If I were a sorting hat...

[zgirnius]

No: HPFGUIDX 132205

 "davenclaw" roleplayed Sorting Hat:

>Hermione: She says (I think in OotP) that she was considered for 
> Ravenclaw.  And while she's no coward --snip-- let's face it: 
> her over-riding personality characteristics are intelligence and 
> studiousness. I say, put her in Ravenclaw.
> 
Finwitch: 
> She's studious, yes. Why? To satisfy her ambition but more 
> importantly, because she's afraid to fail. No - as much as she 
> studies and appreciates academical knowledge, she's not really, 
>deep inside, all *that* fit for Ravenclaw. A typical Ravenclaw, I 
>believe, enjoys studying for the sake of studying... not Hermione. 

zgirnius replies:
Oh, I agree Hermione has an (excessive, irrational) fear of failing 
in her schoolwork, but there seems to me to be a lot of support for 
the idea that she is genuinely interested in learning and 
scholarship. For one thing, her reaction to Sybill Trelawney mirrors 
McGonagall's-they both dislike her becasue they see her as a fraud. 
(Contrast this to Hermione's remarks about Arithmancy...so 
interesting!) 

Also, so often the knowledge she has gleaned from books is completely 
beyond or unrelated to her immediate coursework, suggesting she 
looked it up out of curiosity. For example, the Polyjuice Potion in 
CoS. Yes, Snape mentioned it in class, and that prompted her to look 
it up. But he also indicated it was way too advanced (I can't track 
down my copy just now, but he indicated it was either OWL or NEWT 
level, as I recall.) A student concerned primarily with passing the 
next exam would spend her time studying the material she knows will 
be on it. So I can definitely see why the SH would want to sort her 
into Ravenclaw.

So why Gryffindor? My guess...perhaps she WANTED Gryffindor. This is 
Hermione, remember. The moment she and her parents got the invitation 
to Hogwarts School and the news that she is a witch, you just KNOW 
Hermione went out and read through "Hogwarts, A History", 
and "Magical Education in Europe", and probably other relevant tomes 
not mentioned in canon...she probably decided that Gryffindor was 
the "best" house based on something she read about it. And since as 
davenclaw points out, she does meet those criteria as well, the SH 
put her in Gryffindor.

--zgirnius