Hermione, Ron and Scabbers

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 35968

Personally, I think that Hermione knew after Scabbers' disappearance and
alleged death that she _should_ have done more to keep her pet under
control, which was why she was so shirty with Ron---she's proud, and doesn't
like admitting that she was in the wrong.  Add in normal teenage-girl
troubles (a lot of which Harry wouldn't be personally aware of; she'd
probably rather die than let on to him about that sort of thing, and we are
not privy to her conversations with her roomies) and her killing work
schedule, and her behavior becomes understandable, if not entirely
excusable.  Buying a _cat_ when one of your two best pals has a rat that
he's had for years, and not taking precautions to make sure that your pet
doesn't come into contact with his pet, is a bit...un-Hermione-ish.  Could
her purchase have been meant to be, for some reason?  I don't have a copy of
_Fantastic Beasts,_ and can't remember how magical Kneazles are, but her
buying Crookshanks after he'd been in the petstore for so long does strike
me as slightly fishy, somehow.

At the same time, Ron should have taken precautions of his own to protect
_his_ pet...maybe gotten some sort of anti-cat charm on the boys' room, to
keep Crookshanks out.  I'm sure there are a lot of charms and spells we
don't know about, simply because if we learned about _every_ spell, charm,
and potion they learn about, the books would be five times as long and read
like a Hogwarts syllabus.  But he apparently didn't, and didn't like
admitting that _he'd_ been partly in the wrong.

As for Ron's "ineptitude with girls," hey, give the kid a break!  He's
fifteen years old or so at the end of GoF, and AFAWK about the _only_ girl
he's had much to do with outside of Hogwarts was...his little sister, Ginny!
As my mom would have said, these skills do _not_ automatically appear when
you hit a certain age.   It happens that teenage girls are usually several
years or so ahead of their male contemporaries in things like social skills,
and I think that Ron and Harry acted perfectly in-character for boys their
age at the Yule Ball.  Me, at that age, I'd probably have conveniently
become half-ill-unto-death the night of the Ball, since I was prouder than
Lucifer and didn't trust _any_ girl I knew to keep it between us if I asked
her and she said "no."  I never went to dances or the prom when I was in
American high school...when I was there, no money and no car meant no status
and no girlfriend.  Since I saw the prom as a "girl thing" anyway, this was
no big loss.

I have to agree with the poster who criticized Molly Weasley for forgetting
that Ron doesn't like corned-beef.  My own mom ran a nursery school for
thirteen years, and could rattle off details about every kid in a given
class.  Molly's admittedly very busy, but she _should_ remember that Ron is
just as much her son as the twins, Percy, or Bill, even if she has to make a
family joke out of it---"right, let's have a look at the ol'
Rolodex---marvelous things, these Muggle inventions."  Come to it---if money
was getting very stretched around their home when Ron went off to school,
why didn't she suggest to Charlie or Bill that getting Ron his wand and some
robes for Hogwarts would be a wonderful Christmas present?  From what little
we've seen of those guys, they'd have been happy to help, and poor Ron
wouldn't have had to go through his first two years of school with a
malfunctioning wand.  It's not like wands cost the earth---five to ten
Galleons, or so.  I can easily understand Ron feeling like the
last-and-least in his family.