Hermione Granger is beloved by millions of Harry Potter fans worldwide, and for good reason. She’s a formidable adversary who helps save the wizarding world from a terrible tyranny.
However, let’s face it, sometimes her actions and usual character traits just don’t add up. In fact, there are so many contradictions about Hermione, it’s hard to find a place to start.
To begin with, she sees herself as a stickler for the law, but she frequently breaks the Hogwarts school rules. She’s proud of being a fighter for kindness, justice and equality, but she’s not always capable of showing respect or consideration for those who disagree with her views.
She’s got a reputation for being fiercely loyal to her friends, but she is often clueless about their feelings and needs. She’s got an impressive record of academic achievement, but she often does things that aren’t that smart.
In short, Hermione is a brown-eyed, bushy-haired bundle of intellectual and emotional contradictions.
With that thought in mind, let’s crack open a cold pint of pumpkin juice and revisit the many times that Hermione falls short of her reputation for being super-smart, idealistic, and kind.
Here are the 20 Strange Things About Harry Potter’s Hermione That Make No Sense.
Why did she maintain her toxic relationship with Ron?
Throughout the many years covered by the seven Harry Potter books, Hermione and Ron fight, date other people, break up, make up, insult each other, and then finally get married.
Hermione actually seems to enjoy fighting with Ron.
At one point, she even uses an avian spell to send a flock of birds to viciously attack him.
This is a very counter-productive way to run a relationship, to put it mildly.
Even J. K. Rowling herself admitted that Hermione and Ron don’t belong together. What’s more, the actor Rupert Grint, who played Ron in eight movie, said that he believed that Hermione and Ron would eventually get a divorce.
In fact, Rupert envisions a sad, lonely life for a divorced Ron, living in a shabby, one-room apartment
Why didn’t she use the Time-Turner to stop Voldemort?
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Professor McGonagall gives Hermione a Time-Turner device that allows her to time-travel so that she can take two classes with conflicting schedules.
Hermione is given strict instructions to only use the device to gain more time for her studies, although she later breaks that rule to rescue the hippogriff Buckbeak from execution.
If she’s willing to flout the rules for Buckbeak’s sake, she should have also been willing to use the Time-Turner any number of times to destroy or disable Voldemort and his minions.
Perhaps she’s worried about the very real possibility of disrupting the current Hogwarts timeline too much if she risked it.
However, this possible explanation isn’t part of Hermione’s reasoning processes in the book or movie.
Why did she always seem to get special treatment?
Many students face the same problem with conflicting course times in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but only Hermione gets a Time-Turner from Professor McGonagall so that she can deal with it.
Isn’t that totally unfair to the other students who are competing with Hermione for grades and academic awards?
Hermione breaks a lot of rules and usually never gets punished for it.
For example, she makes Polyjuice illegally with ingredients stolen from Professor Snape. When she accidentally turns herself into a partial cat by drinking the Polyjuice, Ron and Harry take her to the Hogwarts hospital, noting that “Madam Pomfrey never asks too many questions.”
It should have been obvious to Pomfrey that Hermione drank illegally brewed Polyjuice, but Hermione doesn’t get punished for it.
Why did she lie about the mountain troll?
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Hermione skips a school feast to cry in the girls’ bathroom after overhearing Ron make a snarky remark about her.
When the troll invades Hogwarts, Ron and Harry disobey instructions to return to their rooms, and instead go searching for Hermione.
Ron and Harry encounter the troll in the girls’ washroom, where Hermione has been crying. Ron and Harry manage to knock out the troll and save Hermione.
Later, Hermione lies to Professor McGonagall and says that she went looking for the troll on her own, and that Harry and Ron only arrived later, thankfully saving the day.
She may have lied to save Harry and Ron from punishment, but why? If she had told the truth, it is unlikely that any of them would have gotten into trouble, as none of them went looking for the troll intentionally.
Why did she continue her relationship with Viktor Krum?
Viktor, the Bulgarian champion who competes with Harry in the Triwizard Tournament in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is so besotted with Hermione that he invites her to spend the summer with him at his family’s lavish medieval castle in his homeland.
She turns him down, but she keeps corresponding with the lovelorn wizard, even after starting a romantic relationship with Ron.
This continued contact would obviously give Viktor the false hope that he still has a chance with Hermione.
Her actions seem a bit cruel and are not consistent with Hermione’s generally honorable character.
It’s almost as if she’s keeping the handsome Bulgarian Bonbon in reserve in case Ron doesn’t work out, except that our Hermione wouldn’t do something like that, would she?
Why did she have such a big crush on Gilderoy Lockhart?
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Hermione is infatuated with Professor Lockhart, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, because he is famous for writing many books detailing his alleged victories over all manner of fearsome adversaries.
Hermione is supposed to be the “brightest witch of her age,” but strangely, she doesn’t seem smart enough to see that Lockhart is a conceited, self-promoting, incompetent poseur.
His main achievements are being the five-times winner of Witch Weekly’s “Most Charming Smile” contest and setting records for handing out signed photos of himself.
To Hermione’s chagrin, Lockhart eventually confesses that his claimed feats are all fraudulent toward the end of the book, just before accidentally wiping out his own memory with the Obliviate spell. Some crush.
Why didn’t she fix her hair?
Hermione uses gobs of Sleakeazy Hair Potion to tame her wild, bushy mane for special occasions, like the Yule Ball in Goblet of Fire.
However, otherwise, she considers Sleakeazy “way too much bother to do every day.”
Yet, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, she engineers a jinx on fellow student Marietta Edgecombe that gives her terrible, disfiguring acne.
If Hermione can change another witch’s appearance so drastically, why can’t she cast a spell to fix her hair? She would save money on Sleakeazy.
Plus, she’d be able to study her beloved books without her bushy locks falling in her eyes.
Hermione’s bad hair does go away in the movies, however, so maybe she’s got a little secret hair-fixing charm that nobody knows about.
Why is she so terrible at playing Wizard’s Chess?
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, one passage states that chess is “the only thing Hermione ever lost at, something Harry and Ron thought was very good for her.”
Chess, however, is a game of meticulous strategy, planning, and logic. Surely this is a pastime that would be relatively easy to master for a person as careful and analytical as Hermione?
Apparently, it’s not such a snap for her after all. Fortunately for the Golden Trio, Ron is much better than Hermione at playing Wizard’s Chess.
Without Ron’s chess skills, they wouldn’t have fared very well when they play a game with the giant, enchanted chessmen who are guarding the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Perhaps Hermione should have studied more books on how to play Wizard’s Chess.
Why did she let Crookshanks run loose around Scabbers?
Hermione’s cranky and unpredictable cat, Crookshanks, has a real fixation on Ron’s mangy old rat, Scabbers.
True, eventually Scabbers is revealed to be Voldemort minion Peter Pettigrew in disguise, but this isn’t known until Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Before the incident of Pettigrew’s unmasking, Crookshanks chases Scabbers relentlessly all around the Hogwarts dorms and even tries to eat him.
Despite these obvious red flags, Hermione doesn’t stop bringing her cat into contact with Scabbers.
It’s almost as if she doesn’t care that she’s endangering her friend’s beloved pet, in contrast to her usual portrayal as a caring and loyal chum.
Maybe she’s just too wrapped up in her books and spells to notice that trouble-maker Crookshanks isn’t always on his best behavior.
Why does she erase her parents’ memories?
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Hermione uses a memory charm on her Muggle parents to make them believe that they are a couple called Wilkins, who don’t have a daughter named Hermione and who don’t know anything about the magical world.
True, the point of using the memory charm is to protect the Grangers from the Death Eaters, but what if Hermione had passed away before the end of the Second Wizarding War? Her parents never would have had a chance to get back to their normal lives.
Using the memory charm seems like a rash tactic for Hermione to employ out of desperation rather than rational thought.
Surely, someone as well-versed in magic as Hermione could have whipped up a better, less risky solution to keep her parents safe?
Why does she use her spells and charms so inconsistently?
Hermione employs a fire spell to set Professor Snape’s cape ablaze at the Quidditch match in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and she also makes herself a portable hand-warmer by conjuring up bluebell flames to capture with an empty jam jar.
Later on in the story, however, when she wants to free Harry and Ron from the Devil’s Snare, she worries that there’s no wood handy with which to make a fire.
Only when Harry reminds her that she can make a fire magically, does she realize that she doesn’t need to make a fire the Muggle way.
Luckily, her fire spell works and the boys are freed, but this incident unfortunately makes our normally level-headed Hermione look like a total ditz.
Why doesn’t she trust Harry to help her study?
Weirdly, Hermione trusts Harry’s judgement to lead Dumbledore’s Army, but she doesn’t believe that he’s competent enough to feed her questions and answers to help her prepare for an exam on the textbook entitled Achievements in Charming.
Instead, she keeps grabbing the book away from him to make sure that her answers are 100 percent in sync with what is written in the text, disregarding what Harry tells her.
Her behavior is so annoying that Harry eventually gives up on helping Hermione study for her O.W.Ls, which she needs to pass in order to graduate from Hogwarts.
To make matters worse, she then “accidentally” hits him in the face with the textbook. Harry should know better after all the years he’s spent in Hermione’s company.
Why does she only get ten on her O.W.Ls?
Of course, studious Hermione is known to be an academic over-achiever, but Bill and Percy Weasley each get 12 O.W.Ls while they are at Hogwarts.
This feat significantly outperforms Hermione’s measly ten (in some early editions, she gets 11 O.W.Ls).
She drops Divination and Muggle Studies for conflicting with her other classes— which is why she doesn’t get 12— but why doesn’t she try to make up those classes some other way, besides embarking on her failed experiment with Professor McGonagall’s Time-Turner?
Maybe considering a summer studying those two classes at another wizarding school? Or considering hiring a private tutor on the side?
We all know that Hermione is smart and talented enough to figure out a solution to every problem if she wants it badly enough.
Why does she create S.P.E.W. to free the house-elves?
Hermione tries to provide house-elves with basic rights. However, most of them are happy with their lot in life, aside from the woefully mistreated Dobby.
Hermione even knits the elves little socks and hats, and leaves them around the Gryffindor common room, hoping that they will pick them up and free themselves.
Far from appreciating her efforts, the house-elves are offended and refuse to clean the common room because of this,
Hermione has a reputation for caring about justice, fairness and equality, but her treatment of the house-elves is often condescending and tone-deaf.
She should have consulted them before implementing her plans.
In fact, it’s almost as if Hermione created S.P.E.W. (the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare) for the sake of her own ego, instead of for the liberation of the elves.
Why does she use “the silent treatment” when she’s angry at Ron?
Hermione doesn’t speak to Ron whenever she’s angry with him. For example, she gives him the silent treatment for months while he’s dating Lavender Brown.
Hermione is famous for constantly monopolizing the conversation in most social situations and also for lecturing her friends with her verbose, know-it-all-attitude.
Of course she’s furious at Ron, but at one point, she sends the flock of birds to attack him when she sees him kissing Lavender.
However, it would have been really, really difficult for her to keep quiet whenever she runs into Ron during this period.
Ironically, in the end, all that cold-shouldering is a total waste of effort, because Ron doesn’t even like Lavender that much.
He’s only dating her to make Hermione jealous. Hermione gives Ron the silent treatment— something which must have been excruciating for her— for basically nothing.
Why is she so rude to Professor Trelawney?
Hermione is fundamentally a kind, generous, and caring person, but she lets her skepticism about Divination get in the way of her better nature whenever she has to deal with the daffy Professor of Divination.
For example, Hermione contemptuously calls the subject of Divination “rubbish” and even walks out of Professor Trelawney’s class in a huff after an argument.
It wouldn’t have hurt Hermione to show a little more understanding for poor Sybil Trelawney and all her strange prophecies and mutterings.
After all, Trelawney only has the job at Hogwarts because Albus Dumbledore feels sorry for her– she would probably be destitute otherwise.
Interacting with Trelawney is a good opportunity for Hermione to learn how to pick her battles, but she doesn’t take advantage of it.
Why is she so tactless around Luna Lovegood?
Hermione acts in a way that isn’t kind or thoughtful by ridiculing the unorthodox beliefs of the Lovegoods.
She sneers at their claims about certain magical creatures, such the Crumple-Horned Snorkack, and at their fondness for Divination— a discipline she considers fraudulent.
At Bill and Fleur’s wedding in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, she is so confrontational that Xenophilius calls her “narrow-minded.”
True, Xenophilius plans to betray Hermione and her friends to the Death Eaters later on, but Hermione does not know that at the time of her conversation with Luna’s father.
Luna, on the other hand, admires Hermione and even paints her portrait and her name on her dorm room’s ceiling.
Fundamentally, it’s Luna who comes off as the better person in their relationship, not Hermione.
Why does she seem to favor Harry over Ron?
With the whole wizarding world at stake in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the Golden Trio go out searching for Horcruxes. Ron, however, gets frustrated during the trek, and decides to leave the hunt.
He then asks Hermione to depart with him, but she refuses, explaining that she prefers to stay with Harry, because she feels that looking for the Horcruxes is more important than Ron’s feelings.
Understandably, Ron then gets very angry, and accuses Hermione of choosing Harry over him— which is exactly what she does.
Let’s face it, Hermione’s actions make no sense if she really does love Ron. Even if she didn’t agree with his actions, she should have at least tried to reason with him.
Why is she so jealous of Fleur?
Hermione always says that she doesn’t care about fashion or the way she looks, but she seems resentful of Fleur’s beauty and power over men.
She commiserates with Molly and Ginny Weasley when they are complaining about Fleur. True, Fleur often makes arrogant and snobbish remarks, but a lot of that could be because she’s from a different culture, where what she says isn’t considered rude.
Although Hermione often speaks out about prejudice against people who are different, that admirable attitude often doesn’t seem to apply to Fleur.
Later on, of course, Fleur proves her mettle in the Second Wizarding War.
She also wins the hostile Weasley women over by lovingly caring for Bill Weasley when he’s gravely injured by the werewolf, Fenrir Greyback, in the Battle of the Astronomy Tower.
Why is she so unsympathetic to Marietta Edgecombe?
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Marietta betrays the location of a Dumbledore’s Army meeting to Dolores Umbridge, thus activating a jinx that Hermione embedded into the DA pledge that Marietta signed.
However, Marietta was in a terrible bind because she didn’t want her mother to lose her job with the Ministry of Magic.
Unfortunately, Marietta must live with disfiguring acne scars— caused by Hermione’s jinx— for several years before they finally fade, even though she’s genuinely sorry about what she did.
She even tries to cover her pimples and scars up with heavy make-up, but they can still be seen, spelling out her misdeed.
Hermione doesn’t do anything to try to remove the jinx, which shows that perhaps she’s not always as compassionate as she thinks.
Are there any others things about Hermione that make no sense in Harry Potter? Let us know in the comment section!
