Hello,
what a lovely beginning, set as a nice conversation between friends, and it is always good to get the aired cleared up.

I am glad to see that others are wondering what the heck happened to Hermione, and it is nice to see the flicker of her in this story.

Rowling herself has stated many times in past interviews that she is not a perfect author, and that she works hard to make her works better as she goes on. I would have rather have waited another year to receive another book like OotP, or GoF, but it seems in her frenzy to please her editors, and the people who pay, she has forsaken the readers in favor for the people who pay her, not the readers, of which she only get's a small commision for every book she has sold, but rather the people who want a book that is more convertable to the theathers, which by the way, I think that HBP is going to suck as a movie if it is made. I can't wait for GoF though. Keep up the good work, and continue to believe in true love, not some silly childhood fantasy of lust that Rowling has for her "best" friend. I wonder, who is her child's father, or for that matter, any of her children.

Thank you.

I'm in a rush right now, but your thoughts and insights (especially your author notes in the last chapter, as well as the story itself) have been quite a balm to a troubled soul--or a delusional mind.

Thank you.

There were no errors that I could find. Just loveliness. I was glad you didn't have them jump into a relationship right away. They needed to fix their friendship first, get things out in the open. You did a wonderful job of that here. It's very true that they'll never be "normal", or at least not in the dictionary sense of the term. But when the two of them are together, you can just see that they are being their normal selves, or normal for them anyway. That's one of the reasons why I love this ship so much, and I think you captured that beautifully here. Great job!

It's like my soul on the internet. I just read the interview, and I was so ticked off that they started laughing at us. She started it, didn't she? She might as well laugh at herself. She doesn't realize that we're not delusional obsessors. We're a smarter bunch than most H/G or R/Hr fans. It's not fair that we're the butt of most shipping jokes.

You know.... I think you're more than on to something here. Harry wasn't his normal self in book five, Hermione not her normal self in book six. Hmmm... but you're right, at the end of book six she was more--er--"Hermione-ish." I guess we'll just have to see in book seven. This was a great story, by the way. Excellent, I enjoyed it very much. And I agree with you 110%.

What a wonderfully written story!!!! I found this story very refreshing after the horrid state of the ships sailing in book 6. (And to think that they are to remain that way! I shudder just at the thought of it!) Once again this is absolutly fabulous and should go far in this compotion!

I liked you explanation of Hermione's behavior. It made sense, which made me feel much better about her character development.

I like it. It's very sweet and teenagery. They sound like a couple of friends who both know they've been stupid, and they most certainly sound genuine. I can't wait to see where this goes.

I agree totally. I've always shipped H/Hr and i will continue to do so. I also shipped Buffy/angel!

This was just as beautiful, if not more so, than "Why?"

I really liked your explanations of why Hermione and Harry acted like they did in HBP. I thought that your reasoning behind Hermione's irrational dislike of the Potions book was very insightful.

Stories like these just make it harder for me to believe that we really aren't going to make it in canon. *sigh*

And I'm so glad that you're a Clark/Chloe shipper. I've always seen it as a very close parallel of Harry and Hermione's relationship.

Well done, and thank you for this lovely fic.

It's been a crazy and tumultuous week, hasn't it? We couldn't believe what we read in HBP (which, in my opinion, was flawed in *many* ways, although the savage emasculation of Hermione was its greatest sin) and a few authors like yourself came rallying to our defence, trying to 'explain' it all away. Myself, I was still running around in circles looking for that 'unified love potion theory' that would account for everything we'd read (even though it would still make book 7 something of a romantic sitcom farce in putting things 'right').

And then, just when we were settling down ... the interview. Hornet's nest city all over again.

The signs *were* there, and they were in concrete, mate, visible to all. No delusion! It's just that JKR had also - deliberately this time - put in the H/G and R/Hr clues so necessary to her inflexible 15-year-old 'master plan', and we chose to prefer to believe in the potential of a rich, pure, deep and lasting relationship between hero and heroine rather than fall for the superficial 'Hollywood' model adopted by JKR and mediocre romance novelists.

Thanks for staying on here at portkey. Brad.

"Watching Ginny and Dean together had given him a yearning for something he thought he would never had, a chance to be free of worry with someone who cared about him." WONDERFULLY WRITTEN! wow! i'm really impressed! great metaphor w/ spiderman! "Do you know how it feels to be replaced by a book? It was like you made a new friend to give you all the answers." WOW! good observation! this story was GREAT! oh man! amazing that you wrote this EVEN after HBP...you completely pulled it off! excellent joB! i love how you focused on repairing harry and hermione's messed up friendship. i'm SO glad. TWO THUMBS UP FOR SURE!

Okay, make this ten words...I so totally agree. Well said! The Ron/Hermione kind of love only works in sitcoms. I'm glad that there still other people in this world who realize that. Good job on your story, by the way.

--stu14688

I totally agree with you. And I'm glad you wrote this, seems like the right explanation for Hermione and Harry's actions in HBP. They can say whatever they want, but no one beats H/Hr shippers in character's insights, and you are a great proof of that.

Cheers!