• The trio began with Ron as Harry’s overall best friend, much more so than Hermione.
• The balance slowly began to shift, until at the end of PoA, Hermione was on an equal par with Ron.
• Due to Ron’s jealousy in GoF and DH, and generally appalling behavior in HBP, by the end of the series, Hermione should be considered a much better friend than Ron.

All people are very different. Therefore, all people are friends in different ways, and all people will define friendship in different ways.

This means that to look at how good a friend a person is, we have to first consider how good a person they are, and why they are that way.

One of the things I have always loved and appreciated about Jo Rowling’s writing is the way she has never written a “perfect” character. Harry has moments of temper, and reacts instinctively and sometimes irrationally. Dumbledore once supported the idea of wizards ruling over Muggles. Hagrid has a blind spot when it comes to magical creatures. Mirroring this, all the “evil” characters have some kind of redeeming feature. Bellatrix is not in her right mind. Draco Malfoy cannot kill. Lucius and Narcissa ultimately care more for their son than for who wins the war. Dudley is capable of appreciating Harry. Even Lord Voldemort, though he has made terrible decisions, did so because (to quote Remus Lupin in the OotP film) “... [his mind] has been twisted and warped by fear.”

In much the same way, Ron and Hermione are not perfect as individuals. Harry, the protagonist, is close, but isn’t quite there. If any character were to be perfect, they would not be real.

One way of looking at this question of who is Harry’s “best friend” is to look at why the trio behave the way they do, why they are the way they are.

Harry

Harry is deprived of love and attention, and instead treated as though he is worth much less than anyone else. He lacks self confidence for some time, feeling victimized, and is easily angered by taunts about his parents or friends. The miracle of Harry, and the (I hesitate to say it) entire point of his character is that he has managed to overcome this upbringing. Because he was never loved as a child, he makes up for it by loving others instead. Because he was always “wrong” as a child, he makes up for it by accepting the mistakes of others and forgiving them. He names his son after someone he hated for seven years, for Merlin’s sake! So it’s not much for Harry to forgive Ron for caving in to fear and a lack of confidence; or Hermione for refusing to believe that authority figures can be wrong.

Ron

Ron is deprived in a different way. Although he is loved by his parents and his family, they are confident enough to assume he takes this love for granted. But Ron, ever lacking in confidence, cannot. He needs to be told that people care for him. This isn’t attention seeking, it’s a lack of self belief, no doubt increased by his knack of making himself an easy target for the twins and their jokes. Therefore, when Ron meets Harry, he immediately begins to realize that he can be special, different, and important – things he may never have seen in himself before. He gains confidence as Harry’s friend. However, after a while, Ron begins to think that people are only paying him attention because of his friendship with Harry. Wouldn’t this make anyone resentful? Harry’s name coming out of the Goblet of Fire is the final straw. Ron is desperate to have the kind of natural “specialness” (yes, I know it’s not a word) that Harry has, but he’s looking in the wrong direction. He’ll never find it there. He lets his jealousy and temper overcome his loyalty for one burst of temper, and is then too scared of rejection to admit to having been wrong. The same occurs in Book 7. He lets his temper run away with him (as both Harry and Hermione have also been known to do) and runs away from the situation.

Ron makes the classic mistake that we have all probably made once, but would never admit to: he tries to measure how good he is by someone else, not by his own individual merits. He assumes – and is allowed to assume – that he must be the same as someone else to be worth anything at all. He doesn’t have the skill academically to become like Hermione, so he sticks with Harry, and when his skills lie in different areas he feels as though he has failed. This failure becomes resentment and anger at his own lack of ability.

Hermione

Little is known about Hermione’s upbringing, but I think we can assume it was the best of the trio’s. She has two loving parents who support her; she is intelligent and presumably gets a lot of care and attention from them. The problem Hermione has is that she tries to replace people with books. She rejects Harry’s instincts in favor of logic, and is then exasperated when there is not enough information to reach a conclusion. When her faith in authority figures crumbles, she turns even more so to her books as their replacements.

She also, presumably, knew that she loved Ron since at least GoF, possibly PoA. And yet what does this otherwise logical, strong-willed, and capable young woman do? She sits around and hopes that he’ll notice her. Being a bit like this myself, I can’t say that I would have done anything better, but it proves that Hermione is not always right, and she does have as many flaws as Ron.

There is no denying that Hermione is an amazing friend to Harry. She is determined, she is clever, she is caring and respectful of his feelings, and she knows where the line is to be drawn when he shouts at them in OotP. However, she too has her flaws. The only difference between her flaws and Ron’s are that Ron’s are much less socially acceptable.

We find it acceptable that Hermione can be bossy, does little or nothing to begin a relationship with Ron and then becomes upset when he doesn’t notice her, unflinchingly believes authority figures and refuses to accept that there is more to Harry’s rejection of Occlumency in DH than simply being a risk-taker. She also openly rejects theories or ideas based on instinct rather than fact (which most of Harry’s are), preferring to stick to logic even when that is getting them nowhere.

Ron’s flaws are much less acceptable; we find it difficult to accept that he simply lacks self confidence, and instead draw attention to the behavior it causes – jealousy of Harry and Hermione. Ron is no better friend to Harry than Hermione, but he is no worse either; his flaws are just simpler, and slightly harsher, than Hermione’s complex and varied faults. To put it simply, we are happy to identify ourselves with Hermione, because it is much easier to admit to being bossy than unconfident.

Ron, just like Hermione, is a great friend to Harry. He is incredibly loyal, and only on two occasions has he ever appeared to sway in his belief in Harry – in GoF, when his lack of confidence is temporarily stronger than his loyalty, and in DH, when the same feelings resurface.

Ron’s loyalty and belief in Harry is otherwise pretty incredible. He backs Harry up in almost every conversation the trio have, trusts Harry instinctively, and faces his fears to follow him. For examples, look at his chess move in PS/SS, his following of the spiders despite his arachnophobia in CoS, and his acceptance of Harry and Ginny as a couple in HBP. (I personally would see his later comments about having given his permission as simply playing the role of Ginny’s big brother. He acts how he knows he is expected to act.)

Ron’s confidence decreases slowly throughout the books, most probably because Hermione was rising in Harry’s esteem. He tries to bring back the balance by treating her almost like "one of the lads" – hence his treatment of her as the Yule Ball approaches, because if she is "one of the lads" then she is, socially, less of a threat to his friendship with Harry.

Ron has not made all of the best decisions. He allows his temper to take over easily. But he is a loyal friend – even when he is angry with Harry he still believes him:

“Does he [Ron] still think I entered myself?”
“Well…no, I don’t think so…not really,” said Hermione awkwardly.
(GoF, UK paperback, Chapter 18, pg. 254)

I don’t think so. I think that Ron and Hermione, although very different, are equally good friends to Harry. Harry knows this, and treats them accordingly. When Ron is behaving appallingly in HBP, Harry comforts Hermione because she has no one else to turn to – Ron has friends like Dean, Seamus and Neville to talk to. When Hermione flies off the handle at Ron in DH, “Harry was glad that Ron was fighting back.” (DH, UK hardback, Chapter 19, pg. 310) So he should be! He has forgiven Ron for their argument, and he doesn’t want Hermione walking all over Ron because of it. After a while, though, he realizes there is more to it than that – Ron and Hermione have their own issues to settle.

So, to conclude: Ron, Hermione and Harry are and always have been equals. The dynamics between the three of them and the mistakes that they make only prove that they are good enough friends to always get past them. They treat each other as real people, with real flaws, and I put to you readers that neither Ron nor Hermione is better – just different.

1/29/08

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