CHAPTER DISCUSSION PS/SS 10, THE HALLOWEEN

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 188370



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, sistermagpie at ... wrote:
>
> > > > 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
>

Montavilla47:

I agree that the lie was probably unnecessary.  What it does accomplish 
is stopping the discussion before the boys have to admit that they knew 
where Hermione was because they had heard about it earlier from their 
classmates--and because they remembered (as their classmates apparently 
did not) because Ron made her cry in the first place.

And... it's possible that Harry and Ron didn't go get a teacher in the 
first place because they'd rather face a troll than admit that Ron was 
a jerk.  Something that would have surprised none of the teachers,
I'm sure.  

So, she may have saved Ron from a small amount of embarrassment,
but maybe it seemed like a bigger deal to the boys.  

Turned out to be a blessing for the boys.  Not only did they get a lot
of "help" on their homework (as in, having Hermione write most of their
essays), but Hermione turned out to have a big advantage in terms 
of mischief-making.  Her reputation as a swot allowed her to lie and
steal with impunity from the staff.