JK Rowling: Hermione and Ron’s relationship was unrealistic "wish fulfilment"

Author JK Rowling has revealed that she created the romance between Hermione and Harry’s best friend Ron for personal reasons, rather than because they were a credible couple, even suggesting that the pair would have needed “relationship counselling”.

“I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfilment,” said Rowling. “That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron.”

Now Rowling is bracing herself for an onslaught from fans, who could either rue the missed opportunity for a Hermione-Harry match-up or be upset to hear that the woman who put Ron and Hermione together never really believed in them.

“I’m sorry,” said Rowling, “I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.”

Then again, perhaps Rowling is finally admitting what some people knew all along. Emma Watson, who played Hermione in the Harry Potter film franchise, thinks so.

Interviewing Rowling for the upcoming issue of Wonderland magazine (excerpts of which have been published by the Sunday Times), Watson said “I think there are fans out there who know that too and who wonder whether Ron would have really been able to make her happy.”

An epilogue to the final chapter of the Harry Potter saga shows Hermione and Ron (played in the films by Rupert Grint) 19 years after leaving Hogwarts school, with two kids, while Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) has had children with Ron’s sister Ginny.

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