People wonder what JK Rowling thinks about the Malfoid phenomenon, but I've been wondering what Daniel Radcliffe must think about being constantly paired up with a computer generated blonde bombshell. 🤔

Here are my own thoughts on this matter, since I've posted it in pieces elsewhere: Harry doesn't get to make mistakes very often. Sure, he wrongly accuses Snape in the first book, because Snape is a dick. He blames Malfoy for the events of the second, for similar reasons. But it all works out in the end, because dead ends are just part of the mystery. Maybe that's just the nature of being the titular hero, or of the type of story that JK wrote early on, but he's never really punished for leaping before he looks. Everything is just brushed aside with a light detention at worst, and another 50 points to Gryffindor if he managed to save the school this year. Sectum Sempra is his first real fuck-up with consequences. For whatever reason, Harry never thought to take his textbook out behind Hagrid's hut and fire off a few test spells. He just reached straight for the killing curse, not realizing that it was on the level of Avada Kedavra. It's the equivalent of a teenaged boy finding a loaded gun and using it to play laser tag because he'd only ever seen Cowboys and Indians fall over after being shot. 𝑂ℎ 𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑡 doesn't begin to cover it. So we rewrite it, yeah? Easy enough, we're already rewriting everything from Goblet of Fire onward to fit Malfoid neatly into the narrative. We can have our story as fluffy and romantical as we want, and nobody can say otherwise. It's fine. Just 2 things. Number 1, you're removing the deepest plunge of the roller coaster. You've been to the summit, at the Yule Ball, and during whatever romantic shenanigans you want to come up with during the following ~4-6 months leading up to the graveyard and Cedric's death. But a proper enemy/rivals-to-lovers story needs a plunge. You can't just started at the bottom in their first year and work your way up, that's -- forgive me -- dreadfully boring. That's a checklist, not a story. Dracaena deserves better, which means she deserves her own character growth. The Sectum Sempara scene gives it to the both of them, and gives them a good point to rebuild from before the end of the story so that it's not just a rushed mess in the final 2 chapters. Number 2, and nearly just as important; you're not just changing that one scene. You'd also be changing the context of a later scene, after Dumbledore falls, and Harry again attempts to use the curse on Snape. Canonically this is his second time attempting it, and now he knows exactly what it does. Harry is ready to 𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 a Hogwarts teacher for what he sees as the ultimate betrayal, and for the first time in his life he's shooting with the intent to kill. There's nothing wrong with wanting a more light-hearted approach to the story. The "Lumos/Lumos" animation I reposted earlier is a wonderful example of this. But if you do remove it from the bathroom scene, just be aware that you're changing far more than a simple lover's quarrel in the girl's toilets. You're taking away a very strong point of agency and growth from two characters that could really use a kick in the teeth to get them back on the right track.