it irritates me that the fandom public can't seem to accept the idea that two people of the same sex can have a deep, emotionally intimate friendship that doesn't automatically have to be romantic or even sexual in its nature

I agree! It's just getting silly now. Especially in the Potterverse, where there are so many people writing slash that people feel that they have to come up with more and more outlandish pairings just to stand out from the crowd. To me that's pointless. If you really, really see something there, then write about it, but don't just do it because you want some attention.

I did think of Willow and Tara, but to me that doesn't exactly count, partly because Buffy is just in a different league, and also because it's more sort of... pop-culturey and contemporary and somehow more chilled out than other shows.