An angsty fic (sorry!)

[avonlea_dreamer]

A torrential rainstorm drove them to find shelter.

Hermione half-stumbled, momentarily losing her footing, and Harry hauled her up against his side, keeping his arm around her as he peered through the downpour. He squinted, thankful for Hermione’s foresight on seeing the darkening clouds a little while ago to cast the spell on his glasses that

Comments

[madderbrad]

I thought it was more Harry being (his usual) self-centered self, too preoccupied with his own feelings over Ron's desertion and his worries over the War to think that maybe he should try to comfort Hermione too.

Which still makes him a not very nice person.

I know, his behaviour was consistent with both what you say and also with his lack of empathy for people in general, his not liking girls who cry, for example - which is canon, why he likes dear Ginny, back in the first part of the book - but it still makes him rather dislikeable.

I blame JKR for stubbornly insisting on writing Harry that way because it suited her purposes -

Yes, exactly. Even more so in that part of DH. She *couldn't* afford to have Harry be nice to Hermione while they were both alone, for them to both comfort each other as best friends, because that would have threatened her precious R/Hr.

Did you read the bit after the graveyard, where Harry is attacked and Hermione saves him, breaking his wand in the process? He's a real $#@#!@!! to her then as well, even more so, basically blaming her for breaking his wand (in the process of saving his life). Ugh.

It's why I made something of an effort to show Harry getting over that at the start of this, with the compliment and the concern over her being tired, etc. And then of course he needed more than that to really whack him upside the head with what really matters.

Any decent good H/Hr story needs to upgrade Harry to being a worthy companion for Hermione. "Whacking him upside the head" is one way to do it. :-)

[avonlea_dreamer]

No, I only read the one Godric's Hollow chapter and have no intentions of ever reading any more of DH.

In fairness to Harry (not that it makes JKR any better), I don't think his not liking when girls cry is indication of his bad character. From what I can tell, most teenage boys dislike it when girls cry because it makes them uncomfortable, not really knowing how to deal with it. I tend to think Harry, in canon (leaving aside DH obviously), is mostly thoughtless from preoccupation and general teenage boy-ness (also the lack of any good example from the Dursleys doesn't help any. It's not like he's grown up watching affection being shown or knowing how decent people treat each other.) The fact that he apparently doesn't mature much, if any, during canon, is on JKR. I try in my temporally-close-to-canon fics to not make Harry overly out-of-character but I sometimes feel like I'm failing just because canon!Harry is such a blind idiot. That's why, in many ways, it's much easier to write H/Hr post-Hogwarts-- plus (notwithstanding the amount of fics I've written taking place during canon years) I've always viewed H/Hr as the mature relationship, the adult relationship, that will last. In stark contrast to R/Hr and H/G.