Hermione who secretly hates her bushy hair because she can’t tame it and she feels like she’ll never be beautiful. She knows her brain is what really matters, but she can’t help sometimes wishing she could be beautiful like Ginny.
Hermione whose feelings are hurt when her friends don’t understand that she isn’t freaking out before exams in order to get attention. Nine out of ten is NOT good enough and it feels like a stab through the heart when she doesn’t meet her own standards.
Hermione who is endlessly embarrassed by her ineptitude on a broomstick. It maddens her that she can’t learn everything she needs to know out of a book. She can’t help being terrified, though, because of her inability to cope with the situation in advance.
Hermione whose earliest memories are of being embarrassed by people and of the terror she always felt as a little girl when her playmates didn’t obey the rules.
Hermione who hates spontaneity because you can’t plan out the unknown. She loves routines and schedules because they rarely change and you can almost always depend on them. She relies on lists because you can control them and check off the boxes. She appreciates school robes because you never have to worry about what to wear to class.
Hermione who is always afraid of letting her parents down. They are used to their daughter being the best in all her classes and she constantly feels the burden of upholding that reputation.
Hermione who isn’t crushed by taunts about being a “Mudblood.” Instead, these taunts drive her to work harder and prove that one’s worth doesn’t lie in one’s genetics.
Hermione who loves her parents dearly despite the insults she endures because of them. She is never ashamed of her parentage and she makes that fact clear to anyone who dares belittle them.
Hermione who is so focused on the facts that she can be unbearably insensitive to her closest friends by accident.
Hermione who is scared of getting in trouble, of getting lost in the Forbidden Forest, of Hagrids many “pets,” of her friends getting hurt, and of so many other things that would probably make her friends laugh, so she doesn’t dare admit them.
Hermione who is disgusted by Ron and Harry’s flippancy about completing homework but always helps them with their studies anyway. (At least, she almost always does.)
Hermione who is incurably attached to her cat, even when Ron can’t stand him. (“He can’t help being a cat!”) Crookshanks needs her and she wouldn’t dream of getting rid of him, even to ease the occasional tension he causes between herself and Ron.
Hermione who is a human: makes mistakes, has pet peeves, hurts her friends, is afraid of things, doesn’t look like she stepped off the cover of a magazine, is slightly overconfident, but is loyal and brave and true.
