The Defence OWL has a practical portion and she might not have done well on it? Blasphemous, traitorous idea, I know.

Also, you're assuming that just because Snape only took O students in his NEWT Potions class, that he would only take O students in his NEWT Defence class.

And thirdly, there were other students in the NEWT Defence class, too, right? So it is possible that other students got an O as well, we just never knew their scores.

Oh, and one more thing: I suspected that Snape would very quickly lower the entry score if he faced the prospect of having to one-on-one teach Harry for a year again.

 

I'm not assuming he would only take O students into his DADA class, I'm saying that seeing as how McGonagall says "Professor Snape only takes potions students who receive an O grade, which is needed to become an Auror" that O cannot be the single best grade. I also am reasonably sure he took people who got EE into his DADA class.

My question was why Hermione, of all people, got a grade that wasn't an O. Is there any evidence saying two people in the same year both got an O in the same subject (showing that O is a high grade, not the highest), someone stating that only a single O is given, or any explanation as to why she didn't?

I know it could be that she failed the practical, or at least didn't do awesomely, but I was wondering. Hence posting in this thread.

 

If that existed in the potterverse, the world would be very different from that which is described in the books. Same way as the other deus ex machinas with which the potterverse is littered. If any of that actually worked, the story could not have happened.

 

Hermione could have not done as well as Harry in the practical. I think that would be the Occam's Razor answer.

As for the McGonagall/O in Defence comment, I think you misinterpreted that. She was stating that NEWT Potions was essential study for Aurors, and that Snape demanded an O to admit students into his NEWT Potions class. It didn't say what the student had to score, just that you have to have a NEWT/OWL for it and we know that O, EE and A are all passing grades. You can still be an Auror if you get an A in NEWT Potions because it still counts as a passed NEWT.

 

I always thought this was why. It honestly isn't logical, but what in Rowling's world is?

 

I can't see why it isn't logical. Getting O's in all the other subjects does not mean she should automatically get one in Defense as well.

 

Hermione couldn't have been worse than Harry at answering questions and I don't think she was worse than Harry at casting the spells they were supposed to know for OWLs -she practiced those. Harry impressed the examiners with a Patronus and got an O. But an O is not a bonus grade. It's a grade for 95% - 100% score or thereabouts. So Harry, being good at casting defensive spells and knowing the answers to questions got about 90% and had that score bumped up by the Patronus. That sounds reasonable for Harry's best subject. But Hermione is just good at studying and taking exams. She probably scored 100% on the written test and close to that on the practical, for spells she practiced beforehand and had to perform in a test environment (no real danger). She should have gotten an O by just doing everything right on the test, like she always does. To fail to get an O, she had to flub more than one question or spell, which I think is unlikely. So once again, the on-universe explanation is "magic!" and the out-of-universe explanation is "JKR".

 

No. The explanation is not magic! or JKR. The explanation is that Hermione is human and sometimes humans aren't perfect. We see that over the course of several years Hermione is outperformed by Harry in defence. It's his best subject and probably her worst. Hermione states herself in OOTP that the only time they had a competent teacher (i.e third year) Harry beat her in the test, where she failed in the practical part.

The explanation for Hermione not getting an O is, as usual the most obvious answer, she didn't do well enough on the test to get one.

 

Something that I was interested in: If you try to summon something larger than you would you be dragged towards it instead?

And does said item have a sort of sentience as it comes towards you? Harry's broom apparently had no problem navigating the castle when he summoned it, is there some pathfinding method the broom uses or does it just go in a straight line.

Note: For the first question I'm less interested whether it's possible in canon and whether it's believable given HP magic. I want to use it and wanted to see what HP fans thought of it. Too unrealistic?

 

It's magic. Physics don't matter.

I would assume that if you are a skilled enough caster, the summoned object would avoid obstacles to come to you, otherwise probably a straight line.

Although you can always just yell MAGIC and make it avoid obstacles anyway, because it's magic.

 

I've seen people summon themselves towards larger objects in a few fics, but it's not an idea that I really like. It seems to rely on physics, larger objects attract smaller objects, and I hate when science is combined with magic. That said, go on ahead and use it, it's nowhere near the worst idea I've ever seen.

According to canon you don't even need to know where the object is (Hermione summoning books on horcruxes) so you can assume that it doesn't just move in a direct line. As for why it does that, I think that this is one of those occasions, and I hate to say this, where you just need to say Magic. You could come up with a dozen theories as to why it happens, from sentient magic to random chance, none of which have any supporting evidence. Just pick something that sounds cool.

 

This is fridge logic, and hgf beat me to it. It's like you see in those mutual fund ads: "Past performance does not guarantee future results." If that were the case, Ron would never have grown up emotionally (DH) and Hermione wouldn't have become a pining bitch (HBP).

So she didn't get an O - so what? Unless we're talking The Big O, which I'd be happy to assist her with...

<.<
>.>

I would think that DLP, many members of which dislike canon!Hermione, would have more of a problem if she HAD gotten an O. In my opinion, it's a good thing that she didn't just coast through everything with Os all the way, and has at least one instance of academic less-than-perfection to go along with the other flaws in her character that so many DLPers love to point out.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but if she and Harry had both scored an O in Defense, Ron (who had no Os) might have had even MORE self-confidence problems going into HBP. Plus, there's the aforementioned "Harry is teh awesomer" reason, which I'm sure played a role.

EDIT: Got ninja'd, but I wanted to add a question relevant to the thread.

What do all those silver instruments in Dumbledore's office do? I know the one was something to do with Harry's Scarcrux with the smoke and the "in essence divided." But what about the others, and what does old Dumbledore's crazy moving-planets pocket-watch do or mean? Nothing?

 

You're such a louse, Portus.

Ahem, anyway... I've drawn a lot of wrong conclusions in my day, but the notion that there's only one O OWL awarded in each subject is really out there. Thankfully I've never fallen prey to that one.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that this is a symptom of reading too many fics where the Trio read their OWL scores and Harry/Hermione gets the only OO+ Governor's award or some shit in half the subjects.
​

 

I was pretty sure there wasn't a single O grade given, for the reason given in my original post (I doubt Dumbledore would let Snape only teach one student per year from the top three years), and was therefore wondering if it didn't make sense to other people that Hermione didn't also achieve a top grade, considering how well she does/is implied to do in basically every other academic achievement we see through the series.

Re-reading it, I could have worded my original post quite a bit better.

 

Hermione's EE in Defense is hardly a failing grade, and given that Harry had been teaching everyone that year, the fact that she got EE might be explained as a mistake or four in the overall testing (as said before) or perhaps... she tried to cast the Patronus to impress her examiner as well, but couldn't make it work due to nerves. If she screwed herself by her own ambition, I doubt she'd tell anyone about it, and it explains why she didn't go nuts trying to figure out what she missed there.

Of course, external to the story, it's about JKR giving Harry props for being the boy who has seen battle.

As for the 'only one O per year' idea- that's incomprehensible to me. How could everyone else have been prepared to attend 6th year potions if Hermione was the only one who got an O in the potions OWL? Also, it isn't like Snape wrote up or gave the exams- OWLs are externally proctored.

On the Accio effect- I've used the technique of summoning something immovable in order to be drawn to it within my stories, but I can see the argument either way. That said, I think the Firebolt's inherent ability to fly and navigate would have made Harry's summoning spell more likely to succeed. Summoning a bunch of books that you know are within the Headmaster's office might not be able to navigate corridors, but they did zoom out one window and into another.

If one permits invoked spirits in your theory of magic (like Prospero in Shakespeare's 'the Tempest'), a Summoning charm may involve a semi-sentient air nymph being compelled to do the getting and bringing work. This sort of explanation trumps the other use of the Accio above.

As a consequence, would Hermione start telling people to not use summoning charms once she learned about the helper spirits? "Oh, you mustn't! They might have been doing something important... besides, it's slavery!"

I partly enjoy the spirit-binding idea of magic, as it explains the behavior of the Weasley's car, truculent old school brooms, books that will bash one on the head if they doodle in the margins and such.

 

I can't help but think that all of this "one O per class" nonsense is stemming from Santi's fic and his Master grade in Durmstrang. >.>

 

As far as I can tell, nobody seems to think there is only one O available per class. My initial question was misunderstood, as I wrote it badly.

What I said was "here is one possible response to the question I am asking, and why that
response is not a valid response. What other responses are there?", because I had wanted to avoid what it ended up turning into.

Apparently, the answer is simply "Hermione didn't do as well as Harry". Thanks for the input guys.


On the summoning charm - it summons whatever the specified object is. There has to be limits (such as weight, distance, or something else), and there is quite possibly either a counter-charm, or objects that are unable to be summoned. Just like the killing curse kills things, and levitation charm makes things levitate, the summoning charm makes things come to you.


Although, question -
If a wizard conjures a REALLY long, unbreakable rope, charms it to hover at one metre above ground/sea level (including rough terrain), and to avoid any obstacles, then ties it to himself at one end, and the other end to ObjectA.
Can he then summon ObjectA, and thus allow himself to fly around the world repeatedly, as the summoned object pulls the rope after it, which pulls the wizard after it, which means the object does not reach the wizard?

 

@Thaumologist you're using physics. You're not allowed. We know that magic violates the second law of thermodynamics, so you can get a perpetual motion machine any way you like. Also, free energy. Also, time travel. Also, whatever else you imagine. Only, you're not allowed to use physics. Or multiplication. If you use multiplication, all knowledge of the magical world is obliviated from your mind.

RE: Hermione's EE. So it's established in canon that she isn't good at casting defensive spells on exams? And they went to war and won? Nice.