Oh, I forgot about Wimsey! Although I’m not upset about him and Harriet; I’m very happy for them.
Good taste, man!
All three of the men in her series (Fred, Jim, and Dan) are pretty swoonworthy, but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the latter, Mr. Goldberg. Must be a journalist thing. I think Pullman’s a little off-target in real life (mostly his completely unsupportable attacks on C.S. Lewis), but he writes amazing adventures that I can feel good about reading: smart, brave women and men who measure up to them.
Also:
Sam Vimes (Discworld)
Edmund (King Lear)
Suffolk (1 & 2 Henry VI)
Berowne (Love’s Labour’s Lost)
Both Aubrey and Maturin, really – they’re both so enthusiastic about their specialties, which is enormously endearing, and I love both their senses of humor. “Cur-tailed”, indeed!
I never felt the vicious dislike for Diana Villiers that a lot of readers encounter. She seems to me to be doing the best she can with what she has in a situation where the deck is definitely stacked against her. Diana strikes me as a woman with a lot of street smarts but not emotional sense; I don’t think she knows why she does what she does half the time, but how!
I am extremely happy about Peter and Harriet. And Rochester and Jane. And Lupin and Tonks. I am, in short, good at sharing.
I still think Lucie Manette is a characterless little wax doll who broke the heart of a far better man than she deserved, though.
I still say Lupin and Tonks is an unlikely combination (grumbles). Unless he’s gay and she’s…malleable.
And you could have his nose. 
Oh, I was all about both of these two back in high school. I had quite the crush on any broken, brooding, mysterious guy who I imagined would sit and cry with me. 
I think I cried when I saw the “Tail of Two Cities” episode of Wishbone.
Nowadays, I find myself wishing I were younger so I could crush on the Potter kids without feeling creepy. (And no, not on the actors, on the characters!) If you go by the timeline the books suggest, however, I’m Ginny Weasley’s age, so maybe that gives me some license…if not, well, I wouldn’t kick Prof. Lupin out of my bedroom.
Cheryl, the shop-girl who becomes Mrs. James Taggart, in ATLAS SHRUGGED. She only wanted a hero & thought Dagny’s brother was it! But he was a mediocrity & thought, nay demanded, that he should be loved, not in spite of it, but because of it.
Dagny should’ve hooked her up with Eddie Willers.
Even with the book timeline, I’m still about a decade older than Harry . . .
Sirius is the right age for me, though. Rrowr.
Beatrice Rumfoord (Sirens of Titan) is my kind of babe.
I used to have a thing for Natasha (War and Peace) and Rebecca (Ivanhoe), but they’re too young for me now.
I see again that I have no competition for the eminent robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin (Asimov’s Robot stories), who is always first on my list in threads like this.
But if she won’t have me, then my list continues:
Trillian, from the Hitchhiker’s Guide series. Yes, predating the movie, though Zoëy Deschanel didn’t exactly disappoint, either.
The already-mentioned Minerva, from Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love.
Also from Heinlein, Caroline Mbutu, from Tunnel in the Sky.
Shannon Foraker, from David Weber’s Honor Harrington books. I usually seem to forget her in threads like this, though, until someone else mentions her.
Luthien Tinuviel, from the Silmarillion, though of course I’m nowhere near as worthy of her as Beren is.
And I’ll join those folks stubbornly insisting on the chronology which makes the Hogwarts gang 26 years old now, and chime in with Hermione Granger.
I will add a meta level to this thread and say that I would like to date anyone who would like to date Hermione Granger. (if I weren’t married etc).
Hmm. I always pictured Tonks looking much like Laurie Holden. Oh well.
Just for grins, I’ll answer the question for villainesses only. Therefore: Morgan Le Fey instead of Guinevere. Rice’s Akasha. Melisande Shahrizai from the Kushiel trilogy.
There’s no question about Mr. Darcy
I also find myself drooling over Sam Vimes
Buddy Glass. But I’d never, ever touch him. And he’s so much older than me, even when he wasn’t. Can you just want to be near someone, even a non-entity, and it be a crush? Does it count to just want to sit quietly nearby, and not say anything, just be happy to be near?
Sigh. If it must be mad, lustful, light my loins afire, then it has to be… well, now, I’m not sure. Maybe his youngest brother, Zooey.
…
NO! Wait! I know! Jarlaxle! Jarlaxle! Oohhhh! Chills, baby! He makes me all breathy and funny in the loinal area.
Heh.
Whoever the girl / woman was in Early From the Dance. I can’t remember her name but I’ll always remember the author’s description of her.
My wife (reading over my shoulder) just said, “If I were going to have a crush on a Shakesperian king it would definitely be Henry V.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sentence that started that way. She also thinks it’s lame that Sayers wrote herself into the Wimsey stories so that she could hook up with him. But she’s happy for them regardless.
The only literary character I’ve ever had a thing for (that I can remember) is Valentine Wiggins.
I once went out with a chick whose screenname was Akasha, does that count?
Huh? I thought it was just one book per year of Hogwart’s. I haven’t actually read them though.
It is. By “now”, I mean “2006”, not “the time of the most recently-published book”. There are clues in the books that the first one takes place in 1991, and that therefore Harry and his classmates would be about 26 in 2006.
Hmm. I looked on Wikipedia, which says that Rowling first had the idea for the series in 1990. So that sounds about right then.
[potternerd]
Nearly Headless Nick’s 500th Deathday cake, from Chamber of Secrets says he died October 31, 1992.
[/potternerd]