An Exploration of Hermione's character arc: The Failure of Institutions and Rebellion
I find that Hermione has many character arcs throughout the books, may those be with her leadership, her relationship to knowledge, the burgeoning of her agency, her negotiation of both privilege and marginalization, or her finding her place in society. My favorite arc though is Hermione's relationship with rules and institution and how that relates to the way she perceives her place in the world.
We start in PS with a Hermione who believes in institutions and regards rules highly. She is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She believes that teachers are there to always help, that rules exist for a reason, that if people are punished for breaking such rules, it is well-deserved. Don't get me wrong, Hermione already has her own very strong sense morality at this time (we meet her helping Neville after all), but she also believes that the institutions around her align with her personal morality. Her rule-breaking here is primarily out of loyalty to her friends and just plainly trying to do the right thing (eg. Norbert, getting the Philosopher's Stone etc.).
In CoS, Hermione learns of the word "mudblood" - learns that no amount of assimilation would change the minds of the pureblood bigots for whom her very crime is daring to exist. The dirt is in her very blood and the prejudice is such that people are willing to kill her and others like her. CoS is the very first time the Wizarding World personally failed her, and her biggest rule-breaking is in resistance to that. She brews the Polyjuice Potion as a move to protect herself and the other muggle-borns. The rule-breaking here is personal. Hermione is reacting to and defending against an entity who wanted nothing more than to completely eradicate her and people like her from this world.
In PoA, we see Hermione's first experience of the more systemic injustices in the Wizarding World. She spends a considerable amount of the year preparing a case for Buckbeak that gets thrown because Lucius Malfoy lined the pockets of the judges. She meets Sirius Black who never got a fair trial and was falsely imprisoned, meets Fudge who was much more concerned about his reputation than justice. It is notable that up until the very last chapters, her approach in this book is to still play by the rules. When Buckbeak's case and appeal gets thrown, she see no hope for attaining justice. It is only when Dumbledore and Harry pointed out the use of time-turner to save both Sirius and Buckbeak that it occurs to her to go outside of the law to correct these systemic injustices. In PoA, the rule breaking is still personal - she saves Buckbeak and Sirius - but it also has the effect of correcting systemic injustices.
GoF is where the failure of the Wizarding World is truly highlighted. She finds out about house-elves and how even Hogwarts houses them. She and her friends are slandered by the media. She finds no recourse or support from official channels like the and has to find justice on her own. SPEW is an interesting contrast to Buckbeak's case in that where her defense of Buckbeak followed the law to the letter, SPEW actually seeks to change the law and give more rights to the house-elfs. Hermione is moving towards more radical positions and methods even in her day-to-day advocacy. Here in GoF, she breaks the rules almost purely in response to systemic injustice.
OotP is the climax of this part of Hermione's arc. The failures in the system that were highlighted in GoF come out in full force in OotP. We meet Kreacher, experience the full force of the media slander, and the government had decided to deny Voldemort's return in order to preserve their reputation. Hogwarts similarly has become unsafe due to the interference of the Ministry. It is notable that while Hermione may still move within the bounds of the law (eg. antagonizing Umbridge in her class while telling Harry to keep his head down, talking to Flitwick about the Hog's Head) most of her activities are firmly outside of it. Between the DA, publishing the Quibbler interview, and knitting the elf hats, her movements are not only against the institutions of the Wizarding World, but they are decidedly outside the very framework of what these institutions consider to be acceptable acts.
Consider for example the difference of SPEW and the DA as institutions of resistance. SPEW advocated that the house-elves be given seats in the Wizengamot as a long term goal. It is the kind of plan that entails an implicit trust in the integrity of the government. The underlying belief is that the status quo can be changed through the systems of the government itself. In contrast, the DA is an complete act of rebellion. It sought to undermine the core goal of the government that year and functions through a method that is completely outside of government control and systems. The shift from SPEW to DA illustrates Hermione's further disillusionment of the system.
When the Ministry finally truly falls in DH, Hermione has already made her peace with the failure of the institutions and is more than ready to fight in the rebellion.
