Half-Blood Prince: Chapter 7: The Slug Club

[handhfan]

This is my first summary, so be easy on me. :) Sorry if this is a little long, I think I got carried away…

Chapter 7: The Slug Club

Harry is spending a lot of time over the last week to figure out why Malfoy was in Knocturn Alley, and why he was in a good mood. He came up with an irrational suspicion that Draco could be a DE. To make matters

Comments

[house_elf_44]

...she has nothing particular anymore to offer Harry...

If she was her old self she does. She still has the skills it took to organize SPEW, the DA, think things through, figure things out, solve a logic puzzle, finagle an article in the Quibbler, and control Rita Skeeter - she just didn't use them this year, except for researching that Eileen Prince was the HBP.

Hermione is so different than before, I have to think there is something altering her, and there are lots of options for what that might be. Are we supposed to think a surge of teenage hormones changed her personality that drastically? If she likes Ron, her old personality would have figured out how to get something started with him, no? Then you have the ministry warning about the use of Polyjuice Potion and the Imperious Curse, that pervasive mist from dementors breeding that pops up through the book with no explanation of it's effects. And you have potions from a careless Slughorn and the booming business of the joke shop with Filch not recognizing potions coming into the school. There is potential for any mix of these reasons why Hermione and others are acting differently than before.

I wouldn't be surprised if we find the real Hermione locked in the bottom of a trunk. But the idea that amuses me the most is that Ginny put love potion targeted to Ron in the water beside Hermione's bed so her friendship with Harry wouldn't develop into a romantic relationship, and Lavender being in the same dorm room, drank as much or more of it than Hermione did. I know it's crazy, but it has to be something strange like that to change Hermione so much.

[house_elf_44]

except for researching that Eileen Prince was the HBP.

oops...you know what I meant.

[cadesama]

Well, if we assume that she's liked Ron since GoF, then no, her old personality didn't know how to start anything with him. I realize that your theory works from the premise that Hermione didn't like Ron in GoF or OotP, and her attitude was altered, but I see HBP as a definitive retcon. Scenes that were once on debatable are now definitively examples of how much Hermione liked Ron. And really, I don't think her behavior has changed that much, only the intensity of it.

In GoF she flounced about making Ron jealous, wishing he would have asked her out instead of doing anything herself. In OotP, she mentioned Viktor to make Ron jealous, but doesn't make a move herself, and doesn't have the courage to respond to Ron's perfume. In HBP, she tries to make Ron jealous with Cormac, attacks him when he chooses someone else over her (although she hasn't obviously put herself in the running), and then sits around waiting for Ron to come to his senses, rather than going after him herself. Seems like a pattern to me.

[house_elf_44]

I may be giving Jo too much credit, but I don't think so. I think all the "anvils" are perfect optical illusions. If you see them all as jealousy, you see what you just described. If you see them as things other than jealousy, you see a different Hermione, and Hermione and Ron not liking each other.

It would take some skill to pull this off so that each "filter" is convincing. I think she meant to do it, and pulled it off, since shippers of both sides could be so sure of what they were seeing. I got myself all the way through HBP still not thinking that Ron liked Hermione, and that Hermione was only blubbering over Ron because she had been tampered with in some way. After I read The Interview, and recovered, I went back to see how I could have been fooled. Depending on how I interpreted things, I could or could not see Ron liking Hermione. I was able to see why people interpreted Hermione's actions as jealousy and liking Ron, but I just can't see why she would like Ron, so that filter doesn't stick for me.

I think for the people using the "jealousy filter", HBP wasn't as much a shock as for the H/Hr shippers who were/are using the other filter. I call that one the "lofty principles" filter, because we see Hermione and Ron's reactions as being about principles. For me, it was only The Interview that said we should have been looking through the jealousy filter, not the book itself. And after re-examining the interview, I believe it was carefully planned to usher us all over to the jealousy filter, so we can all be fooled together in book 7.

I do realize that at any time Jo could say H/Hr will never happen, and then I will know I'm wrong. But until that happens, I'm sure she's trying to trick us with twists, and nothing is written in stone yet.

[schtroumph_c]

Why Hermione would scream to Ron to ask her the next time if it's not jealousy, from a side or another?

I do realize that at any time Jo could say H/Hr will never happen,

She already did, in 99, when she said they were platonic friends.

[house_elf_44]

Why Hermione would scream to Ron to ask her the next time if it's not jealousy, from a side or another?

I took Ron's statment about fraternizing with the enemy to mean just that. And even though I didn't see Hermione having a crush on him, I could see her going with him as friends. But I think a big part of her reaction was that he was desperate for a date, and didn't consider her because she wasn't pretty enough. "You can go with one of us" told me he didn't fancy her.

She already did, in 99, when she said they were platonic friends.

I believe she could have meant "at the time", and not necessarily for ever and ever. She's very careful not to make future statements that give things away.