Start with a friendship (Then maybe happen on a romance)

I guess I'm just in a romance kind of mood, aren't I? It's funny that I get so passionate about this kind of thing since I'm not a fan of romance... maybe that's why.

I want to talk for a moment about romance in Harry Potter and how little there was of it in comparison to adventure, magic and FRIENDSHIP.

I put emphasis on friendship because that's how I like my relationships done. They start as friendships and they happen to be something more. They progress slowly. Like most relationships. Throughout the Harry Potter books the focus was on Ron, Harry and Hermione as friends. There were some moments of sexual tension between Hermione and Ron but it wasn't obvious until the 6th book (In my opinion). Then it developed.

And it made sense because they had been friends for six solid years. That's a long time to know someone and when you're that close to them, it's natural to start feeling something more. Before the 6th book, Hermione could have just as easily gone with Harry. Likewise, Ginny and Harry's relationship made sense too. It started out as a crush, then Harry saved her life and then eventually feelings developed when they were older.

Not only is this realistic but, as Tex said in his recent comment, it leaves possibilities open to the readers to play with pairings in their minds. (And readers get into that stuff. They have WARS. And I always pick the wrong guy but that's a post for another time)

I'm going to go back to my books for a minute. There are actually three romantic relationships that end up happening in these books. But at the start of my writing I only knew that one of these was going to happen.

I'm not going to give names because I don't like spoilers but I'll label them: the main character, was always going to end up with boy 1. I was going to have it progress slowly because they didn't have enough page time in the first few books for be to develop the relationship outside of a crush. But I did have it planned.

However I had another relationship that just sort of... happened. Main character's best friend (Who is a very violent, stubborn and impulsive character) get's into trouble a lot and this other character always happened to be around when it happened. We'll call him boy 2. Boy 2 doesn't like to see others hurt when he can do something about it so when MC's Best friend is getting kicked around, he ends up saving her and almost gets the crap beaten out of himself (Cause he's kind of a wimp. But I still love him to death).

Later in the book there was another situation where boy 2 stopped MC's best friend from doing something she would regret, again almost getting himself killed. This wasn't really because he was attracted to her, just because he doesn't like seeing others in danger. When they started having conversations in book 4 I realized that I really liked them together and it could work. But I built their relationship first on a friendship. That's what I think made it work the best.

The third relationship was a case where I knew the two characters were friends in the past but had a bit of a falling out (Which I'm totally not going to get into because it's a MAJOR spoiler) and writing their conversations I realized that that friendship might have been something more (I love making up things when it actually feels like I'm discovering them). Just the tension in their conversations reflected that.

I wasn't even going to make anything of it on page because I wasn't sure how to do it because these were two of my hardest characters to write. Then my friend, who happened to love both of these character, insisted I write a scene, even if I didn't put it in the book (Because she wanted to read it). I did and it happened to work. So one romantic involvement became three. What do you know?

There's still very little actual scenes for romance because I try to keep the focus on the life threatening stuff. But I find that relationships are not only more realistic, but a lot more fun to write if they start out as friendships. Because then you discover the relationship which is ever so much fun!

-Authoress Anonymous