Hermione continues to be a wonderful role model for millions of children, and even though she comes with a tough exterior and may try to hide her true feelings, her softer side shows throughout the series to those she truly cares about. Hermione fans are more than happy to point this out too.
"Hermione buying Crookshanks was foreshadowing her developing romantic interest in Ron?" u/curseofablacklion theorized on a Reddit thread. They then elaborated by saying, "In POA, she went to buy an owl for her birthday. But she bought a ginger cat. She called him 'gorgeous' and said 'no one wanted to buy him'. So a cat who was neglected in favour of other cats, grumpy, ginger, a bit aggressive, loyal and fiercely protective of Hermione. Jeez I wonder who matches that description." Redditor u/Educational-Bug-7985 was among those who agreed, saying, "Hermione went for the less popular, ginger cat instead of an owl, just like her future romantic choices."
These fans may be on to something — "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling revealed in an interview conducted by Emma Watson for Wonderland and transcribed by MuggleNet that Ron and Hermione were a part of her original dreams for the story: "I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That's how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione with Ron." So the fluffy orange cat that found a home with Hermione could have been foreshadowing after all.
