Evil Hermione Was:Re: Evil Snape

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 154600

SSSusan wrote:
<snip>
> My point, though, which I don't think I made very well, was that at 
> that moment in the HH, Harry *did* feel very let down by Hermione, 
> and I think he had legitimate reason to feel that.  NOT because she 
> did something wrong in suggesting the DA in the first place but 
> because of *how* she went about it, what she did and didn't tell 
> Harry, and how she left him hanging.  In short, I don't believe she 
> thought hard enough about how BEST to do this for Harry's sake, and 
> that is the way in which she let him down.
> 
> Let's look back at the scene, if we could, so that hopefully I can 
> make my position clearer. <snip>
<snip>
 
> "Well
 erm
 well, you know why you're here.  Erm
 well, Harry here 
> had the idea – I mean" (Harry had thrown her a sharp look) "I had
the idea
." <snip>
> 
> It had just dawned on him why there were so many people there.  He 
> thought Hermione should have seen this coming.  Some of these people
– maybe even most of them – had turned up in the hopes of hearing 
> Harry's story firsthand.
> 
> <snip> "If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when 
> Voldemort murders someone I can't help you," Harry said.  His
temper, always so close to the surface these days, was rising again. 

"I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right?  So if that's 
> what you're here for, you might as well clear out."
> 
> He cast an angry look in Hermione's direction.  This was, he felt,
all her fault; she had decided to display him like some sort of freak
and of course they had all turned up to see just how wild his story was.

SSSusan again:
> See, to me, there is no question that *in that moment* Harry was 
livid; he was furious with Hermione; he felt *let down* by her.  Was 
> the DA a good idea?  Yes, in the end.  Did Hermione PREPARE Harry as 
> best she could?  I would say absolutely not.  Did she think through 
> the best way to start up the group?  I would argue absolutely not.  
<snip>

> If I were Harry, I, too, would have been furious.  How dare she
allow people to come to an *opening, organizational* meeting, pretty 
> much "cornering" Harry, and then attempt to pass the whole thing off 
> as *Harry's* own idea?  If Hermione had thought things through more 
> fully, had been a little more empathetic concerning Harry, this
could have gotten off to a much smoother start, Harry would not have
felt so frustrated and angry (and not to mention that Marietta
Edgecombe might never have become a part of the group).  
> 
> So I just can't back down from including this as a moment where
Harry felt let down in a major way by Hermione, regardless of the fact
that the DA *turned out* to be a good thing in the end.  It was the
way it developed, the way she kept Harry in the dark, the way she
hadn't thought through what was likely to happen to him.  I think it's
pretty clear from JKR's writing that Harry felt that way, too.

Carol responds:
I snipped as much as I could of this post, but I wanted to retain the
gist of SSS's argument and the relevant portions of the quoted text.

I agree that this is an instance (like the jinx on the parchment and
Hermione's Vanishing Harry's potion and the whole business of knitting
hats and socks for house-elfs and taking Umbridge to the Centaurs) of
Hermione taking matters into her own hands, rather arrogantly assuming
that she knows best and not thinking things through, often with
unfortunate consequences. (Yes, I know that she's sixteen in OoP and
that she had to do *something* to rescue Harry from Umbridge, but
nevertheless, Hermione does assume that she knows best rather often.
But then, as we've established in another thread, so does Harry under
different circumstances.)

You're right that Hermione goes about the whole process in a rather
dodgy or at least secretive manner and that she doesn't let Harry know
what she's doing or anticipate his feelings. Nor does she anticipate
that the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, who clearly have very little idea
what happened in the third-floor corridor with Quirrell or the Chamber
of Secrets with Diary!Tom and the Basilisk and even less idea of what
happened in the graveyard with LV and Cedric, will want proof that LV
is back and that Harry can teach them to defend themselves. 

But Harry, IMO, overreacts to her interference. He assumes that most
of the people who have shown up have come to hear his story firsthand.
That's certainly true of Zacharias Smith and may be true for the
Ravenclaw boys and for Cho, who cared about Cedric, but it's not the
primary motivation for Marietta (who's been dragged there by Cho) or
Luna or Ernie or the Gryffindors, all of whom already believe Harry
that LV is back. And, just as it was for Seamus earlier in the year,
this desire to know what happened in the graveyard is quite
understandable. Of course the others want to know how Cedric died,
especially Cho and Cedric's fellow Hufflepuff Zacharias, and of course
they want proof that Voldemort is back. Harry could have said that the
subject is too painful to talk about, or that a Death Eater killed
Cedric on LV's orders and then restored LV to his physical self using
a potion, but instead he assumes the worst ("*of course* they had all
turned up to see just how wild his story was" and Hermione "had
decided to display him like some sort of freak"). Taking these
assumptions as fact, he blows up at everyone, confirming both
Zacharias's and Marietta's suspicions.

I think what we're being shown here is not just Hermione's mishandling
of the situation but Harry's tendency to judge people and assume the
worst. If he had reacted more calmly and understood how little his
fellow students really knew about what he had been through, that they
had legitimate reasons for suspecting that LV hadn't really come back
or at least hoping he hadn't, Harry could have forestalled the whole
Marietta situation. In fact, he could have done so by confiding in Cho
the details of Cedric's death that she so desperately wanted to know.
But throughout OoP, Harry has trouble trusting people, even his
friends, and doubts the competence of anyone but himself (except for
Hermione's suerior knowledge of books and school subjects, on which
both he and Ron lean too heavily).

I'm not bashing Harry, who has suffered terribly in the graveyard
scene and elsewhere, and who doesn't want to brag about his exploits.
But this is another instance, like DD's refusal to tell Harry about
Snape, of suppressed information having unfortunate consequences, and
of Harry judging others unfairly (as he later misjudges Luna, Neville,
and Ginny, and persistently misjudges Snape, IMO).

On a side note, when Harry does confide in people, he often forgets to
provide key information. As Pippin pointed out, he told DD about
Draco's "whoop" but forgot to mention his throwing Trelawney out of
the RoR. (His discovery that Snape was the eavesdropper puts this
detail out of his mind and prevents Trelawney from going to DD with
her story, with dire consequences.) And earlier, when he asks Mr.
Weasley to search the Malfoy manor again, he forgets to mention the
secret chamber beneath their drawing room (IIRC), where, I suspect, he
would find something worse than Dark artifacts--Lucius Malfoy's
sister-in-law, Bellatrix Lestrange.

Carol, noting that suppressed or forgotten information is one of JKR's
favorite devices for manipulating both the plot and the characters,
not to mention her readers