Harry/Ginny - A Union of Love and Power: A Collection of H/G Essays

Fan Girl and Ginny? No Way!



by Elizabeth Darcy



A very common argument, among many Ginny-haters (pre-OotP) was: she is a fan girl, she has a celebrity crush on Harry, she annoys him, and besides, she blushes all the time. Even then, there was ample evidence to discount these arguments. Her crush did not start when she met Harry-the-Boy-Who-Lived in PS/SS, though many would like to believe it is so. It started in CoS, after numerous discussions over the lunch table about Harry. In this essay, we endeavor to confront the many theories that revolve around Ginny's falsely projected "fan girl" image:

The King's Cross Station (PS/SS):





' Oh, Mum, can I go on the train and see him, Mum, oh please…' - Ginny Weasley (Pg. 108, Chapter 6, PS/SS)



This statement is what started the belief. To many people, this seems to be the stage when her crush started. However, Ginny does not harbour a crush on Harry as of this stage. He is just a figure of wizarding tales and history, which must have been manifested in bedtime stories. She is only excited to see him at this point, but that - I can assure you - does not make her a fan girl, since this behaviour appears only twice, and in the same book. If one browses through PS/SS, one finds that many of the characters reacted in almost the same way:



"'Bless my soul,' whispered the old barman. 'Harry Potter…what an honour .'"- Tom the bartender (Pg. 79, Chapter 5, PS/SS)



'Doris Crockford, Mr Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last' and "Harry shook hands again and again - Doris Crockford kept coming back for more" and "Doris Crockford shook Harry's hand one last time and Hagrid let them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a dustbin and a few weeds." - all on Pg 79-80, Chapter 5 of PS/SS



'Delighted, Mr Potter, just can't tell you. Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle.' - Pg. 79, Chapter 5, PS/SS.



"'P-P-Potter,' stammered Professor Quirrel, grasping Harry's hand, 'c-can't t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you.'" - Pg. 80, Chapter 5, PS/SS



"' What's that?' said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at Harry's lightening scar.

'Blimey,' said the other twin. "Are you -?"

'He is,' said the first twin. 'Aren't you?' he added to Harry.

'What?' said Harry.

'Harry Potter,' chorused the twins.

'Oh, him,' said Harry. 'I mean, yes, I am.'

The two boys gawped at him and Harry felt himself going red." - Fred and George (Pg. 106, Chapter 6, PS/SS)



"'Are you really Harry Potter?' Ron blurted out.

Harry nodded.

'Oh - well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George's jokes,' said Ron. 'And have you really got - you know…'

He pointed at Harry's forehead.

Harry pulled back his fringe to show the lightning scar. Ron stared.

'So that's where You-Know-Who - ?"

'Yes,' said Harry, 'but I can't remember it.'

'Nothing?' said Ron eagerly.

'Well - I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else.'

'Wow,' said Ron. He sat and stared at Harry for a few moments, then, as though he had suddenly realised what he was doing, he looked quickly out of the window again." - Ron (Pg. 110, Chapter 6, PS/SS)



"'I'm Ron Weasley,' Ron muttered.

'Harry Potter,' said Harry.

'Are you really?' said Hermione. 'I know all about you, of course - I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.'

'Am I?' said Harry, feeling dazed.

'Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found everything I could if it was me,' said Hermione." - Hermione (Pg. 117, Chapter 6, PS/SS)*



"'Potter, Harry!'

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

'Potter, did she say?'

' The Harry Potter?'" - half the Hogwarts faculty (Pg. 133, Chapter 7, PS/SS)



"'There, look.'

'Where?'

'Next to the tall kid with the red hair.'

'Wearing the glasses?'

'Did you see his face?'

'Did you see his scar?'"

Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory next day. People queuing outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring." - Hogwarts students (Pg. 145, Chapter 8, PS/SS).



"At the start of their first lesson he took the register, and when he reached Harry's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight." - Professor Flitwick.



* A word on Hermione's reaction - many claim that she wasn't being awed at all. However, in a way, she was. There are many fans who - when they see the celebrity - tell them that they know all about them and even talk of the books written about them. Hermione is a bookish person, and this is how she showed she was impressed.



True, Ginny did act pretty much the same way at the end of PS/SS. But so did many other students who had seen him right through the year:



"'Bye, Harry!'

'See you, Potter!'

'Still famous,' Ron said, grinning at him." - some of the students at King's Cross (Pg. 331, Chapter 17, PS/SS).



Unlike Ron and Hermione, and many of the teachers, Ginny was at home at the time, and besides, she must had heard of Harry from Ron all summer. To meet someone you heard of in bedtime stories, as your brother's best friend, is a wonderful and fascinating thing. She was, as I said earlier, excited and an energetic talkathon. Had she been an extreme fan girl, she would have played truant and tried to see Harry (and talk to him) by hook or crook, when her mother told her that she couldn't see him. Instead, she stayed quiet, until her brothers had to leave, after which she, half-crying and half-laughing, ran towards the train and waved to them. To be impressed at the sight of a person who is well known in your world is not being fan-girlish. Her crush definitely did not start here.





The Burrow and Hogwarts (CoS):





Harry had his first real meeting with Ginny at Ron's house, in the Burrow. In page 35, she enters the kitchen, sees Harry and lets out a little squeal before rushing out of the room. This is what Ron says by way of introduction:



"'Ginny,' said Ron in an undertone to Harry. 'My sister. She's been talking about you all summer.'"



This is quite strange. Ginny knew next to nothing about Harry - so how could she talk about him all summer? There wouldn't be much she could say, other than the fact that he was the Boy Who Lived and that he defeated Voldemort. That isn't really enough to last a whole month. Also, Arthur Weasley gives us a nugget of information four pages later:



'Good Lord, is it Harry Potter? Very pleased to meet you. Ron's told us so much about -'



Here lies our answer. Since Harry and Hermione are Ron's best friends, it's quite obvious for a boy his age to talk about them. I bet that along with him, Fred, George and Percy must have added their two Knuts to the conversation. Ron knows a lot about Harry and must have told the family about him over the lunch table. Ginny, being quite an observant girl, would probably have asked questions and made deductions, to which Ron must have answered. Being his best friend, what Ron must have said made a very nice picture indeed, and Ginny starts to understand him a little better, and therefore has a crush on him.



After this, her crush is shown in full swing, and she acts clumsy in his presence. There is even an instance where she blushes. She can barely talk to him, because she feels shy in front of him. The first time she ever talks in front of him isn't just a revelation to Harry, but also to the reader:



'Leave him alone, he didn't want all that!'



This is Ginny's reply (on page 61) to Malfoy's barbed remarks about Harry's fame. Ginny had half the summer to know about Harry, and she also had a week to observe him before this incident occurred. She knows right away that he doesn't want fame, and due to her crush on him, she wouldn't really want to do anything that will make him uncomfortable.



Why did JKR have to make her say that, though? If she was nothing but a fan girl at the time, JKR could have easily made her say, "How dare you say that to Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the boy who defeated You-Know-Who, yadda, yadda, yadda…" and it would definitely not have made the slightest bit of difference to the plot. Many may point out that it's obvious for people to know about Harry's dislike for adulation, but we must remember that we know how Harry feels, not the people in the HP universe. Not many, except close friends and people who knew him well, knew that he was uncomfortable with his fame. Ginny, on the other hand, says so a week after she has just met him.



A note to make on this: One must take a close look at Ginny's behaviour in PS/SS and CoS. The fan girl theory would have definitely been considered valid, had Ginny's behaviour in PS/SS been continued in CoS. Had her crush been based on Harry's celebrity status, she would have really been running about for an autograph, and following him around, the way Colin Creevey did. Instead she feels shy in front of him, even after she finds out that he's a normal boy, like Ron or any of her brothers. To top this, she withdraws from him, and does not talk to him much. She never takes advantage of the fact that he's in her home. She'd rather tell her enchanted diary about him.



On page 99, Ron tells Harry: 'You'd better hope Creevey doesn't meet Ginny, or they'll be starting a Harry Potter Fan Club.' Granted, Ron is her brother and has spent 9 years with her at home. However, in the way that most brothers are, he isn't much aware of how Ginny really is, as a person. He takes the opportunity to tease Harry here, but he doesn't know that Ginny is aware of Harry's dislike towards fame, since he came to the two only sometime after Ginny told off Malfoy. Ginny is as different from Colin as chalk is from cheese. While Colin is the real fan boy here, Ginny does not act like him at all. She stays away from Harry most of the time, and does not follow Harry around.



Later on, when the Trio meet Hagrid in the chapter 'Mudbloods and Murmurs', the latter tells them that he reckons that Ginny wouldn't mind a signed autograph, and that she was probably coming to meet him. This, however, is quite untrue, since her real purpose for going was to kill the roosters. If Ginny really wanted to get an autograph from him, she could have easily asked him at the Burrow.



Harry tries to shut both Hagrid and Ron up in these respective scenes, but this is due to the fact that he doesn't want people to hear about it, especially in Ron's case (where the two are in DADA class). Harry does reveal any real annoyance or irritation towards Ginny, while he does so towards Colin.



She thinks of Harry as a 'good, great' person who 'will never like her' (as Riddle malevolently tells Harry at the end of the book). Of course, Harry shows signs of being a great person even at a young age - he's kind, loving, humble…that list could go on. He shows uncanny maturity for his young age. What's wrong with thinking of him as great? Isn't that the same word Hermione used to describe him in the last chapter of PS/SS? (You're a great wizard, Harry!)



Of course, there is one piece of evidence that is used time and again to support that 'Ginny-is-a-fan-girl' stand, and it will be dealt with in the next segment.



The Valentine:





His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,

His hair is as dark as a blackboard.

I wish he were mine, he's really divine,

The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.



The poem on page 258 was one that caused a tingle of mortification to run through Harry. It was the kind a real fan would send, and Malfoy places the blame on Ginny.



Let's take a detailed look at the Singing Valentine scene: It starts off with the dwarf catching up with Harry when the Gryffindor second-years are about to go for Charms classes, and Ginny and the rest of the first years are going for classes. Harry attempts vainly to escape, and the seams of his bag rip in the process - causing all his books, wand, and other materials out of it. At this point, Draco Malfoy and Percy enter the scene. The Valentine is delivered to Harry while he's sprawled over the floor, leaving him very embarrassed. While he attempts to stand up, Malfoy picks up the diary and attempts to read it. Ginny, meanwhile, looks from the diary to Harry, in horror. Before Malfoy can read the contents, Harry performs an Expelliarmus spell, thereby humiliating Malfoy in turn. In anger, Malfoy accuses Ginny of sending the Valentine, though there is no proof to verify his words as fact.



There is no proof whatsoever, that Ginny indeed sent the Valentine:



As I said earlier, Ginny knows well that Harry doesn't like to be made a public spectacle. I don't think she'd want to humiliate him so badly in public, not when she likes him so much, and not when she has so much to worry about (Riddle, the diary).

Harry himself never mentions, at any point, that Ginny sent it. He never even thinks in that direction. All we have is Malfoy's word. How would he know? Lockhart was the one person responsible for developing the Valentines, so how would Malfoy really know?

It fits Malfoy's character perfectly to say untruths out of spite. He had just been made the laughingstock of the school by Harry's Expelliarmus charm, and he needed to humiliate someone, desperately. He knew about Ginny's crush on Harry due to her reaction when he taunted her in Flourish and Blotts (Potter, you've got yourself a girlfriend!). Therefore, the best scapegoat in this case would be Ginny.

I concede that eleven-year-olds may not have the ability to pen down Shakespearean ditties, but definitely Ginny could do better than compare Harry's eyes to the skin of a pickled toad. For example, she could have easily used words like emeralds or leaves, or used night sky in place of blackboard. The underlying tone in this Valentine is quite spiteful, frankly speaking.

Many are of the opinion that Ginny blushed during this scene. Look at the scene carefully and you will find that there's absolutely no reaction from Ginny, until she sees her diary in Harry's hands. Even then, she does not blush, but rather stares at Harry and the diary in horror.

It is also a popular opinion among the fandom that Ginny only rushed to her class after Malfoy accused her of sending the Valentine. Again, this statement is untrue. Ginny had already crossed Malfoy and gone to her class by the time Malfoy insulted her, and when that happened, she simply covered her face and went inside. This is due to the pressure of all these events. The diary, which she thought she had gotten rid of, was now in Harry's hands, and then she was insulted in public. How do you think you'd feel in such a situation? She's under a lot of stress at the time and Malfoy's comment was the last straw.

Look at the last line of the poem - the hero who conquered the Dark Lord. The only people who called Voldemort the 'Dark Lord' were Death Eaters or other followers of Voldemort. The Weasleys called him 'You-Know-Who.' The only way Ginny could have sent that Valentine was if Riddle had enchanted her to do the same. It's quite possible; since part of Riddle had already been embedded in her by the time she found out, he could have simply forced her to write it down. In this case, one cannot use the Valentine as proof of Ginny's alleged 'fan girl' behaviour.

Remember that Ginny was going through a tough time. Do you think she'd really have the time and energy to write "romantic" poetry?

Ginny feared that Riddle would tell Harry what she had done. He had certainly proved himself to be untrustworthy and evil. He could have told Harry everything.



The question still remains: why incorporate the Valentine in the first place? Why connect it to Ginny?



The answer: Because JKR didn't want to fully reveal Ginny's connection to the diary - yet. She wanted to leave a clue, which would be hidden behind an effective smokescreen. If you look at the scene from face value, one will think that Ginny was upset because "her" Valentine was rejected. It's only later on that one will find out the real reason behind her distress.



Why didn't she bring up the Valentine again? Well, because compared to the rest of what happened to Ginny, the Valentine episode simply wasn't that important. It simply pales in comparison to what else had happened to her.



After the Chamber (PoA, GoF, OotP):



After the Chamber incident, she looks slightly better, and interacts a little more freely with Harry. At the end of CoS, Ginny summons up the courage to properly talk to him when Harry asks her about Percy's secret. At this point she jokes with him and tells him and the others about Percy's relationship with Penelope Clearwater.



In PoA, Page 62, Harry and Ginny meet again at the Leaky Cauldron, and this is what occurs:



"Ginny, who had always been very taken with Harry, seemed even more heartily embarrassed than usual when she saw him, perhaps because he had saved her life during their previous year at Hogwarts. She went very red and muttered 'hello' without looking at him."



Note that Ginny is 'taken with' Harry. It's never mentioned that she has a crush on him, or that she is a fan girl. According to the dictionary, taken with actually means being captivated or charmed with something/somebody. Harry also cites the possible reason for her embarrassment, as his saving of her life in CoS. If Harry really thought Ginny was a fan girl, it would definitely been mentioned somewhere in the books. Later on, at the King's Cross Station in the next chapter, she shares a private joke with him (on page 71):



"'Ah, there's Penelope!' said Percy, smoothing his hair and going pink again. Ginny caught Harry's eye, and they both turned away to hide their laughter as Percy strode over to a girl with long, curly hair, walking with his chest thrown out so that she couldn't miss his shiny badge."



Here's a time when she can talk to him and joke with him as a common friend. Afterwards she ends up in Harry's compartment and becomes horribly affected by a Dementor (she "shakes like mad", is very pale and lets out a sob when they talk about the effect the Dementors had on them). It's obvious how bad the experience was for her.



Later on, on page 183 of PoA, after Harry's uneventful Gryffindor match with Hufflepuff (where they lose because Harry falls off from his broom, due to the effect of the Dementors). Ginny presents him a singing Get-Well card. Why exactly? The answer lies in the previous paragraph. The Dementors were at the stadium and Ginny must have doubtless sensed their presence. She knows what kind of effect the Dementors leave on people, and tries to console Harry. There is by no means any indication of similarity between the Valentine and Get-Well Card, since the Valentine dwarf idea was originally Lockhart's, while the card is exclusively Ginny's.



In GoF, Ginny's reaction on meeting him is the same as it was the last time, with the same description of being taken with Harry. Our first assumption, that Ginny's crush started not with her meeting with him in PS/SS, but rather with their meeting at the Burrow, in confirmed in GoF, page 34:



"Then two girls appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Mrs. Weasley. One, with very bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth, was Harry's and Ron's best friend, Hermione Granger. The other, who was small and red-haired, was Ron's younger sister, Ginny. Both of them smiled at Harry, who grinned back, which made Ginny go scarlet - she had been very taken with Harry ever since his first visit to the Burrow."



However, after the scene, we see Ginny talking freely and animatedly with Harry, like she would with a common friend. She talks to Harry about Fred and George's plans for Weasley Wizard Wheezes, and about Pigwidgeon. When they are about to talk about Sirius and stop on her account, she's wise enough not to push it. She doesn't go against Harry when he's announced as the fourth Triwizard Champion, but stays neutral. Later on, when Ron persuades her to go with Harry for the Yule Ball, she doesn't drop Neville like a hot potato and jump on the offer, but gracefully backs off. She feels hurt and miserable that Harry likes someone and doesn't return her feelings, but she tries valiantly to move on.



She gives up on Harry in GoF, and becomes more confident in his presence in OotP. She calms him down on many occasions and at times tries to bring him out of his shell. She may not force her opinions down his throat, but she won't stand being pushed around by him either. She stays cool in the face of fire (Harry's temper, that is). Here's another instance where Ginny expresses that she knows how Harry feels about his fame (OotP, page 71):



"'I didn't ask for - I didn't want - Voldemort killed my parents!' Harry spluttered. 'I got famous because he murdered my family but he couldn't kill me! Who wants to be famous for that? Don't they think I'd rather it'd never - '



'We know, Harry,' said Ginny, earnestly.



This shows us that the image she had of him in PS/SS, had completely disappeared beforehand, and proves the very point she had tried to make at Flourish and Blotts in CoS.



The Blush Factor:



Before the advent of OotP, Ginny was saddled with statements such as: "She blushes all the time" or "There's not an instance where she appears before Harry without going red like a tomato." But is this statement really true? Taking only the first four books into consideration, Ginny has an approximate total of 40 scenes. Out of these, how many are the scenes before OotP where she blushes?



PS/SS - None at all.

CoS - Twice: when she drops her dish, and emerges from underneath the table (page 43) and when Malfoy says: "Potter, you've got yourself a girlfriend!" (page 61). Harry does not tell us whether she blushes at other times - just that she's prone to dropping things when he's around.

PoA - Twice: when she meets Harry (page 62) and when she gives him the Singing Get-Well Card (page 183)

GoF - Twice: when she meets Harry (page 54) and then when she tells Harry and Ron that Neville is her partner for the Yule Ball (page 399).



In total, there are approximately 6 scenes where Ginny blushes, out of 40 scenes.



40 - 6 = 34 scenes where Ginny does not blush.



34/40*100 = 85%



This means that 85% of the time, she doesn't blush at all. 15% of her scenes were ones that include blushing, which is very little for one to say, "She blushes all the time." Though 15% may be big for a "minor character", but what about the 85%? Does it hold no account at all? Should we brush aside the majority of scenes that include her not blushing, and claim that she blushes all the time?



Conclusion:



Ginny's fan girl image was nothing more than a myth, even before OotP. She was herself in PS/SS. i.e. an energetic talkathon. She didn't have a crush on Harry in the same book, but rather she was excited to meet the boy who was a part and parcel of Wizarding History. Her crush started in CoS, on basis of factual explanations from her brothers and her own observations over the summer of that year. The Valentine, which Ginny was accused of sending, may have not been sent by her at all. She was free and open with Harry, even while she was taken with him, therefore her confidence was not altogether a casualty of her giving up on Harry. She has always been somebody who knows and understands him as a friend, ever since CoS.



To conclude, Ginny was never, in the history of Harry Potter canon, a fan girl.

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