A ponderance...

[rurounihime]

Anybody ever wonder what happened to all of Hermione's Muggle friends after she went to Hogwarts? I mean, she's an 11-year-old girl. She's not just friendless until she meets the wonder-duo, is she?

Hmm.

Comments

[violet-musings.livejournal.com]

I dunno, though. She didn't have any friends at Hogwarts until Halloween & the troll. I don't imagine she had a lot of Muggle friends 'cause she was such a bloody know-it-all.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, yeah, could be an issue. She is definitely known for her know-it-all-ness.

Hmmm...

[ex-leianora730.livejournal.com]

If she was as much of a bitch as I thought she was from the fourth book onwards, she didn't deserve any friends, and most kids that age wouldn't have been friends with her anyway. Yeah... I hate her. Did you guess that? :-)

Re: Hmmm...

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Wow. I have to say I don't agree. Why do you hate her so much?

[anansay.livejournal.com]

I've found more than a few gaps of logic in HP. But I decided to suspend reality and enjoy it while skipping over the cracks. :)

If I wanted to, I'm sure the entire story could be picked apart until nothing remained. Be that as it may, maybe being a "children's book" allowed her some leeway in skimming over certain facts...? Bet she didn't figure on so many adults adulating her work. *G*

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, well hopefully she has learned something from the HP experience, if she plans to continue writing.

[medea-aries.livejournal.com]

I wonder about her female friends too. Girls tend to hang around in groups between 11 and 15/16, and really, one can't live without girlfriends that listen to your complaints about stupid boys and periods.

Even more so, I wonder who is she. She is not even that close to Ron and Harry, as they don't know that much about her. Who does she cry with when she's sad? Ginny? There must be more to her life than the books show, as they have yet to show us she's a complete entity with, like, interests beyond learning, house elves and fighting evil ^^

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I wonder if she is close with the other girls her year, or maybe some other classmates. Ginny, perhaps. I think they are good friends. But she has to have some sort of outlet instead of always being the outlet. I think Harry could really fill that post for her if he wanted to. They are very close in a lot of ways.

^^ I just discovered something...

[medea-aries.livejournal.com]

And I thought I'd tell you, as I'm big on sharing XD. I just discovered why I like the Slytherins better: They are more real. They are petty and clannish and childlish, and I can see then smuggling alcohol into the dorms and getting pissed drunk, I can see them organizing an underground supply net of porn, and running out of the castle to go clubbing. Organizing the annual drag-queen contest, and Draco actually writing Weasley is Our King in the common room, with help from the entire house. I went to an all girls school in a school sistem different from yours, and I spent 12 years virtually locked up with 24 more girls. As a result, we ended up practically sisters, and 3 years later we still get togheter several times a year, get drunk and talk about men. My point is, close proximity usually makes bonds in a group strong.

I adore Slytherins. I can see them getting into all kinds of shit and messing up and generally being teenagers and having fun ^_^

Re: ^^ I just discovered something...

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Exclusion from other groups also has that effect: making a smaller group bond together. Right from the get-go, the Slytherins have been judged too mean, too evil, and too unworthy to be befriended by any of the other three houses. The Hufflepuffs are too scared, the Gryffindors too righteous, and even the smart Ravenclaws can't get around their petty differences. For that reason, I mainly see the Slyths bonding. But you are absolutely right.

I still see a lot of the Slyth pettiness and annoying behavior as evidence of their 2-dimensional-ness, with the exception of Snape and Draco. I'm afraid I don't know nearly enough about any of the other Slyths to make judgment calls about why they act the way they do. Right now, JK has allowed them nothing more than the role of bullies, on the whole.

[princesskirsty.livejournal.com]

that bugs me, and that there can't possibly be just ONE magic school in the UK so where are the rest? why don't they have heros and deatheaters and stuff? huh? huh?

[elfflame]

I always assumed that she probably didn't have many, and the fact that they'd all be switching schools at the same time means that they'd probably loose touch anyway, unless she had a friend in their neighborhood at home.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Unless they've moved, it seems to me that a neighborhood friend would be likely. But then, that's my childhood experience talking.

[dacro.livejournal.com]

maybe she had a private tutor before hogwarts. Dentists have the dough, baby. heh.

That is a really great question, though.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

I chalk it up to something JK just didn't manage to address. Which is understandable. But I am curious nonetheless. I guess the same could apply to Seamus, perhaps, and Dean especially.

[silentauror.livejournal.com]

Huh. Good question. I've never really thought about that, although I've definitely wondered about how very little time she seems to spend with her parents. Just not very close to them? Seems a bit odd to me.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Eh, boarding school has that effect. I don't know how I would have survived if I had been shipped off to boarding school. I am a very family-oriented person. But I suppose if I had grown up expecting that school system, it would be a different story.

[sabriel.livejournal.com]

That is the best never thought of plot hole ever.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, thanks! ^_^ I want fic on this subject...

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I think there's a good chance she didn't have any. It does happen; I went from twelve to eighteen without ever having a friend my own age. Smart, outspoken, competitive girls who don't care about their looks and don't easily bond over "girly things" tend to get ripped to shreds by their peer group at that age. The pack instinct reigns supreme, and the nail that sticks out must be hammered down. And if you also happen to be a witch, and mysterious accidental magic happens to people who cross you -- well.

The more I think about it, my heart really goes out to Hermione in the bathroom-troll scene. It must have been the last straw for her to go off to a school where she thought she would finally fit in, and then discover that nobody liked her there either.

I don't think it's surprising that her two best friends ended up being boys. Boys tend to be a lot more tolerant of competitiveness and outspokenness, and they don't expect their friends to fake an interest in stuff they don't care about just because they are a Group and Must Do Everything Together. Hermione isn't much into Quidditch; Ron and Harry let her not be into it. If she had made friends with Lavender and Parvati, they would have insisted on dragging her to Madame Puddifoot's whether she wanted to go or not.

Um, yeah. Maybe my own issues are starting to show :)

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and now it is time for my issues to show up. ^_^

Even if there were a lot of girls who banded together to tease her (and I am not arguing against this, because I went through it), unless she is ncredibly unlucky in her classmates, there are usually one or two other people in the same situation: ostracized for absolutely nothing. And that makes me wonder about Hermione's future, had she not gone on to Hogwarts. If she did not in fact have a minor pack of her own, the outcasts, for lack of a better term, then she might have been headed down a very, very bad path. I have a friend who did some research on school shootings and some of the things that instigate them, and learned that a group of kids being teased by a larger group... the kids in the small group are not the ones you have to worry about. It's the lone child who is ostracized and picked on that you need to approach. Not saying Hermione would have gone violent or anything. Just that I wonder about her state of mind if she was a true loner.

[mad_maudlin]

I'm here from one of the newsletters, and if I'm allowed to project a little, I always assumed that Hermione didn't have any--or, really, none that were close. I see a lot of myself in her, and I know that for most of my gradeschooling I had about one friend who was any sort of close and two or three other casual ones. Why? Well, I preferred books (and Star Trek) to people, I took rules and homework very seriously, I spent a lot of time living inside my own head and wasn't good at communicating that inner life to others--sound familiar? Plus, being such a geek drew a lot of teasing, even at a young age. My peers were still gabbing about the latest episode of Full House while I was reading The Stand, and I could correct the teacher's spelling--there wasn't a lot of common ground to work on.

So I generally picture Hermione as in more or less the same situation when she started Hogwarts: she was as much a social outcast as you can be at age eleven, friendly with some people but not really friends because of her geekiness and perhaps the odd burst of accidental magic. She came to Hogwarts thinking that it would be this paradise where she'd finally be accepted and have lots of friends who would finally get her--and that's why she can't shrug off Ron's nasty comment on Halloween in SS/PS, because it cuts right to the heart of her biggest fear, that she's just as much a friendless freak among wizards as among Muggles.

(Which is, btw, pretty much what happened when I started attending the gifted program for elementary students in my school district--except no nasty comments to my face, and no trolls.)

So, yeah, I don't find it odd at all that Hermione seemed to come into Hogwarts with no friends to speak of. It matches my personal experience.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

I guess I had a very different experience from most of the people who have commented with these sentiments. I did not have a big group of friends either, and I was teased and tormented mercilessly by the "in group" in my elementary school classes. But the few friends I did make, the others who were on the short end of the stick, remain some of my closest friends to this day. A few have drifted away. But two of them in particular I treasure as two of my best friends. So I have a hard time seeing a girl with absolutely no friends at all, even if she was a loner. There are always other loners. they don't always band together, but when they do, it can create very tight bonds.

Here from the Snitch.

[quiet-aversion.livejournal.com]

Personally, I don't think she really had any friends. Not close ones, anyway.

She reminds me of me in that sense. I never had any really close friends (bar, perhaps, one, in first grade), and rarely did I still talk to someone after one school term was over. I was constantly making new friends, then having to make even more the next year, because my friends from the year before wouldn't talk to me. I've always figured that's what happened to Hermione.

Trust me, it's entirely possible. I didn't have a long-lasting friendship until I was eleven. : D It wasn't until I lightened up some that I actually kept my old friends. (I was so a Hermione when I was younger. Only less studious.)

But that's just my two (or three) cents. : D

~Neo

Re: Here from the Snitch.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Kids can be incredibly cruel and unthinking. Self-centered, definitely. It's kind of a stage of that part of development, I think. But it is so hard on kids who don't have close friends, or even anyone they feel they can connect to, even just a little bit. I had a different experience: part of a small "out crowd" who bonded together to stave off the jerks in our classes. I am still incredibly close with two of those girls. I thank my lucky stars I had them.

[magicicada.livejournal.com]

I wouldn’t say Hermione was friendless until Harry and Ron, though I certanly don’t see her as being one of the popular girls, but at that age, when kids move up to different schools there’s a lot of friends being seperated. If she had friends in primary school, they may well have been split up and lost touch, even if the new school she was going to hadn’t been magical

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

True definitely. I guess it just depends on the strength of that friendship to determine whether or not connection is maintained. I had a friend who moved away when we were twelve and our sheer closeness growing up kept us friends. But I have also lost contact (under similar circs) with other people who I do not talk to anymore, so...

[verylisa.livejournal.com]

I went to an ordinary primary school and then a selective secondary school, which I guess has some parallels with the transition from Muggle to Wizard school.

Certainly I didn't have any close friends at the ordinary school. There were so many people Just Like Me at the selective secondary school that I rapidly formed friendships with those new people and forgot about the old ones.

To this day I remember nearly all the names of the students in my first year of secondary school, and not a one from the last year at primary school.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

I made some of my close friends in second grade (and then a few in later years as they trickled into my class), and being part of the out crowd, we basically banded together against the jerks. But you're right: I don't remember much of the kids I went to kindergarten or first grade with. Some switched schools with me, some I just didn't have time to get to know, some I have lost track of or fallen out with.

Here via the Snitch

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

It doesn't seem odd at all to me. I had close friends in elementary school, but they were all friends at school. I switched schools in the middle of 5th grade and I never talked to them again. It's not like I moved or anything, either. I still lived in the same house. But we had never talked or played outside of school, so once we didn't go to the same school anymore, we weren't friends.

Re: Here via the Snitch

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

My school friends were also outside friends. Not at first, but definitely later. I think we were forced to bond so quickly and so strongly (we were all picked on by the popular kids) that it was more than enough to keep us together. I am still very close with two of the girls I met in grade school (2nd and 4th grades respectively).

[bonfoi.livejournal.com]

I've got a few British boarding school-educated friends, who said they had "home friends" and "school friends". It's a bit of a different culture, since sending your children away at a young age has been acceptable of a few hundred years.

Americans are used to a different school culture, and after reading some of the comments, it's obvious. Very few children leave home at 11 here, unless Mummy and Daddy need to go to Hamptons. (no slight intended) John Q. Public and his sister, Jane, don't leave home until college, or at least high school.

Not a break in logic, just a different country and a different way of going to school.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

I know. It's very interesting to me. We have a completely different set up. I know I would not have been prepared to bounce off to nine months of school at age 11, but if I had been raised with that in mind, it would have been different, probably.

sorry...shoulda said here via Hogwarts Today

[bonfoi.livejournal.com]

Oh...check out the maps of Wizarding Britain (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/atlas/britain/atlas-b.html) and the atlas of the Wizarding World (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/atlas/wizworld/atlas-ww-gaz.html) at www.hp-lexicon.org.

Good resource and probably the best source for info.

Re: sorry...shoulda said here via Hogwarts Today

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links.

[pauraque]

I don't think Hermione had friends before Hogwarts, but even if she did, it wouldn't be surprising to me that she'd abandon them. She's tried hard to abandon her entire Muggle life, avoiding her parents and never discussing them.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

It's really depressing to me, to think that she is attempting to abandon the life she grew up with. Especially her parents. I don't interpret her actions that way at all.

[teshara.livejournal.com]

She's so bookish, I can't imagine anyone her age missing her.
If she never got together with Ron and Harry on the Hogwarts Express, I don't see her as having very many friends.
The only reason Draco dislikes her is because she's a Gryffindor and Harry's friend. If she was a Ravenclaw, as the Sorting Hat mulled over, he would have probably ignored her.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

I would hope she could still have friends even if she was reading all the time. I certainly did. But yeah, she seemed a bit clingy to Harry and Ron, attached to the idea of making friends with them. I think she idolized Harry just a bit and rather thought Ron was an okay guy, otherwise it wouldn't have mattered to her to correct his spellwork or comment to Harry that she'd heard of him. I love that there is such a needy thread in her that first year. She really does seem to need those two. I picture it as being because she had a hard time making friends with her earnest and slightly overbearing personality as a child.

Eh, Draco also has an issue with her because she's Muggleborn. I would assume, Ravenclaw or not, that it might have come up in Chamber of Secrets, if nowhere else.

[kirili.livejournal.com]

Lots of kids move away. Perhaps she just did, as they weren't all that old, they don't keep correspondence. Maybe she meets them in the summer or something.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

It would be neat to find out.

[ex-ms-katoni171.livejournal.com]

Well, given that she was always a bit of a class brain anyway, chances are she didn't have that many close friends to start with. Then factor in that she's spending most of the year away from them, immersed in a culture of which they know nothing, and which she can't tell them about. Chances are she just grew apart from them and stopped keeping in touch. It happens.

Once you leave school and stop seeing your schoolmates daily, you grow apart from them. You don't see them any more. That, my dears, is life.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Absolutely true, and probably what happened. I just think it would be cute for Harry and Ron to meet her Muggle friends at some point, if she had any. Harry probably wouldn't be all that impressed but Ron would think it was fantastic.

[muchspork.livejournal.com]

as much as i hate to ruin ur "69 comments", i have to put in my two cents.

maybe she sees them in the holidays? and like... doesnt tell them about magic. she probly pretends shes goign to some super-gifted boarding school in scotland. maybe they lose touch after a while, thats easy to do in your teenage years, cos schools liek a social hub. and if someone goes away u have less and less in common.

and on another note, how are ya? written anythign lately?

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Heh, as attached as I am to the number 69 (which I am not particularly), I love your comments. *hugs*

I would hope she had some little buddies she played with around the neighborhood or something. It would be extra cute.

I'm not sure which fic you last read from me, but I've been bouncing about the mpreg field, and a drabble popped up the other night. A new chapter for my Charms Trilogy. ^_^

[therealw.livejournal.com]

Um. I'm sure if we asked JKR she'd say she didn't have any.

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

We should write her and find out.

[evilkittymeow.livejournal.com]

i'm guessing she spent more time with books than people. i did the same thing at that age... haha and still about 50-50 now..

[rurounihime.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah, I fight against that same demon... But I adore books and that will never stop.