Memory Musings

Life is too short to wear boring shoes.

Head over heels for whimsical heels

Jude: *confesses her love for Cardan*

Cardan:

Cardan: but👏🏽 am 👏🏽 I 👏🏽 pretty—

Okay, this is very funny.

Now, apart from the occassional piece of fanfic I'd seen as a teenager, I was very much a Romione girl. As a girl who had been hopelessly in love with her best friend, they were my beacon of, "See?! It all works out in the end! It can happen!!"

But now as an adult, rereading HP and also stumbling headfirst into the world of fanfic, it never would have worked.

Harmione would have been ridiculous, for many reasons, but Romione is the relationship that would have worked for a while, but not lasted. They loved each other, absolutely, but they wanted different things. As much as I adore the ending of the HP series, in a more nuanced setting, it wouldn't have worked.

They'd have been bonded by their trauma, yes, loved each other, yes, and yes, I think they suited each other - as teens/early twenties. But I don't believe Hermione would have given up her ambitions to build The Burrow II. I don't think Ron would have been capable of stepping back and letting her shine.

They would love each other, but after a few years, they'd realize it didn't fit.

I think that's why people gravitate towards Dramione (along with the obvious chemistry between the two actors who brought them to life on the big screen and their friendship off-screen - hell, I'm still holding out hope for them). I think people can more easily imagine an organic, adult relationship growing out of their dynamic. Every fanfic seems to have a similar thread - a rivalry that eventually evolves into respect and into more. There is a power dynamic that ebbs and flows between the two characters, as opposed to guilt tripping and the over-familiarity between her and Ron. I realize this could be me going way too far down the rabbit hole and overthinking it, but I genuinely think this is why.

i just know hermione will put y'all in a jar for this

the purest, most sincere love

Greenteacups genuinely understands the Harry Potter characters on such an insane level. This kind of character study is spectacular.

Re: Hermione’s parents. To me it always felt like THEY were also very responsible for being out of the picture. First year Hermione is a child who feels like breaking the rules is worse than death and is very sure that she is going to be expelled at any given moment. Her attempts at making friends are laughably bad. We can assume that she had difficult relationship with authority figures growing up, where she had to be perfect or else.

Mr Weasley is shown to be trying to make contact with the Grangers through a topic that is interesting and not intimidating to them, and we never hear about him getting hit back with “yes yes electricity, now tell us everything about your world”, which seeing that Arthur Weasley is a grown ass man who actually can be quite subtle was presumably the point.

Finally, Hermione obliviating her parents tells us a lot about Hermione, true, but it also tells us everything about her perception of them. A 17 year old teenager thought that it wasn’t a big deal to erase all of her parents’ recollection of her, maybe permanently. To me that action speaks of anger at them but also complete and utter lack of belief that they want to do anything with her.

I thought it was a very sad thing happening to Hermione behind the scenes, one that Ron might have been aware of, but not Harry.

Arthur's interactions with the Grangers are an interesting point. I agree that it's probably an overture to the Grangers, with the bonus of being something he likes talking about; Arthur is restoring a car engine, he almost assuredly knows how electricity works.

I don't know that we can assume Hermione had strict parents per se, though. Book 1 gives us a very realistic portrait of a socially awkward eleven-year-old whose inability to connect with people her own age, due to some combination of being smarter than them and a bit stuck-up, has manifested in a desperate desire for approval from older role models. She doesn't seem to be afraid of them; she's not afraid of McGonagall or Dumbledore, and she's certainly not afraid of Snape, though she would have the most reason to be. She just wants them to like her, and probably all the more because she knows most people don't.

We do see that as the series goes on, she develops a distaste for authority, particularly authority that's abused, but that seems like a natural consequence of Hermione never facing any consequences for breaking the rules. Her fears rotate more around being expelled, and losing access to the world of magic, than they do being 'punished' as such by McGonagall or Dumbledore. She's not afraid of them, she's afraid of failing. It's a subtle difference, but an important one for her relationship with her parents, I think.

I agree that it indicates a staggering problem in their relationship when she basically writes off her value in their lives, though I'd add that we don't know what or if they talked to her about the war beforehand. It strikes me that we actually don't know most things about the circumstances of Hermione Obliviating her parents — did she try to talk it out with them first? Convince them to flee? Did they refuse? Was this a first resort, or the last? All of those change what we might think of the Grangers' relationship with their daughter, and we just don't have the answers to those questions in the book.

"Love everlasting, love wished for desperately, love that walks in through the door, love that is a mistake, love that is yours alone."

— Alice Hoffman, Magic Lessons

Idk if this has been done yet-

Auror Malfoy ffs is my Roman Empire I swear

- f.k.q