Lesson Plans

Hermione sat in her usual place in the library, her favorite spot, a secluded corner at the back of the stacks next to a south-facing window offering a view of the rolling Scottish countryside. Almost no one was in the library to disturb her, although every now and then the distant roar from the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw Quidditch match cut into her concentration. Those few students who, like her, sought quiet solitude with their books and parchment in the library on this lovely Saturday in early October kept to themselves, however, and she remained secure in the knowledge that the only people who knew how to find her were currently engrossed in the match.

She sighed contentedly, brushing a stray lock of frizzy hair out of her eyes and pulling a fresh scroll towards her, ready to begin writing her Transfiguration essay. She had just dipped her quill in her ink pot and glanced once more at her textbook when a shadow fell across the page.

"Is the match over already?" she said with a small smile, even though she knew the interruption meant she'd have to put off finishing her homework until later. "That didn't take long. Who won?"

A throat cleared, then a deep voice that sounded as though it didn't get used much said, "Er...."

She paused in writing her name at the top of her scroll. That wasn't Ron's voice. Harry's either. She set her quill down to tell whoever was disturbing her to go away, that she was very busy and didn't want to be bothered. When she looked up and saw the mountainous bulk of Gregory Goyle looming over her however, all faculty of speech abandoned her and the best she could manage was a half-strangled squeak.

"Er..." Goyle said again, shifting his weight. He looked like he'd rather be anywhere else but there at that particular moment, an advantage she wasn't adverse to exploiting. He was at least three times her size, and as one of Draco Malfoy's pet bullies he wasn't someone she was overly fond of.

Hermione mustered up every ounce of Gryffindor courage she could find, looked him in the eye (though she had to crane her neck to do so) and said in her most imperious tone, "Yes, what do you want?"

Goyle shifted his weight again and clenched his fists, giving her cause to cringe. "Er..." he said yet again.

She was quickly entering the realm of annoyance. "Look, if you need Madame Pince, she's at the match, so you'll have to wait until she comes back." Inwardly she wondered how Goyle had ever managed to find the library in the first place; she didn't think she'd ever seen him here before.

He didn't bother grunting at her this time. Instead he merely clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles cracked with the sound of branches snapping in an ice storm. His small, piggy eyes blinked slowly at her, and he worked his mouth in some strange semblance of speech, but no sound came out.

"Oh, bother this," she said, replacing the stopper in her ink bottle and shoving bottle, quill, scrolls and book into her bag. "I have work to do." She stood, hesitating for a moment, but when Goyle didn't step aside to let her pass, she huffed in irritation and detoured around him. "Madame Pince should be back once the match is over," she called over her shoulder.

She had almost reached the end of the row when a gravelly voice stopped her in her tracks. "ProfessorMcGonagallsaidyoucouldhelpme."

In that one sentence, Goyle had uttered more words than she'd previously heard from him in the past five years. Unable to resist, she pivoted on her heel to find him standing just as she'd left him. He hadn't even turned around. "What?" she asked. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

His massive shoulders heaved, reminding her unpleasantly of Grawp asleep in the Forbidden Forest. "Professor McGonagall said you could help me," came his deep, rumbling voice.

She took a step closer to him, but froze when he stiffened. "Help you with what?"

He made a shambling, slew-footed half-turn toward her and ducked his head down, so that he was addressing his shoes. "W-With my lessons. They're gonna send me down if I can't get my marks up."

Her bag slipped to the floor with a muffled clatter as her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh!" she cried, her naturally sympathetic heart going out to him. She couldn't imagine how hard it must have been for him to come to her--her, a Gryffindor and a Muggle-born--and ask for help. She took another step toward him, but this time he didn't shy away. Instead, he lifted his chin and looked at her.

"I didn't know who else to go to," he mumbled. "Everyone always thinks I've come to pound them into the floor. They run away before I can even say anything."

"Can't imagine why," Hermione muttered to herself.

If he heard her, he didn't show any sign of it. "Professor McGonagall said you might help me," he continued, the words tumbling hurriedly from his lips, as though he feared his nerve failing him if he paused to take a breath. "Everyone knows you're the cleverest witch in school. If I can't get all my marks up to an A by Christmas holiday, they won't let me come back. Will you help me please?"

His gaze begged her. How could she turn him down? Ron and Harry always seemed to resent her help, but here was someone who actively sought it out. She couldn't resist the opportunity, even if Goyle was a Slytherin and his father was a Death Eater. He needed help. She could help him. And since she wasn't making any headway with S.P.E.W., it would be the perfect project to occupy her time while Ron and Harry were busy with Quidditch.

With a tentative smile she picked up her bag and walked back to the study table. "Sure, Gregory," she said, motioning him to sit beside her. "I'd be glad to help. We can work on our Transfiguration essays first. Why don't you show me what you've got?"

The chair creaked ominously when Goyle sat down but did not, to Hermione's relief, collapse beneath him. He shoved his arm into a bag that, she realized with a start of surprise, had been concealed beneath his robes, and pulled out a crumpled, stained scroll and handed it to her. She accepted it with another smile to reassure him and unrolled it.

She had to bite down on her tongue to refrain from exclaiming out loud. Goyle's essay was, in short, a nightmare. They'd recently begun learning cross-kingdom transfigurations, turning simple vertebrates into plants and back again. It involved a highly complex spell, to be sure, but most importantly the spellcaster had certain ethical considerations to keep in mind while performing the transfiguration, because of the whole issue of sentience. A botched spell could stop just shy of cold-blooded murder.

Hermione sucked at her teeth as she tried to read Goyle's almost illegible scrawl, smudged here and there by what she reckoned were butterbeer stains. He appeared not to have grasped even the most basic portions of the theory; had he actually attempted to cast this spell, he'd have committed an unthinkable crime against nature. She shuddered inwardly at the thought of what mutations a spellcaster following Goyle's paradigm might produce.

Almost as disturbing to her, however, was that Goyle didn't seem to have even mastered the most fundamental rules of English grammar and spelling. She knew he wasn't the most literate student at Hogwarts--in fact, he'd been the butt of numerous jokes from Ron for his apparent lack of intelligence--but she had no idea it was this bad. For a moment, she felt a surge of resentment toward Professor McGonagall for sending Goyle to her without any warning. He didn't just need help; he needed remedial tutoring at the primary school level. She was beginning to regret agreeing to this. At least Ron could spell his own name. Goyle, on the other hand, had written, and crossed out, "Gergroy" no less than three times at the top of his scroll before giving up and putting "G. Goyle."

His voice broke into her thoughts. "How bad is it?"

Hermione jumped. She'd almost forgotten he was there. He needed an answer, she knew, but she put him off as long as she could by continuing to stare at the parchment, searching desperately for the best answer that would be honest, yet not result in any broken bones on her part. On the other hand, she reasoned, he did seem to realize that his essay had serious problems, and though she'd never give him credit for being observant, he did seem aware enough of his shortcomings to come to her for help. She resigned herself to giving him the benefit of the doubt, telling him the truth, and hoping for the best.

"It's...." She paused, searching for the best word. "To be frank, Gregory, it's a bit of a mess." She cringed, but his only reaction was a loud exhalation of breath. "I think the best solution is just to scrap this and start anew." When he nodded his assent, she balled up the parchment and tossed it in a nearby rubbish bin. "Do you have your Transfiguration textbook with you?" she asked.

He shoved his arm into his bag again and produced the book which, Hermione noticed with a sad sigh, was not in much better shape than his essay had been. Not even Ginny's books, which had been handed down to her through multiple brothers over the years, were as battered as Goyle's was. Briefly Hermione wondered if the Goyles were as poor as the Weasleys; she wouldn't put it past Malfoy to choose companions less well-off than himself, in order that he might lord his advantages over them. A fresh pang of sympathy for Goyle surged through her at the thought, giving her the impetus she needed to continue.

Opening her own textbook--which looked as though it had been purchased only yesterday, despite the use it saw from such a diligent student--to the chapter on cross-kingdom transfigurations, Hermione said, "Why don't we review the lesson before we start on your essay. I think if I can help you understand the theory better, you'll have a much easier time of it."

"Er...okay," Goyle grunted, obediently turning his book to the same page as hers. Hermione was impressed at the dexterity with which his thick, spatula-like fingers flipped through the pages; for such a large, ungainly-looking boy, she mused, he was actually rather agile. "Now what?" he asked, breaking her from her thoughts.

She indicated the theorem proof laid out at the top of the right-hand page. "Why don't you summarize this for me," she said. "That way I'll know where you're having the most trouble."

A dark shadow clouded his face, surprising her with its intensity. He did as she asked, however, and turned his attention to the page before him.

She watched him in profile, observing the lines of strain creasing his high, sloping brow and the quivering muscles in his cheek as he silently mouthed the words as he read them. She smiled, remembering fondly Ron's habit of doing the same. Yet for Ron reading came easily, whereas Goyle seemed to be struggling just to make it through a single line.

She placed a hand on his arm, causing him to stop with a sigh that almost seemed to be of relief. Then, pointing to the line at the top of the page, she said, "Read that aloud, please."

Goyle's jaw clenched so tightly she could hear his teeth grinding against each other. "Why?" he asked.

"You want me to help, don't you?" she asked as blandly as she could; he looked like a spooked diricawl about to vanish.

He took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. The muscles in his cheek started to twitch again as he began to read haltingly, "Th-The tr-trans-transfig--"

"Transformative," Hermione corrected gently.

"Transformative p-pro-process f-f-for--"

"From," she said. She lay her hand on his arm again and kept it there until he looked up at her. She couldn't help noticing the beads of sweat that had broken out across his brow as he struggled with the words. "Gregory," she asked, "were you taught how to read before you came to Hogwarts?"

A deep groove appeared just above his nose, where his eyebrows met. "Yes," he said somewhat petulantly. "My mum taught me."

"I see," she said, thinking. She pulled out a roll of parchment and her quill and inkpot and wrote, in a vertical row, the following words:

     CAT

     TACK

     ACT

     TACT

She then turned the parchment so Goyle could see what she'd written and asked, "Can you read each of these words aloud to me?"

He stared at the list for a long time, mouthing the words over and over again. Finally he looked up at her and said, "They all look the same to me."

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose, willing away a threatening headache. This project had just got a lot more complicated. "Gregory," she said, after she'd taken a moment to weigh her choice of words, "have you ever been tested for a learning disability?"

He pushed himself violently away from the table, scraping his chair legs against the floor. "I'm not defective!" he shouted. A chorus of hushing sounds erupted from throughout the library, causing his face to turn red. He lowered his voice and hissed, "Despite what some people might say about me, I'm not an idiot."

"I'm not saying you are," Hermione crooned, trying to soothe his wounded ego. "A learning disability is nothing to be ashamed of. Some of the most learned people in Muggle history have been dyslexic, which is what I think is your problem."

His face darkened. "Oh, yeah?" he said. "Well, who cares about stupid Muggles? Wizards don't get...whatever it is you called me."

"Dyslexic," she said. "I'd wager a lot more witches and wizards have dyslexia than you think, but since most of you are educated at home before coming to Hogwarts it usually goes undiagnosed and untreated." She took a deep breath to steel her nerves. "And if you insult Muggles in my presence one more time I won't help you at all."

He pressed his lips together so tightly they thinned and whitened. His enormous hands clenched around vast swaths of his robes. For her part, Hermione remained absolutely still and waited for the storm to pass. She was surprised no one at Hogwarts had recognized the signs of dyslexia in Goyle's struggle to keep up with his classmates, but given the utter lack of a proper primary education for those not born into Muggle or part-Muggle families, the rampant ignorance of such common learning difficulties should not have surprised her at all. As thrilled as she was to be a part of wizarding society, Hermione couldn't help thinking at times that Muggles were far more advanced in certain areas. She shuddered to think how many more students there might be at Hogwarts in the same straits as Goyle; it was no wonder that St. Mungo's saw so much business in its Spell Damage division, what with so many functionally illiterates running around with wands.

She noticed that Goyle's hands seemed to have relaxed a bit and his breathing had grown more even. She hazarded a glance at his face and was relieved to see it had lost some of its previously florid hue. After another minute or two he managed to ask, "What is that-whatever you say I've got?"

"Dys-lex-i-a," she said, enunciating each syllable. "It's a learning disorder. It simply means that your brain has trouble interpreting words and letters on a page. Muggle primary schools have ways to detect dyslexia in very young children, just as they're starting to read, and can provide additional instruction to help them work around it."

"Oh," he said, looking crestfallen. "So, if I'd gone to a Muggle primary school, instead of my mum teaching me at home...."

"Don't blame yourself or your mother," Hermione said, trying to reassure him. "You were just doing what wizarding families have been doing for generations. But, it's true, if your problem had been discovered eight or ten years ago, you'd be having a much easier time of things now."

Hermione was shocked to see his chin quivering, as though he were desperately fighting off the impulse to cry. She would never have guessed he had functioning tear ducts. "I reckon this means you can't help me," he said quietly.

He looked so vulnerable at that moment, she hated to have to confirm his fears. "Right now, I don't know," she admitted. "I'm not a professional educator. I know what dyslexia is, but not how to treat it." When his head drooped and he turned away, she had to fight back her own tears. "I need to talk to Professor McGonagall first, and maybe Professor Snape. They might have some suggestions for how best to deal with this."

"Okay," he said, picking up his book and stuffing it into his bag. "I understand."

"Gregory, look at me." He was clearly unwilling to do as she asked, and he kept his gaze firmly focused downward. "I'm glad you came to me today. Recognizing the source of your trouble is the first step to overcoming it. I'd like to help you if I can."

His head shot up, and wonder and amazement blossomed across his face. "Really?"

"Really," she said sincerely. "But I must talk to Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape first. I have lessons with both of them on Monday morning, so why don't we arrange to meet here that evening? We can figure out where to go from there then."

Hermione was genuinely astonished at the gentleness of the smile he gave her before he got up and left. When he wasn't around Malfoy and the other Slytherin thugs, she thought, Goyle was actually a rather decent fellow. Not that Ron or Harry would ever believe her if she told them that, so she resolved never to mention today's adventure or her plans for Monday evening to them. She could just imagine their reactions. Boys can be such narrow-minded prats sometimes, she thought to herself as she erased the wordlist she'd written for Goyle and began work on her Transfiguration essay.