OoP: Hermione and the DADA Prof

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 66357

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Well, one thing we saw again in OoP was confirmation of something I've told
my learned colleagues on here before:

Behind the "good girl, getting good grades" facade, Hermione Granger has a
steely streak that I, for one, would not want to mess with.  To put it
bluntly, the girl's ruthless as all-get-out when she decides it's time to
be.

Leading That Woman into the Forbidden Forest, after they'd been warned off
by the centaurs, took a lot of cold-blooded courage on Hermione's part (and
Harry's, but it was Hermione's idea from the beginning); the centaurs could
have had a "shoot first, ask questions later" policy going on, and all three
of them could have ended up looking like hedgehogs from the arrows sticking
out of their bodies.  In situations like that, a "Sorry 'bout that" is, to
say the least, slightly inadequate.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see the final showdown turning, at least in
part, on Vmort underestimating Hermione's courage and single-minded
ruthlessness, whether it's because she's a Mudblood, er, Muggle-born, or
because she's a "mere slip of a girl."  He's underestimated women before,
and paid for it (remember Lily?) so dismissing Hermione on account of her
gender would be nothing new for him.  The only kind of women he seems to
have any time for are those who lick his boots, like Bellatrix.

Come to it...one of the admittedly farther-fetched theories I tossed out
pre-OOP was that Hermione would turn out to be Ever So Evil, and possibly
become the new Dark menace.  What she did to That Woman---on the one hand,
we all applauded, we all knew that That Woman had it coming (and I do wonder
_what_ the centaurs did to her?) but at the same time, she _did_ conspire to
violate school rules in a spectacular fashion, and she _did_ knowingly lead
That Woman into a situation where she could easily have ended up dead, dead,
dead.  Like if Grawp had found them first.

She's also not one to be deterred from what she wants by mere facts (like
the fact that the house-elves find her attempts to stir them up and free
them offensive) or by her friends.  If her long-term goal is to be Ever So
Evil and the new Dark Mistress of the wizard world, she's not done anything
so far that would work against _that_ goal.  And she'd be a lot better
menace than that nurd Vmort, too.

--Eric, wondering what Harry would do if he found out that now Vmort's gone,
Hermione's taken over the DEs and reorganized them and made them into a
_real_ menace.