On Authority and Morality
Hermione Granger has a complicated relationship with authority figures. If she was asked early on, she would say that, on the whole, she thinks they tend to have the wellbeing of their subordinates as a thought in their mind, if not the main thought.
Of course, that wouldn’t be how she thought for most of her life.
Of course, she had known for a while that figures of authority were not, perhaps, the fairest. Refrains of “Oh he just likes you!” and “Boys will be boys!”, utterances of “Our zero-tolerance policy” and “Sometimes you have to fight your own battles”, declarations of “It couldn’t have been that bad” and “It’s not nice to tell lies” reverberating through her head when she thought of elementary school.
So, though she still views authority figures as morally correct in a statistical majority of situations, she has reservations about them. Knows that they are not the be-all and end-all.
She is also acutely aware of how the failings of authority affect those they are charged to care for. Lonely childhoods are a natural result of an educator’s failure to discipline their charges, after all, and Hermione’s was one lacking in camaraderie.
So, naturally, she was rather ecstatic to have been extended an invitation to spend the train ride to Hogwarts with someone. She was positively jubilant that this James Evans fellow had even wanted to discuss the intricacies of specters with her.
It certainly stung a little bit to realize that the boy she had been having such an enthralling conversation with had lied to her though, in retrospect, it made sense. It certainly hadn’t hurt that he apologized as soon as possible and had intended to tell her as soon as he could.
Her first year at Hogwarts rather quickly kills off what little trust she has in authority figures. Because not only is abuse allowed from a professor, but they don’t even punish students for using a slur!
Then of course there’s the fact that an entire team of fully trained, adult magicians failed to track down a mountain troll! Or the fact that one even managed to enter the castle, to begin with! Then there was the end of the year. Where it was revealed that the supposedly dead, fascist terrorist was, in fact, not dead, and had infiltrated the castle where the majority of the country's children were being housed for the majority of the year.
To make it worse, Albus Dumbledore, a figure holding three important positions, who by all rights should have been able to detect such a disturbance, and should have reported it to the proper authorities, was the one to lure said fascist into a school filled with children!
Yes, that year was the year that Hermione well and truly lost any and all trust for authority figures. The year that she realized that moral authority figures were the exception, not the rule.
So she decides to follow her own morality, instead of inane, senseless, inexplicable rules.
The next year simply cements her new lack of trust and belief in those in authority. Because now there are petrifications occurring within the school, and Harry is hearing voices when their new friend, Luna, is hearing hisses. Blaise is the first to point out the obvious. That being, that the thing responsible for the petrifications would be a snake.
Something patently obvious, seeing as Salazar Slytherin’s primary insignia was a snake, and he could speak to them. Something that the professors ought to have been able to decipher.
And then Neville reports back with information from his grandmother. That the serpent they’ve been researching is likely a basilisk. And when they check the library, all indicators point to her being right. But then there’s the question of how it’s been traversing the castle, which Blaise solves. The plumbing.
So naturally Harry decides they need to check the various crime scenes. A logical choice, she thinks, as she and Neville return to the site of Sir Nicholas and Ernest’s petrifications. Statistically speaking, serial killers are nearly guaranteed to return to the scene of the crime, and the mindset behind serial petrification can’t be too dissimilar to the former. They don’t find much, though the same can’t be said of Harry and Blaise.
Who have evidently found something of significance, seeing as they’re being accompanied by Helena, a ghost who Harry was colleagues, of a sort, with. And it turns out her assumption is correct.
Because, with their discovery of an innocuous-looking diary, comes a tale of murder, deceit and falsely lauded bravery. All told it’s rather easy to discern that Myrtle was the murder victim, and thus the Chamber entrance being in the same room, with everyone there.
It's also quite the anticlimactic ending to the mystery, seeing as Harry had discovered a method of killing the basilisk when reading an accounting recorded by Chaucer. Mirrors. Of course, there was also the research for unbinding a house spirit, but really, that was secondary in Hermione’s mind.
Their third year is, comparatively, rather mundane. Of course that is a touch relative, seeing as there was still an escaped convict, who had been imprisoned illegally, and didn’t that rankle her, that she helped evade capture, but that was rather tame in comparison to the fascist terrorist and the possibility of dying.
So, by the time she’s in her fourth year, Hermione has been thoroughly conditioned to view authority as either malicious or incompetent. This is only further cemented by a government official seemingly not understanding the mechanics of wand-based spell casting.
That year’s Incident only goes and reinforces this belief, seeing as Harry, who is patently not an adult, is entered into the Triwizard Tournament. Which was only open to people who were of age. And he can’t back out. And the officials say that they’re investigating the matter, but nothing is happening. So Hermione does what she does best. Research. She finds every mention of the Triwizard Tournament, documenting everything, filing them away, as well as stripping even the tiniest bit of information, because Harry might be a Hunter, but he's not an adult, and the Tournament was designed with that and magic in mind.
Her research is useful, of course. But none of that could matter when Harry gets kidnapped and has his blood used to resurrect a fascist terrorist. It’s through luck and the grace of a literal angel that he manages to escape. While he is gone, in an attempt to get some kind of action from the authority figures who are meant to be taking this seriously, she starts doing what she can. Citing various laws and statutes that are relevant at the moment.
It’s all for naught because, as has been proven time after time after time, authority figures, as a rule, do not care to do what is right, or moral. They care about ease of action and reputation.
And then the year is over, and she gets to go back home. Except she doesn’t. Because she gets taken to an old townhouse in London by Ronald’s mother, not even getting to see her parents. The worst part? The phone she’s had since the beginning of the year, the phone that manages to work through the high-density magic of Hogwarts can’t get through to anyone.
Because she’s under a Fidelius. And so is Neville, who was brought by his harridan of a grandmother. The annoying part? The moment she tried to leave the building, she was immediately taken back by Alastor Moody. The person she will now forever associate with a disguised Death Eater.
Luckily, she’s friends with Harry. Who, as soon as they’ve been suspiciously quiet, manages to do the impossible and breach the Fidelius. All because wizards seem to be inherently illogical. And then he goes and gets attacked by dementors. And thrown on trial for protecting himself, except the charges are false because he can’t even cast the spell they’re accusing him of.
And suddenly, there’s a Ministry official at Hogwarts. And it’s their main suspect for setting the dementors on Harry. And she isn’t actually going to teach anything.
The smell of an Animal Farm and sacrificial pork stinks like acrid smoke.
And it gets worse. Because Hermione could manage self-study. But that foul woman is having students carve into their flesh with an enchanted quill. So they plan.
Her part of the plan is to set up an empty room. They can’t be certain if she’ll come to earlier than expected, so it’ll act as a holding facility while Harry stages a struggle. It won’t last very long, perfect to ensure her lack of incrimination.
And then the aurors come. An expected turn of events. But then everything goes horribly wrong. Because of a simple, small forensic spell. She blames herself, in part. If she had known, done a better job at researching possibilities then maybe, just maybe, the aurors wouldn’t have found the body.
But they did. And now Harry and Blaise are fugitives. At least they’re with each other. God knows both of them would be sick with worry if they weren’t. It’s small, but it’s a silver lining. Now she just has to contend with the scrutiny of law enforcement. Because she’s Harry’s friend, so obviously she knows something.
She does, but she’s long since learned that the moral action is rarely the authorized one.
She just hopes that Harry and Blaise are safe in the US.