Wizarding Top Ten

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 188095

Ceridwen wrote:
> 
> I would  be angry and disappointed and hurt. Especially hurt, to think that my kid  thought so little of me.
> 
Melissa wrote:
> But it wouldn't be because she thought so little of you.  It would  be because she thought the world of you.  
>  
> Hermione doesn't want her parents to end up dead like the Potters  or to be tortured into insanity like the Longbottoms.  As Pippen  pointed out they can't stay with the "biggest family of blood traitors" (to  paraphrase Bill) in the WW. Even Auntie Muriel wouldn't be an option.  
  
> Better to be in Australia 

Carol responds:

I don't think anyone objects to the Grangers being in Australia where they will certainly be safe. It's Hermione's modifying their memories so that they don't know they have a daughter or even who they are that bothers some posters. No one modified the Weasleys's memories. In fact, Mr. Weasley and Bill actually helped to transform the ghoul that represented the Spattergroited Ron. (Mrs. Weasley would just have to accept the fact that her youngest son and his friends, whom she also cared about, would not only be out of school but in terrible danger without her knowing where they were. And her stupid clock, with its hands perennially pointing to "mortal peril," would be no help unless Ron's hand actually fell off the clock.)

The Grangers knew that Hermione was independent. They were used to having her far from home in an unknown magical world. They would know that they couldn't stop her from going back to the WW even if she explained that it was becoming more dangerous; she was, after all, nearly eighteen, and even her Muggle parents would regard her as an adult once her birthday passed sometime in September. She would need to explain that as a friend of Harry Potter, whom she had surely mentioned to her parents, she would be in additional danger, but so would they, as her parents, now that Voldemort was targeting Muggles. She could then suggest that they move to Australia. She could even offer to modify their memories (an offer that I'm sure they would have refused) and promise to let them know as soon as she was safe. Alternatively, she could have asked the Order to protect them as they did the Dursleys. 

If she did it with their knowledge and consent, I have no objections to anything except the unnaturalness of agreeing to such an arrangement, assuming that they still had money, had the opportunity to sell their house, and still knew how to make a living as dentists in Australia. OTOH, if she did it without their consent assuming, as Ceridwen thinks, that they were just helpless Muggles who couldn't be told the truth or trusted to leave England on their own, and their house and possessions were left behind with no protection, it's just wrong.

After all, the Dursleys, who didn't even love Harry, were allowed a choice. They knew that Vernon couldn't work, that Dudley couldn't attend school, that they'd have to leave their house and possessions behind with no protection. They chose to do so, thanks to Dudley. Possibly the Grangers, never having encountered Dementors or suffered pain and humiliation at the hands of Wizards, might have been harder to persuade, but they loved and trusted their daughter whereas the Dursleys neither loved nor trusted Harry. They should have been given a choice, and, if I were Hermione, I would not have shut up until they agreed to leave England. (Australia is probably needlessly distant, but, oh, well.)

Then again, if they were happy and could find work in a new place, they were probably happier than the Dursleys, unable to work or go to school or use computers or watch TV and forced to live with a Witch and a Wizard, all the time knowing that their home and belongings probably would not be there when they returned. (No one put a protective charm on the house; Mad-eye didn't even bother to lock the door. He just left the house to the mercy of the DEs--or, though he didn't mention it, Muggle thieves and neglect. Or maybe, if it's not fully paid for, the mortgage will be foreclosed and the mortgage company will take it back, selling the Dursleys' furniture and belongings.

I wouldn't want to be in either the Grangers' or the Dursleys' position. "Your home and property or your life." Would I choose to save myself or take my chances? I don't suppose it matters, as long as it was my choice.

But I certainly wouldn't want my not-yet-eighteen-year-old daughter taking matters into her own hands, robbing me of my choice and my memory.

Carol, wondering how the MTMNBN will handle this situation since the Grangers have been cast (maybe we can talk about it on the movie list)