Y'know, there's one implication of this story that would only apply to the Harry Potter universe that I'm rather surprised none of the Golden Trio seems to have picked up on. Think about it; the wolf behaves remarkably human, even kind, to the girl at first. Then he shows his true colours and eats the girl and her grandmother. He deceives the girl as well as the old woman. He also exhibits greed and is stupid enough to fall for the woodsman's trick. He also attacks the humans without provocation, something that, as Hermione points out, wolves generally don't do. And finally, there really could be connotations of purification via water in the drowning.

Now consider it from the perspective of someone living in the Harry Potter world. There, werewolves are real, and face discrimination, a fact that the Golden Trio already know because they know Lupin. Werewolves in their world are treated as animals that behave deceptively human, as dangerous and violent by nature, possibly as undeserving of being educated, if Dumbledore's allowing Remus to study and later teach at Hogwarts is such a progressive and radical move as it's made out to be.

So, if we look at the wolf here as actually being a werewolf, and place the story as a bedtime story in the Wizarding World, what you have is a story about how werewolves might act nice but are too dangerous for normal people to interact with them, even when it's not a full moon night. They are deceptive and like to play mind games by imitating your loved ones. They only have a certain low cunning, though; they're so stupid that they won't notice anything in their way as they mindlessly attack humans. Also, there's the fact that the wolf is purified only at death.

Of course, like I said earlier, this could only apply to the Wizarding World, but considering that Ron points out discrimination against giants in Jack the Giant Killer, it wouldn't be out of the field of probability for one of the Trio to point out all this stuff about Little Red Riding Hood.

Haha, I haven’t read the red riding hood in ages; that was fun!

I love Ron in this. He basically sums up my entire opinion on this story (Little Red really is pretty stupid). I love this series.

There's a version of Little Red Riding Hood where the wolf tricks Red into eating poor Granny

o.o
I just realized how dark fairytales are

Mm... you know, it would make much more sense if the grandmother was a werewolf. That would explain why she lived in the woods (trying to stay away from people). The actual story would be Red's mom telling Red not to go, but she did anyway because she loved her gran and had a fight with her mother.

And the counter-point to obedience:
Ella the Enchanted. (she lived like Cinderella, pretty much. She has a fairy visit upon her birth, and grant her the gift/curse of obedience.) Her parents did NOT want it. That one goes to show the trouble obedience can get you into... (meaning Ella obeys EVERYONE IN EVERYTHING). Not so sure if that counts as a classic Fairy Tale, but oh well.

xD This chapter was so funny!

good on Hermione! Get Revenge on the sexist boy!

These guys make my stomach hurt from laughing so hard and everyone thinks I'm insane for laughing at the computer screen...

I need to ration these tales and not gobble them all up in one day, as the wolf did Little Red and her Gran.

Wow. I caught some of the weirdness of fairy tales myself, but you've got all this symbolism that never even occured to me.

I m really enjoying these stories, it's nice hearing how the trio view the fairy tales. In the versions I've read of the girl getting eaten, it's after she's climbed into bed with her 'grandmother', no doubt to help her keep warm.

But I've actually heard of a completely different version and this is no joke. The wolf is a werewolf who eats granny and then lies in wait for Riding hood who's a teenage. But she tricks him by doing a strip tease making the wolf desperate with longing before saying she needs to pee. He can't move by this point and begs her to do it in the bed but she just runs off.

I'm not kidding, I found this in a book of obscure knowledge.

I laughed so hard at this one.

The commentary that they keep running is wonderful.

"I had a moment of thinking of naked Auntie Muriel," Ron said, shuddering. "Okay, so the wolf has decided to take a nap."

Oh god! clutching my sides over here!

Hahahhahaha! Evil Hermione! And Cindy Crawford was at her peak in those days, so it makes total sense too! Fantastic! :D

I'm getting tired of basically repeating the same review :P But okay, random I-loved: I loved the scream of fiendish laughter that made both boys jump. :D It was awesome.