANY of the characters or ships, being a mere reader of HP. And btw, being a 'Hermione fan' isn't a bad thing, as you tried to insinuate. I like all the characters, as FICTIONAL fun characters who are good to read. It isn't a mutually exclusive thing, you know. Liking Ron or Hermione doesn't mean I hate Ginny and Draco and Dobby and all the rest... please!! Lastly, when i wrote JKR was 'fond' of Ginny i meant exactly what you responded with: she likes writing her. I didn't mean that JK wants to cuddle and baby her. But i also feel she wouldn't portray her in a seriously negative light NOW when we're nearing the end of the series and she's spent time building up the character. And she did say in her interview that 'Ginny's a powerful witch' (see Mugglenet), which I took to mean she's a strong, confident girl. Turning her into a sad, clingy, Harry obsessed freak would make this like any other sad, B grade teen romance novel. Yawn! Please don't get so hung up on semantics; 'fond' is clearly similiar to 'like'. Or at least it was, the last time I checked. You also failed to address my extremely valid point regarding Hermione's reaction to the whole Quidditch/ Felix/ Ron issue. If you truly thought I was pitching for Hermione there, you're sadly mistaken. You see, I'm just a reader who likes to stick to the author's interpretation of her work and her characters, rather than yours or anyone else's. Speculation is fun, but there's a limit, i think. Just wanted to get my opinion across, and I hope you won't be mortally offended by it!

I'm beginning to think I should simply GRADE posts - it saves an awful lot of my time. So let me think now, what do I give that last one? It had ... no arguement, zero evidence, a pathetic over-reliance on personal flaming, and - oh yes - a very novel approach to the use of grammar. T for Troll, I think.

EMMA, as I said before – you are trying to build a case on zero evidence, upon information which we are not given, hence you have no case. As we are never told how Love Potions work (and there are more than one type of Love Potion – for Amortentia to be THE most powerful, there would have to be others, and Harry refers to A love potion, and not just love potion, hence they might work in different ways), we cannot say how they would or would not work. Also ‘subtle’ is a product of your own mind - I never said ‘subtle’ in my essay with reference to the type of potion used by Hermione. Kindly read my answers to others’ posts: I make it clear that IMO at The Burrow she was aiming at potion, but landed on Pastille. GRYFFINDORRED: I take it you are a Hermione fan? Why on earth wouldn’t/couldn’t Hermione make the silly mistake of dosing Harry because she thinks ‘she knows best’? I strongly suggest you go back and read the essay again, as I make it quite clear at repeated points that Hermione’s actions are not out of any malevolence, but because she thinks she knows what is best. You reference JKR and what you think her opinions are - then take account of her Mugglenet Interview statement where she makes it very clear that EVERYONE has flaws. As to Ginny, let us be precise if we are quoting JKR: she says she likes her as a character - she does not use the word ‘fond’ and furthermore for a writer to like a construction ‘as a character’ does NOT mean they personally approve of them. She enjoys writing Snape, which she has said – does that mean she likes him? You clearly have an emotional investment in the characters – I do not. I am not someone who sees ANY of the characters as ‘real’ or as some ‘imaginary friend’ – they are NOT real, they are FICTIONAL, which JKR is fully aware of as she is the one who is making them up - I can quite see how the very adult JKR could have them do things which might very well tarnish them in your eyes. IMO JKR is not writing this series as a cuddly little bolt-hole from real life. As to your query about ‘why Hermione didn’t dose Ron’ (which is what I assume you were asking) – kindly view my earlier responses to earlier posts.

I, of course, must put in my two cents' worth. ;) I have to say that IMHO *any* of the clues Emma would have liked to have seen regarding love potions would simply have been too glaringly obvious. They would have been too close to the equivalent of a red neon sign on the page: "HEY! LOOK! Hermione's hovering suspiciously over Harry's glass, and she's arguing about love potions with Ginny! Lookie lookie loo!" I just don't think that JKR would have tipped her hand with anything so obvious, especially when the storyline wasn't going to be resolved in Book 6, and we all still had two years to wait until Book 7. That being said, I like to see debates. :)

To EMMA: So far we haven’t been told how love potions work AT ALL – anywhere in HBP or in any other book – we have no real idea of the logistics of them. Indeed it struck me as odd that JKR deliberately chooses to withhold that information – possibly so as not to get herself into knots. So, as we don’t have any hard intel about the logistics of administration/the methodology of effect (although we are given effect and examples of effect), then any argument against based on ‘how it works’ is a non-starter. To JOHN: We’re all perfectly aware of what she said in the interview, I was perfectly aware of it when I wrote the essay. Many anti-Draco fans were also ‘fully aware’ of her ‘attitude’ to Draco from her many interview statements on him: taking from her quotes that he was worthless/evil/due to be phased out – whatever, and they never hesitated to quote her on that. Well, that turned out wrong, didn’t it? But when you look back at her Draco-quotes, she never lied, people simply took her at face value without taking a questioning mind to what she said. I don’t see any reason for her H/G quotes to turn out any different – and indeed I have now completed my third essay in the ‘Creamtea Trilogy’ which looks closely at her Mugglenet Interview. (Anise will publish the second and third essays in due course.) And as LISSA says – these books are meant to stand the test of time, they’re meant to be read in 100 years time as Nesbit is, they’re meant to be up there with Lewis and Tolkein, and as such they’re meant to be read entirely on the TEXT alone, as the TEXT is all that the reader will have in 100 years time. In the text H/G does not work, and my LP theory is an explanation as to why it does not – because narratively it is not meant to, with the reveal coming in Book 7.

Ummmm, well, that was an interesting read. Very creative, I must say. The thing is I absolutely abhor H/G. I can't stand it. It's contrived and has no foreshadowing. I think Ginny is not right for Harry and certainly not the goddess that the H/G fans think she is. Far from it in fact. But I can't buy into this theory either. It takes too many assumptions that are harder to believe than what was in the book. For instance, I don't think that Fred&George's room smelling like gunpowder, having a stray pasty or having flowers in there to try and cheer the place up is harder to accept as is than your idea that it's Hermione's working of a love potion. Sorry, but that one is too far fetched to believe. Because other than your assertions, there isn't canon evidence for it. And that's the beginning - both of what you say started it and what I see wrong with it. No, believe me, H/G is vomit-inducing. Poorly thought out and presented. But unfortunately there is no hidden agenda behind it. Let's just thank whoever and/or whatever we each do that it's over and pray that remaind the status quo.

JK ROWLING: "... the plan was, which I really hope I fulfilled, is that the reader, like Harry, would gradually discover Ginny as pretty much the ideal girl for Harry. She's tough, not in an unpleasant way, but she's gutsy. He needs to be with someone who can stand the demands of being with Harry Potter, because he's a scary boyfriend in a lot of ways. He's a marked man. I think she's funny, and I think that she's very warm and compassionate. These are all things that Harry requires in his ideal woman. But, I felt — and I'm talking years ago when all this was planned — initially, she's terrified by his image. I mean, he's a bit of a rock god to her when she sees him first, at 10 or 11, and he's this famous boy. So Ginny had to go through a journey as well. And rather like with Ron, I didn’t want Ginny to be the first girl that Harry ever kissed. That's something I meant to say, and it's kind of tied in. One of the ways in which I tried to show that Harry has done a lot of growing up — in “Phoenix,” remember when Cho comes into the compartment, and he thinks, ‘I wish I could have been discovered sitting with better people,’ basically? He's with Luna and Neville. So literally the identical thing happens in “Prince,” and he's with Luna and Neville again, but this time, he has grown up, and as far as he's concerned he is with two of the coolest people on the train. They may not look that cool. Harry has really grown. And I feel that Ginny and Harry, in this book, they are total equals. They are worthy of each other. They've both gone through a big emotional journey, and they've really got over a lot of delusions, to use your word, together. So, I enjoyed writing that. I really like Ginny as a character." "Equals". "Worthy of each other". "Gone on an emotional journey together". "Harry's ideal woman." Their romance is clearly the real deal.

Hello creamtea. I sent you an owl in fictionalley but your in-box was full. Just wanted to point out, sorry if it's in your essay already (it's been two weeks or more since I read it!) that Mrs. Weasley told Ginny and Hermione about a "Love Potion she'd made as a young girl." PoA, page 56 British edition (chapter 5)

Yeah, ok what I meant was, wouldn't his attraction of Ginny (fake or not) have happened that much faster with her being so freakin' good looking? Hope I got that across, because when I read what I said, it wasn't that clear.

Creamtea; I do look forward to your interview piece. I am curious as to how you get around that... But anyway. I, like BamaSlamma, am a H/Hr shipper. You say that R/Hr are being written as a couple--which I devoutly hope not. If anything, the R/Hr relationship in HBP is worse than H/G. Why don't you think that Hermione may be under a love potion too? I've never seen any evidence that She liked Ron before book 6--Ron liking her, yeah; but not reciprocated. And if love potions are being used... why not? I could see someone dosing Hermione with a LP--especially after they get to Hogwarts.