After her somewhat heart-to-heart with Megan Jones... Hermione had a change of heart.

She did not know if she liked the girl or not. She was brutally honest and lacked tact to be the point of trash talking. And she also had been quite perceptive, making her rebuke all the more effective. But she also gave her sensible advice that gave her food for thought.

Three pieces of advice were responsible for her change of attitude: First, she could not help anyone against their will. Second, she could not help everyone lest she would burn out. Or, worse, lose sight of it all. Third, if she wanted to help someone, she needed to get to know them first.

So she stopped helping people indiscriminately and started observing and searching for answers: If she could not help everyone, who needed her to help the most? Who was the most likely to welcome the help she could provide? And finally, who the person she wanted to help was and how that knowledge would help her help them?

From everyone around, the one who needed the most help was undoubtedly Neville. But Harry was already helping, including him in his group friend. For some reason, Harry was friendly to all his dormmates but Ronald, avoiding him every chance he got, though the redhead was still hanging around and oblivious of Harry's attitude.

Then she noticed Padma, from the Ravenclaw's House, desperately needed some alone time away from her time sister, Parvati. But once again, someone else — in the person of Megan Jones — had come to Padma's rescue before Hermione realized what was happening.

True to her advice, Megan had been trying to know everyone around her and, for that reason, decided to never sit twice with the same person in classes until she broke the pattern and systematically sat with Padma whenever they had lessons with the Ravenclaws.

Hermione could not figure out why, especially as the two girls were not talking to each other until she saw Parvati's behavior the one time Megan got late. Unlike her sister, Parvati could not care less about the lessons and spent the entire hour trying to catch up, demanding her sister's attention, effectively preventing her from paying attention to the lesson.

So when Hermione offered the Ravenclaw girl on the verge of tears to borrow her notes at the end of the lesson, she gladly took it! Even more, it was the first time that not only someone accepted her help but looked grateful she did. Finally, it was the moment Hermione realized that Megan's advice was paying off.

Speaking of Megan, Hermione noticed she also needed help, though she had no clue how she could help her. Megan was second in all theoretical studies, but for some reasons that evaded Hermione's understanding, she struggled in every practical lesson but potions.

But Hermione knew better than to try to help Megan anyway. The last time she tried, the girl told her that Hermione had enough problems on her plate without sharing that extra burden. Besides, she assured her that whatever her issue was, it would solve itself over time.

And indeed, Megan had a perfect form and elocution, so there was no reason she was not succeeding in casting whatever spell she wanted, except, maybe, some mental block.

It was surprising considering how eager Megan was to learn. Hermione always met her at the library to do their homework, and Megan never let her review her essays. However, it seems that Megan never needed it considering her grades. And she would also read a lot of books for fun, especially potions, though none of them were directly linked to whatever subject they had covered in classes.

When Hermione asked about it, her friends said she was only reading cross-subjects books to deepen her knowledge but that it was not her favorite kind of literature. It was, Hermione could tell, the main point of divergence in their study habits.

Hermione wanted to know everything and would not stop until she reached the bottom of whatever subject she was reading. Megan, on the contrary, was hopping from one topic to another, ignoring entire chapters if they were not to her liking. Hermione thought every book was sacred and, therefore, should treat with the utmost care and respect. On the other hand, Megan did not mind voicing her opinion, calling some books "utter pieces of trash," or making similar comments about their authors.

The only complaint Hermione agreed on was the wizarding books' lack of sourcing. As wizards rarely quoted their sources, if any. Neither did they have compendiums, reference books, thesauri, encyclopedias, or library catalogs. As a result, every search through Hogwarts library was like a treasure hunt compared to their muggle counterpart. It was time-consuming and sometimes even fruitless.

In comparison, Megan's textbook annotations — another blasphemy to Hermione's point of view — were surgical, neat, and perfectly referenced.

And though they could not help but agree to disagree on many subjects, Hermione had a growing respect for her friend's remarkable work ethic.