Hermione and the HBP (was Academic dishonesty)

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 139500

Laura Lynn Walsh wrote:
"This is what bugs me about Hermione in this whole
sequence.  She always HAS been interested in the
theory - until HBP.  Now, instead of trying to
figure out WHY Harry's results are so much better,
she simply rejects them immediately."

Del replies:
I agree. I wasn't surprised that Hermione would reject the book the
first time, but I firmly expected her to give it a closer look once
she realised that Harry *consistently* got better results than she
did, thanks to it.

Laura Walsh wrote:
"If she were truly interested in learning the theory behind potion
making, she would carefully analyze the difference
in the directions in her book and in Harry's.  It
is this CHANGE in Hermione that I don't understand.
I think it would have been much more in character
for her to look at the changes and say, "I see why
that helped.  I am going to put that in my book,
too.  I don't think this bit did anything, but why
don't you try using it and I won't and we'll see
whether it DOES make a difference." etc., etc."

Del replies:
I totally agree. Pre-HBP!Hermione was *bound* to be fascinated by a
book that so obviously contained valuable hints and insights into
potion-making. Sure, Hermione used to go by the rules, and
PS/SS!Hermione might have refused to examine the book simply because
it wasn't Ministry-approved. But Hermione has grown a great deal since
 PS/SS, she's accepted the fact that rule-breaking isn't necessarily
wrong in itself, and that the Ministry doesn't have any divine
authority. She tricked a professor to get a book in the Restricted
Section to make a potion secretly, she used a Ministry TT to thwart
the Ministry's plans, she helped Harry found a secret society devoted
to opposing the will of the Ministry, and so forth and so on. And then
in HBP she's supposed to revert to her old PS/SS self, who won't put a
toe out of line and won't touch anything that isn't
Ministry-approved?? I don't think so.

Laura Walsh wrote:
"Why was it necessary for Hermione to reject the
book?  I suppose it made it possible to keep the
Sectumsempra curse from her.  But that could have
been done with some stuck together pages, too."

Del replies:
There were many reasons why Hermione must not look at the HBP book too
closely IMO.

* There was the Sectumsempra Curse, as you said. Hermione probably
knows quite a bit more Latin than Harry does, and she most probably
would have guessed that such a spell was something that Harry
shouldn't try on a human being.

* There was the fact that Hermione would most probably have figured
out who the HBP was. Either she would have recognised the
hand-writing, or she would have realised that the modified recipes
were eerily reminiscent of the ones Snape used to give them.

* There was the need for Harry to shine in Potions, so Slughorn could
repeat ad nauseam how much Harry was like his mother who was such a
genius at Potions.

* I also think that the researches Hermione made in the old Daily
Prophets will turn out to be important in Book 7. If Hermione had not
mistrusted the HBP so strongly, she probably wouldn't have bothered to
research who he could be.

That's some of the reasons Hermione had to mistrust the HBP, IMO.

As for how this mistrust can be reconciled with her character, I guess
we are supposed to believe that she lost control of her jealousy in
HBP. She acted stupidly and even meanly towards Ron because of
romantic jealousy, and I think we are supposed to believe that she
acted stupidly towards the HBP because of intellectual jealousy. She
wouldn't study the HBP's notes because she went on a sort of
competition with the HBP, through Harry. She tried to prove that she
was a better potion-maker than the HBP. That's the only way I can
explain to myself that Hermione would let such a mine as the HBP book
sit under her nose without studying it.

Del