“Okay, write that down,” Hermione said to Ron, pushing his essay and a sheet covered in her own writing back to Ron, “and then copy out this conclusion that I’ve written for you.”
“Hermione, you are honestly the most wonderful person I’ve ever met,” said Ron weakly, “and if I’m ever rude to you again –” He broke off suddenly. “This just says DO YOUR OWN GODDAMN WORK in fourteen languages.”
“Fifteen,” said Hermione. “One of them’s invisible.”
***
“How would it be,” she asked them as they left the classroom for break (Binns drifting away through the blackboard), “if I refused to lend you my notes this year?”
“We’d fail our O.W.L.s,” said Ron. “If you want that on your conscience, Hermione…”
“I’d be very sad if you failed your O.W.L.s,” Hermione said seriously. “But how could your mistakes be on my conscience?”
“Do you value me for my friendship,” she asked them, “or do you see me as someone you can get to shoulder the burdens you deem unimportant enough for you by tossing me the occasional scraps of flattery and feigned dependence?”
“We do value you,” said Ron. “We just haven’t got your brains or your memory or your concentration – you’re just cleverer than we are – is it nice to rub it in?”
“Why would suggesting that you are innately inferior convince me to do your work for you?” Hermione asked, puzzlement creasing her brow. “If I truly believed that to be the case, I would do everything in my power to assist you, but I would not injure you further by encouraging you to space out during class and fall even further behind.”
“But we’d fail –” Harry began.
Hermione wheeled around and fixed him with a venomous look. “Don’t ever suggest again that I am responsible for your failures, Harry Potter. I love you like a brother, but you rise and fall on your own. You will not place a burden on my shoulders that was meant for your own.”
***
“I am sorry that I was unable to see more of you over the summer. It pains me to criticise our parents, but I am afraid I can no longer live under their roof while they remain mixed up with the dangerous crowd around Dumbledore. (If you are writing to Mother at any point, you might tell her that a certain Sturgis Podmore, who is a great friend of Dumbledore’s, has recently been sent to Azkaban for trespass at the Ministry. Perhaps that will open their eyes to the kind of petty criminals with whom they are currently rubbing shoulders.) I count myself very lucky to have escaped the stigma of association with such people – the Minister really could not be more gracious to me – and I do hope, Ron, that you will not allow family ties to blind you to the misguided nature of our parents’ beliefs and actions, either. I sincerely hope that, in time, they will realise how mistaken they were and I shall, of course, be ready to accept a full apology when that day comes.
Please think over what I have said most carefully, particularly the bit about Harry Potter, and congratulations again on becoming prefect.
Your brother,
Percy.”
Harry looked up at Ron.
“Well,” he said, trying to sound as though he found the whole thing a joke, “if you want to – er – what is it?” – he checked Percy’s letter – “Oh yeah – “sever ties” with me, I swear I won’t get violent.”
“Give it back,” said Ron, holding out his hand. “He is – ” Ron said jerkily, tearing Percy’s letter in half “the world’s – ” he tore it into quarters “biggest – ” he tore it into eighths “git.” He threw the pieces into the fire.
“Come on, we’ve got to get this finished sometime before dawn,” he said briskly to Harry, pulling Professor Sinistra’s essay back towards him.
Hermione was looking at Ron with an odd expression on her face.
“Ron,” she said abruptly.
“What?” said Ron.
“I’m really sorry your brother said those things to you,” she said. “I hope your work goes well tonight.”
“Thanks, Hermione,” Ron said. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to pull an all-nighter. It’s what happens when you leave things until the last minute and then find yourself surprised by emotional crises, I suppose.”
“I’m going to bed,” she said. “Good night.”
“‘Night, Hermione,” said Harry weakly, looking over his essay and sinking back into his armchair, rubbing his eyes.
It was now past midnight and the common room was deserted but for the three of them and Crookshanks. The only sound was that of Ron’s quill scratching out sentences here and there on his essays and the ruffle of pages as he checked various facts in the reference books strewn across the table. Harry was exhausted.
Hermione slept beautifully that night, and woke refreshed in the morning.
Tags: emotional labor, fan fiction, harry potter, hermione stop doing their goddamn homework
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The version of the books that Hermione deserves!
(Maybe I have longstanding issues based on classmates asking me to help them with their work from the age of about six onwards. But Hermione has better things to do than her friends’ homework! In her third year she was taking so many subjects that she needed to time-travel in order to fit everything in! This is not a girl who has time to be doing her friends’ homework on top of her own.)
Gross! I would hate that Hermione. She sounds like Hermione Taggert in this version. Barf.
Ron (like Joe Biden) was basically collateral victory, but Harry had a few good reason why he was unable to get to his homework. He wasn’t just being a slacker. He had occulomancy lessons, detention with a sadist, training the DA to fight killers and, oh yeah, saving the wizarding world.
Besides, in the book it was pretty clear she was just letting them copy her work which she had to do anyway- except for Neville when she would try to tell him what to do in potions, but that isn’t really too much of her time since she is right there next to him.
By far the most draining commitment was helping Harry solve events in the Triwizard Tournament. Which any decent person should have done because he was ridiculously young for it. Not helping him in that case would be like Michael Phelps sitting on the side of a pool and letting a friend drown after getting tossed into the deep end.
I don’t think it makes someone Ayn Rand-esque to not want to do people’s homework for them – it’s not like Hermione doesn’t care about Harry and Ron! She just shouldn’t have to do their work for them (work Ron, at least, is perfectly capable of doing himself; I agree that Harry has an awful lot going on that gets in the way of homework).
This is my first comment on the Toast because this article was too beautiful and I need to thank you for it.
Thank you.
Hermione deserved better than Ron and I will never get over that.
No, I LOVE Ron! I just don’t want Hermione to do his homework for him, or Harry. I don’t even mind that they married young and had a passel of offspring, I just hope she also got to invent something cool or become President of Time or whatever.
If one of her children is not the wizarding version of a dentist I’ll be very, very surprised.
[pic of that elf who wants to be a dentist from Rudolph]
HERMEY 4EVA
Edit: stupid ducking autocarrot
Didn’t Hermione (canon-ly) end up incorporating S.P.E.W. and working for the Ministry, dealing with the rights of magical non-humans? I seem to remember that she was recruited by Gringotts and a few other places but ended up doing something she was passionate about instead of something power-monger-y, which isn’t a million miles off from Ron’s dad, who’s often described as dead-ended into the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office but having the brains and skills to basically do anything he wanted, it’s just that he wanted to study Muggle Artifacts. Which, once Ron wrapped his head around the idea that his father willingly gave up power and money in order to do what he loved, would have helped Ron help Hermione make the decision to follow her passion rather than her power, and THAT is a good thing in a relationship.
I think this is from the ‘How Wizards Do Money’ series on the Billfold.
I love Ron, but I could never picture them as a happy couple in the grown-up forever partners doing life together sense. He deserves better (for him) too! Maybe in this version, where he never learns to rely on her work ethic and also the phrase “she needs to lighten up” never crosses his mind.
Singing a chorus of amen in response.
I don’t know. I think the idea that ambitious brilliant straight women must marry ambitious brilliant men is damaging. Hermione is going to have some fantastic intense career that they have to plan their lives around, which would be much harder if she were with someone who was trying to do the same. And there are worse things than partners who can help you lighten up!
On the other hand, I could easily see Hermione ending up having that career and having to do all the work at home because Ron “just can’t do it as well as you can!” and that’s bullshit.
Yeah but at its worst, it’s basically just the Judd Apatow thing where a slacker dude saves “over”-competent from being *gasp* uptight, oh but also accomplished and effective and adult. I bet she never stops doing his homework.
Ugh. That is also terrible. Taking to the sea.
This is why Hermione should have married NEVILLE. Neville. Gentle yet determined, thoughtful Neville. (Also far, far hotter Neville, but I suppose I shouldn’t mention that.) This is the one, the only, Harry Potter ship I care about, and I will die on this hill.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod this is THE BEST and how did this never occur to me before and you are queenliness itself.
Or why couldn’t any of them have a) not gotten married or b) not gotten married to someone they met as an adolescent. It’s as if JK Rowling decided they were all living on a desert island and had to repopulate the world in the last chapter, except they weren’t! There are so many more fish! Or not fish! in the sea.
There used to be an article on pottermore or something called “Why not Marry a Muggle?” pitching the titular idea at all the 7th Years graduating Hogwarts and looking around at the same 50 kids they’d known isnce they were 11 and thinking “Are these all my options now?”
this is why I love that Luna ended up with the anonymous Rolf Scamander and not Neville (and Malfoy married the anonymous Astoria Greengrass and not Pansy Parkinson).
I never thought of this but it’s brilliant.
Neville is … straight? *examines this new and confusing thought*
Neville/Luna 4ever.
I have never thought of this before but after the last book, I think you might be right. I have always shipped Harry and Hermione but I could get behind this. Neville is passionate, romantic, and becomes self-sufficient in ways that Ron doesn’t achieve toward the end. After book four, it’s apparent that Hermione craves a little take-charge romance, and I think Neville could give that to her without being controlling or jealous a la Ronald Weasley. He’s sort of gentle yet strong and certainly bright enough. YES I AM CONVINCED!
I can’t see Hermione letting Ron get away with that (“You helped defeat Voldemort. Don’t try to act like you can’t manage to tidy the house, especially as you can literally use magic to do it”), and I think that by the end of the series he’s mature enough that he wouldn’t try it. My headcanon has Ron being a very supportive partner who is really proud of Hermione’s hard work and impressive career.
And she is supportive of his work as well! But they both acknowledge that her work is more important to her than his is to him, and while they both support each other, Ron is willing to pick up the slack at home so she can really throw herself into her job.
Also, I see Ron as being a great, natural dad.
[Dadbot weeps a single tear at the sight of the word ‘natural]
Me too. I can definitely see Ron being happy as a stay-at-home parent (with the occasional shift at Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes) while Hermione kicks ass at her ministry career.
For me, it’s not that Ron isn’t as book smart, it’s that he doesn’t really seem to respect and value book smarts (except as an end to get stuff done, like find Horcruxes). IIRC, there are hints in canon that he starts to respect it a bit more as he gets older, and maybe that growth keeps happening. But if she centers her life on learning, and he doesn’t want to hear about it……….. well, there are a lot of fics about that particular relationship disintegrating.
yes, this! I can picture him being an awesome partner to someone who wants to leave work at the office. I can’t picture her ever being that person. and vice versa – she always rolled her eyes at his jokes and stuff. Like, it’s less the serious & ambitious vs. goofy & friendly issue and more, they don’t really share or respect each other’s enthusiams.
[puts all work aside for the day to continue this discussion]
That’s a good point. Different interests and levels of intensity can work, but only if each person appreciates the traits of the other.
YES. I think that Hermione not respecting Ron’s passions very much (ie, Quidditch) is also an important and under-discussed part of the equation. As much as I personally identify with Hermione, Ron deserves to be valued and treasured too, and I just don’t see Hermione looking up from her work for long enough to notice him degnoming the garden or whatever.
Yeah, I feel like Ron deserves better than to just be someone who likes pointless things like Quidditch (not that I think Quidditch is pointless: I love sports, world cups are awesome, also what a healthy way for us all to get together and do some chanting and taunting of the “enemies” now and again without having to resort to actual violence, stadium riots being a very sad exception, anyway… back to HP) and can help Hermione follow her dreams because he doesn’t have any of his own. I mean, that’s kind of bleak also.
Ron seems to get dragged behind Harry and Hermione more than he ever gets his own autonomy. I know that him coming back to the tent is *supposed* to show that he’s actually choosing to be part of things of his own free will, but given how little any of these characters get any actual free will, it’s pretty suspect. I mean, maybe Ron lucks out and the things he ends up doing (Aurors, being a dad, etc) are things that make him happy. But when we all sort of round Ron down to a “good bloke who isn’t that interested in books but likes sports and hanging out with his friends”, we pretend that it’s likely that one of the most central characters of this series is possibly also the least complicated, which doesn’t seem to make sense to me.
Another reason I raise my eyebrow at their marriage (and that goes in both directions – i maintain that Ron deserves better than Hermione too!). I always got the sense Ron was going to do a lot of growing and changing once he wasn’t tied to Hogwarts and Harry’s story. His personality came down to “is a teenager” more than Harry’s & Hermione’s did, and that could go a lot of different directions between the end of Book 7 and the epilogue. I think of how many people I know dated someone around that age and parted ways as they went in different directions and I can’t quite picture R&H growing closer instead.
I agree. Hermione always read like a champion to me, while Ron was kind of a doof sidekick. I never warmed to Ron the way some people did, because I found him to be sort of jealous and controlling with Hermione. IF she marries at all, I picture her with someone far more confident and commanding than Ronald Weasley.
Now I am picturing Ron as the Doof Warrior in Fury Road.
I just read this and instantly hit the thumbs-up button before I could even think about it; it is apparently my instinctive response to any Fury Road content.
totally, there is this fine line when you imagine a couple who’s always pushing one another to be better and happier – is that a good healthy thing or a horrible cycle of frustration? and I find it hard to imagine R&H as the former. (Of course, we get so little information about what their adult lives are really like…outside of fanfic, blessings upon the fanfic writers.)
Yeah, particularly with Hermione being so competitive about things. If she had a partner as ambitious and brilliant as she was, she’d drive herself mad and likely never let herself be “off.” Ron balances things out a little.
Oh come on, Ron is sweet and endearing!
Although, reading those books, all I wanted was for every single character, including Voldemort, to end up with the Weasley Twins.
ok. I like this a lot.
When you consider that they would probably be traumatized as fuck after that adolescence, it’s probably like a Katniss-ends-up-with-Peeta situation.
I imagine, however, that the magical world is going to have better options for *healing* that trauma. Like, Katniss is pretty much just stuck in a terrible universe, regardless of the choices she makes, or how many professionals she talks to. But the magical world ends up in a much better place post-Voldemort, and Hermione would potentially be able to access the options available to both through St Mungos as well as Muggle options.
Even if the initial marriage and children happen while still pretty thoroughly traumatized (likely), that doesn’t necessarily mean she’d stay in it.
I don’t know; looking at the seemingly complete lack of pastoral care provided by Hogwarts, I find it hard to imagine that the wizarding world is that invested in mental health stuff. If you’re a Muggleborn at Hogwarts, your family just don’t understand your life, and you you spend the majority of the year away from them (with no phone access), making it harder to keep in touch and let them know what your everyday life is like. You can’t talk to your friends and extended family about your life because it’s literally against the law (how far does the Statute of Secrecy extend, anyway? I mean, it’s okay to talk to siblings and parents about magic, presumably). The Hogwarts environment seems designed to alienate Muggleborns from the culture they were brought up in, and there’s no sign that anything is done to alleviate that trauma.
I find it very hard to argue with ANYTHING you’ve said here, however I despite all of it, I still think that Hermione has a better chance of ending up finding appropriate help (even if she has to overhaul the whole damn system herself to get it) than Katniss does.
Yeah, Katniss is not in a good position when it comes to getting help for PTSD.
I have a headcanon that Hermione et al. get some very good therapy from a squibb who decided to become a therapist (because they wanted to understand muggles better, so studied psychology, which led to this field). While such a person would not have gone to Hogwarts, I believe wizard law allows them to talk about their life with them? I’m just going to believe it is so.
I have definitely read fanfic like this!
Do you perhaps remember the names/authors/where I can find these fics? Because I would very much like to read them.
The one I remember best was a subplot in the giant “A Year Line None Other” series here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/742072/chapters/… (Fair warning, I loved this series when I was in high school (early 2000s, looks like it was removed from FF.net & put up on AO3 somewhat recently!) but not all of it holds up, but there was a Squib therapist subplot was cool). I remember reading a few shorter ones on FF.net back in the day but can’t find them now!
Thank you!
This is why I write a LOT of HP headcanon fic about how the characters deal with the trauma of basically being child soldiers. Not all of them can come out the other side without talking to SOMEONE.
LINK PLEASE
Ron was a bit of a dolt as a teen boy, but he was a teen boy. I like to imagine him growing up a little and being a contented househusband while Hermione has an important job somewhere. He makes Hermione laugh and also really nice pumpkin muffins.
He always has a nice hot meal waiting on the table for when she gets in from a long day of being awesome and making the world a better place.
I am happy with Hermione/Ron because I see a lot of similarity to my own situation and it rings true to me. I’m a similar type of personality to Hermione, and my partner is a similar personality to Ron. I always have and probably always will have a ‘bigger’ career that I care about more, and my partner is very happy pottering (sorry) around the house when he isn’t doing his support work job. He’ll be a great stay at home dad and I’ll be great in the workplace. We didn’t meet when we were teenagers, but we are both from the same area and knew people in common. And, sometimes people do just meet when they are young, and they manage to grow together. These guys survived a lot. I like to think perhaps they both broke up for a bit to broaden their horizons, but ultimately wanted to be together because it just worked. Aw.
I know the arguments for and against Hermione/Ron really well, but the thing that ultimately makes me like them is that it seems clear that Hermione *chose* Ron. She doesn’t like Ron because Harry likes someone else and she can’t have him, she likes Ron because of his Ron-ness. I like what that says about Hermione (and also about Ron).
Yes, that! I don’t see their relationship as pushing each other to be more one way or the other (like the argument that Ron helps Hermione “chill out”–no, no, no). They both have strengths that the other person doesn’t have, and they like those strengths in each other.
idk, Ron’s self pity is irritating but at least he’s too lazy to be a dick with the frequency of Harry, Hermione and Ginny. Being married to Hermione would be a hell of a road to hoe, you make a mistake and she decides you need a disfiguring.
Snitches get stitches. *shrug*
I think you just summarised Gryffindor in three sentences – you could teach Rowling something on brevity!
Guys I just love that this comment got 40+ responses (and counting). Apparently this issue cuts to our very Toastie core.
I keep checking every few hours to see if the pro-Ron or anti-Ron comments are higher in upvotes. So far it’s always been pro-Ron winning!
I ALSO love Ron and am pro Ron/Hermione. But a lot of this has to do with how you get into the blurry fringes of Rowling’s imagined world pretty quickly… like she’s never very clear on how magic actually works (spells are “complex” or “simple” but always just seem to involve saying a word or pair of latinate words, so why are some of them not to be attempted til year 7 or ever- cf conjuring a Patronus) or why some wizards are poor and others are not and why kid wizards totally get how to dress like muggles but their parents definitely don’t or even, really, what wizards do after the age of 17- no one really seems to go to wizard university? And the professions, especially outside the ministry, seem murky at best- even in England with its robust pool of Civil Servants, people do other things.
And after such a formative experience together it IS hard to imagine any of the trio being understood by someone outside of the pool of people we’ve already met. So basically I take this world VERY seriously while also understanding that it’s not really all that realistic except in the FEELINGS ALLEGORY UNDERSTANDING OF HUMANS AND EMPATHY way and getting that it’s hard to iterate wizard society rules beyond, well, Hogwarts. (Hogwarts: A Very Dangerous Place to Go To School.) And that it’s a challenge aging kid wizards into Complex Adults, and so for that phase of Wizard Life I read The Magicians series by Lev Grossman (what if you had magic but still had to be yourself? Great if slightly more depressing world and the ending of the series is great and also more hopeful than the earlier books.)
I may also have a lot to say on the Harry/Ginny topic and secondarily Ron/Hermione based on outlining a parallel between Harry/Ginny and Prince William/Kate.
My personal theory about spells is that the actual incantation is just sort of a tool to help focus your mind, and the real difficulty is what’s going on in your mind while you perform the spell, so from the outside “simple” and “complex” spells look pretty much the same, but it’s kind of like performing simple arithmetic vs. an advanced mathematical problem in your head. Like for conjuring a Patronus, even though externally it appears that you just say “Patronus” and wave your wand, internally you have to be intensely focused on an intensely happy memory and really working to recreate those happy feelings WHILE also in a terrifying real-life situation, so that’s why it’s difficult.
But yes it always bothered me that almost everyone seemed to work for the government or Hogwarts and nobody seemed to work in industry. Like…we know from Diagon Alley that wizards and witches own businesses, so don’t they need, like, accountants and lawyers and administrative assistants? Magical engineers to design cauldrons and broomsticks and remembralls?
I cannot believe there’s been 50+ replies to this and no one’s mentioned the Hermione/Victor Krum potential. Highly talented in his own field bloke who adores her and thinks her intelligence is sexy? (I may have decided he’d be a house husband in the off-Quidditch season and teach her languages and be totally supportive of her campaigning I AM INVESTED OKAY)
I do like Ron, I just think he’d be better off with someone else. Also, Harry, dear, you don’t need to marry Ginny to be part of the Weasley family. Please don’t marry a younger substitute for her (/your?) mother when there’s Draco Malfoy being pouty and moodily invested in you over there. (Yes, I opened that can of worms, sorry)
But Hermione still doesn’t give a toss about Quidditch, so I’m not quite sure Victor would be treated that much better than Ron.
True. I guess I just hope that being invested in *something* to that extent would be enough? Ron seems to drift a lot, which is a totally valid way of living but doesn’t seem to mesh with Hermione’s very driven personality. Slight projection from the love lives of some uni friends, I cheerfully hold my hands up to that!
While I like that Krum immediately notices Hermione’s excellence and pursues her, I have been thinking recently about how weird Hermione’s involvement in the second Triwizard task is. Ron being the person Harry would miss the most is something I can completely get behind, as is Gabrielle Delacour for Fleur. Cho for Cedric is weirder – haven’t they only been going out for a few months at this point? – but I can accept it. Hermione for Krum is just bizarre.
It’s either a damning indictment of the people in Krum’s life (ie no close friends or family) or a scarcity issue. There could be no one he particularly likes in the Durmstrang contingent and no conveniently close relatives? And if he’s lonely he could sorely miss the only person he’s connected with on a personal level recently? I am possibly way over thinking this, and it could just be the magical sparkles of narrativium at work.
YES name me some personality differences between Ginny and Lily oh wait. Also it’s very normal that Ginny has Mrs. Weasley’s eyes exactly, all good there (on top of the whole harry/lily eye trope no less)
SO CREEPY
I…have a lot to think about, it seems. Thanks, Mallory.
I used to aspire to be Hermione, but I have realised that I am Neville and I am more than pleased about that.
I used to aspire to be Hermione but have realized that I’m more like Unnamed Hufflepuff #3 and I’m pretty okay with that.
Hermione for the first week of class every school year, Hufflepuff #3 the rest of the time.
#storyofmylife
I worry I can’t be a Hufflepuff because I’m not hardworking enough (“unafraid of toil” does not describe me).
Toil can mean a lot of things though. I don’t study, and I don’t clean my room, but I do make four trays of extra strong Jello shots when one tray of regular Jello shots will do. Dedication to overkill is what makes me a Hufflepuff.
I’m not unafraid of toil, but I am unafraid of naps.
I was re-watching the movies since they were on TV here a bit ago, and I started thinking “why did I never identify with Hermione as a youth?” Then I remembered that she was really driven and wanted to do extra work all the time. Even as a youngster that never appealed to me.
Google is failing me, but there was an excellent tumblr post (stay with me) of a pro-life rally sign that said “If Lilly had aborted Harry, who would have defeated Voldemort?” and the caption was “Neville. Did you even read the books?” It is such a source of pure joy.
Yes!! So good
http://imgur.com/gallery/6Uy4QtS
In a similar vein, there’s a chance that I wear this t-shirt to sleep every night– https://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD….
I have the stress, perfectionism, and obsessiveness of Hermione, and the low confidence, poor coordination, and awkwardness of Neville. Heck of a combo.
Definitely a random Ravenclaw here who was not into the risk-taking that defined those Gryffindors over there and wanted everything to just be normal and school-y and not scary and life-y.
Of course that was then and this is now… so now, which is the house for the procrastinators?
LOVE IT
Also, not here for the Ron hate. He is the most ordinary, realistic character in the books and I love him for it (this is not directed at the piece, but it ALWAYS comes up related to Hermione). He keeps her from becoming too serious and she makes him see what is important.
But what IS arithmancy???
YES. I would like more information about this too. It sounds fascinating.
It’s fancy numerology! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmancy
Oh god Hermione’s a kabbalist!
It’s what would have saved me from math classes.
sorry, still bitter about struggling so much in trigonometry.
I always assumed it was the topology version of magic.
Growing up, I was the Ron to my best friend’s Hermione. She did yell at me to ‘grow a pair of tits’ and do my own goddamned homework at the end of our sophomore year after quietly seething for two years. It was pretty glorious – she dumped some gooey looking thing from her lunch tray on my head, and choked out a few words at me, and then promptly burst into tears.
Our friendship survived despite my laziness, AND she’s gotten much better at telling people off without stalling now. So, yay.
Sounds like an awesome friendship.
It is! We skipped our senior prom to have a joke “friendship wedding” with vows and everything and we skipped our HS reunion to renew them over a ton of alcohol.
Is this too schmaltzy? I get way too emotional & TMI-y over this shit. Our friendship is the best thing that happened to me.
You make me want to text my best friend from high school and reminisce about skipping the junior prom to do pre-calc homework and watch anime.
Adding “grow a pair of tits” to my vocab thanks.
Beautiful.
A classmate in my thesis seminar did her thesis on Harry Potter, starting with the thesis that it was a feminist work and then changing her mind. It’s articles like this that both make me think she was right and miss college.
Back when I used to spend a lot of time on HP fan site message boards, there was mighty and illuminating thread I started (so proud!) about whether or not the HP series is feminist. My final ruling is that it’s a heavily mixed bag, feminism-wise.
Shout out to anyone who used to post on Diagon Alley! Woot Woot!
BUSHY HAIR NO HEART
The way Hermione was meant to be.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
+ 1 bazillion points for Gryffindor thanks to Hermione learning not to act like an enabling doormat. (I like Ron and Harry just fine, and I thought their actions re: homework were completely plausible, I just don’t think Hermione should have let them off the hook.)
That’s assuming most of their homework was relatively meaningful, of course, which was probably mostly true for everything except Divinations, and Hermione was hardly going to be helpful with what seems to have been the only possible strategy for that course: make up a horrible death.
I think it may be a bad sign that I remember the exact line that comes next for most of these scenes in the books.
No, I’m pretty sure it’s a sign of good moral character.
Or outstanding moral fiber.
You aren’t alone!
The thousand dollar question: does Valuing Herself Hermione still help Harry learn a summoning charm in a stupidly small window?
Yes. Because she Values Herself but also she Values Harry In An Uncharred State
My position also, although he put her in a hell of a spot.
She wouldn’t let him forget it. Every time he asks for help, the standard will be “are you in imminent danger of being burnt to a crisp by a dragon? No? Do your damn homework”
That’s why Hermione is the best.
Of course–she knows When Shit Gets Real. That’s when it’s time to help your friends. But not for homework.
Yes, because she is actually helping him learn it not doing it for him.
I think it’s likely that Valuing Herself Hermione makes distinctions between helping her friends with their homework, and helping them stay alive in contests against deadly animals.
Valid. I always just felt like him taking soooo long to figure it out put her in an ugly spot where she’d blame herself if he choked, which given Harry’s procrastination in general and the fact that he should have already been good on summoning charms always irked me.
Yeah, no, he’s still useless, but she’d help him out anyway, because people don’t learn from their mistakes if they’re dead.
Reasoned like a true Hermione (but only because you can’t drop out of the Triwizard, I don’t think.)
This is great, and I was immediately reminded of this Sady Doyle piece, which is also great: http://globalcomment.com/in-praise-of-hermione-gr…
“It’s the end of an era. The entertainment which has stretched across books, movies, and countless marketing tie-ins, which has captivated children and adults for well over a decade and which has, for better or worse, managed to become the defining myth for an entire generation, is winding to its close. I speak, of course, of the Hermione Granger series, by Joanne Rowling.”
Thanks for this — that will be making the rounds this afternoon!
There is not enough like to thank you for sharing this…
Man, that would have been an awesome series. Especially the bit about Neville becoming hot. Also, Neville Longbottom, the Boy Who Will Reject Your Bribes and Kill Your Pets, would make an excellent sidekick for Hermione Granger, the Girl Who Works Hard for Her Victories.
Puts me in mind of Tiffany Aching.
My college’s group chat for the incoming first years was named #BOSSWITCHLANDMERMAIDS
after Hermione and Leslie Knope.
Never gets old.
It’s so beautiful.
Everything would have been so much better if Hermione were allowed to blossom into the note-selling, tutoring-for-profit mogul she was always meant to be.
That’s the same way I feel about Willow doing people’s homework – although I have to admit I don’t remember if she ever did the Scoby’s hw, or just random redshirts.
Xander’s once or twice, I think, but Willow doing homework for Jock Boy got really, really fun during the first couple of episodes with Anya, when Vamp Willow scares the bejesus out of him and shows up the next day to Normal Willow with a surprisingly well-written essay.
And an apple!
Doing homework for him on Snyder’s orders, no less. Watching Vamp Willow terrify him into doing his own work was very satisfying.
TWO essays, if I recall correctly! I think the assignment was to write a paper on Roosevelt, and he wasn’t sure which one so he did both just to be safe.
The fact that he wrotes a paper on each Roosevelt is one of my favourite things.
She did Buffy’s once that I recall, but in fairness it was when Buffy was in the hospital with the Death Flu.
She didn’t do a lot of homework for people, but she stepped in to teach Jenny Calendar’s computer class for a solid chunk of Season 2, and there is no mention of her ever getting compensated in any way. Like…at some point wouldn’t they just hire another teacher who is an actual adult?
Is it just me or is there something vaguely Ayn Rand-ian in that first dialogue? Perhaps I have been reading the Toast too much?
(not possible)
I had the same feeling. But the thing is, she’s not wrong.
I figured these were passages from Ayn Rand’s famous Harry Potter series, except she isn’t throwing herself lustily at Harry’s feet, nor building railroads.
I suspect this might cause Ron to resort to time travel in order to go back in time and help himself with his homework. As Albus Dumbledore.
It’s time that we accepted it: Hogwarts is a terrible fucking school.
This is a balm to my soul, weary from many years of being cajoled into proofreading essays/pulling more than my weight in group projects/pulling off extraordinary feats at work with very little recognition. I never did anyone’s homework outright, but I spent a lot of time “heavily helping.”
The first time I was listed in a book’s acknowledgements (for helping a dear friend re-write an ending and sharing feedback) was one of the proudest moments of my life. Not least because he was so gracious about asking for my help and acknowledging my contributions to the whole world.
Oh god, group projects. I was always the best academic writer in the group, so you can guess what happened.
I feel this. True story, around 6th or 7th grade I started pretending I had no art skills every time a new school year started, because invariably whenever I ended up in a group project the other members would make me illustrate the book report/decorate the posterboard/design the powerpoint (depending on grade level).
Somehow it always turned into “do the entire thing by yourself, including retyping and printing the 3 bullet notes contributed by the person who was supposed to be in charge of Part A because there were so many typos, completely scrapping and rewriting the incomprehensible paragraph of text from the person in charge of Part B, and just make up part C off the top of your head because that person was supposed to email you their text ‘after school’ and now it’s 11 pm and you still don’t have it.”
I learned never to volunteer for the position that ended up having to “combine” everyone else’s “contributions” into a final product.
Ha…I always volunteered for that position because I wanted to have ultimate control over the final product.
I always had a little talk with my group at the start of a project: “Look, we all know I’m the one who cares most about how this turns out, so if you’re okay with this theme I selected, I’ll do all the planning and look the presentation over (read: heavily proofread and edit it) before we give it.”
I ruled with an iron fist and a rock-solid GPA. No regrets.
In 6th grade I had a group project where each group had to make a commercial involving Greek Gods (something goofy and quasi-educational). My group was doing “Hephaestus’ Hammers” which was way too narrow of a product line to make into a viable commercial. It involved people walking into the store and saying “so, I’d like to order a hammer” or something, and I kept telling my group GUYS THIS MAKES NO SENSE–SERIOUSLY, NONE. But they were all idiots and every time I’d try to make suggestions to actually make the script have some semblance of coherence, they’d just crap all over my ideas.
Finally, the teacher (who I think had seen me attempting to get work done and getting frustrated) motioned me over to her desk and asked how things were going. I told her that I couldn’t get them to listen to reason, etc. The commercial ended up being insanely bad, and when we got our grades back, the teacher had given me a much higher grade than the rest of my group. It was so satisfying.
I just realized that Harry has a prestigious career as Auror because of his test scores, which he achieved in part due to the unpaid labor of his female friend.
Men! *shakes fist*
To be fair, Harry’s test scores were still always WAYYYYYY lower than Hermione’s. She couldn’t let him cheat off her in exams.
MEN. Though I suspect Harry might have been let into the Auror program regardless of his schoolwork. He has pretty good extracurriculars.
Harry definitely should not have been an auror. There’s no way he was emotionally fit for a job that would basically require putting him in traumatic situations just like the ones he’d been in with Voldemort as a child, over and over, while other people’s lives rested in his hands. He should have gone into business with George and helped him keep the joke shop going.
I see it both ways — I definitely believe he had a burnout/breakdown period after the seventh book, but I think too there’s a chance he can’t adjust to a normal quiet life — he needs the adrenaline rush, to feel really useful. I think he could take on the emotional toll of an Auror in a healthy way, if he’s given that recovery period after killing Voldemort.
So he’s…John Watson?
Works for me!
I once angrily monologued to my husband about how Harry should not be an Auror unless he retakes his final year at Hogwarts and graduates properly, Chosen One status be damned.
Did he? Aren’t OWLS & NEWTS exams w/ questions & practicals that you can only answer if you actually know the information? What does Hermione occasionally doing homework for Harry or lending him notes have to do w/ that?
If he and Ron would fail without her notes, they haven’t done the required reading. I could pass a test by reading Spark Notes, but that doesn’t change the fact I didn’t read the book, I paid somebody else to do it for me.
You didn’t read the book, but you did manage to glean some of the meaning, which you then synthesized into an essay or test answer, thus demonstrating your knowledge of the material.
The OWLs & NEWTs sounded like they were exclusively essay & practical, meaning Harry had to take raw information (like Hermione’s notes, which he’s read closely enough to remember facts, general themes, etc., his textbooks & his own notes or memory of the classes he attended) and then put them together into an essay or practical demonstration of Harry’s knowledge of the material. If Harry didn’t know the material, he would have failed.
Not to be a huge nerd, but Harry (and Ron) didn’t become Aurors because of their test scores. Although I agree with the other comments about having to be able to answer the questions in the exams on your own (I always imagined OWLs and NEWTS run the same as GCSEs and A-Levels. Lots of essay writing that requires some actual understanding, and difficult to fluke)… they can’t have passed OR failed their exams. They didn’t even take them. (they didn’t even attend their final year, they were too busy camping and whatnot).
Apparently after the ‘Battle of Hogwarts’ it was decided that any student that fought and survived could join Auror training. And you need to pass all of that training in a wide range of areas (concealment, duelling, control, etc) and the exams, alone, before they’ll even let you have the job. So don’t worry. Harry and Ron’s favour with teachers and general reputations/free time might have been freeloaded off of Hermione, but their prestigious careers are, surprisingly, all on them :p
Except Defense Against the Dark Arts, where IIRC he had the highest scores in his class and ended up teaching to Hermione.I feel like Auror Academy doesn’t care too much about your Diviniation scores compared to being able to summon a Patronus at age 14 and being one of the few people alive who can resist the Imperius Curse….
#evenwitchesneedmisandry
THANK YOU. I always hated cheating in school, partly because I believe that if I have to do the work, everyone else should too. Also, I didn’t have many friends, and it didn’t occur to me that that was a good way to get them. Or it wouldn’t be worth it.
By the way, I don’t have anything against sharing notes or proofreading or tutoring — but straight-up copying? Hell no.
“Hermione wheeled around and fixed him with a venomous look. ‘Don’t ever suggest again that I am responsible for your failures, Harry Potter. I love you like a brother, but you rise and fall on your own. You will not place a burden on my shoulders that was meant for your own.'”
Ayn Rand’s Hermione Granger
Exactly my thought! TBH I was surprised I had to scroll down this far to see this.
Why wasn’t I more upset by this the first time I read the series?
I wrote an essay for a young man once. My crush on him was deep and long-abiding. Though not nearly as deep or as long-abiding as his romantic interest in men (and only men, certainly not me!) turned out to be, but it took me quite some time to figure that one out.
Anyway, I was foolish to do this for him, but also: follies of youth. But here is the thing that kills me. He and I are still vaguely friendly and I brought this up to him once, this essay I wrote for him, and HE DIDN’T REMEMBER IT. AT ALL. My gesture was, in the end, that completely meaningless to him. I am so incensed about this, I want to burn the world down. Doing homework for someone never pays. It just never pays.
“This just says DO YOUR OWN GODDAMN WORK in fourteen languages.”
“Fifteen,” said Hermione. “One of them’s invisible.”
The choice of photo is perfect for this conversation. She knew EXACTLY where the exchange was going and is so gloriously smug about it. Eat it, Ron.
yes yes yes ESPECIALLY as Hermione went and bought them both HOMEWORK PLANNERS for christmas in a glorious display of passive-aggressive gift giving that went completely over their heads
I’ve genuinely just sat down from a last minute 24 hour long stint of essay writing. I saw this on my twitter feed; thought it’d be cute.
Those last lines burnt.
So he's…John Watson?
Works for me!
Breathtaking.