Hermione is definitely one of my favorite characters in the Harry Potter series, which is why I think the focus on the Giant Prehistoric Chicken shifted over to Hermione. 

There are a lot of similarities I see between myself and Hermione.  She’s book-smart and loves learning, there’s a fear of failure, and there’s a sense of compassion for others.  We’re both only children, and while my hair isn’t bushy like hermione’s, it can get pretty frizzy.  Plus we both have brown hair.  And I do love the smell of books, especially new books, while Hermione loves the smell of new parchment.

Hermione’s also a very strong female character in the series, and shows that she is just as deserving of an education of Hogwarts as anyone else.  She’s not ashamed to be a muggle-born witch- and she’s actually very proud of being a muggle-born witch.  She definitely proves that with hard work, and some serious studying, you can be a very powerful witch (or wizard) no matter what your background is. 

One of my other favorite things about Hermione is wanting to free the house-elves, and fighting for those who are oppressed.  She also helps those in need (like all the times she helped Neville in potions), which makes her pretty awesome in my book.

So last month, I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One, and one of the scenes that was memorable (besides both Hedwig and Dobby dying), was the opening scene, where Hermione modifies her parents’ memories.  I can’t even imagine having to modify someone’s memory, but it takes someone’s who pretty strong to do something like that.  And as a random side note, I downloaded the Deathly Hallows soundtrack today, and I’ve listened to the song that’s played when Hermione modifies her parents’ memories a good 5 or 10 times already.