used as a plot dump to explain the Harry Potter universe. Rowling also states that her feminist conscience is rescued by Hermione, "who's the brightest witch of her age" and a "very strong female character." Hermione's first name is taken from a character in William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, though Rowling has said that the two characters have little to nothing in common. Rowling said that she wanted her name to be unusual since if fewer girls had the name, fewer girls would get teased for it and it seemed the sort of name that "a pair of professional dentists, who liked to prove how clever they were" would give their daughter. Her original surname was "Puckle", but Rowling felt the name "did not suit her at all", and so the less frivolous Granger was used. Harry Potter books Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Hermione first appears in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when she meets Harry and Ron on the Hogwarts Express, where she mocks Ron for his inability to perform a spell to turn his rat yellow. She proves just how much she knows by declaring that she memorized all the textbooks by heart. She constantly annoys her peers with her knowledge, so Harry and Ron initially consider her arrogant, especially after she criticises Ron's incantation of the Levitation Charm. They heartily dislike her until they rescue her from a troll, for which she is so thankful that she lies to protect them from punishment, thus winning their friendship. Hermione's knack for logic later enables the trio to solve a puzzle that is essential to retrieving the Philosopher's Stone, and she defeats the constrictive Devil's Snare plant by summoning a jet of "bluebell flame". Hermione is the brains behind the plan to enter the place where the Stone is hidden. She responds to Harry's wariness of Professor Severus Snape and is also suspicious of him. She reveals to Harry and Ron that she does a lot of research in the library, which helped her defeat the Devil's Snare and work out the logic of the potions. Rowling said on her website that she resisted her editor's requests to remove the troll scene, stating "Hermione is so very arrogant and annoying in the early part of Philosopher's Stone that I really felt it needed something (literally) huge to bring her together with Harry and Ron." Harry Potter