The Malfoys WAS: Wizarding kids and their parents

[justcorbly]

No: HPFGUIDX 183994

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> Carol again:
> In character, certainly. Hermione is always taking things into her own
> hands...  Hermione takes charge of the parents without whom she would not even
exist...  Maybe in your view it's all right for a child to control the lives of her capable adult
>parents.

The "in character" thing takes precedence for me since we are talking about a novel.  As
with any student away from home at a boarding school or college, the student determines
what his or her parents learn about their experiences.  Certainly, Dumbledore or any of the
other teachers could have told the Grangers what their daughter had got herself into. I
doubt, though, that they were oblivious to her petrified stage, since that occupied a
significant period of time during which they'd likely have written her. And, if they weren't
in the habit of communicating with Hermione, that helps to explain her decision.

 Whether or not Hermione was right, in a novel or in reality, seems to me a moot point.
Parents and children do all kinds of inexplicable things to each other.

Hermione also had good reason to think her parents were at risk.  She know Voldemort
was out and about.  She knew that he knew she was one of Harry's two closest allies.  That
Voldemort might threaten her parents to thwart her efforts was an easy and logical
assumption.

> Carol:

> And why shouldn't she tell them at least as much as Harry tells the
> Dursleys...

Every child knows his or her parents best. Presumably, Hermione had good reason for her
actions.  We certainly know next to nothing about her parents' emotional makeup. As for
Harry and his aunt and uncle... well, he certainly didn't want them to be killed, but I doubt
he really cared much if they got upset about events.

> Carol:
> We don't know that it worked. All we know is that it got them out of
> England and Hermione, unlike Ron, didn't need to spend time worrying
> about her family. It's a plot device, pure and simple, for disposing
> of the Grangers...

Well, I believe we get an indication that Hermione brought her parents back from Oz and
more or less fixed things.  But, that may have come from JKR after the publication of DH
(I'm too lazy to go check).

JKR might just as well have ignored the Granger's, as she otherwise did throughout. I
believe it would have been difficult for her to introduce Mom and Pop Granger as real
characters without altering the story.  I.e., we readers, having met the Grangers, would
want to know what is happening with them, and JKR would have been forced to include a
thread of exposition about them, a thread that contributed nothing to the story. Muggles,
in a story of conflict between witches and wizards, are essentially powerless creatures
whose protection draws upon scarce resources and whose weakness threatens all.


justcorbly (Are there two linespaces above this signoff?)