Hermione and her parents Redux WAS: Re: Wizarding Top Ten

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 188170

Carol:
And the simple expedient of asking them to move to Australia (or anywhere out of reach of the Death Eaters) would surely be sufficient to get them (voluntarily) out of harm's way. 

Pippin:
That didn't save Sirius. 
It's said of generals that they are always ready to fight the last war. I think the fate of Sirius would be  strongly in Hermione's mind, and in the Grangers' also.  It wasn't Voldemort's wiles that  drove Sirius, first out of exile and then from Grimmauld Place. It was his sense of duty to his godson.  

However much he hated it, he did try to remain hidden, but his impulse to protect Harry personally was just too strong. And unlike Harry at the MoM, Hermione going into danger is not a mistake that she can avoid.

If the Grangers know all this, then they realize that just disappearing or finding refuge in an Order safe house will not be enough. And the consequences would be worse, because they probably know things about Harry that no one but Hermione knows,  things that would put both Hermione and Harry in danger -- because anything that endangers Harry will endanger Hermione too. Voldemort would very much like to know, for example, that Harry's feelings for Ginny are  more serious than anyone suspects. 

Remember, too, in JKR's original plan, both Ron and Harry would have lost a parent figure in OOP and the Grangers' sense that they could be in danger too would be even stronger.

Of course it would be cruel to lose the memories of a child. But how much crueller to live on, knowing that you might have done something to save that child and didn't do it? I think people are assuming that it wouldn't happen, since once Voldemort got the information he wanted the Grangers would be dead anyway. But what if he only captured one?

It's not only Hermione who's weirdly selfish in the scenario we're discussing. It's the Grangers, who are made to care more about their memories of Hermione than about Hermione herself.  I can understand running into the burning house to save the baby pictures. But I can't understand why you'd save the pictures and leave the child inside. 

Also, I think people are overlooking the difficulty people who aren't used to a life of crime or subterfuge would have living in a foreign country under an assumed name. Illegal immigration and using false papers are serious crimes, you know. Voldemort's people will be saved quite a bit of work if Australia deports the Grangers for them. 


Carol:
 And suppose that Hermione has overestimated her magical abilities? Suppose that she can't put them right even if she finds them? And even if she succeeds, if she didn't tell them what she was doing, how is she going to explain that she sent them to Australia "for their own good"? 

Pippin:
Is that likely? Hermione apparently never learned riddikulus, but has she ever said she could do a spell and then not been able to do it? The only one that ever goes wrong for her is the polyjuice, and even then the magic worked just fine, though not with the results that Hermione intended. 

But I agree, it would be ridiculous for Hermione to think that she could ship her parents off to Australia, possibly for years, and then reinstate them in their old lives without their ever realizing that something had happened to them. Even if she could, it would change their relationship forever. Why would she risk that when there are perfectly logical reasons for them to do as she asks?

These aren't students in the DA that she doesn't know very well, (if she had known them all, she wouldn't have needed a spell to tell her which ones might be disloyal). They aren't House Elves whose plight moves her not because she sees them suffer in their situation but because she is overwhelmed by guilt for profiting from it. 

These are her parents. She trusted them enough to tell them all those things about herself and Harry in the first place. The best thing about being a prefect is that it's something her parents can understand.  Their wishes meant enough to her that she  kept on with her braces even after she was sure she could do a tooth shrinking charm instead. Why put in those details, if JKR wants us to think their feelings aren't important to her? 

Pippin