CHAPTER DISCUSSION PS/SS 10, THE HALLOWEEN

[sistermagpie at earthlink.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 188363

> > > Alla:
> > > You really think that go get the teacher in the moment of imminent danger to somebody is a choice they should have taken into consideration? 
> > 
> > Pippin:
> > Hermione thinks so. She very kindly tells McGonagall that Ron and Harry did not have time to go and get someone, but that's a lie. Ron and Harry did not think Hermione was in  immediate danger  when they first realized that Hermione didn't know about the troll.
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I disagree. I thought the lie part was about Hermione being the one who went looking for troll and Harry and Ron having nothing to do with it, that they did not unknowingly drove Hermione to meet him.
> 
> I do not remember the part where Ron and Harry think that Hermione was not in immediate danger. Could you remind me please?

Magpie:
Hermione's lie is one of the strangest things in the series to me, since it doesn't protect anybody. As I remember it, the boys think Hermione's in danger because they know she's in the bathroom and hasn't gotten the warning about the troll. They have no way of knowing she's in danger that moment, but rather than just tell a teacher that Hermione Granger's in the bathroom, they rush off to save her.

Hermione then tells McGonagall that she went after the troll herself. So the only change in the story is to Hermione herself. In the fake version she was in the bathroom because she went to hunt the troll, and Ron and Harry knew she was doing that, thought that was dangerous, and so went to rescue her. In the real version Hermione was in the bathroom because she was using the bathroom (to cry in) and didn't hear about the troll, Harry and Ron knew she was doing that, thought that was dangerous, and so went to rescue her. 

Hermione doesn't change their actions at all, or make them any more or less heroic. She just makes herself reckless where she wasn't. In both scenarios Harry and Ron rush off to help Hermione instead of telling someone else--and aren't they in the crowds being led to safety? Do they slip off so a teacher who's right there doesn't see them? Or at least a prefect? I can't remember.

-m