Hermione saves Snape?

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 138433


> Alla wrote:
> 
> I think that Hermione was always seeing world in Black and White  
as 
> if "authority figure is always right".
> 
> I sincerely hope that HBP taught her that this is not always the 
> case.

zgirnius:
I think this was very true of Hermione at the start of the series, 
but she has gradually gotten past this well before HBP ever starts. 
Her actions and statements in OotP show this fairly conclusively to 
my mind. She does not respect Dolores Umbridge in the least, even 
though she is a teacher and an appointee of the Ministry who is close 
to Fudge. In fact she is happy to propose and carry out a conspiracy 
to thwart Umbridge in her attempt to keep students from learning 
effective fighting techniques. She is also the organizer of getting 
Harry's story out to the WW against the wishes of the Ministry (she 
thinks of getting the Quibbler to publish it, and blackmails Skeeter 
into writing the story.) While some of these actions might be actions 
that authority figures she respects would approve of, we don't know 
for sure as she does not consult with any authority figure to decide 
whether to take either of these fairly dramatic actions. She does 
them because they seem to her to be useful and good projects to take 
on. 

I think she has trusted Snape to the extent that she has because of 
her own past experiences with him (all the times Harry had turned out 
to be wrong in the past) and because she trusts Dumbledore's 
judgement. And not becasuse he's the headmaster, but because he's 
Dumbledore.

Of course, Snape could be ESE, I personally feel we lack the data to 
decide at this time. But if he is not, if he is Dumbledore's man, or 
some such variant, I agree that Hermione is definitely a reasonable 
candidate for a character on the "good side" who would be able to see 
this.