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I really appreciate kind reviews (smileyface)

please please leave KIND and ENCOURAGING reviews on every chapter if you can, even though I've been updating a lot lately. they really make life a lot better for me. my life is actually pretty great aside from my chronic health issues, but I derive a lot of pleasure from my reviews.

For example, Millicent had always been a bit tickled by the fact that all of Slytherin was genuinely terrified of Hermione Granger. Millicent understood that the girl represented a challenge to everything that many Slytherins claimed to believe. For those who believed that purebloods were better and stronger magically, Hermione countered this adeptly just by existing and being at the top of every class she was in (other than divination). Therefore, some (less intelligent) Slytherins would say that everything she did, no matter how impressive, wasn't as good as the past and present pureblooded wizards and witches. And some of them even tried their best to demonstrate how their own pureblooded or halfblooded skills were superior, usually to their chagrin.

The darker, more intellectually skilled members of Slytherin didn't respond by trying to outbest her, for they implicitly acknowledged that this wasn't possible. Most of the time, they simply undermined her for other traits. She was too foolish, unwilling to compromise with the well-established families in order to develop something truly great. She was intellectually gifted but without a capacity for deeper, more advanced rational thought, because she didn't question authority to a sufficient degree. Or, sometimes, she was too arrogant, because she questioned the status quo without bothering to really delve deep into the culture and experiences of the wizarding people.

The worst thing they said, (or best, depending on your view), was that she was a talented witch, but too emotionally unbalanced to really be the tour-de-force everyone else expected her to be. She wasn't able to control her emotions, and was inclined to fly off the handle, and because of this, her misguided passions would inevitably undo any good she might have been able to do in the world. She cared too much about being Good Enough, and thereby entirely missed the point of being a witch.

How could they expect anything else of a Muggleborn, however? She wasn't raised in the wizarding world. She was a stranger in a foreign world, but told by people like Dumbledore that she was the same as anyone who had been born a witch or wizard. Therefore, she felt like she was entitled to appropriate wizarding culture and adapt it to her own uses, picking and choosing the parts that she liked - all without a deeper knowledge of what it meant to be a member of the magical world.

In short: she didn't belong, had never belonged, and would never belong, because she was a Muggleborn, and moreover she shouldn't expect to belong, because it wasn't her culture. Her success was, indeed, a symptom of how poorly she fit into the culture. If she truly belonged, she wouldn't have to try so hard to prove she fit in. And any promise she showed now also coincided with her poor judgment, and she'd either burn out and leave the world, or she'd wreck it completely.

People had been saying these kinds of things about Muggleborns for decades, but these views really coalesced into something significant and real when it came to Hermione Granger. She was an incredibly visible symbol of the brilliance that a Muggleborn could display, and because of this symbolic status she had, her flaws eclipsed her achievements all the more greatly.

But as she looked at the girl, who was practically devastated to be at the Slug Club Christmas Party with Cormac McLaggen, MIllicent realized that she had never been afraid of Hermione Granger. Millicent, heretofore, was a member of the camp that looked at Hermione with overwhelming pity. As she thought about it, Millicent saw that the girl worked harder than any Hufflepuff, and that was how the girl managed to achieve her greatness. It couldn't be denied: the girl had serious grit. And if the girl's grit was sourced in ambition, Millicent would have respected Hermione a great deal. But Granger had revealed more than once that it wasn't for the sake of greatness, but something else - an overwhelming fear of failure. And this fear was pathetic.

Slytherins, Millicent understood, didn't believe they'd fail. They merely expected to succeed at their plans to a greater or lesser degree. There were many paths to achieve victory, and Slytherins understood that the world was colored in hues of grey that could be manipulated based on one's advantages.

And so when Millicent looked at Hermione, she didn't see someone who succeeded beyond all expectations against adversity. Instead, she saw someone who was overcompensating for a deep-rooted anxiety about being Not Good Enough. This was fundamentally a very Gryffindor problem. Slytherins operated from the premise of moral relativity, whereas Gryffindors were obsessed with morality as existing in absolute terms.

There were more important things in life than grades and Being Good Enough, Millicent believed. Millicent prided herself on being balanced in her priorities - like working to find the meaning of one's life, seeking esteem and respect among one's colleagues, and maintaining proficiency in a few diverse skills that would be useful long-term.

Not that Millicent felt like this was enough to satisfy her. She was just beginning to figure out what she might want after her time at Hogwarts, and just beginning to figure out where her major weaknesses were. But she felt like Hermione's flaws were truly obvious.

Obvious, perhaps, in ways that were sweet, and almost adorable.

Indeed, the more she thought about Hermione Granger, the more Millicent realized that the girl could actually learn a thing or two from her, even though the girl outclassed her in every single academic subject.

This made Millicent feel somewhat smug, and she opened her eyes again, her lips twisted into a smirk. She took a satisfied breath, and gazed across the room, feeling more content with her unexpected font of desire for the Muggleborn.

If Hermione Granger was someone to be reckoned with on account of her academic skills, what would it be like if she had someone to help her figure out the proper ways to navigate wizarding society and culture?

Someone, indeed, like MIllicent?

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