The Malfoys WAS: Wizarding kids and their parents

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183989

Montavilla47:
> > I don't remember Hermione wearing braces during any part of the
series.  I think you confusing that with Hermione not magically
shrinking her large front teeth--which she does anyway--just in time
to make herself pretty for the Yule Ball (although, that is not her
intention).
> 
> Magpie:
> Yes, Hermione says she's been trying to persuade her parents to let
her shrink her teeth for ages but they told her to "carry on with her
brace," which would presumably mean she's got a night brace or 
something. Not braces. And of course, she does flout their wishes when
she gets the chance. She only brings up the brace while she's saying
she's had it done magically now. (One of the only characteristics the
 Grangers have is that they're dentists, and that's where they get the
limited authority they have.)

Carol responds:

Setting aside the question of whether "brace" means "braces" or what
Magpie is calling a "night brace" (my orthodontist always referred to
mine as "headgear"; no doubt that particular instrument of torture has
other, more descriptive, names that we can discuss on OT Chatter),
that quotation is the only reference in the books to Hermione's having
or wearing a brace or braces. It always struck me as odd that her
dentist (orthodontist?) parents would want her to wear braces (or any
means or *straightening* teeth) when the problem is actually the
*size* of her front teeth, easily solved with a shrinking spell.
Plenty of kids (I was one) have normal-sized teeth that need to be
straightened (my lower teeth are still crooked because the retainer
was taken off too soon!). Hermione seems to have had the opposite
problem--her front teeth weren't crooked, they were just too large.
Had they been crooked as well (an overbite), they would still have
protruded even after they were shrunk.

So, IMO, it's not the poster Montavilla was responding to (Magpie?)
who was confusing shrunken teeth with braces. It was JKR confusing the
effects of those two procedures.

Carol, who thinks that the Wizards, so many of whom have yellow or
crooked teeth, would benefit from regular visits to a Muggle dentist
if they can't invent spells to solve those problems