Hermione and her parents

[ravenclaw001]

No: HPFGUIDX 128198

One thing that AFAIK hasn't been brought up is that Hermione's 
parents may be so jammed-up with something or other that they don't 
have time for their daughter.

Those of you who've read _Pet Semetary_ would remember how the 
protagonist's wife had, in her childhood, had a sister whose horrific 
health problems consumed a great deal of her parents' time and 
attention.  This could account for Hermione's missing sister---if 
she's got this sister, but the sister's got major, life-threatening 
problems with her health, the Doctors Granger could well leave 
Hermione very much to her own devices merely because they're so 
consumed with their sick child.  

Or---I don't know if such an organization exists, but if there's 
something like _Medicins sans Frontiers_ for dentists, Hermione's 
parents may be spending months at a time in the Third World, tending 
to people's teeth, and could even not _notice_ that they're not 
getting letters because the post is so bad anyway.  

Of course, they could be cold, self-absorbed social climbers of the 
same sort as the way a lot of fanficcers depict Lucius and Narcissa 
Malfoy, who have important cocktail parties, important social 
schmoozing, and important trysts with other people's spouses taking 
priority.  

--Eric Oppen, Ravenclaw-manque