[HPforGrownups] In defense of Hermione and Neville (Ron as Sirius and Neville as Peter)

[Porphyria]

No: HPFGUIDX 34586

On Sunday, February 3, 2002, at 10:30 AM, blpurdom wrote:

> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "meglet2" <mercia at i...> wrote:
> > I don't think Hermione would be susceptible in the same way
> > because I think she a) has more insight into herself and others,
> > b) has more strength of character and c) is too unshakeable in her
> > loyalty to Harry. But I may be overly biased in her favour. I have
> > a lot of fellow feeling for Hermione.
>
> She doesn't have as much insight into herself as she does into
> others.  (A real blind spot with Gilderoy Lockhart, don't you
> think?)  She also has shown a tendency to keep important information
> to herself (the Time Turner, Lupin being a werewolf). 

I just needed to jump to Hermione's defense here. :-) Concerning 
Lockhart, she was, after all, only 12 at the time and furthermore nearly 
every witch in the Potterverse seemed equally captivated by him. It was 
more of an epidemic of infatuation which she contracted, rather than a 
character flaw on her part. Those of us who never had a silly crush when 
we were 12 should cast the first stone...

As to Hermione's keeping secrets, I've always seen this as one of the 
more extraordinary signs of her strength of character. Given the amount 
of damage one can do with a time-turner, and the extent to which it is 
only allowed within strict Ministry control, one can hardly blame her 
for keeping it secret. It would only tempt the boys and everyone else to 
use it for less-than-noble purposes if they knew about it, and Hermione 
doesn't want to be responsible for its misuse. Plus, she swore to Prof. 
McGonagall that she wouldn't tell anyone about it, so she's simply 
honoring a previous promise, one which she no doubt sees the wisdom in.

As to her keeping Lupin's secret, this is probably more interesting and 
debatable. Perhaps Hermione figures that the rest of the faculty, or at 
the very least Dumbledore, must know that Lupin is a werewolf. If they 
know, then it must be *OK* to some extent, and she doesn't want to 
overstep her authority in the matter by exposing him. Furthermore, we 
know that Hermione tends to have standards of judging others more like a 
liberal muggle than a pure-blood wizard. Ron may instinctively distrust 
werewolves, but Hermione might feel that a werewolf is innocent until 
proven guilty of something, therefore she takes it upon herself to 
protect him from wizard prejudice. Again, its a matter of honoring 
someone else's secret.


> When Harry, Ron and Hermione are going over the lake as first years
> in the first book, they are joined by another person: Neville.  It
> seems that Neville is the best doppelganger for Pettigrew.  He's not
> considered very competant and he's at the fringes of the group. 
> Perhaps his attachment to Hermione (he asked her to the ball) will 
> spur him to do something traitorous (he could possibly get the
> impression she's involved with Harry or Ron whether that's correct
> or not).  A lot of folks have been rooting for Neville to tap into
> the power he "must" have inherited from his parents, but somehow I'm
> not completely convinced that would be a good thing...


I'm not sure if JKR would have the heart to twist Neville's character 
like that. We've already seen that he can be brave and do the right 
thing (even if it gets him beaten up or body-bound), so he's got a lot 
of nobility in him. Plus, so far he doesn't seem to be particularly 
jealous of either Harry or Ron, and unlike Pettigrew he doesn't seems to 
cling to anyone for protection or reflected popularity. He shows no sign 
of having a temper or a vindictive streak, or any calculation at all. 
Pettigrew is elsewhere compared to Colin Creevey, but I don't buy that 
either, for essentially the same reasons; Colin is too innocent and 
well-meaning. To have either character turn traitor would involve adding 
heretofore unnoticed qualities to their personalities. Well, OK, I'd be 
heartbroken to think either of these kids would go bad. But I'm not 
crazy about predicting future plot developments from past occurrences. 
There is no character who is exactly like someone else from the previous 
generation, and I don't think JKR would recycle a plot wholesale.

Of course I think Neville will kick butt when he _finds himself_, but 
I'm sure it will be bad-guy butt.

~~Porphyria


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