Emma is a brat? Who knows. Though if someone who actually appears to like her is saying she is, I certainly wouldn't bet any of my own money that she wasn't. That's just my opinion.
Also, I wasn't online during the previous discussion between Keester and jphoenix17 about Ron and hope I'm not too late to answer. Re: the parseltongue, people seem to forget that Harry said 'open' to the locket before Ron destroyed it. That was maybe a month earlier - certainly more feasible than 5 years earlier and that whole memory is surely ingrained on Ron's mind. I had lots of issues with Deathly Hallows, but Ron eventually coming up with the relevant hiss after a few tries wasn't one of them. I'm sure that most visitors to this website could say 'hello,' 'goodbye' and 'thank-you' etc in unknown languages if they got the chance to visit a foreign country for the first time. It's not being able to 'speak' or understand a language at all, it's just repeating a couple of sounds phonetically . If a parrot can 'say' hello, Ron can 'say' open.
I also disliked Ron leaving the other Two, mostly because he didn't take me with him - Harry's adventures in the forest was hella-boring
! Remember Ron was wearing the Horcrux at the time of the fight- people seem to forget that. It's a milder version of Ginny's own possession in CoS - I wouldn't blame him for his actions any more than I would blame her - Remember, he wanted to return the minute he'd apparated, and the locket's influence started to fade. However I
would blame Harry, who knew that Ron was 'under the influence'. So he was upset - he's supposed to be the hero and a
leader, yet instead of walking away until things calmed down, he actually blew up and told him to go - and he had no horcrux round his neck dictating his behaviour
! Hermione
said that Ron was being affected by the locket, but he ignored her and let his own emotions dominate instead. Sirius obviously died in vain, because Harry had still learnt
nothing about controlling himself and taking advice when he was too emotional to think clearly.
Ron's maturity might seem a bit sudden, though it's conceivable that he'd learn a lot from such a massive chain of events. Harry, however, didn't mature at all. He still followed the doe 'on a hunch' (it could have been a trap), left Hermione sleeping, unaware and unarmed (he took the only wand), and ended the camping chapters by saying 'Voldemort' and getting her tortured! Also, instead of Hermione timidly (since when?) asking Ron to take off the locket, why not stride up, take it off herself and tell them to both shut up? She doesn't hesitate to smack him about when he comes back. Character changes for plot purposes, that's why. The whole thing was badly conceived and should have been cut. The sparse bits of action in amongst the camping could all have happened with the Trio intact and the book would have been tighter. Again, just my opinion.