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I love kids they’re all like.. “when i grow up i’m gonna be an astronaut and a chef and a doctor and an olympic swimmer” like that self confidence! That drive! That optimism! Where does it go

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Question can I call myself a girl at the ripe age of 23? Cause I was looking at my bio and I'm having Thoughts

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I read this entire fanfic series in less than a week please send me help

I made these instead of sleeping. They're for the Dark Prince series by Kurinoone on Fanfiction.net. Instead Peter brings Harry directly to Voldemort who ends up raising him as his own, but not without a trick of course.

While I understand this trope seems to be overused, it's really not what you think. James and Lily are still alive and Harry knows they're his biological parents. Please read the series it's absolutely brilliant and one of my all time favs now!

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I’ve not been well over the holidays so decided to mock up how i’d illustrate PJO instead lol - all in lorem ipsum so I don’t get in trouble with the big mouse!

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penelope didn't have to turn the tree bed into a riddle. she could have asked odysseus to prove his identity, to tell her something only he would know — which she actually did a few books earlier, when she asked the beggar to describe odysseus, and odysseus told her about a purple cloak with a particular golden brooch that she fastened herself twenty years ago. when penelope tells telemachus they have signs by which they'll know each other, you sort of expect more of the same. and instead, she decides to trap him. like a bug in a cup.

and it's delightful to me, idk, how odysseus has been trapped and cornered in various way throughout the odyssey, but arguably never so that he has to tell the truth to get out. (with the phaeacians, maybe? the omniscient narrator corroborates some of what he tells them, but do we really know everything?) and in fact he is not trying to get free of penelope. he wants something from her, wants to convince her, wants to be welcomed home, but until this point he's lied to her, revealed himself to other people before her, and been distant with her (though also patient! he doesn't try to strongarm or rush her into accepting him; it's his idea to sleep elsewhere).

except penelope isn't looking for him to be distant and patient. penelope lies in a way that requires odysseus to stop playing along — not only to prove that he knows what odysseus knows, but that he's willing to tell the truth about himself.

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Got into it around autumn 2021, and the rest was history lol

if there was an award for obsessing over a boy with water powers and his little gang of hyper and dyslexic teenagers, i would definitely win

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I always hear 'Ron wasn't intelligent enough for hermione' this post is not about the couple's compatibility. This post is about Ron's intelligence. So bear with me.

Ron defeated Mcgonagall at chess when he was 12.

He casted a nonverbal spell *almost* successfully at the age of 12 when malfoy called Hermione a mudblood. That too with a broken second hand wand. Yes. 'Eat slugs' was a nonverbal spell in the books.

He got more O.W.Ls than Fred George combined without studying properly.

He got 7 O.w.Ls. and 6 exceed expectations in top 6 subjects and he didn't study like Hermione.

He could produce a corporeal patronus at the age of 15 when many grown up wizards and witches struggled with it. Even Hermione the brightest witch of her age struggled with this charm.

He fought the deatheaters in the 5th year and 6th year.

He saved Tonks' life during the 7 potters scene. Even Tonks, a qualified auror was impressed with his skills.

He deceived the snatchers in the DH and survived WITHOUT HERMIONE for many weeks

He disarmed bellatrix at malfoy manor. He took down greyback with the help of Neville. He fought in the battle of hogwarts.

He became a successful auror after the war.

Also he came up with the idea that tom riddle killed moaning myrtle, he told Harry to use Felix felicis, he discovered how to get back to Harry Hermione even though they had strong protection spells around their tent, He mimicked harry's parsletongue successfully, he came up with the idea(in the DH) that the basilisk's fangs could destroy horcruxes, He told Hermione to use her wand when she was panicking under pressure, he was the best liar among them. He easily fooled lucius and other deatheaters at the manor by mimicking Peter.

Not to mention his wit!! His one liners were unmatchable. Many times he was even funnier/wittier than Fred George.

Dear Hp fandom, academic intelligence is not the only form of intelligence. Try to understand it. Don't dismiss someone's intelligence just because he is not studious.

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no bc why are all of the harry antis just dumb and lack media literacy 😭

"he was disappointed when ron was made a prefect" BECAUSE VOLDEMORT WAS IN HIS HEAD??? AFFECTING HIS THOUGHTS??? HARRY LITERALLY FELT GUILTY??? HES LITERALLY JUST HAVING MAGICAL INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS???

"he never gave the weasleys money" yes he did? its said multiple times throughout the series the weasleys were proud people who wouldn't accept his money. instead of giving it straight out to molly and arthur he bought their kids things and literally gave 1,000 galleons to fred and george?? that they only took after they were threatened?? because they're proud people??

the fact that yall are misunderstanding a CHILDRENS book this much is wild

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Thoughts on Ron and Hermione as a ship?

thank you very much for the ask, @thesilverstarling!

i’ll state my position straight away: book ron and hermione are the best of the canon couples.

they will have a long and extremely happy marriage made rich by great and stalwart love, lust, fun, and faithfulness, rather than held together by duty and couples’ therapy like so many readers and authors (including jkr, who seems to have decided to spend the years since the conclusion of the series failing to understand anything about her own characters) tend to think.

i will state another position straight away: lest i seem like i’m just a fan with blinkers on, i think this even though hermione is, by far, my least favourite member of the trio. if she were real i would detest her, and i dislike how she is treated by the narrative as always justified in her negative characteristics. i like fanon hermione - perfect and preternaturally good - even less.

as a result, i think that it’s ridiculous that jkr has said that she thought ron needed to ‘become worthy’ of hermione. they belong together as equals - which is what they’re set up in the narrative as being from the off - and i hate seeing that undermined.

because ronald weasley? he’s an icon. and he doesn’t get anywhere near the respect he deserves in fandom.

there are multiple reasons for this - ron’s narrative purpose is to be the everyman sidekick, and so he is able to be less special than harry or hermione (the helper-figure); the amount of aristocracy wank in this fandom means that the weasleys’ ordinariness is less appealing to writers than making harry have twenty different lordships and call himself hadrian; the narrative interrogates ron’s flaws - especially his capacity for jealousy - much more intensively than it interrogates either hermione’s (cruel, inflexible, meddling) or harry’s (reckless, self-absorbed, judgemental) - but one i feel is particularly significant is that ron is such a british character that many of his traits are not understood as intended by non-british readers.

in particular - as is outlined in this excellent meta by @whinlatter - ron’s sense of humour isn’t indicative of immaturity or a lack of seriousness, but is, in fact, evidence that he’s the most emotionally aware of the trio.

ron is shown throughout the series to understand how both harry and hermione need to have their emotions approached - and i think there is no piece of writing which says this better than crocodile heart by @floreatcastellumposts:

That was what she liked most about Ron, she thought vaguely. He was very good at being suitably outraged on your behalf. For Harry, for her, for Neville. That sort of thing mattered, when you were hurt or embarrassed or wronged in some way. You needed to have someone else on your side, to be as emotional as you felt, maybe even more so, so that you might feel a bit more normal. It was very decent of him, and she was not sure he realised he did it.

ron’s inherent emotional awareness is an enormous source of comfort to other people. he does the work which isn’t flashy or special - he makes tea and tells jokes and is just there - but which is needed in healthy human relationships far more frequently than a willingness to fight to the death for the other person.

[as an aside, this normality - even though i think it is assumed rather than justified by the text - is also what ginny provides for harry. if you believe that hinny are a good couple but romione aren’t… i can’t help you.]

but let’s look at some specific reasons why ron and hermione belong together:

their communication styles mesh perfectly. ron is the only person hermione knows who feeds her love of being challenged and debated, and who is able to engage in this way of communicating without becoming irate when she refuses to back down. ron is good at picking his battles, but he’s also good at recognising that hermione’s tendency to argue isn’t intended to be confrontational a lot of the time - it’s just the way she works through feelings and problems. he’s far more easy-going about her tendency to nag, interrupt, try to provoke arguments, or speak condescendingly than he’s given credit for - and hermione evidently respects this, since when he does tell her not to push a situation (above all, when she’s trying to needle harry into talking about sirius), she listens to him.

that ron and hermione’s tendency to bicker is taken by fans to be a bad thing is because it’s something harry - from whose perspective the narrative is written - doesn’t understand. harry is extremely conflict-avoidant - he tends to take being pushed on views and opinions he has to be insulting; and he has a tendency to assume that he is right which is just as profound as hermione’s. he and ginny communicate not by debating, but by ginny having no time for his rigidity and refusing to indulge it - but ron and hermione bickering about everything is not a negative thing within their specific emotional dynamic.

[as another aside, this glaring chasm in communication styles is why harry and hermione would be a disaster as a couple.]

they each provide validation the other needs. it’s clear - reading between the lines - that hermione is a tremendously lonely person. the friendlessness of her initial few weeks at hogwarts seems to be a continuation of her experience as a child, and - outside of ron and harry - that friendlessness endures through her schooldays. i’m always struck, for example, by the fact that, when she falls out with ron in prisoner of azkaban, she has no-one else to spend time with, and that this is only avoided in half-blood prince because harry decides not to freeze her out. i don’t think her friendship with ginny is anywhere near as close as fanon seems to imply (ginny has no interest in being nagged either), nor do i think that she’s anywhere near as close to neville (not least because she is so condescending to him) as she’s often written to be.

and this loneliness seems to stretch beyond hogwarts. the absence of hermione’s parents’ from the narrative is - in a doylist sense - clearly just a device to maximise time with the trio all together, but the watsonian reading is that she doesn’t have a particularly good relationship with them. hermione’s obviously upper-middle-class background - the name! the skiing! the holidays in the south of france! - can be presumed, i think, to come with a series of expectations from her parents which she feels constantly that she’s not entirely meeting, particularly expectations attached to academic success.

[for example, the grangers - were she a muggle child - would undoubtedly have ambitions for her to attend an elite university and then go into a prestigious career. tertiary education of the type that they’re familiar with doesn’t seem to exist in the wizarding world - most careers seem to be taught by apprenticeship - and this, alongside all the other divides between the magical and muggle worlds which contribute to the distance between them, would be one very obvious area in which she felt the need to prove herself to them.]

ron, too, has quite a difficult relationship with his position in the family - voldemort’s locket is not wrong to point out that he seems to receive considerably less of his mother’s emotional attention than ginny or the rest of his brothers - and he too is constrained by expectations which he doesn’t know how to explain he has no interest in - above all, molly’s desire for her sons to achieve top grades and go into the ministry.

he also suffers while at hogwarts from being ‘harry potter’s best friend’, something which harry never appreciates. but hermione does. she recognises ron’s jealousy and never allows harry to minimise it (and she and ron are very much aligned on having no respect for harry’s saviour and martyr complexes). she appreciates ron’s strengths - above all his kindness and his sense of humour - and makes him feel as though he’s achieved things with them. and ron does the same for her; he is hugely observant when it comes to her, and he challenges and defends her.

the two of them clearly spend a lot of time together one-on-one while harry’s involved in his various shenanigans (including outside of school - hermione has often arrived at the burrow days or even weeks before harry, and they seem to write to each other frequently when apart). they do this within a relationship which is fundamentally equal. one issue with hinny is that, post-war, harry is going to have to get used to seeing ginny as a peer, rather than as someone he has to protect. but ron and hermione never have that issue - equality is baked into their relationship from the off.

because, to be quite frank, fandom overstates the role that jealousy plays in their relationship. it’s true that ron certainly doesn’t acquit himself brilliantly when it comes to hermione’s relationship with viktor krum (it’s because he’s bi and doesn’t know it yet), and a tendency to externalise his insecurity into trying to make others also feel insecure is one of his primary negative traits (hermione does this too, via her patented lofty voice when she’s trying to condescend to people). but this is often taken as the initial red flag for how the relationship would crash and burn, and ron’s toxic jealousy is often used in fan-fiction as the trigger for emotional and physical violence towards hermione which, frequently, seems to drive her into the arms of either draco malfoy or severus snape… who are, of course, the first people we think of when we hear the words ‘not prone to jealousy’...

but i think it’s important to point out several things in defence of ron’s jealousy over krum. firstly, hermione evidently regards his jealousy as ridiculous - she’s upset by it, yes, but her upset must be understood as being caused by the fact that she wanted him to ask her out. she doesn’t think he’s being possessive, she thinks he’s being stupid. secondly, hermione is equally as jealous over ron’s crush on fleur delacour and relationship with lavender brown. she behaves just as cruelly when it comes to lavender as ron does when it comes to krum - and the narrative only treats her actions as more sympathetic or justified both because harry dislikes lavender too, and because, by that point in the series, jkr has dispensed with any inclination to ever criticise her.

but, outside of this teenage pettiness, ron is never jealous of hermione over things which matter. he is never jealous of her intelligence or competence or ambition or success (indeed, he defends her constantly from attacks designed to undermine her in these areas). for someone who struggles with being overshadowed by harry, he is never upset at being overshadowed by her. he is clearly going to be happy to support her in any of the career ambitions she can be written as having post-war.

and, on this point, i think it’s worth interrogating why so many readers still seem to feel uncomfortable with the idea of ron and hermione having a dynamic where she is the more ‘powerful’ one. [it’s always a bit trite to say ‘but what if the genders were reversed?’, but actually that’s not irrelevant here]. if hermione ends up taking the ministry by storm and ron becomes a stay-at-home father or has a job which is just to pay the bills, what, precisely, is wrong with that? why, precisely, should hermione regard ron making that choice for himself as a negative thing? hermione so often seems to leave ron in fan-fiction because of a lack of ambition - something which seems to be particularly common in dramione - but, in canon, she is shown to not particularly care if ron and harry do the bare minimum when it comes to studying etc. she nags them to do their work so they don’t get in trouble. she doesn’t nag them to do it to the same standard that she would.

and, actually, i think that ron being less ambitious than hermione is something which is key to how well they work. because ron provides not only emotional support, but emotional clarity.

hermione is shown throughout canon to - just as harry does - have a tendency to become obsessive to the detriment of her own health. she is also often - as harry is - emotionally or intellectually inflexible, and finds it hard to move on when what she feels or believes is proven to be wrong. both she and harry are micro-thinkers, who lean towards knee-jerk assumptions and stubborn convictions (and, indeed, hermione has a remarkably hagrid-ish tendency towards blind loyalty).

ron is none of these things. ron is a big-picture thinker (it’s why he’s so good at chess). he’s a pragmatist. he’s the least righteous of the three. he understands that faith and loyalty are choices, and that sometimes these choices will lead to outcomes which are bad or hard. he is the one of the three most willing to own up to having made mistakes. he is the one least likely to act on gut instinct (and, therefore, the hardest to fool - i think it’s worth emphasising that he clocks that tom riddle is tricking harry immediately, the only one of the trio to do so). he understands that things are a marathon, not a sprint. he is the least obsessive.

and these traits contribute to aspects of his character which are underappreciated. ron worries about hermione making herself ill during exams, or when she is using the time-turner, and makes an effort to get her to set healthy boundaries and redirect her anxiety. ron stands on a broken leg in front of sirius or goes into the forest to fight aragog not out of righteousness, but out of choice. ron takes over the burden of preparing buckbeak’s defence when it is clear that hermione is approaching burnout. ron is completely right that harry hasn’t done any long-term planning for the horcrux hunt, and his anger does force harry to tighten up after he leaves the trio. ron has a clear head in the middle of battle. ron makes harry and hermione laugh. ron is unafraid of human emotion. ron arrests harry’s tendency to brood over the little things by looking at the bigger picture. ron will always come back.

ron is bringing his politician wife regular cups of tea and making sure she doesn’t work all night. he is helping his lawyer wife to feel less upset over losing one case by reminding her that she’s won ten others. he is noticing stress creeping in and whirling her off for a dirty weekend, or even just a takeaway on the sofa. he is teaching his daughter to be proud of her ambition and his son to treat women as equals and both of his children that all you can do when you fuck up is apologise and try to do better. he is making hermione smile on the worst days of her life. he is helping her strategise her long-term goals when she gets stuck on the short-term ones. he is telling her straight when she needs to get it together. he is seeing a misogynistic head of department call hermione a ‘silly little girl’ and choosing to tell him exactly what he thinks of that.

ron is the ultimate wife guy. hermione is a very, very lucky lady.

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In canon though Harry really was more like Sirius than he was like Molly

very often, anon, yes — but also a crucial tension between harry and sirius in ootp shows up in the moments where harry is more like molly, eg. harry asking sirius to take the safer course of action because he loves sirius and wants/needs him to be safe and to live. (‘i just don’t want you chucked back in azkaban again!’ ‘you’re less like your father than i thought. the risk would’ve been what made it fun for james.’) it’s not a perfect binary — harry is like sirius in some respects, unlike him in others. but ultimately hermione is a little bit right and harry tacitly acknowledges it: sirius has been lonely for a very long time, his judgement is clouded because of it, he’s restless and reckless and a small part of him (one that he no doubt felt ashamed of) kind of did want harry to get kicked out of school so they could be outcasts together. and part of harry’s arc in the book is him a) learning to overcome his own adolescent recklessness/restlessness and angst to develop a more mature approach to the war and his role in it and b) navigating an emotional distance from sirius and a part-parental/part-fraternal relationship with him when he wants sirius’ approval but also is discovering a lot of the ways they are different for the first time (SWM being the main one). that doesn’t mean it’s a matter of choosing between molly and sirius for harry. but it is about harry learning to walk a middle line between them.

(the irony being that sirius’ death makes harry more like molly, not less - intensely over-protective of those he views as family, desperate to keep them out of harm’s way/in the dark from knowledge of his war, needing them to stay alive because he loves them even if it risks them resenting him for it. but molly haters do not like to remember this…)

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If you’re a fan of Ron Weasley share one positive headcanon about him

Every summer, Ron hosts the annual Weasley Quidditch World Cup for all the Weasley cousins and assorted waifs and strays. Dressing up in different national colours is strongly encouraged, absolutely no grown-ups are allowed, and he does a cracking barbecue afterwards before the participants return to the Athletes’ Village (the blanket fort in the living room).

If any of the children doesn’t want to play, he’s completely fine about it, and tells them excitedly about all the important other jobs you can have at the Quidditch World Cup. That’s how Rose ends up as the Head of the Division for Magical Games and Sports, Lily ends up directing the Opening Ceremonies, and the Scamander-Lovegood children are a fan-favourite commentating double act for the ages. Albus does the Daily Prophet coverage, taking photos that end up pride of place on the Granger-Weasley mantelpiece.

Of course, at the player press conferences afterwards, Uncle Ron is notorious for asking each player to rate their performance on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being level with the Tornados and 10 being level with Ron Weasley’s own outstanding performances as Gryffindor keeper in years past).

Also — petition to make a ‘fan of Ron Weasley’ like being a ‘friend of Dorothy’ but it’s code for being a Romione shipper

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I understand you’re a hinny lover but maybe next time you decide to reblog a post shitting on Harry-Ron-Hermione friendship (“sidekicks??? 🤬) to elevate Hinny? Maybe Don’t. Because guess what? It’s not a competition and if that’s the kind of shit you’re going to post you’re going to piss a lot of fans. Also it’s not “the truth” it’s shipping bias

Ah, anon. I didn’t mean to upset anyone by reblogging this post, and I’m sorry about that. My knee-jerk response to this is that I’ve been posting properly on this blog since — maybe last Thursday? So I’m all a bit new to this.

I've put a longer reflection below the cut, but here’s the short version: I don’t think Harry’s relationship with Ginny is in competition with his friendship with Ron and Hermione. I agree that, in general, referring to Ron and Hermione merely as ‘sidekicks’  risks diminishing the Trio’s relationship, which is one of the most important in Harry’s young life, and I think remains so throughout adulthood. Orchards is supposed to be a love letter to canon (without endorsing JKR), and to the four characters of Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny, as much as it is a story of romantic love.

I do think, however, that that specific post was a reasonable and specific critique of fanfics that, either by accident or design, diminish the significance of Harry’s relationship with Ginny in the immediate postwar period at the expense of his relationship within the Trio. To that extent - as a corrective to that tendency - I still agree with a lot of what that post was trying to convey, as I’ll explain below. I will reblog things I (largely) agree with. You absolutely don't have to follow me if you don't agree with them. (Update 12/1 - thank you to the anon who has since messaged to add further context to the post in question!)

I’m a canon-compliant writer, interested mostly in fanfiction that plays with or within canon. I’m interested in sharing analysis about how to write better canon characterisations, and interested in these characters as characters within a genre with certain conventions (as this very funny post the other day puts very well). I don’t think it’s shipping bias to care about canon characterisation. I think that the only way to do justice to Harry as a character is to understand how his postwar relationship with Ron and Hermione must sit alongside how important his relationship with Ginny has canonically become to him by the end of the series. 

Anyway. Here's an essay no-one asked for on sidekicks, and Harry's postwar relationship with Ron, Hermione and Ginny.

On sidekicks: what propels what we might call the adventure plot of DH, the parallel Horcrux/Hallows quest, is a genre convention of fantasy/adventure, especially in YA fiction: the hero and his sidekicks. Ron and Hermione go on the quest to assist Harry, in his capacity as the hero. They accompany him to help him achieve success in the quest to track down the Horcruxes. As in other texts in the same genre, the Trio succeed because of how they bring such different skills, abilities and traits to the table (strengths and flaws) which complement the others and allow for success in the quest. This dynamic is first established in PS/SS. Each challenge that stands between them and the Stone draws on each character’s varied and different abilities, but it is Harry who has to go on to face Quirrell/Voldemort.

By the time we get to DH, the item each receives in Dumbledore’s will is a direct statement of that dynamic again. Hermione, the shrewd and insightful reader but also temperamentally the person least tempted by the Hallows, is given Beedle the Bard and the Tale of the Three Brothers. Ron, the heart, the emotional core of the group and in the end the central motivator, is given the Deluminator. Harry, of course, gets the snitch containing the Resurrection Stone. This will serve, ultimately, as a reminder that his own fate is tied up inexorably with the success of the quest, the hero arc. Ron and Hermione’s bequests are supposed to help them help him: they are there for what they are to Harry. The most important trait Harry will be called upon to deploy, though he doesn’t know it yet, is the selfless, sacrificial act of the hero. It is this final step of the quest that he will have to take alone. Nevertheless, the ‘hero’ is altered, improved and ultimately could not have succeeded without his friendships with the ‘sidekicks’, and that is the service they render to the arc of that plot. 

We know what makes the dynamic between the Trio consistently compelling are the ways the genre convention of hero and sidekicks are repeatedly subverted. There are lots of examples of this, including Harry's unusual hero role (the Chosen One, but he chooses the role himself; a hero who gets the resurrection stone in the will, not the sword of Gryffindor, the obvious hero's tool etc). But for our purposes, one way this manifests is how Ron and Hermione often do not resemble not sidekicks in the conventional sense. The reason it jars, and feels like an insult, to hear Ron and Hermione referred to as sidekicks is because we receive so many reminders that they are characters with their own emotional arcs and their own journeys of self-growth that extend far beyond what is required to propel the adventure plot. We can and do imagine their rich inner lives after the arc of the adventure plot is over. We have a strong sense of their individual relationships with other secondary and tertiary characters that extend far beyond the conventions of the sidekick role. They also have a growing romantic connection to each other that sidesteps the usual relationship between the hero and his main helpers.

Most interestingly, Ron’s arc in DH, and throughout the series after GoF, is specifically a meta-critique of the sidekick role. Ron repeatedly wrestles with a sense of being relegated to the role as sidekick to Harry the hero, an insecurity he has to overcome because he is, in fact, essential to the success of the operation. (It’s one of my favourite subplots and dynamics, and one of the reasons I think Ron is a far richer and more compelling character than he is often given credit for). We keep coming back to these characters for their bonds to each other and to others that go beyond that adventure plot, and we are compelled by the love and friendship that the Trio share that anchors the series beyond plot propulsion. 

I love writing the Trio’s friendship and their internal one-on-one connections with each other. I hope that comes across in Orchards, and I hope to keep writing it. But I think, as someone who enjoys writing to play with and within canon, any successful characterisation of Harry in DH and after the war has to be attentive to how important his relationship with Ginny has become by the end of the series. His relationship with Ginny is one he misses desperately, and one he recognises and treasures for how it fulfils needs that he knows are not being fully met by Ron and Hermione. Other more eloquent people than me have detailed this at length elsewhere: canon is littered with examples of when Ron and Hermione are not always to meet Harry where he's at emotionally. Ginny's more involved role in the series is introduced through a series of scenes that show her as both emotional confidant and source of comfort in times of pain. The relationship between the hero and the love interest was always going to have its own, significant, arc in a text like this: this is how Harry and Ginny's romantic relationship enters the narrative. (I’m not going to unpack all the many ways Ginny transcends and subverts the tropes of love interest here. I'm also not discussing all the ways Harry also meets Ginny’s needs, nor Harry's issues being consistently emotionally literate and empathetic with Ron and Hermione - all big topics for another day!)

Inarguably, by the end of the series, Ginny has become Harry’s main source of emotional support and the person he imagines a future and a family with. She is the person he has most missed throughout DH and craves more time with now that the obstacle keeping them apart has been removed. One of the reasons I liked the original post is that it highlights how Sirius’ death precipitates his connection with Ginny, and its suggestion about building families, which Harry consistently seeks but also defines, rightly or wrongly, within narrow bounds. We know this: it’s not shipping bias to look at a character walking to their own death and, in their last thought, thinking about the person they love. (I was trying to draw this out in the roast dinner scene in Orchards. Ron is breezily, easily kind to Harry, but a bit oblivious: Hermione worries about him but fears his emotional response, doesn't know how to address it, makes him feel a bit mothered in a way he doesn't respond well to. Ginny makes him feel seen and comforted with a small gesture, while allowing him to stay quiet, doesn't draw attention to him, and gives him space to gather himself emotionally. It's why the scene ends with families lost, families still to come: I wanted to explore the canon development of Harry and Ginny in a familial, domestic situation meeting each other emotionally in a way that shows mutual understanding as Harry looks to build a new family for himself after a huge loss.)

The question for post-war fics, which the original post specifically addressed, has to be: how do these characters begin to process what has happened? How do they begin to heal? What do they cling to when they clamber out of the rubble?  As the original post suggested, a canon characterisation of Harry will seek healing in time spent with Ginny. This will not be an easy process. It won’t be without conflict, and it will certainly require a renegotiation of Harry’s relationship with the Trio because someone else is now going to know everything after years of these secrets being solely theirs. The original post critiqued fics that overstate Harry’s willingness to maintain distance from Ginny after the war and excessively elevate the Trio as a dynamic in ways that canonically cannot ring true after all that is established in DH. Sometimes this is by canon-compliant writers, many fans of Hinny themselves, who understandably trying to play with tension and conflict as writers. Sometimes this is by authors who dislike Ginny as a character: diminishing the significance of a character we know is so important to the protagonist because of a writer’s personal feelings. From my perspective, if canon compliancy is important to you, then there is no canon compliant version of Harry’s post-war life and healing without Harry working to put Ginny at its centre. 

I don’t mean this as a damning critique of Ron and Hermione, two characters I love and admire, and I'm not trying to subjugate their enormous significance to Harry to elevate Ginny. I mean it merely a statement of their own well-drawn characterisations that is clear about their strengths in some areas and weaknesses in others. I do also think, as someone who loves Romione, Ron and Hermione by the end of the series also have earned their time to themselves and have a right to establish a duo-dynamic beyond their emotional bonds to Harry, while still remaining extremely close as a trio. Often Romione's points of most conflict are over their differing views of what is best for Harry in extraordinarily difficult times. What’s exciting for them as a couple by the end of DH is that they now get this time to discover each other away from that huge responsibility! (In my head canon, this is why Ron and Hermione go alone to Australia to retrieve her parents - an important, emotionally significant quest of their own, at last.)

The last thing I’ll say - maybe as a peace offering! - is that I set out in Orchards to write the story of how Harry’s feelings for Ginny began to really deepen into something profound and permanent. It was important for me to try and show how that that love story could only have happened in the context of a summer spent alongside Ron and Hermione.

Love stories are contingent and contextual. Romantic love is so often learned and shaped by loving relationships found in family and in friendships. It’s important that Harry Potter falls in love with someone who is already so loved by his two best friends. It’s why Ron and Hermione’s respective relationships with Ginny are so crucial, and why their closeness with Ginny pre-dates Harry’s own relationship with Ginny. And it’s also important that Harry is able to be at such (relative) peace that summer such that he can fall in love. He’s surrounded by the people he feels most safe and comfortable with. He’s in a place of shelter, his guard is down, he’s thinking about what he wants and what he needs, and he starts to build something meaningful for himself because of it. Like lots of other writers doing canon-compliant work, I am drawn to these characters for a chance to write love stories. Both forms of love, friendship and romance, are worthy, valid and absolutely vital to the protagonist - the hero - at the heart of them.

[thezebra12]

What’s something about Ron Weasley as a character that you think is underrated?

That Ron is really, really funny, and that his sense of humour isn't a sign of immaturity or gratuitous comic relief for the reader's sake, but an absolutely essential part of what both Harry and Hermione value in Ron as a character as an antidote to their own tendencies (moodiness and seriousness/anxiousness, respectively). Ron makes bad days bearable to get through for the people around him. I think people mistake Ron making jokes for a lack of emotional awareness, but I actually think it’s the opposite. By the series end Ron is literally the most emotionally well-adjusted of the central canon characters. That line about Peeves’ poem right at the end of DH when the war is won (“Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?”) is a) brilliant and b) such a great manifesto for how Ron’s outlook on the world — not humour as emotional avoidance, but humour that sits within all the grief and pain and suffering, and makes it that bit more bearable. So yeah Ron Weasley’s love for chuckles is Important and Overlooked and I will keep saying it til I am blue in the face

[thezebra12]

I feel like Ron fans really want him to be an Auror for the rest of his life like Harry is because its a "cool" job but it makes perfect sense he stops after 2 years? He is canonically lazy. That is not projection. That is not bashing. That is how he IS. He is lazy. Why would he want such a work intensive, difficult, and stressful job long-term? I really think the glory would wear off fast once you realized you can't even talk about what you are doing, you have to work overtime, you can get injured, you deal with constant stress, and for what? A basic pension. You don't even get rich off of it. Ron at the joke shop suits his character SO much.

oomph

Okay, Anon. I love you, and this is a safe space for people to discuss their controversial opinions with no judgement but I will have to push back a bit because I am a member of Team Ron Defense Squad.

I agree that being an auror wasn't the perfect fit for Ron, but I disagree with his laziness.

He was lazy when it came to school work. But a lot of kids are? That's hardly unique for a teenager. School didn't really interest him. But he was bright enough to do well in all his subjects (well, except history and divination, but those were joke classes) so he didn't really feel the need to work harder.

But in the things that he was interested in? The boy was not lazy.

You don't become the best chess player Hogwarts has ever seen at age 12 when you are lazy. That is years of hard work and skill development (prodigy level!). He probably spent hours at the Burrow as a kid studying chess moves and learning to see the board. That's not lazy.

You don't become a prefect by being lazy.

He also went off by himself and practiced quidditch so he could make the house team. That's not lazy. Thats determination (and a little insecurity because he was afraid of beign mocked for putting effort in or being told he wasn't good enough)

Which is totally relatable. Have you ever been afraid of failing or being compared to someone who, in your mind, has already mastered the skill you are practicing, so in the end, you didn't really try? because not trying is better than failing? That's not lazy, that's being insecure and anxious.

Ron is also with HArry on all his adventures. Going into the forbidden forest, starting an underground defense club, solving mysteries, fighting in the Ministry. This isn't lazy.

One of Ron's number one traits is his caregiving. Offering tea, the easy way in which he assures people, making sure Harry eats. Caregiving is not lazy. It takes attention to detail, emotional intelligence, and a lot of follow-up and determination.

I think Ron retired from ebing an auror early for several reasons.

1.) The job was finished. They caught the death eaters, the trials were over, he had some breathing room, and he realised that he could move on. That it was a job he felt he had to do but didn't really enjoy doing

2.) He saw that Harry really did enjoy it and that Harry didn't need a caregiver anymore, he wa an adult who could take care of himself and had Ginny at home to also care for him.

3.) Hermione, the ultimate girl boss that she is, clearly has ambitions and was career driven. Ron wanted to make sure she wasn't burnt out and that she had someone at home to take care of her (and their future children). Ron is the ultimate wife guy and I love him leaning into the role hard and with vigour.

caregiving and homemaking aren't laziness, and seeing a traditional feminine role as lazy in the body of a male character is sexist.

4.) I love Ron and the twins relationship. They are very close, even if the Twins mocking him crosses the line. And I can see Ron caring for George after the war in his very Ron-like way. Stopping by after an auror shift to help clean the shop and make sure he ate that day. Takes him to the pub for a pint, where they don't talk, but Ron just wants George to know he is there for him.

Over time, Ron learns that he loves working at the shop. He is good at it. And Geroge loves Ron being there, and he needs the help. George wants to be creative and invent things, and Ron has a great mind for business. He is using his logic skills to improve their business strategy and expand operations. He is good at balancing books and making sure bills get paid (oh no! It Looks like he enjoys a bit of homework after all!)

And Ron loves greeting customers and talking to kids in the shop. Being friendly and a bit goofy and his warm and comforting self.

He doesn't need fame and fortune because he is secure in his role as a caregiver, it is his ultimate strength. He has matured and moved on from his childhood insecurities. He is no longer in the shadow of his large loud family.

He is Ron. And he is enough (kenough)

[thezebra12]

It's insane how down bad Harry is for Ron. Mr. Daddy Issues Central here was really looking at him with his hair swept up by the wind under a tree and thinking, woah, you know who this reminds me of...? 😭😭😭 the real HP ship war should've been romione vs ronarry, and frankly I wouldn't have been able to pick a side.

[thezebra12]

Ron just got his howler from his mom yelling at him for stealing the car. He seems super embarrassed and most of the Great Hall is laughing. But here’s the thing:

Ron is 12 years old.

Ron stole a car.

Ron fucking stole a fucking car at the age of TWELVE.

I would not be laughing at him. Ronald Weasley is a fucking bad ass. When was the last time you jacked a car Malfoy? That’s what I thought. Bitch.