Hermione, or the Ghoul in Pajamas

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Never, never pontificate without re-reading the original scene.

Here's what, precisely, Hermione says to Harry about her preparations to take off with him, specifically about her decision to modify her parents' memories so that "they're convinced they're really called Wendell and Monica Wilkins and that their life's ambition is to move to Australia, which they've now done.


"That's to make it more difficult to track them down and interrogate them about me--or you, because unfortunately, I've told them quite a bit about you."

She says it outright.

Ron's stratagem, the ghoul, is an attempt to protect his family from reprisals; Hermione's, to protect herself and Harry from the Grangers' knowledge of them. Not to protect them, or to protect them from being used as hostages to influence her.

And, y'know, it was a good thought. I mean, just imagine if her parents had blabbed about taking their little girl camping in the Forest of Dean.

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

Speaking of re-reading... Hermione's later statement that she thought Harry's scar-connection was closed, and our supposition that therefore she wouldn't have worried overmuch about telling Harry and Ron her parents' real location?

Well. At the end of Chapter 5, Harry has massive scar-pain and a Voldie-vision. Which Hermione sees, causing her to admonish him to close his mind to Voldemort already. Which he waffles about.

Then, in Chapter 6, she tells him her parents' new identities and general location.

It seems vanishingly unlikely that she had any confidence whatsoever at that point in Harry's ability to keep from leaking information to Voldemort. (Did she suddenly develop the memory of a goldfish? Believe for some reason that telling Harry to stop it would work this time when it never has before?) Either she was incredibly cavalier about the possibility that Voldemort might use the connection to capture her parents, was lying to mislead him if he tried it, or actually wanted him to track down her parents for some reason.

I'm tempted to just throw up my hands at this point rather than try to wrench this mess into some kind of sense. Has Harry really not told her at any point over the last two years that Voldemort broke through the memory charm on Bertha Jorkins? The Trio are known for staying up "all night" rehashing this kind of thing (not that it ever gets them anywhere...). Not to mention the theory might well be in whatever Memory Charms for Vigilant Witches and Wizards book she's undoubtedly read (possibly in the form of "Don't worry, only very powerful wizards can break these, so yours should be good enough for government work"). Even if she doesn't know the bit about ripping through memory charms destroying a person, that they can be broken ought to motivate her to ensure that Voldemort doesn't get a chance to try, if she's going to the trouble of erasing/suppressing memories for the Trio's protection in the first place. Why hide the information and then hand Voldemort a map to it?

[maidofkent.livejournal.com]

Well, there is the possibility of the whole thing being a scam. The Grangers, memories intact, have in fact moved to Milton Keynes under aliases, while the Death Eaters scour Australia for Monica and Wendell. However, I think if this was the case, we would have had a reveal about Hermione's cunning plan. So, yes, it's a mess.

[sunnyskywalker]

Lying to Harry to mislead Voldemort makes the most sense out of the most details and so sounds most plausible of the three possibilities I thought of, but (a) you're right that we should have heard about it if that was her cunning plan, and (b) as has been mentioned previously, Hermione rarely lies to Ron and Harry. The only time I could think of is when she (still somewhat indirectly) denied being in two places at once in PoA, and that was because an authority figure told her to keep it a secret.

Which is why I wondered if maybe Moody and/or Kingsley were actually the ones to relocate the Grangers and ordered Hermione to give this cover story... but that shows a lot more capability than any wizards seem to have in DH, just for starters. Total mess.