Categories > Books > Harry Potter > The Pride of Gryffindor
DISCLAIMER: See Ch. 1.
CHAPTER 4: HERMIONE AND THE BOOK CLUB
Hermione Jane Granger had felt oddly peaceful ever since she arrived back home from Hogwarts. Voldemort was dead, as were most of his Death Eaters and other minions. She and her family had made it out of this whole mess together, and so had all her friends (even though Harry continued to nearly get himself killed countless more times!). To top it all off, she was now a proud recipient of the Order of Merlin, First Class.
That night at dinner, after she came home from her sixth year, she and her parents had their own sort of victory feast, even with some wine to celebrate their survival through all this. Hermione happily told her parents about how she helped her friends and bringing down Voldemort, and after Max and Helen Granger got over the initial shock of the daughter occasionally acting as a soldier rather a student, they were quite proud to have such a heroine in the family.
Hermione entered her room again for the first time in ten months, and was glad to see how little of it changed. Half of one wall was covered in books, ranging from textbooks to classical literature, while the rest of her room had assorted music and even a computer.
The young witch quickly settled back into home after a strenuous year of fighting in the Second War against Voldemort.
Over the next week, Hermione alternated between a few different habits, not all of them necessarily scholarly. One she had in mind and was currently executing were her own memoirs of her life with Harry as a friend. While Harry, ever the fame and attention-dodger, would probably cringe at the mere thought of this, Hermione knew better.
She learned it from Luna, of all places. Luna caught on quite quickly to how Harry would avoid the press whenever given the chance, but explained to Hermione that cooperating with the press every now and then was often the key to avoid any problems. "Think of them as a pack of dogs, Hermione," Luna explained, her eyes gazing, "Keep them well fed, and they'll leave you alone; starve them, and they'll make you miserable."
Hermione laughed at that one.
It was quite simple: By keeping the press well-fed with enough information, it would stop them from spinning off their own garbage merely to fill the space on the newspaper's pages (and she knew that Wizarding journalists weren't scared with such a concept as libel and slander, sad to say). This well-written book of memoirs would also help quash any future rumors that would spring.
Hermione sincerely hoped Harry would like this: Her draft (or at least what she had written so far) worked to balance her friend's extraordinary deeds with his normal personality. The point was more to keep Harry as the flesh-and-blood person he was than to leave the door open to narrow-minded people who would have loved to glorify him, and maybe even deify him, if given the chance.
And after seeing some of the social mechanics of the Wizarding world, Hermione certainly wouldn't have put it past them to do such a thing, if given the chance or opportunity.
During the middle of her second week back home, Hermione received the most unwelcome news in the mail. Through Muggle post.
Even during the 6 years she had been at Hogwarts so far, she had been part of a book club back in her town. The person in charge, a college student, had been flexible in understanding that she went to a boarding school in Scotland and couldn't attend any meetings for most of the school year. When Hermione wasn't doing her own homework or working against Voldemort or other forces of evil, she would retreat to her room in her dormitory, read a book, and send off her analysis of the book. Actually, the book club would send stuff to her home, which her parents would then send from there to Hogwarts, and so she would send stuff back home, where it would be then be sent to the book club.
Unfortunately, it seemed that now the book club was under new management, and this new person had decided that Hermione would be "honorably discharged" (an obvious euphemism for kicked out) because of her "insignificant attendance."
At first, Hermione nearly exploded and ranted about this guy and his absurd decree. But then her cool, analytical side kicked in. Maybe this guy could be reasoned with.
She'd just have to find out...
The book club met at the town's open primary school, which was open for the summer for whatever purpose. The new young man in charge was just walking into the building, completely unaware of the brunette shadow trailing him.
Bob Wren now had control over this book club, and he liked it, flexing his figurative muscle over the group. He wanted to make sure everyone in the club respected him and obeyed him. It was both for his good and the good of the group that he "honorably discharged" that Granger girl; she was like dead weight for them anyhow.
He went to the room where they met, but before he could start, he noticed a certain teenage girl standing by the door. As they made eye contact, Wren got a certain sinking feeling.
A half-hour after Hermione left, there was a knock on the door at the Granger residence. Mrs. Granger opened it to find two certain teenagers standing there. One of them was gangly with red hair and freckles, while the other had untidy black hair and glasses. They were respectively Ron Weasley and Harry Potter.
Mrs. Granger knew enough to understand what they were to her daughter: Harry was like a brother to Hermione, and Ron was more than that.
"Er, hello, Mrs. Granger," Harry said, sounding a little awkward; after all, he had never officially met Hermione's parents before.
Mrs. Granger shook hands with them as she correctly guessed who they were. "Harry Potter... and Ron Weasley."
Both of them smiled. "Where's Hermione?" Ron asked.
"Oh, she went out for a bit," Mrs. Granger replied. "Here, why don't both of you come in?"
Both Harry and Ron were lead to the kitchen table, where they accepted a cup of tea each. They made some small talk, although a couple of times, Mr. Granger would look at Ron with a grin for a second longer than usual. Both he and his wife read between the lines of their daughter's letters home from school, and they could see that Hermione was taking quite an interest in Ron.
Mrs. Granger went up to Hermione's room just to see if she could find any hints as to where Hermione had gone. Upon entering, Crookshanks trotted up to Mrs. Granger with the letter from the book club in his mouth.
After bending down to retrieve the letter and thanking the cat while scratching him behind the ears (eliciting a small purr of pleasure), Mrs. Granger read the letter.
"Oh no," Mrs. Granger whispered. She knew how much the book club meant to Hermione. She also knew that her daughter couldn't bear social rejection, and had been quite a "loner" in primary school. While content as long as she was equipped with a sufficient amount of books, Hermione would often lament her lack of friends from time to time.
Returning downstairs, she explained to the three males in the room what the situation was. Mr. Granger looked sympathetic for his daughter, while Harry and Ron both looked indignant on her part.
Having spent a better part of his fifth year at Hogwarts unjustly banned from Quidditch, Harry could understand from experience how one would feel about being simply ripped away from his or her favorite hobbies in life.
Ron in particular was simply incensed that someone would simply dare do something like that to his girlfriend (although he had the sense not to declare it front of his best friend and said girlfriend's parents).
However, both teenage boys realized that whoever this Bob Wren guy was, he was in deep trouble, because one of Hermione's scarier traits was the ability to make someone ever regret crossing her. Marietta Edgecombe's betrayal in fifth year was still fresh in their minds, even after amends had been made.
With that, Harry and Ron decided to get over to wherever Hermione was and see what would happen (and, if need be, prevent her from doing anything that would have repercussions later on).
"Hello, Bob," Hermione said politely and neutrally. It was important to put on a good face and cause and problems. She wanted to see if this person could let him back in.
"I'm just curious... exactly why was I 'honorably discharged' from the group?"
Hermione could tell right away that Wren was a slippery and sneaky individual, especially from that calculating look on his face.
"Well, Granger... um, you see..."
Hermione merely put up a hand to stop him. "No, Wren. I don't want to hear your pathetic excuses. I'm not the one in trouble. You are."
Wren flinched but tried to remain looking calm, while the rest of the group was deathly silent as she continued in her quiet but powerful voice.
"If you think I'm in trouble because I'm no longer in your group, think again. I only joined this group because I wanted to meet other people who were into books and find more of them to read. Whether or not I'm in this group, as nice as it is, is irrelevant to me. I can still contact members of this group whenever I feel like it. However, I couldn't just let you go ahead with 'honorably discharging' me and not have my say in it. That's not a very nice or smart thing to do, Bob..."
Wren merely found himself riveted to his seat. A loud tirade he could have handled by merely yelling back, but merely having the cold facts dished out to him was not what he expected at all.
Hermione made to leave, but before she did, she had one last thing to add. "By the way, of all the true reasons to get me out of this group, revenge for some worthless argument back in primary school was one of the worst you could think up. I see you still haven't grown up and matured, Bob, and I doubt you ever will."
Wren's eyes bulged at that one while Hermione smoothly walked out with a smile on her face.
She was just at the threshold when Wren shouted out (for lack of a better choice of words), "And I bet you've just read plenty more books than I have."
Hermione stopped at the threshold and said with a clever smirk on her face, "More books than you can ever imagine, Wren, none of which you'll ever be able to find."
Those words would haunt Wren for the rest of his life as he desperately tried to find which Hermione might have been talking about.
Outside, Harry and Ron were waiting for her.
"Hermione," Harry began to say, but Ron cut him off excitedly with, "That was /brilliant/."
Hermione was slightly surprised by both of them, but smiled and muttered a thank-you as she felt herself blush a little from the unexpected praise. "I just wish there were less people in the world like him."
"Sometimes, you just have to deal with them, Hermione," Harry responded.
"Besides," Ron jumped in, "You always do deal with them, 'Mione. First Edgecombe, then Umbridge, now Bob Wretched-"
"Bob Wrecked-" Harry added, amused by the opportunities to corrupt this person's name.
"Bob Wrong-"
"Bob Rock-bottom-"
"Bob Wanker-"
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, actually blushing a little now.
"Sorry," Ron muttered.
"Boys," Hermione muttered.
"Yes, Hermione," Harry said putting an arm around her shoulder. "Ron and I are just a pair of joking, somewhat-mature boys who want to make sure that idiots like him don't make you miserable or upset."
"Lucky me," Hermione responded, but both friends could hear the honesty and sincerity of it in her voice, and they were both glad to hear it.
"Besides," Hermione added with a bit of wisdom and something like a twinkle in her eyes, "Greater people have suffered greater indignities than what I just went through."
Harry couldn't agree more. In fact, he had a strange feeling it was him whom she was referring to.
TBC//...
Note about the names of Hermione's parents: In Greek mythology, Hermione was the daughter of Menelaus and Helen of Sparta. After Paris abducted Helen and took her back to Troy while Menelaus was away, nine-year-old Hermione was abandoned. After the war, Hermione married Achilles' son, Neoptolemus.
Ooh, speaking of the Iliad and the /Odyssey/, I just finished reading /Trojan Odyssey/, by Clive Cussler. Quite a thriller. However, be warned: If you're an avid reader of mythology and classics, this book just may leave your head spinning. :P
Note about the events of this chapter: This chapter was more of a filler chapter, since I'm alternating back and forth between the POVs of the good guys and our mysterious new bad guy. Next chapter, our new villain gets his revenge - but with a twist involved... -Quillian
CHAPTER 4: HERMIONE AND THE BOOK CLUB
Hermione Jane Granger had felt oddly peaceful ever since she arrived back home from Hogwarts. Voldemort was dead, as were most of his Death Eaters and other minions. She and her family had made it out of this whole mess together, and so had all her friends (even though Harry continued to nearly get himself killed countless more times!). To top it all off, she was now a proud recipient of the Order of Merlin, First Class.
That night at dinner, after she came home from her sixth year, she and her parents had their own sort of victory feast, even with some wine to celebrate their survival through all this. Hermione happily told her parents about how she helped her friends and bringing down Voldemort, and after Max and Helen Granger got over the initial shock of the daughter occasionally acting as a soldier rather a student, they were quite proud to have such a heroine in the family.
Hermione entered her room again for the first time in ten months, and was glad to see how little of it changed. Half of one wall was covered in books, ranging from textbooks to classical literature, while the rest of her room had assorted music and even a computer.
The young witch quickly settled back into home after a strenuous year of fighting in the Second War against Voldemort.
Over the next week, Hermione alternated between a few different habits, not all of them necessarily scholarly. One she had in mind and was currently executing were her own memoirs of her life with Harry as a friend. While Harry, ever the fame and attention-dodger, would probably cringe at the mere thought of this, Hermione knew better.
She learned it from Luna, of all places. Luna caught on quite quickly to how Harry would avoid the press whenever given the chance, but explained to Hermione that cooperating with the press every now and then was often the key to avoid any problems. "Think of them as a pack of dogs, Hermione," Luna explained, her eyes gazing, "Keep them well fed, and they'll leave you alone; starve them, and they'll make you miserable."
Hermione laughed at that one.
It was quite simple: By keeping the press well-fed with enough information, it would stop them from spinning off their own garbage merely to fill the space on the newspaper's pages (and she knew that Wizarding journalists weren't scared with such a concept as libel and slander, sad to say). This well-written book of memoirs would also help quash any future rumors that would spring.
Hermione sincerely hoped Harry would like this: Her draft (or at least what she had written so far) worked to balance her friend's extraordinary deeds with his normal personality. The point was more to keep Harry as the flesh-and-blood person he was than to leave the door open to narrow-minded people who would have loved to glorify him, and maybe even deify him, if given the chance.
And after seeing some of the social mechanics of the Wizarding world, Hermione certainly wouldn't have put it past them to do such a thing, if given the chance or opportunity.
During the middle of her second week back home, Hermione received the most unwelcome news in the mail. Through Muggle post.
Even during the 6 years she had been at Hogwarts so far, she had been part of a book club back in her town. The person in charge, a college student, had been flexible in understanding that she went to a boarding school in Scotland and couldn't attend any meetings for most of the school year. When Hermione wasn't doing her own homework or working against Voldemort or other forces of evil, she would retreat to her room in her dormitory, read a book, and send off her analysis of the book. Actually, the book club would send stuff to her home, which her parents would then send from there to Hogwarts, and so she would send stuff back home, where it would be then be sent to the book club.
Unfortunately, it seemed that now the book club was under new management, and this new person had decided that Hermione would be "honorably discharged" (an obvious euphemism for kicked out) because of her "insignificant attendance."
At first, Hermione nearly exploded and ranted about this guy and his absurd decree. But then her cool, analytical side kicked in. Maybe this guy could be reasoned with.
She'd just have to find out...
The book club met at the town's open primary school, which was open for the summer for whatever purpose. The new young man in charge was just walking into the building, completely unaware of the brunette shadow trailing him.
Bob Wren now had control over this book club, and he liked it, flexing his figurative muscle over the group. He wanted to make sure everyone in the club respected him and obeyed him. It was both for his good and the good of the group that he "honorably discharged" that Granger girl; she was like dead weight for them anyhow.
He went to the room where they met, but before he could start, he noticed a certain teenage girl standing by the door. As they made eye contact, Wren got a certain sinking feeling.
A half-hour after Hermione left, there was a knock on the door at the Granger residence. Mrs. Granger opened it to find two certain teenagers standing there. One of them was gangly with red hair and freckles, while the other had untidy black hair and glasses. They were respectively Ron Weasley and Harry Potter.
Mrs. Granger knew enough to understand what they were to her daughter: Harry was like a brother to Hermione, and Ron was more than that.
"Er, hello, Mrs. Granger," Harry said, sounding a little awkward; after all, he had never officially met Hermione's parents before.
Mrs. Granger shook hands with them as she correctly guessed who they were. "Harry Potter... and Ron Weasley."
Both of them smiled. "Where's Hermione?" Ron asked.
"Oh, she went out for a bit," Mrs. Granger replied. "Here, why don't both of you come in?"
Both Harry and Ron were lead to the kitchen table, where they accepted a cup of tea each. They made some small talk, although a couple of times, Mr. Granger would look at Ron with a grin for a second longer than usual. Both he and his wife read between the lines of their daughter's letters home from school, and they could see that Hermione was taking quite an interest in Ron.
Mrs. Granger went up to Hermione's room just to see if she could find any hints as to where Hermione had gone. Upon entering, Crookshanks trotted up to Mrs. Granger with the letter from the book club in his mouth.
After bending down to retrieve the letter and thanking the cat while scratching him behind the ears (eliciting a small purr of pleasure), Mrs. Granger read the letter.
"Oh no," Mrs. Granger whispered. She knew how much the book club meant to Hermione. She also knew that her daughter couldn't bear social rejection, and had been quite a "loner" in primary school. While content as long as she was equipped with a sufficient amount of books, Hermione would often lament her lack of friends from time to time.
Returning downstairs, she explained to the three males in the room what the situation was. Mr. Granger looked sympathetic for his daughter, while Harry and Ron both looked indignant on her part.
Having spent a better part of his fifth year at Hogwarts unjustly banned from Quidditch, Harry could understand from experience how one would feel about being simply ripped away from his or her favorite hobbies in life.
Ron in particular was simply incensed that someone would simply dare do something like that to his girlfriend (although he had the sense not to declare it front of his best friend and said girlfriend's parents).
However, both teenage boys realized that whoever this Bob Wren guy was, he was in deep trouble, because one of Hermione's scarier traits was the ability to make someone ever regret crossing her. Marietta Edgecombe's betrayal in fifth year was still fresh in their minds, even after amends had been made.
With that, Harry and Ron decided to get over to wherever Hermione was and see what would happen (and, if need be, prevent her from doing anything that would have repercussions later on).
"Hello, Bob," Hermione said politely and neutrally. It was important to put on a good face and cause and problems. She wanted to see if this person could let him back in.
"I'm just curious... exactly why was I 'honorably discharged' from the group?"
Hermione could tell right away that Wren was a slippery and sneaky individual, especially from that calculating look on his face.
"Well, Granger... um, you see..."
Hermione merely put up a hand to stop him. "No, Wren. I don't want to hear your pathetic excuses. I'm not the one in trouble. You are."
Wren flinched but tried to remain looking calm, while the rest of the group was deathly silent as she continued in her quiet but powerful voice.
"If you think I'm in trouble because I'm no longer in your group, think again. I only joined this group because I wanted to meet other people who were into books and find more of them to read. Whether or not I'm in this group, as nice as it is, is irrelevant to me. I can still contact members of this group whenever I feel like it. However, I couldn't just let you go ahead with 'honorably discharging' me and not have my say in it. That's not a very nice or smart thing to do, Bob..."
Wren merely found himself riveted to his seat. A loud tirade he could have handled by merely yelling back, but merely having the cold facts dished out to him was not what he expected at all.
Hermione made to leave, but before she did, she had one last thing to add. "By the way, of all the true reasons to get me out of this group, revenge for some worthless argument back in primary school was one of the worst you could think up. I see you still haven't grown up and matured, Bob, and I doubt you ever will."
Wren's eyes bulged at that one while Hermione smoothly walked out with a smile on her face.
She was just at the threshold when Wren shouted out (for lack of a better choice of words), "And I bet you've just read plenty more books than I have."
Hermione stopped at the threshold and said with a clever smirk on her face, "More books than you can ever imagine, Wren, none of which you'll ever be able to find."
Those words would haunt Wren for the rest of his life as he desperately tried to find which Hermione might have been talking about.
Outside, Harry and Ron were waiting for her.
"Hermione," Harry began to say, but Ron cut him off excitedly with, "That was /brilliant/."
Hermione was slightly surprised by both of them, but smiled and muttered a thank-you as she felt herself blush a little from the unexpected praise. "I just wish there were less people in the world like him."
"Sometimes, you just have to deal with them, Hermione," Harry responded.
"Besides," Ron jumped in, "You always do deal with them, 'Mione. First Edgecombe, then Umbridge, now Bob Wretched-"
"Bob Wrecked-" Harry added, amused by the opportunities to corrupt this person's name.
"Bob Wrong-"
"Bob Rock-bottom-"
"Bob Wanker-"
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, actually blushing a little now.
"Sorry," Ron muttered.
"Boys," Hermione muttered.
"Yes, Hermione," Harry said putting an arm around her shoulder. "Ron and I are just a pair of joking, somewhat-mature boys who want to make sure that idiots like him don't make you miserable or upset."
"Lucky me," Hermione responded, but both friends could hear the honesty and sincerity of it in her voice, and they were both glad to hear it.
"Besides," Hermione added with a bit of wisdom and something like a twinkle in her eyes, "Greater people have suffered greater indignities than what I just went through."
Harry couldn't agree more. In fact, he had a strange feeling it was him whom she was referring to.
TBC//...
Note about the names of Hermione's parents: In Greek mythology, Hermione was the daughter of Menelaus and Helen of Sparta. After Paris abducted Helen and took her back to Troy while Menelaus was away, nine-year-old Hermione was abandoned. After the war, Hermione married Achilles' son, Neoptolemus.
Ooh, speaking of the Iliad and the /Odyssey/, I just finished reading /Trojan Odyssey/, by Clive Cussler. Quite a thriller. However, be warned: If you're an avid reader of mythology and classics, this book just may leave your head spinning. :P
Note about the events of this chapter: This chapter was more of a filler chapter, since I'm alternating back and forth between the POVs of the good guys and our mysterious new bad guy. Next chapter, our new villain gets his revenge - but with a twist involved... -Quillian
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