Wizarding kids and their parents WAS: Draco's Hand of Glory

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 183955

> Marianne
> 
> I thought it odd that Hermione's parents didn't object that
> Hermione eventually distanced herself away from parents all
> year and spent all her time with the Weasleys or Hogwarts in
> the WW.  But the WW is far different than the muggle world.
> Perhaps her parents realized that she was more a part of the
> WW than muggle world and accepted it.

Mike:
Hi Marianne, and welcome to the list. This was an excellent first 
post. :-)

It is interesting how quickly Hermione acclimated herself to the WW, 
thereby practically giving up her life with her parents. Best as I 
can determine, the last time she spends significant time with her 
parents is the summer between her third and fourth year. And even 
then she spends the last two weeks of her short two month summer at 
the Weasleys and the World Cup. I guess she does spend Christmas of 
her sixth year (HBP) at home, but only because her and Ron were 
feuding. The rest of her vacations seem to be spent with her WW 
friends. If she had had a sister, like Lily, maybe she would have 
spent more time at home. Of course, the summer vacation after HBP 
wasn't much of a holiday, was it?

Lynda noted that this often happens in RL, how kids grow apart from 
their parents. But this is a different case. Hermione seems to really 
love her parents, there is no indication of a rift other than she's a 
witch and they're non-magical. The statue of secrecy can't apply to 
parent child relationships and I wouldn't expect most Muggle-born 
children to abandon their parents or siblings. Dean said his parents 
were Muggles and he doesn't tell them anything. But there's all 
indication that he still spends lots of time with them.

Yeah, I know Hermione has to spend lots of time with Harry for the 
story. Still, I agree with Marianne's assessment, she does seem to 
shrug off her parents rather too easily.


> Marianne
> 
> I've found it interesting that the kids at Hogwarts seem to have
> very little adult supervision, with the exception of classes.
> There are rules to follow, yet the kid go running amuck, unless
> something drastic happens.  I've came to the conclusion that the
> kids pratically raise themselves from the age of 11 on up.  Maybe
> I'm wrong.

Mike:
Perhaps some of our British members can speak to the typical life in 
a British boarding school, I'm certainly no expert. I did go to a 
military college where we had to live in the dorms and had very 
little access to the off-campus for the most part. We had very little 
*adult* supervision, but we were all adults by then. It does seem odd 
that Hogwarts relies on their prefects to keep the order within the 
dorms with little to no help from their HoH.



> Marianne
> 
> One last observation.  I'd never thought the adult Malfoys,
> especially Draco's father, capable of showing affection or love
> until Narcissa begged Snape to protect Draco.  It never occurred
> to me that they had that side to them.  Altough I'm ashamed to
> admit it, I didn't think of them as parents, and love their child
> as much as any other parents would.  I'd always had the impression
> of them as being cold and cruel.

Mike:
I don't think you're alone there, Marianne. Narcissa came across to 
me as the spoiled, rich-girl, trophy wife that probably saw her 
offspring once a day and relied on the nanny to raise the child. I 
was surprised with her in Spinner's End. But then I do wonder how 
much of that was Lucius being thrown in Azkaban. She seemed to take 
over that family from that point on, and she seemed to have much more 
compassion than Lucius did.

As far as Lucius was concerned, umm, well, ... he's a bit of an 
enigma to me. On the one hand, he seems to be a smart, slick, 
politically savvy customer, able to get a lot of what he wants even 
after he's lost his position(s). And certainly he's rich. But then, 
OTOH, he's an avid Voldemort supporter, well he was one before DH 
anyway. 

I think there's a lot of truth in what Dumbledore said about 
Riddle/Voldemort. Much of which his supporters didn't understand. 
They seem to think that performing well for Voldemort will make him 
appreciate them more and raise one to the position of trusted ally 
and confidant. They don't understand that Voldemort will never trust 
anyone, will never have friends or confidants, and being his right-
hand man or woman gains you nothing. 

Lucius seemed to think he was Voldemort's right-hand man, and what 
did he get out of it? He got put in charge of the raid on the MoM, 
something that was certainly *not* his forté. He got set up for a 
failure, and he failed. And I see this as a regular occurence with 
Voldemort, he wouldn't want any DE to think of himself as special 
and would make sure none of them got too big for his britches. 

Poor Snape, he didn't screw up anything as LV's RHM, so Voldemort 
finds an excuse to kill him instead. Man, being the VP in this 
organization is a bitch of a gig. ;-)


> Marianne
> 
> I've been wondering about these things for a long time.  I've
> finally found a list where I can get other's opinions.

Mike:
Opinions we got! Answers, eh, those aren't as easy to come by. :D