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whinlatter · 1 year

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Hi! I love your writing think it’s phenomenal work. It’s really such a genuine and intimate depiction of Ginny. I also see you have an appreciation of Dean Thomas. I’d love to know why you think Ginny was attracted to him? What do you think their relationship was like and how did it help them for their next partners? I just think that pairing was really interesting and there’s not enough of them being friends.

❗️ Warning... big Dean & Ginny meta incoming ❗️

Firstly - thank you so so much for reading and enjoying my work (phenomenal!!! I’ll dine out on that all week - can't thank you enough).

Secondly - what great questions! This was such a fun thing to think through. Dean’s a quietly lovely character I have so much time for, despite being very underdeveloped in canon (cutting his arc to exclusively favour Neville’s? Side-eye forever). I'm definitely a paid up member of the Dean Thomas Fan Club.

Anyway….. the questions were so good I wrote this too-long meta on Ginny and Dean before going to bed because I apparently… cannot be stopped?

Why was Ginny attracted to Dean?

I think for this question it’s important to think about the timing of when Ginny and Dean became close and when they got together, and especially what Ginny was looking for during and after her relationship with King of Negging, Michael Corner. There are three weeks between the break-up with Michael and Gin getting together with Dean, so we can assume Ginny and Dean had already become close and maybe a little flirty when she was with Michael (Ginny Weasley likes to give herself a nice four-week breather between boyfriends, usually just in time to watch the early summer weather roll in. I for one respect the work rate and the consistency.)

Ginny is with Michael until late in her fourth year, until they break up after the Quidditch final in early June. Dean has his OWLs until late June (just realised Ginny dumps Michael right before his exams - this is how you get revenge on a Ravenclaw).

The events in the Department of Mysteries take place the day exams finish (cue iconic scene where Harry’s rushing up to the dormitory to grab his Cloak and save his godfather’s life and Seamus and Dean are trying to get him on the sesh, absolutely rate it, excellent from the lads). Ginny’s going out with Dean by the time she gets the train home, probably by the end of June.

Given the short turnaround time between relationships, I think it’s likely Ginny and Dean became close during the rest of the school year, where she was able to learn the following things about him (and implicitly compare him with Michael as Michael revealed himself to be, as the great prophet Ronald foresaw, ‘a bit of an idiot’):

Dean Thomas knows right from wrong (and really, really can’t stand Dolores Umbridge). In their first lesson with Umbridge, Dean is by far the person in the class who stands up to Umbridge the most after the trio (he actually comes out swinging a lot more than Ron does). He immediately subs in for Harry when Umbridge refuses to answer any more of Harry’s questions. He defends Lupin and Crouch-as-Moody when Umbridge criticises them (describing Crouch-as-Moody as a maniac but saying ‘we still learned loads’ is extremely funny - Dean's pedagogical expectations are low). Dean is an extremely enthusiastic DA member, he and Ginny often arrive at meetings or take part in dinnertime conversations about the DA together, and I think they likely became mates because they’re passionate about what the DA is trying to do. We know Gin likes a boy with a moral compass, a backbone, and a good sense of outrage in the face of injustice. (I cut this out of a much lengthier first draft of chapter one of Beasts, which had all the DA at the graduation ceremony, but this was their interaction in response to another character acting up: ‘[Ginny] feels an old rush of affection for Dean, a man who always had a good scowl in him when it mattered.’)

Dean’s a sweetheart, even if he’s a bit hopeless. Dean’s a character who is often trying to make people feel better about things and trying to give a bit of comfort – emphasis on trying, because he’s not always good at knowing exactly what to say. I think this is something Ginny would really value – she’s someone who, for all her fire, tries to comfort and support the people around her. I reckon she’s got a soft spot for a man with a heart in the right place and a chronic inability to find the right words to express it. ('“Don’t worry about it, Harry,” Dean muttered, hoisting his schoolbag onto his shoulder. “He’s just . . .” But apparently he was unable to say exactly what Seamus was, and after a slightly awkward pause followed him out of the room.' OotP, 221 - does this not sound like how Harry would try and comfort someone?) 👀

Dean is kind to the underdog. Dean is often seen hanging around with or partnering up with Neville, and in DH, we’ll also see Dean be very kind towards Luna. I think Ginny rates people who are kind to those who are socially awkward and excluded.

Relatedly... Dean loves Remus Lupin. I wrote about this a bit in this short reflection on Remus (and am writing about this at the moment so don’t want to get too spoilery if you’re reading Beasts…), but I have a feeling being Remus Lupin’s biggest fan would be a sure fire way to get a text back from Ginny Weasley.

Dean’s into sports. Like her soulmate, Ginny’s into fellow jocks (I think it's implied that Michael Corner was also on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team – three for three on Quidditch players, Ginevra, if you were on Love Island I’d say you have a type). I think she’d also be amused and endeared by Dean’s die-hard commitment to West Ham - she is Arthur Weasley’s daughter, after all, and she probably enjoys teasing him about how crap football sounds. (That bit in PS/SS where Dean’s yelling ‘send him off, ref!’ – 10/10 excellent Dean content). Also Dean does not seem threatened by Ginny’s Quidditch abilities, but instead just really wants to be on the team with her too, which is a nice change from Michael Corner, the Jack Berger of Hogwarts Quidditch. (Sorry Michael, I know you end up a gold star goodie by DH, but young Mike is a prick to our girl Gin).

Dean is a laugh. Chuckling at Ernie Macmillan in his Apparition classes, mucking about with mice in Transfiguration, getting the giggles because this Lockhart bloke has set a quiz asking students to name his ideal birthday gift: Dean is both fun and funny. That bit in GoF where Dean describes Warrington in Slytherin as a ‘big bloke who looks like a sloth’ – funny. The bit later in GoF where Dean rinses Harry for rejecting that curly-haired Hufflepuff girl who wants to go to the ball with him – also funny. Ginny Weasley likes a comedian and she also likes an audience. I think that means a big tick in the Dean Thomas column.

Dean's a creative. This is verging on headcanon territory, but I really do love the idea of Ginny finding her way back to writing in the years after Riddle and the diary. I can see her being drawn to someone who also has this gentle, expressive, artistic side to them.

Dean’s not averse to dealing in contraband Firewhiskey. If you’re a fourteen year old popular girl with a rulebreaking streak, the boy who can source you some Firewhiskey for an end of exams party from a cool kid like Harold Dingle is hot property.

Dean… er, really likes Harry. Not Gin's finest criteria for a boyfriend, but I think In GoF, the man draws Harry flying around the Horntail on his Firebolt and draws Cedric, his rival, with his head on fire. It’s not a hugely good look for Ginny, but I reckon Dean really liking Harry probably, in a strange, back-to-front kind of way, is another vote in his favour (Gin, you're messy, and I love you for it).

What was their relationship like?

I loved thinking about this question! It’s easier to write about why Ginny and Dean broke up than it is to write why they stayed together so long, and what good stuff they took from the relationship. Dean's easily bashed in Hinny fic in all sorts of different ways, and I don't think it really tallies with the really positive impression we get of him in canon. Ginny and Dean spend a lot of time together over the year - eating most of their meals together, training together, spending all of their Hogsmeade time with each other. I know it’s a teenage relationship, but this is still so much time to spend with one person. It also actually takes them quite a while to breakup, even if they’re ‘rocky’ for much longer. There's something to their relationship that must, on some level, have worked quite well. After all, it would have been a lot easier for Ginny to have dumped Dean if he was a crap boyfriend. It’s much harder to dump someone who is a good partner, but not the right partner for you.

I think that's the problem for Ginny: Dean was kind of perfect for her in lots of ways - but for the person she would have been if Riddle hadn't happened to her, and if the war hadn't happened. Their relationship was clearly based on a lot of mutual attraction and chemistry (that kiss Ron and Harry saw was intense, lads - there's a reason Harry was threatened by it, after all). I think Dean was proud as hell of Ginny, especially on the Quidditch pitch (he's so excited to tell her he's going to be on the team with her!). I think he would think she's super cool, and I like fics and headcanons about Dean that show him trying to internalise his feelings about his own dad into doing right by his girlfriend, even if that means overshooting and being overly chivalrous and over-protective with Gin. I think one of the reasons Ginny stayed in the relationship so long is because they genuinely got on, had a laugh with each other, and fancied each other, in a way that she would feel conflicted about when she still feels drawn to Harry.

Really I think it's Dean being so great that is the problem for Ginny. If she's with this really great guy and she's still feeling restless and like something's missing, she knows that means she's still not over Harry, and that means she's in trouble. I think it's why Ginny sabotages the relationship, in very understandable ways, and in the end she finds herself getting the ick over little things, and picks a fight to end it rather than come clean about being in love with someone else. (No judgement: again, messy girl representation is important).

Ultimately, I think Harry is perfect for the Ginny that actually exists, and Dean would be a good match for a hypothetical Ginny where there was no Harry, who doesn't have a family in the resistance, who doesn't have all this trauma from what happened with the diary, and who isn't shaped and forged by a childhood at war. Until DH, Dean doesn't seem to know anything about the Weasleys' involvement in the Order. We have no evidence anyone other than Harry, the Weasleys, Dumbledore and Hermione ever knew Ginny was possessed by Riddle, and I don't know that Ginny would volunteer the information to Dean. (The only reason she brings it up to Harry in OotP and again in HBP isn't because she wants emotional support for it - she only brings it up to try and help him. This is not a subject she talks openly about even with the person who knows most about what went down). This lack of knowledge about crucial parts of Ginny's life would mean huge gaps in understanding between them - not gaps that are Dean's fault, but that Ginny doesn't try to get him to bridge. Dean can't meet Ginny where she's at emotionally at the point in the series where they get together, in many ways because he's much closer to a normal teenager than she has been able to be up to that point. At the end of the day, Ginny's always going to want to be with the strange guy racing to the Department of Mysteries to rescue a loved one and fight Death Eaters on a Friday night than a nice normal guy who is planning on drinking his own weight in Firewhiskey to celebrate him finishing his Wizarding GCSEs.

How did it help them for their next partners?

I think Ginny would always speak highly of Dean, appreciate that he made her feel loved and someone a boyfriend should be proud of, and I think she would feel some guilt about what went down. I think, eventually, Dean would acknowledge that he didn’t fully understand Ginny and what she was going through, and that he couldn't have been able to meet her needs in the same way Harry could. (I do think this would take a while, though - on the way out, Dean would be understandably very bitter, even if bitterness would be quickly surpassed by the much more serious escalation in circumstances in the war for an apparent Muggleborn. Thinking about it, Dean Thomas had a terrible 1996. Man got dumped and then within three months was homeless and on the run from a murderous fascist regime trying to do him in. Like, I know this is very much not funny but… if a man I had shared a bedroom with for six years and called a friend publicly scooped my ex from me from under my nose, dumped her a few weeks later for mysterious reasons, and then I had to look at his face everywhere I looked on wanted posters, I would be a lot more mad at Harry Potter than Dean Thomas ends up being).

Ultimately, though, I think both would look back on the relationship as a sort of sweet teenage thing, with a lot of warmth and humour to it, probably some sweet confidence-boosting intimacy early on, and a bit of a lesson that you can't make someone be the right person for you. I like to think Ginny and Dean end up mates, in the end, and that she's always rooting for him to find someone great.

#and that person... is seamus #joking but not really #dean thomas #meta #beasts #this was super fun to think about thank you!#dean thomas supremacy #ginny weasley

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