Director’s Commentary for Chapter 1 of Won Won
(if you want insight for any other piece or chapter, here’s the original meme)
So with this fic I started it purely to explore a bit of Ron and Lavender’s relationship. I’d seen a lot of things slamming Lavender, saying Ron used Lavender purely to make Hermione jealous and I was just like… Naw. To all of that.
On top of that I saw people speculating about just how far they thought Ron and Lavender went. That I fell more into the camp of ‘I think they had sex.’ A lot of people feel that he’d save himself for Hermione- and honestly, maybe before the Krum revelation and dating Lavender he was in a way. I even have that in this chapter. But when he discovers Hermione had actually done romantic things with Krum, had snogged him- after years of denying it- that bubble is burst and he’s hurt and angry, and yes jealous- but I think people tend to hop straight to jealousy when to me it was way more than that.
He’d been moving glacially slow with Hermione- but thought they were glacially moving at the same inexperienced pace. He isn’t even thinking about dating another girl or looking at one besides a bit of teenage ogling. It’s been nothing but Hermione for him. And even though Krum drives him bonkers and he was jealous as all out, he had thought she’d done nothing with him. But oh. She snogged him. Who knows what else? And all that time she’d lied.
Then the final killing blow is the felix felicis- not only did all that go down- she also thinks he’s worth nothing/can’t do anything. (And worse, it’s in quidditch after it’s KRUM of all people got to snog her.)
I think that’s when Ron’s like ‘welp, I give up on Hermione. I obviously have nothing to offer her she can’t/hasn’t get with an international quidditch star— and I’m going to settle for the girl who shows obvious interest in me. In Lavender’s eyes I’M desirable. I’M impressive. I’M worth something.
And as a teenager given the opportunity- Yeah I think he’d go all the way.
Lavender is in HARD on this relationship. And given her general romantic nature, how she idealizes him, how physical they are so quickly etc. I really do think that they would have done it.
There was a terrific bit of debate when I said this. ‘He’s saving himself for hermione!’ Er, not anymore imo. He gave UP on her.
Sex and romance a lot of people like to conflate- and I get it- i love sex and romance to go hand in hand- but love and sex don’t have to go together. In fact much of the time, they don’t.
SO being in an ornery mood- and wanting to write out how I think it would go down if they DID do it- I wrote this chapter. It was purely meant as a one-shot ‘this is how they’d do it!’ And also I think that first time sex is hilarious. Like, it’s ridiculous, messy, and picturing Ron and Lavender fumbling through it made me chuckle.
I took in awkward moments from sex over the years- as well as sort of lifted ‘fanfic romantic first-time virgin sex moments’ and flipped them to make them cringe. Like the secondhand embarrassment I felt WRITING it was off the charts.
As much as I felt fun and embarrassment- I also wanted to get in some of that anger and sadness. Ron’s emotions are all OVER the place in this part of the books.
Because Ron is a romantic. He’s an idealist who hadn’t been actively pursuing sex or anything- he was just living his life and casually slowly moving towards all that stuff with it being a low priority- because to me Ron’s been sitting there daydreaming about ‘and then I’d kiss Hermione at sunset and she’d swoon but my quidditch skills would make me catch her so fast.’ Like, he had this sweet sort of childlike wonder about her that I just love.
He’s left hollow and saddened. Settling for someone when he really is in love with someone else? Having sex with them? Augh, it’s so hard for him. In the moment he’s like ‘uh, ok!’ But after? Oh that’s torture.
And poor Lavender. She is a romantic too- but unlike Ron she’s not settling. In her mind he’s been a crush all year- and she’s romanticizing the hell out of everything. He’s the one! They’re meant to be! This is perfect!
And she’s not a bad person at ALL in this. She’s just a young girl trying to find love- and eventually she finds out that what she felt for Ron wasn’t love- more just a crush/infatuation. And Ron liked her, but he was incapable of loving her- at least at that time.
It’s the pits. All around.
After writing this first chapter- I realized I really liked writing Ron. I’d put it off for YEARS (a decade!) because I loved him so much and was worried I’d mess him up somehow. But people were nice and encouraging so I decided ‘well, let’s do it! Let’s get into Ron’s emotions during this time!’
