Hermione Granger
Hermione Jane Granger (b. 19 September 1979) is a fictional character in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter book series. The character is portrayed by Emma Watson in all films thus far produced.
Hermione is a Gryffindor student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and is one of Harry Potter's and Ron Weasley's best friends, indeed even serving as a maternal influence on both Harry and Ron. Her birthdate 19 September 1979, makes Hermione the oldest of her classmates, as most were born in ca. late 1979/1980. Since Hogwarts only accepts first-year students who have turned eleven years old at the start of the school term on 1 September, Hermione was too young to have joined the previous class. She shows considerable academic prowess when compared to her close friends and classmates, but lacks emotional maturity. She consistently responds negatively to Ron baiting her, generally cannot stand either being made a fool of or allowing her friends to be so ridiculed, and has a tendency to flounce off to bed if she is thwarted.
At one point, Rowling intended to surname her Puckle: this can be seen on her classlist.
Physical appearance and character
Hermione has brown eyes, bushy brown hair and, when she first appears, rather large front teeth. Many at the school have ridiculed her looks, including, on one occasion, Professor Snape. Another, perhaps more subtle occasion on which Hermione's appearance was ridiculed was in her fourth year when she was described as 'stunningly beautiful' by Rita Skeeter, this led to much teasing from both the students in her year and Professors. Hermione's position as one of the most intelligent students in her year, which she works hard to maintain, has led to frequent teasing, although Harry and Ron do depend on her for academic help, and her knowledge and common sense prove valuable in overcoming the trio's challenges.
Hermione is brave and loyal and has a fierce political conscience, but sometimes has problems keeping her head in crises: one might note her problems in facing the Devils Snare in the first book (when told to light a fire, she memorably responds “There’s no wood!”, even though she had conjured magical flames earlier in the year), the unlikely lie she tells Professor Umbridge to save Harry in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (she claims that there is a weapon in the forest, created upon Dumbledore’s orders), and her failure to adequately subdue a Death Eater in the Department of Mysteries (she silences rather than stuns him, leaving him conscious, suggesting that in the heat of the moment, she forgot about non-verbal spell casting). Indeed, Hermione's intellect is strongest in memory and objective analysis, and less impressive when thinking on her feet (a factor that is often discarded in the film adaptations). Although compassionate, she can be naïve and even insensitive when dealing with people, despite her position as the "sensitive one" in the trio. For example, her ham-handed attempt to comfort Lavender Brown over the death of her rabbit. Screenwriter Steve Kloves has said that Hermione often shows "a complete lack of understanding of how she affects other people". [1] According to Rowling, Hermione is deeply insecure and feels utterly inadequate underneath. To compensate, she tries to be the best at everything at school, projecting a false confidence that can irritate people. [2]
Rowling admits that Hermione is in many ways based upon herself. [3] Hermione's Patronus is an otter, which is Rowling's favourite animal. [4] Hermione's middle name, Jane, (never mentioned in the books, only on Rowling's official site) is a feminine form of "John", as is "Joanne", Rowling's first name.
Background
Template:Spoiler Hermione is Muggle-born, that is, the child of two non-magical parents. Her parents, both dentists, are (according to Rowling) "a bit bemused by their odd daughter, but quite proud of her all the same". Rowling has noted she initially considered giving Hermione a younger, Muggle sister, but now says it is "too late". Therefore, it is considered canon that Hermione is an only child.
When Hermione first appears in the series, she already seems to know a great deal about magic, Hogwarts, and the wizarding world. How she first realised her magical abilities and first encountered other wizards has not been revealed beyond an off-hand remark Hermione makes about being "ever so surprised" when the Ministry of Magic determined her magical status and invited her to enroll at Hogwarts.
For years it was widely assumed that she was born in September 1980, the same year as Ron and Harry. However, Rowling pointed out that to attend Hogwarts, one must be eleven years old, and Hermione was born in 1979. Therefore Hermione is nearly twelve when she begins school in September of 1991.
Rowling has revealed on her website that Hermione's wand is made of vine wood with a dragon heartstring core. Each of the trio's wands have one of Mr Ollivander's three preferred cores, with Harry having phoenix feather and Ron having unicorn hair. Her wand's wood, vine, is the wood ascribed to her birth month in the Celtic calendar.
Hermione's name is pronounced "her-MY-oh-nee" (IPA: /hə(ɹ).maɪ.ə.niː/), as readers find out in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This was the most frequently asked question J.K. Rowling received, so in this book she cunningly had Hermione teach Viktor Krum how to pronounce her name properly (without much success). Rowling said she obtained it from William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, [5] claiming that she wanted it to be unusual since if fewer girls shared her name, fewer girls would get teased for it. [6] "Hermione", appropriately, is derived from "Hermes", the Greek god of invention, inspiration, eloquence and quick thinking. It is also the name of the legendary Helen of Troy's daughter in Greek mythology. Hermione's surname "Granger" may be derived from that of Joseph Louis Lagrange, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 18th century. Her surname was originally going to be "Puckle" but it was quickly changed by Rowling because it didn't suit her. "Puckle" is a term for a goblin or elf. [7]
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Hermione first appears in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and is 12 years old. She initially was portrayed as a "know-it-all" and excessively overbearing, heartily disliked by her future best friends at this time.
In Charms class, she hears Ron Weasley mispronouncing a spell, Wingardium Leviosa, and correctly pronounces it for him, though with just a slight change in the final vowel sound. Ron doesn't believe she can do it herself, but she accurately uses the charm to levitate a feather, abashing Ron and causing him to feel resentment towards her.
At the Halloween feast, when Ron makes a hurtful remark about Hermione, she tearfully retreats to a girls' bathroom. Meanwhile, Professor Quirrell lets a mountain troll into the school, which finds its way into the same bathroom. Hermione is rescued by Harry and Ron. When they are discovered by Professors McGonagall, Snape and Quirrell, Hermione quickly lies about why she was in the bathroom, claiming she had gone looking for the troll, thinking she could defeat it herself. She thereby rescues Harry and Ron from punishment and endears herself to them.
Though Hermione's attitude about rules and schoolwork remain largely intact, she softens up a little bit after becoming friends with Harry and Ron. With them, she helps solve the mystery surrounding the Philosopher's Stone. She also shows her willingness to break the rules (and a streak of ruthlessness) when she casts a Body-Bind Curse (a highly advanced spell) on Neville Longbottom, who bravely attempts to stop the trio from leaving the common room after hours although she did apologise before and after cursing him.
Her intelligence again comes in handy when she defeats the Devil's Snare (although that incident also shows her difficulties in thinking on her feet: it is Harry and Ron who tell her how to defeat the Snare), and her deep belief in the power of logic is emphasised when she and Harry find themselves in a room where they must correctly identify two potions from a range of bottles that will enable them to pass out of the room. Hermione tells Harry that he is a great wizard as he has the qualities of friendship and bravery which are more important than "books and cleverness".
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In her second year Template:HP2 Hermione has a crush on the handsome new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart.
Hermione brews Polyjuice Potion, a very advanced potion, so that she, Harry and Ron can discover if Draco Malfoy is the Heir of Slytherin. While the correctly-brewed potion produces the desired effects on both Harry and Ron, Hermione finds that she has accidentally added a cat hair to the potion instead of one of Millicent Bullstrode's, her intended target. She turns into a cat in the bathroom, and has a furry cat face and a tail after that. It takes over a month to rectify her error.
Hermione correctly identifies the creature hidden inside the Chamber of Secrets to be a basilisk, although she herself is petrified before being able to alert the school. However, both she and the other victims are eventually revived.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
In her third year Template:HP3 linked, Hermione takes so many classes she has to use a Time-Turner, a device which enables her to go back in time, to fit in all her subjects, but which quickly becomes consuming even for her.
Hermione is briefly estranged from her friends several times, first over the extra school work she has taken on; later over a Firebolt broom Harry received for Christmas, which she got Professor McGonagall to confiscate on suspicion of it being sent by Sirius Black (proven correct, albeit with no jinxes as the teachers initially feared), and again when Ron accuses her new cat Crookshanks of killing and eating his pet rat, Scabbers. She also is spearheading the defence of Hagrid's pet hippogriff, Buckbeak. After Hermione confides in Hagrid over her frustrations, Hagrid sternly reproves Harry and Ron for their behaviour, and after the defence fails they reconcile and the boys promise to assist with the still unsuccessful appeal.
Hermione's Time-Turner comes in useful at the end of the book when she and Harry travel back in time to rescue Sirius Black and Hagrid's hippogriff, Buckbeak. During end-of-the-year exams, Hermione's Boggart manifests itself as Professor McGonagall, informing her that she has failed all her classes – causing her to run away screaming. Although amusing, it shows Hermione's great fear of failure. At the end of the book, she drops Muggle Studies (despite the fact that she got 324% in it), enabling her to have a normal - albeit intensive - schedule again. She had previously dropped Divination believing the professor, Sybill Trelawney, is a fraud: this is only partly true, since Trelawney makes a genuine Prophecy later in the same book. In this instance, Hermione's logical side dominates her thinking.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In the summer following her Third Year at Hogwarts, Hermione attends the Quidditch World Cup with Harry and the Weasley family, sans Mrs Weasley. It is here for the first time that she becomes familiar with Viktor Krum, the famous Bulgarian International Seeker, himself still a student. Hermione initially considers him a gloomy, off-putting fellow, unaware that she will encounter him again at Hogwarts, where he takes to visiting the Hogwarts library frequently just to watch her before approaching her. After getting to know him better, Hermione sees later on that Krum is in fact a genuinely kind-hearted person.
In her Fourth Year Template:HP4, Hermione's attention is drawn to what she views as the poor quality of life for house-elves. She therefore starts the organisation she calls the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, but which becomes known by its unfortunate acronym, SPEW (also nicknamed "The House-Elf Liberation Front" by Ron Weasley). Although Hermione zealously works for her cause, few others display any interest. Harry and Ron officially join her organisation in the hope she will stop nagging them; she does, however, trick them both into following her to the kitchens to persuade the elves to accept wages after she discovers that Dobby the house-elf has been hired by Professor Dumbledore.
Hermione helps Harry to practise the Summoning Charm which allows him to successfully complete the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament; despite Harry and Ron's row over the tactics Harry supposedly used to get into the tournament. Hermione attends the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum, making Ron jealous. She has had school nurse Madame Pomfrey shrink her teeth to a "normal size" by magic after being hit by an errant hex earlier in the year, and when she applies Sleekeazy's Hair Potion and does her hair up in a chignon, she turns heads at the Ball and gains new appreciation from her best male friends. Hermione is the "hostage" that Krum has to save in the Tournament's Second Task. After the task, Krum asks Hermione to visit him in the summer. Ron's jealousy of Viktor Krum appears countered by Hermione's dislike of Fleur Delacour, for whom Ron has a soft spot; Hermione becomes visibly angry when Fleur does so much as smile at Ron, and then she begins to cry.
Rita Skeeter, a tabloid reporter, fabricates a love triangle between Harry, Hermione, and Krum. Hermione's relationship with Mrs Weasley is temporarily harmed by this incident. Krum too questions Harry over his relationship with Hermione, and Harry denies any romance.
After much work, she determines Rita is an illegal Animagus who can change into a beetle and manages to catch her in this form by trapping her in a jar. She blackmails Rita with this information to make Rita stop writing for The Daily Prophet.
At some point during the year, as is implied in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Template:HP6, Hermione supposedly snogged(kissed) Viktor Krum.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
In the beginning of the fifth bookTemplate:HP5, Hermione is staying at Grimmauld Place, the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, with the Weasleys. When she and Ron are reunited with Harry, moody and temperamental after being confined to the Dursleys nearly all summer, he loses his temper, which causes Hermione to get rather tearful. Hermione tries to tutor Harry on how to interact with girls when Harry tries his hand at a relationship with his long time crush Cho Chang - which ultimately falls apart due to Harry's inability to handle Cho's grief over Cedric Diggory's death and Cho's misplaced jealousy towards Hermione.
Hermione becomes a prefect for Gryffindor. Hermione also continues SPEW, attempting to befriend Kreacher, the surly and malicious old house-elf who lives in Grimmauld Place, despite the elf's obvious hatred of her by calling her a "Mudblood". She devotes her time and energy making clothes for the house-elves and putting them in strategic locations, in the hopes of freeing the elves.
The house-elves refuse to clean Gryffindor Tower because of this, and the task is left to Dobby.
Also, in Order of the Phoenix, Luna Lovegood is introduced. She is Hermione's complete opposite; according to author Rowling, she's "the anti-Hermione"; "Hermione’s so logical and inflexible in so many ways and Luna is likely to believe ten impossible things before breakfast". Still, though the two girls do not share the same belief system, they become friends and comrades-in-arms when Luna is one of the few to support Harry by joining Dumbledore's Army (the DA) and aiding them during the climax of the book.
Hermione's capture and subsequent blackmail of Rita Skeeter proves useful when she persuades Harry to give an interview confirming the return of Lord Voldemort. While Hermione is trying to convince Harry to start the DA, she finally identifies Harry's enemy by his nickname, "Voldemort", making her one of the few students besides Harry to use the name. During the DA, Hermione conjures a corporeal Patronus in the shape of an otter (Rowling's favourite animal). She also protects the DA from total betrayal (by Marietta Edgecombe, a member) by hexing its sign-up sheet; as a result of this, Marietta is (apparently) permanently disfigured by a cluster of pustules on her face spelling 'Sneak': since this is still the case at the beginning of the sixth year, it is clear that Hermione has not as yet repealed her hex, and that presumably nobody else can.
Hagrid introduces Hermione and Harry to his giant half-brother, Grawp, and since Hagrid is being targeted by Umbridge because of his loyalty to Dumbledore, he asks them to take care of Grawp if Umbridge somehow succeeds in getting rid of Hagrid himself. Hermione is initially very upset and angry with Hagrid over his request, feeling that Grawp is too much for the three of them to handle, but Grawp proves unexpectedly useful later on when Hermione and Harry lead Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest. After Umbridge is carried away by the Centaurs, the Centaurs turn their attention to Hermione and Harry and prepare to kill them, until Grawp unexpectedly blunders his way in and distracts the centaurs long enough for the two to escape.
She is involved in the battle in the Department of Mysteries, in which she is seriously injured by an unknown curse from the Death Eater Antonin Dolohov, but after taking ten types of potions a day, she makes a full recovery.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The sixth bookTemplate:HP6 marks a notable change in Hermione's character. As has become customary, Hermione stays at the Burrow for much of the summer holidays, where she receives excellent OWL results of ten "Outstandings" and one "Exceeds Expectations" in Defence Against the Dark Arts (which disappoints her). During her stay with the Weasleys, Hermione once again encounters Fleur Delacour, who is now engaged to Bill Weasley. Her dislike for Fleur has deepened from their encounter in book four, and she has been joined in this by both Mrs Weasley and Ginny, although the three dislike Fleur for different reasons (Mrs Weasley feels that Fleur and Bill are rushing into their marriage, Ginny views her as spoiled and narcissistic.).
Hermione continues her passion for her schoolwork in the sixth year, and is even invited by Professor Slughorn to join his Slug Club due to her extraordinary talent at school. Even though Harry describes Hermione to Slughorn in an earlier encounter as "the best in our year", she is bested by Harry in Potions (for the first time in that subject) due to the fact that he has access to the Half-Blood Prince's old textbook. Throughout the book, she becomes increasingly bitter at Harry's newfound success at Potions, especially since she comes to believe that the Half-Blood Prince is a suspicious character (eventually proven correct), and she considers Harry dishonest for using the book. Despite this, she still becomes a favourite of Slughorn's, and remains academically the best in the year. When Harry hides the Prince’s book to prevent its confiscation by Snape, Harry's performance in Potions noticeably declines, demonstrating that Hermione is better at following the standard instructions than Harry.
For the third time in their lives, Ron and Hermione have a serious and lengthy falling out. Everything is wrecked when Ron learns of Hermione kissing Viktor Krum. Ron's new anger upsets and confuses her. Harry's attempt to mediate ultimately results in Ron's rejecting Hermione in favour of Lavender Brown. Hermione retaliates by inviting the egomaniacal Cormac McLaggen to be her date to Slughorn's Christmas party, which backfires and extends the feud until Ron's accidental poisoning on his birthday, an event which frightens her enough to reconcile with him and ends the short-lived Ron/Lavender coupling.
Near the end of the book, at Harry's request, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville and Luna (the only members of Dumbledore's Army who responded) are sent to patrol Hogwarts – specifically, to monitor Snape and Malfoy. Their efforts half-succeed in that they are able to alert the members of the Order (also on patrol) about the Death Eaters lurking in the castle, but they still fail to prevent Dumbledore's defeat. They themselves just barely survive fighting the Death Eaters, thanks to the Felix Felicis that Harry had given them.
When Harry announces his intentions to seek and destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes, Hermione and Ron loyally vow to stay by their best friend's side; Hermione does express concern about the possibility of Hogwarts closing.Template:HP6
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Based on her remarks at the end of Book 6, Hermione, along with Ron, is planning to assist Harry in his search for the remaining Horcruxes and Voldemort.
Possessions
- A cat-kneazle mix named Crookshanks.
- Several different books involving different variations of magic.
- A Time-Turner used for classes (although this was returned to Professor McGonagall at the end of book three).
- SPEW parchment
- A wand made of vine wood with a dragon heartstring core.
References
- Template:Fnb "When Hermione arrived at Hogwarts, was she nearly eleven or nearly twelve?" - J.K.Rowling Official Site
See also
External links
- Extra information about Hermione from J.K. Rowling's official website
