By "flower charm" he's referring to Lily's ability, pre-Hogwarts, to make flowers bloom without a wand - a kind of magic we've only ever seen from Voldemort.

 

I'm assuming that if we take the fact that Dumbledore can cast a charm wandlessly that lights a flame similarly to Hagrid's fire starting spell in the first book, the jump for us to think that Lily could do the same with a different spell isn't so hard.

Unless we're sticking straight to book canon.

 

Lily could levitate herself too if I remember correctly, nothing on Riddle's level but still impressive nonetheless.

Anyway, Canon Harry's weakness at magic probably comes from not caring about it. He learnt the Patronous Charm after he set his mind to it and he could do Prince's spell without a problem. He simply showed no interest in learning magic unlike Riddle, Snape, and others. James wanted to become an animagus, Riddle wanted immortality whereas Harry wanted normality.

I personally think of him as a complete idiot for not letting go of that.

 

Actually, the main conflict was that she didn't believe Harry when he said that Draco was a marked Death Eater who was running errands for Voldemort inside the school. This was well before the book made its debut.

I've voiced my feelings about this situation before on this forum, but perhaps a 'quick' (lol) rundown...

Draco: The douche that Hermione slapped in the third book because he was delighting in having (he thought) caused the execution of an innocent animal; the racist who had been extolling the virtues of Voldemort and the pureblood supremacist movement since book one and gleefully spouted his eagerness for the flood of dead 'mudbloods' he was certain would follow the opening of the Chamber of Secrets in book two; the one who kicked the shit out of an immobilized Harry on the train...

Suddenly, starting right before Hogwarts opened for their sixth year, Draco Malfoy was an innocent little saint who could do no wrong, in Hermione's eyes. It was simply beyond comprehension to her that he could possibly be a Death Eater, despite his father and aunt being two of the most well known and notorious ones, respectively, and Draco having reinforced, year after year, that he wholeheartedly agreed with every monstrously racist thing they believed.

She (barely) listened to the evidence that Harry had gathered and summarily declared that Harry was merely paranoid and just biased against Draco because he was holding a grudge.

Harry: One of her best and in fact only real friends (before and after starting at Hogwarts); someone who had proven multiple times, in the past, to be able to take various obscure puzzle pieces and put together the big picture.

She chose to completely ignore his -rather compelling- evidence and entirely discount Harry's credibility on the matter. Though not for the same reasons, she basically wrote Harry off the same way Minister Fudge did... if Fudge had skipped badmouthing him in the press and simply settled for making Ron ignore his best friend's evidence, and being a useless tit who spent the rest of the year obsessed with a boy but too chickenshit to do anything about it.

I don't recall (and I'm too lazy to go back and check) if Hermione even started believing Harry after he caught Draco in Myrtle's bathroom and was forced to defend himself against Malfoy's Cruciatus curse.

That's like saying that it's reasonable to assume that my book has a gun in it because someone else had a gun hidden in a hollowed-out book.

Magically talking, strangely blank despite being personally monogrammed, book, that mysteriously appeared in a girl's bag VS. old, school text book, sitting in the middle of a classroom bookshelf, with footnotes on the pages.

Either this is a clear cut case of apples and oranges, or you had better watch out for those second-hand college texts.

Ginny only confronted Harry about the book in the first place because Hermione cruely played on the girl's trauma from her first year possession, hoping that Ginny would force Harry to comply with Hermione's demands about the book, where she herself had failed. It was a textbook (no pun intended) example of Hermione's capacity for self-serving, ruthless, pragmatism.

Hermione was painfully obvious about her real reasons for disliking that book, and none of them truly had anything to do with Voldemort, an aversion to violent spells, or adherence to rules (none of which Harry was breaking by possessing the book in the first place).

Let us remember that this is the same person who attacked Ron so viciously that he was still bearing the wounds on his face, weeks later; trapped Rita Skeeter in a jar before blackmailing her; and cheated (by attacking Cormac) to get Ron on the quidditch team (which opens a whole new can of hypocrisy that I won't get into in this post). She is all about breaking the rules and hurting people when it suits her own purposes.

Her issue wasn't the ridiculously slim possibility this book was housing some dark wizard's soul (only Hermione would make all of her horcruxes out of books. lol), or the mildly spooky sounding spells in the margins, it was because she didn't like Harry showing her up. Whether Harry outperforming her in class was down to the book or not is immaterial to this particular point.

Agreed, for the most part. I certainly don't think she and Ron, as depicted on the page, would have worked out in the long run. They may have tried, even going so far as to get married, but I feel they ultimately would have failed (the subject of every second post-Hogwarts fic that isn't about Scorpius buggering Rose, Lily-Luna, or Albus-Severus, with every 'first' fic being tepid explorations of canon's OBHWF, or some banal twaddle about Victoire/Teddy).

However, book six did make me feel like they might just deserve each other, whether a marriage between their two personality types would work or not.

Really, the only way it could work, is if she became his second mother, taking Molly's place as the woman who folds his underwear, cooks his food, and bitches at him to get shit done: There were hints, small and not-so, that this was already happening by the time the series ended.

This does happen in some marriages and, while the marriage may be a 'success' based on the fact that they stick together because neither is confident/ambitious enough to buck the relatively secure status quo and go looking for a new husband/surrogate mother, it doesn't make for a happy marriage.

You're not kidding.

 

Book one: Harry is certain that Severus Snape is trying to steal the stone.
Book two: Harry is certain that Draco is the heir of Slytherin and is opening the chamber of secrets.
Book three: The wizarding world, the Weasleys, etc. are certain that Sirius Black is trying to murder Harry.

Throughout books 1-7, something bad happens and Harry yells out, "Snape did it." Therefore, I can see why Hermione might be hesitant to jump to the conclusion that Harry's spider sense is always correct.

That being said, I think we're all likely to have certain soft spots for certain characters, I have a huge blind spot for Harry so any disappointment I have with his lack of ambition\desire to excel I displace on a character who rankles me: Ron.

Fanon actually made me hate him a little less because there are some stories where he's not a jealous douche. Due to whatever personal reason I also strongly believe in the "fool me once shame on you" but "turn your back on me 2-multiple x then your dead to me. Different people, different buttons.

Draco is messed up no doubt.

As for the Buckbeak incident I kind of blame Hagrid. Are you kidding me introducing a bunch of kids aged 13 to an animal that could do that? Pitbulls and other dogs are put down if they attack people. Also, animals are not high on my totem pole of things to care about so Buckbeak's only saving grace was that he helped Sirius otherwise I don't really care.

On the other hand as a character Draco has a very compelling back story (raised by Lucius Malfoy who wouldn't hesitate to kill Harry in Hogwarts or cause the death of Ginny and murder\torture\molest or maybe even rape Muggles\Muggleborns) and fanon has given the character a two dimensional aspect that he never had in the books.

For me the point where he can't kill Dumbledore or feels regret at causing harm to Katie Bell shows that he isn't his father and if J.K. wanted she could have given him a redemption arc instead of the "if you're ambitious\cunning or from a certain family you can't change and are EVIL EVIL EVIL." All Slytherins are bad in canon, whole families with one or two exceptions are evil. Draco symbolizes someone who entered Voldemort's service as a rabid wannabe evil doer and realized that it's not a game and backed out.

That said he's not my favorite character by a long shot but he reminds me of some anime characters who start out like that but go through a long arduous redemption and become the good guys (with an edge, of course). Perhaps he's also twisted into a symbol of that resistance to all characters of a certain type being lumped in to the "evil house."

You know without her I think Harry would be dead and yes she has flaws but at the end of the day I appreciate how much effort and talent she has to undertake and do all these things.

Clever, ambitious, and competent? Then I will appreciate the character. Ruthless, verging on the psychopathic (Dexter for example) then I will probably like the character.

Of course I also have some positive feelings towards Bellatrix Lestrange, that's one crazy bitch but damn she's kind of hot.

Of course, it's obvious from book one that she likes to be the smartest in the room. It's some complex for sure to have that need but its one that I find bearable because at least there's ambition, drive, and the aptitude to prove oneself.

While J.K. later claimed that she was like Hermione its obvious that Ginny is her stand-in in the books and she doesn't quite like Hermione that much as an author.

The fact that Hermione stays with Harry when she obviously longs for Ron and must think that not going after him might destroy their relationship in book 7 means that she gets a free pass on more minor issues.

Isn't it damn amazing though how we all read the same books but here we are with such varied responses to characters and situations and morality? I mean as a writer it makes me think about how much the readers bring to my words.

 

There is a huge difference between Harry suspecting Snape in PS and suspecting Malfoy in HBP. Firstly, Hermione was the one who started suspecting Snape first (broom incident). Secondly, reread the conversation between Snape and Quirell in the forest. How could a 11 year old not suspect Snape after that? Thirdly, there was plenty of evidence against Malfoy and someone who is as smart as Hermione should have at least given them some thought. What was worse was that she didn't show any regret for doing that nor did she apologize to Harry for that. Her actions are also very hypocritical as she had no qualms about brewing an illegal potion when she suspected Malfoy in CoS but was angry at Harry for using alternate instructions in HBP. Harry doesn't ignore Hermione's opinions because she believed Lockhart when she was 12 so why should Hermione do that with Snape incident? I don't think H/Hr would work because their relationship in Canon was fine where it was with Ron and Hermione bickering and Harry ignoring them.

 

Thinking about how the maintaining the statute of secrecy the main job of magical governments it wouldn't be a surprise if every muggle-born had some sort of compulsion placed on them to make them want to fit into their new magical society and to distance themselves from their ties to the muggle world.

If not then surely some of those muggle-born who were living as beggars durring Voldemort's rule could have said to themselves screw this and go live in the muggle world. Even with the lack of a muggle education they could have gotten a job as a day-laborer or gone on the dole. It would have been a lot better than living as a beggar in a world run by pure blood supremacists. Plus given how ignorant the pure-bloods are of the muggle world it should be very hard for death-eaters to track them down.

Logically, it would seem that joining the magical world is not a choice for muggle-borns if maintaining the statute of secrecy is so important. Surely, there must be some parents of muggle-born would not want their child to go off to Hogwarts. The only muggle guardians we see in the book that object are the Dursleys and in the end they weren't allowed to say no. However it begs disbelief to think they were the only ones who objected.