Hermione's role (Was: Teaching Harry)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 143301

Barb Roberts wrote:
<snip> Harry won't be the one reading runes et al., it will be
others... we are talking Team!Harry.  It is likely that . . . with
Dumbledore gone, that LV will once again underestimate the oppostion.
I'm sure that LV believes that no one of significance will learn
of...much less destroy the Horcruxes. Also because magic always leaves
traces that are identifiable, that when LV senses the opposition, it
will be a little harder for him to figure out who it is exactly. 
Especially so, if LV continues to underestimates school children. <snip>

Carol responds:
I agree that Harry will have to rely, perhaps more than ever, on
Hermione's remarkable memory of what she's read in books. Possibly
she's read something about the traces left by magical concealment that
will come in handy, and I've always suspected that she'll find a use
for her Ancient Runes course, whether it's to read the runes around
the edges of a Pensieve or to recognize Harry's scar as having the
shape of a rune (Eihwaz or Sowelo). But I expected a conversation
between Hermione and Luna about runes in relation to the scar in HBP
and didn't get it, so maybe I should accept defeat on that one.

But what about Arithmancy? What is it, exactly, and where might it
come in? (Okay, judging from a textbook title, it involves numerology,
the magical properties of numbers, but where does "grammatica" fit
in?) Anyone have any ideas what this course involves and how it will
prove useful in the Horcrux hunt? We already know (or think we know)
that there are seven Horcruxes. Would knowing *why* LV chose the
number seven help at all?

And what about poor Ron? Is he just going to be the loyal sidekick who
knows how to play chess (and Quidditch, if the Twins aren't around)?
I'm not by any means denigrating the virtues of courage and loyalty,
which Ron displays in abundance, but I'm wondering what particular
talents he can contribute to the search for Horcruxes and whatever
else Team!Harry has to do on the road to Mt. Doom, erm, the
destruction of Voldemort. (I wonder if the brain tentacles he was
attacked by in the DoM will give him some sort of insight that the
others don't have? That'll make Lupinlore happy, right, Lupinlore?--a
loose end from OoP picked up again and developed into something
significant.)

Carol, hoping that SSS has noticed the total absence of Snape from my
posts so far today ;-)