Can you talk more about what Hermione is going thru in the latest chapter of Beasts? Like I can see her obsessing over the hearings is a bad coping mechanism and it true that it’s not fair to others hearing them 24/7 but like I also wanna give Hermione a big hug because girl is definitely going thru something but is not dealing with it properly (also will Ron/ Romione crumbs have me squealing can I just say how much I love you had HARRY checking in on Hermione?? Fandom has the terribly habit of thinking Harry doesn’t care/is uncomfortable to deal with Hermione emotions but in the books he does care and I love that you show him doing it more instead of leaving him in the “can’t deal with this Ron you deal with her” fandom cliche, caring platonic Harry/Hermione for the win!)

I would love to talk about this! Hermione needs a truly historic hug at this point in Beasts, no getting around it. I'm so glad you pulled that part out about Harry and Hermione - Harry does really care, and it felt important to show that, especially that that dynamic will continue even when Romione are officially together. That deep love Harry has for Hermione isn't going anywhere. (And yep I love the Nick Cave dancing scene from the DH film, it's my favourite scene in all eight films, cuff me)

While I don't want to say too much about where Hermione's at (lots more to come, I swear, and it's killing me not to talk about it because I do so love to chatter), I can definitely talk a bit about Hermione's mental state in general terms, and map out some of the thought processes behind where the two girls are at this stage in the fic. Full discussion is below the cut because it does contain some (mild) spoilers, so read on at your peril!

So - Hermione. The thing is that Ginny, for all that she's intuitive, kind and observant, is a limited narrator. We've already seen moments where we know Ginny doesn't always read things or people right - she's extremely empathetic and shrewd towards people she feels similarly to (so far, Harry), and she's by default compassionate to those who either ask directly or who clearly demand for emotional support and reassurance (Bea, Neville, Hannah, asking to come to the pub with them all). But with people she's different to - even if she loves them and is otherwise close to them - she doesn't always get it right. She struggles to work them out and to guess how the people around her are going to respond. In canon, we see this with her changing relationship with Fleur after Bill's attack. In this fic, I've tried to show this in her first meeting with Hagrid, for instance, when she thought he was intimidating and mocking her, or her certainty that Bill is doing the right thing staying well away from the Greyback hearings, when Bill has actually decided to walk into the fire and get involved. Ginny's going through it with her own stuff, too, right - she's blinkered.

What Ginny has seen of Hermione so far, and what the reader (hopefully!) sees, is someone who is being equally guarded about what's going on with them, but who is dealing with their shit very differently to how Ginny is dealing - or not dealing - with hers. It's not that Ginny isn't trying to get through to her, it's that she doesn't know how best to do it. When Ginny looks at Hermione, she sees someone who isn't asking her for help, who doesn't need Ginny as protection, but who is instead developing an obsessive and quite solitary interest in the trials and questions of post-war societal reckoning that Ginny thinks is unhealthy. Hermione judges Ginny for not taking more of an interest in an issue of historic importance and for being so avoidant: Ginny judges Hermione both for how self-destructive her coping mechanisms seem to be and for not being attentive enough to its effects on the people around them, especially the younger ones Ginny feels so protective towards. Chapter five is as close as either character has come so far to acknowledging this dynamic:

The fury comes quick, rising up in her. ‘You don’t get to decide what’s good for everyone. We are perfectly capable of deciding whether we want to hear all of this shit - ’ ‘Burying their heads in the sand isn’t going to fix anything. They need to know, they need to know what went on - ’ ‘You think they don’t know?’ She points angrily at the other Gryffindors staring at the two of them, blood rising to her face. ‘You think they don’t know what went on?’

At this point in the fic, we can speculate about what Hermione's going through. She's been made Head Girl of a student body who lived a very different war to hers - both were traumatising, but in different ways. She's already troubled by the direction postwar wizarding society seems to be moving in, from what she's heard on the wireless, a society she just fought hard to rescue but which has consistently rejected her on account of being Muggleborn. She's on top of her school-work, still, but worrying about exams that are objectively months away (also, back to worrying about school and exams after a literal war - school that was always, in part, about her proving her abilities and right to belong in the wizarding world). She's sat in Defence lessons with a much more intense and acute knowledge of the material earned in exceptionally traumatising circumstances. She's very lonely. She's separated from the two people she's closest to, Harry and (especially) Ron, after this extremely intense year together, and right after her and Ron have finally found their way to each other, after so long. Her and Ginny used to be close, in an adolescent, fair-weather friendship kind of way, but the year they've spent apart has taken them in such different directions, especially with friendship groups. While Ginny, at least, seems to have some downtime via a much closer friendship with Hannah and Luna after sixth year together, her time helping out Hagrid, and even the support of the Quidditch team (even if she's avoiding them rn), Hermione seems to have no close friends around, only a fellow Head Boy she likes well enough but has never been close to, and who actually was sent to Azkaban for being Muggleborn, whereas Hermione was not. Even Crookshanks is giving her the cold furry shoulder, and, so far, we've seen her go to London at the first chance she got, something Ginny was hugely envious of. We know she did this, both to see Ron and Harry, but also to see her parents, who we know are back from Australia and living in the UK, but who we don't know much about (yet).

Downstairs, Hermione’s sat — of course — by the wireless. Her hair’s pinned back from her face, her blouse is pretty, fitted, and she’s wearing her new scarf, though the common room’s much too warm for it. But her face is grave, eyes closed as she listens to a woman’s tearful voice whispering down the airwaves. ‘I thought - I thought I’d lose my daughter - ’

Hermione absolutely isn't a cruel or unkind person. You're completely right that she absolutely doesn't mean to upset the other students by subjecting them to the wireless every night. But she truly believes it's important, politically and morally, for them to listen to the Greyback victims and to see these huge ethical faultlines that run throughout wizarding society, that began long before Voldemort and threaten to continue after him. She and Ginny just have very different ideas, at this point, about what's best for the students of Hogwarts. The thing that's interesting about writing this arc (I talked a bit about this here) is that, in the same situation, I'd be much more of a Hermione than I would be a Ginny, for better or worse. I'm desperately trying to tread the line between respecting that neither character is coming from a malicious place, and that neither is truly right or wrong in this situation, just showcasing that they both came into the war as very different people and are even more different on the other side of it. There's so much more to come on Hermione, I swear. The scene between the two of them at the end of chapter three is still one of my favourites I've written on who Hermione and Ginny are to each other, playing around with the memory of their past closeness, the things they're not talking about that they have in common, and the idea that these two have the potential for real arcs of growth and development through their friendship that Harry and Ron get in the canon series, but that the young women of the series also deserve, too.

‘Little Women?’ ‘It’s a Muggle book. My mum used to read it to me, when I was little. It’s about sisters during the American Civil War.’ ‘What’s so little about them?' She peers at the cover. 'They look quite normal-sized there. Are they gnome sisters, or what?’ Hermione manages a smile this time. ‘It just means they’re young, I think. Not quite grown-up women yet.’