Why did Hermione lie?

[errolowl <nithya_rachel@hotmail.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51512

I wrote:
*What* trouble?? As far as I can see, they did nothing wrong. They 
did go and save her when there was no time to get anyone else. The 
only thing that Hermione lied about was *her* reason for being 
there. 
She was crying and missed dinner. Surely that was better than 
saying she went after the troll herself?
<snip>
 Hermione could just have said that she'd been in the bathroom, (no 
need to mention she'd been crying), and hadn't heard the announcement 
(true), and that the boys had come to get her(all the same as 
before). 


Torsten:
> The students were supposed to be in their common rooms or on the 
way to it, without taking the time for a trip to the toilet, and it 
would be quite unbelievable she had been in the toilet since before 
the school heard of the troll - that would be too long a believable 
toilet visit, even for a girl.
<snip>
She expected the teachers to ask why she'd been crying if she 
mentioned it, which would lead to Harry and Ron possibly getting in 
> trouble for taunting her, 


me again:

Saying she just *had* to go to the bathroom on the way to the 
commonrooms would still have been better than saying she went after 
the troll on purpose!! <g>

but that's beside the point. She needn't have been in the bathroom 
for very long - she could have left in the middle of the meal, just 
before the alarm was raised. The boys didn't take much time going to 
find her...Its likely that at the most 10 minutes had elapsed.
Once Quirrel yelled "Troll", Dumbledore asked them to go to their 
common rooms pretty instantenously. Even given the confusion on the 
corridors/stairs, it couldn't have taken too long.

And being in the bathroom for a longer period of time is not a crime 
as far as I know. ;) See, the problem is, she only changed the 
*reason* for her being in the bathroom. As far as I can see, thats 
the most minor thing about the whole incident!
I don't think her reason for  crying had to come out at all, nor do I 
understand why it would be a major reason to get into trouble with 
McGonagall. And she could have been crying because she was homesick 
or something.Besides, the boys didn't taunt her. She just over heard 
a nasty comment by Ron.

Torsten:
> Why no one wondered why the boys didn't tell one of the prefects 
leading them to the 
> common room is another matter ...

Yes, the biggest and most serious rule they broke was in not 
following the Prefect (and this was the one of the first times they 
wandered off to deal with danger - something that became a habbit 
later on ^_^). But Hermione still dealt with that part truthfully.
There was a panicked crowd in the corridors - the Prefects, I 
believe, had their work cut out for them. And the teachers had gone 
after the troll, right? So getting hold of a person in authority 
would have been difficult just then - McGonagall understood that when 
Hermione pointed out that the boys didn't have time to get anyone 
else.

No, <sigh> I still don't get it.
I would have attributed it to another Hermione "there's no wood" 
moment, beleiving that she lost her head for a minute and told a lie 
that was worse than the truth -- but Harry and Ron feel this sense of 
having done something very wrong as well. They never indicate that 
her spur of the moment lie was a relatively bad one!

Errol