When the rest of the first-year Gryffindors heard that Hermione had been withdrawn, the sense of guilt - and of loss - spread through the entire group almost instantly, and then hung over them like a dark cloud. With Hermione gone, there were only six of them - Parvati and Lavender, Ron and Neville, and Dean and Seamus. Every time a teacher asked a question in class, everyone turned to look for Hermione's eager hand and found it absent. They hadn't realized just how much she was a part of their group until she wasn't there anymore, and every one of them felt awful for having excluded her so badly as they had. Not one of them had tried to do anything about it.