Hermione had not been liking the material on muggle slavery that she was able to find in the Hogwarts library, which kept claiming that muggles enslaved their own kind because they were inferior to wizards. Wizards used slavery too, so Hermione felt that that claim did not even make sense.
She suddenly realized that a lot of wizards and witches acted as though wizards and witches were superior to muggles. She had often even felt as though this were the case. What was wrong with her? That was horrible. Her own parents were muggles. Had they noticed?
She told herself that she had not known any better, and tried to shrug it off and think about something else. Her mind turned back to the fact that many people acted like wizards and wizards were superior to house-elves, and people who were fully human were superior to werewolves.
Hermione was an activist, but she was no longer sure what her cause was anymore. There were so many causes. What did she stand for? She did not know. Could she even do anything anyway?
A note was held out, in front of Hermione, by Jane.
Are you okay?
"Not really," Hermione said. "It's not just the treatment of house elves that bad. It's also people's treatment of muggles and werewolves, and their attitudes about them. I've never treated them badly, but even I have felt as though I were superior to muggles. What is wrong with me?"
Jane wrote, in her notepad, and held it out to Hermione.
You learned your lesson.
"Yeah, but what do I do now? There are so many causes. Do I even bother with the house elves?"
Jane hesitated and then wrote.
I think you still should, but maybe S.P.E.W. should have more than one cause.
After their next Defense Association meeting, Hermione, Neville, Jane, and Luna went up to Professor Lupin. "Professor Lupin," Hermione asked, "may I ask you a personal question?"
"I guess," he said.
"What's the worst part about being a werewolf?"
"Well, it was changing into one, but that's not really an issue anymore. I'm lucky to have a wealthy friend, who will buy me wolfbane potion, which makes changing into a wolf much less painful, and basically lets me keep my human mind, which makes it much less dangerous."
Later that day, Hermione, Jane, Luna, and Neville met in a small corner of the library.
"So," Hermione said, "I was thinking that we should each write an anonymous letter to the ministry, urging them to provide free wolfsbane potion to werewolves. When writing them, we focus most on the fact that it will increase the safety of everyone else, since they're more likely to care about that. If nothing happens, we can always write more letters."
The next day, they sent a school owl with the letters.
A few days later, Hermes showed up with a letter from Percy. It was shorter than most of his letters, but it really made Hermione smile.
Dear Hermione,
Did you have anything to do with this wolfsbane potion letter-writing campaign? In case you did, I just wanted you to know that I love it.
Sincerely,
Percey Weasley