Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters and universe belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm just borrowing.
Author's Note: Some thoughts, becouse most people seem to forget that Hogwarts is a /school/ and school is mostly grades and work and friends. Any one whose ever gotten a test back understands this.
Just silly
She looks really to cry. And it's not at all attractive. Her face is all bloctchy and her hair just puffs up even more and her big front teeth bit her lip as it tembles and fresh tears form in her eyes...
She's going to cry over her grade, a B of all things, and you'd be the first to admit that you thought she was a bit of wet mop or something teary like that. Oh, no, a B in Transfiguration, the horror.
Huh, Yeah, alright you can kind of understand that she's upset because although you don't know Hermione, you know /of/ her and she's one of those A psychotic perfectionist students. So maybe she's upset that she'll have to work extra to get the highest GPA for the class.
But honestly, tears at an 87? That's just silly.
You would kill to get a plain B, you think as you glance down at your own paper, at the giant red 68. Now a 68, that's bad and it makes you wonder how you ever got into Ravenclaw, and how you're ever going to stand the Howler you'll get from this.
But it isn't the end of the world, really it isn't, you tell yourself. They might not send a Howler. And even if they do, by the time you go home for break, they'll have forgotten all about it and it'll be alright.
There'll be other tests and essays and quizzes and you'll do better on those and bring this one up. So your grade won't suffer much.
But it still hurts
Not the grade, that hurts, too but damn you worked hard on this. For once you actually tried. This essay was suppose to blow everyone away with it's insight and wording, and you were so proud of those little connections that lead back to the thesis, and you thought it was good and wonderful and brilliant.
And ok, sure you knew there were a few grammar mistakes and maybe insurmountable wasn't the greatest word to have used, but a 68?
And now that you're looking at it, unwrinkling it and smoothing it out and really looking past the big red mocking circle on the front, you can see where that 68 comes from.
And you could make your excuses, to explain away every mistake and red mark on that paper. Your peer editors weren't that good (they were Hufflepuffs), and the teacher graded hard (She truly did), and that you didn't have the time to proofread and it was only at the last minute of walking up and handing it in that you'd noticed you'd spelled your own name wrong and the stupid evil quill pen and ink that truly did hate you had put two periods in place of every one dot and that there were just others that really truly could be excused...
But you didn't, because that'd be silly and you can see now that your essay really wasn't so good and wonderful and brilliant.
That it just wasn't good enough. You put work and sweat and thought and your whole damn brain and soul into this essay and it just was worthless.
Nada.
Zip
Zilch.
Nothing.
And if your work and sweat and whole brain and soul are worthless, then where does that leave you? After all you've always been told that your work is a reflection of yourself. That's why you have to always do your best and give it your all, because nobody wants their worst as their reflection. So you do your best - sometimes, anyway because you're a Ravenclaw, with better books to read and somethings just don't need the time and effort when you can inch on by with a B or a C, instead of an A.
So maybe that's why Hermione's about to cry, not that you would ask of course, but maybe the reason she's sitting so stiffly two seats over with a fat tear rolling down her face, isn't because of a terrible horrible B, isn't because of now dropping GPA, but rather that she gives her best all the time, to get those A's, and this time found out that, well,
It just isn't good enough