Bigotry in the Potterverse/Hermione and her parents

[Brian]

No: HPFGUIDX 188239

I'm not going to quote any particular snippet as I'm replying to the 
whole discussion...

My take on Hermione is...
1) I cannot imagine any parent agreeing to have their memories of their 
daughter wiped, no matter how painful the knowledge of her loss might 
make them.
I lost my wife a few years ago and there isn't an hour it doesn't hurt.  
But given the choice to have the memory of her and its associated hurt 
wiped out?  NOT A CHANCE.

So she almost certainly did it without their consent.

2) The ONLY justification for that violation would be if they knew 
something which could put the final victory against Voldemort in danger. 
The only thing I can think of that would fit that category would be if 
she had let slip to them about the existence of Voldemort's horcruxes as 
it was essential that he not find out that they were hunting for and 
destroying them.
I honestly cannot imagine that she would have let slip anything so 
important to them or anyone else.

So it was morally wrong

3) But, she did it to spare them pain.  We see no indication in canon 
that she has ever suffered a loss of someone close to her, so, in her 
ignorance, she probably thought she was helping them to avoid 
suffering.  She is obviously convinced that there was a good chance that 
she would die and wanted desperately to save them from grieving.  
Remember that she had probably seen Harry grieving after the death of 
Sirius and had certainly seen Cho "crying a lot of the time lately" even 
months after the death of Cedric and was trying to avoid her parents 
having to suffer in that way.
Although Hermione was very intelligent, she didn't have the life 
experience to know that no parent would choose to simply "forget" a 
daughter rather than mourn her. 
That does NOT make what she did right.  It does make it understandable. 

People sometimes do wrong things for the best reasons.  As the old 
saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

To emphasise how important memories ARE to someone who had lost someone, 
rather than express it in my own words, I'll simply restate these words 
from Professor Bryan Cloyd put it best, in his email to his students 
after his daughter, Austin, was murdered in the Virginia Tech massacre.
"If we don't meet again, your final assignment from me is perhaps the 
most important lesson you will learn in life. Go to your mother, father, 
brothers and sisters and tell them with all your heart how much you love 
them. And tell them that you know how much they love you too. Go out of 
your way to make good memories... At some point these memories may be 
all you have left. May God bless you all.".

Like Carol, I wouldn't want to be Hermione when her parents find out 
what she's taken from them!

Brian