Harry Potter: Hermione’s Best Decisions In The Philosopher’s Stone

Hermione Granger is a witch known for making good decisions – although she isn’t known for this in the first installment of the Harry Potter franchise! In fact, when fans first meet the young Gryffindor, she is difficult to like. Hermione starts out at Hogwarts as a bit of a know-it-all, and a showoff, needing to give the right answer to questions she isn’t asked, and correcting other students with rudeness and disdain. As Ron puts it ‘no wonder she hasn’t got any friends’!

However, she does make some great decisions in the course of Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone – she wouldn’t be Hermione if she wasn’t making some great choices! These were the moments that steered her toward becoming the witch fans know and love: friend to Ron and Harry, brilliant magical talent, and able to balance rule-following with stepping outside the lines.

6 Not Hiding Her Love Of Learning

While the way that Hermione often showed her intelligence and love of learning was less than kind, her choice to stay true to herself and her excitement about her subjects was a great decision. It would be easy for a young witch to struggle with being the acknowledged brain of her year, and to hide her light or start slacking off to fit in. However, Hermione wasn’t willing to do this, even though it clearly hurt her feelings when Ron complained about her in earshot. No matter what, she was vocal about wanting to learn and read, even from her first moments on the Hogwarts Express when she revealed she had read every textbook ahead of time! It is this love of learning that helped her grow her formidable talents, and help Harry with his fight against Voldemort time and time again.

5 Hiding In The Girls’ Bathroom

On the face of it, this may seem like a terrible decision – and one that very nearly ended with her being killed by a rogue Mountain Troll in her first year! However, her decision to hide in the bathroom is what led to her friendship with Ron and Harry.

Had they not gone to search for her on Halloween, she would not have had the chance to defend them in front of the professors, or to earn their trust and respect. It was this decision that bound the three together, and if it wasn’t for all three of them working together, Harry likely wouldn’t have won against Voldemort in the end.

4 Teaching Ron Wingardium Leviosa

Another decision that seems like a terrible one at first, Hermione’s disdainful correction of Ron may have actually saved her life. When Ron struggled in Charms class to manage Wingardium Leviosa, Hermione memorably corrected him on the pronunciation. And while this may be seen as just another example of how patronizing and off-putting she could be, there’s little doubt that it was what allowed them to beat the Mountain Troll later on. Ron was able to knock it out with its own club, thanks to the spell – which he would have been unable to do without her correcting him. And it would have been easy for Hermione to have ignored his mistakes in class, and not tried to help at all! The decision to do so, no matter how it came across in the moment, was a good one, and one that set up a pattern of her helping Ron for the rest of the series.

3 Checking Out An Alchemy Book

When the Golden Trio are searching for information on Nicholas Flamel, it’s Hermione that comes through, thanks to a giant book on alchemy that she checked out for ‘a little light reading’. It’s in this book that Hermione finds his name, and realizes that Fluffy is guarding the Philosopher’s Stone.

Of course, this is also a way of setting up Hermione’s love of learning, but it’s a great decision on her part, nonetheless. It’s also worth noting that in the books, Harry first sees the name on Dumbledore’s Chocolate Frog card, and may have connected the dots himself, but in the films, it’s all down to Hermione’s reading.

2 Setting Snape’s Robes On Fire

Throughout the series, Hermione slowly learns how to be brave and break the rules, and this is one of the first examples – when she believes that Snape is cursing Harry’s broom during Quidditch, and sets his robes on fire to make him break eye contact! Of course, Snape was actually counter-cursing to try and help Harry, but when he leaps up to deal with the fire, it makes Quirell break eye contact, having the desired effect. Not only was this a great choice of Hermione’s because it saved Harry, but also because it showed how much she was growing and learning how to bend the rules to help her friends.

1 Refusing To Let Harry Go After The Stone Alone

Setting a pattern that continues for the rest of the series, when Harry decides to go after the stone, he wants to do it alone – until Hermione refuses to let him, demanding that she and Ron come too. And, like almost every other time this happens, Hermione makes the right choice. Without her, Harry would have been killed by the Devil’s Snare, or (if he managed to get past it) would never have managed the logic puzzle of potions (which didn’t make it into the films). Hermione’s decision saves his life – and this is only the first of many to do so!

About The Author

Rose Graceling-Moore
(1516 Articles Published)

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Rose Graceling-Moore has been writing about film, TV and comics since 2013, when she began writing for a local print magazine in Vancouver, BC. Since then, Rose has written for Horror Honeys, Moviepilot and Quirkbooks as well as Screenrant, increasingly focusing on comic books and live-action comic adaptations, as well as diversity and representation on screen. Rose also co-hosted the DC Movies Podcast, and has guested on other nerd and entertainment podcasts over the past five years.

Rose’s love of comics began all the way back in the early ‘90s, when she discovered the X-Men while living in Africa (where there wasn’t a whole lot to do but read!), and since then has had an on-again, off-again love affair with not just Marvel, but DC and indie comics as well. You can follow her on Twitter: RoseMooreWrites for tweets about comics, movies, and more.

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