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

[oryx_leucoryx]

Like a true Gryffindor, she places friends well ahead and above family. And Ron's worry for his family is seen as almost betrayal. But he can be forgiven. His family is magical after all. And Gryffindors themselves, to boot.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Also, I find it hard to imagine what Hermione could have possibly told her parents about Harry that Severus (whom she believed to be on Voldemort's side) did not know.

[eviltracey.livejournal.com]

In Hermione's defense, things would not have ended well for the Grangers if the DEs had interrogated them re: Harry's whereabouts.

[maidofkent.livejournal.com]

Of course not, but that's not what Hermione gives as a primary reason, or indeed any reason, for moving them to Australia with minds wiped. One can imply it in what she says, but what she actually says motivated her is what they might reveal about Harry. I agree with oryx, what can they know about Harry that Snape, Draco or the Weasleys couldn't have known - surely she hasn't told her parents about the Horcruxes? It would have made more sense and made Hermione look better, if she'd said 'I was terrified that Voldemort would have them interrogated. Of course, there's nothing important they could have told the Death Eaters, but that didn't stop Bellatrix before. I was afraid they'd end up like Neville's parents'.

And why wipe their minds as she did? Surely she could have explained the situation to them, or even have confunded them? Should the Death Eaters actually manage to catch up with Monica and Wendall, they will be tortured for no reason they can possibly understand.

As to Voldemort catching up with them, I notice Hermione explains that she's changed her parents' identities and then goes on to tell Harry and Ron what those new identities are, and where she's sent them. If she does think Harry might still be broadcasting to Voldemort, that seems a particularly stupid thing to do, unless she is actually lying and laying a false trail. However, judging by her later reaction to Harry's connection, I don't think that's the reason she's giving away that information.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

But note how he's already the less-committed one....

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Or even what her parents could have told him about her that Arthur and Molly (who've seen more of her in recent years) could not....

Though, to be fair, what her parents could have told him is the type of things Kreacher told Narcissa.

Things like, where did the family go on vacation? If a panicked teen were Apparating her companions away from danger, what places would pop into her head as being associated with safety....?

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

What maidofkent says.

Also, moving the Grangers to Australia under a false identity protects them from being found and interrogated, which benefits all parties.

Wiping their minds is intended to help only her and Harry.

If the Wilkins are found by DE's and identified as Hermione's parents, their memory loss will not save them.

In fact, it will assure their doom.

Tom can recover Obliviated memories. But only by destroying the subject. He told us so, about Bertha. "The means I used to break the Memory Charm upon her were powerful, and when I had extracted all useful information from her, her mind and body were both damaged beyond repair."

If the Grangers had been captured, their life expectancy and prospects for continued mental well-being would never have been high in any circumstances. But if Tom could have raped whatever information he deemed useful from their minds and then held them as hostages for Hermione, he might have done so. And we know that Legilimency, of itself, need not damage the subject.

The Wilkins, however.... to get anything from them, Tom would have had to destroy them. (And the fact that Hermione went to such lengths to protect that information indicates they must know things it would be worth Tom's trouble to find out.)

So Obliviating her parents not only was never intended for their protection, it would have both failed at protecting Harry, and absolutely guarantee their deaths by torture, had the Wilkins ever been identified with the Grangers and captured.

Though Hermione, of course, may not know that.

Tom told Harry and most of the Death Eaters in the graveyard; Harry may or may not have relayed his words to Albus and Sirius.. The witnesses to Barty Jr.'s Veritaserum interrogation were Harry, Albus, Severus, and Minerva, and Barty told them that the Dark Lord had "tortured her [Bertha] until he broke through the Memory Charm my father had placed upon her."

So all of the DE's, and some of the Order, and Harry, know that Memory Charms can be broken, but only by such extreme torture as will destroy the subject. But we don't know if this is known by anyone else--specifically, whether the Ministry and the international authorities know this, Is this common knowledge about the Memory Charm, or obvious from examination of how it works upon the victim's memory, or a discovery of that perverted genius Tom known only to the listed witnesses.

So Hermione might not have known that mind-raping her parents would fail even at its stated objective of protecting Harry.

[oryx_leucoryx]

See my latest installment. I think someone in the Ministry or Order does know that and used that method to obtain the testimony of the Longbottoms against their torturers. Because the little we are actually told in canon about that whole affair does not add up.

[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.

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

I don't think that JKR or whoever actually wrote DH gave it this much thought.

However, if one were to try and attribute logic to it, then that would be the right inference. That Hermione wanted to give V an elaborate red herring.

But JKR has said in an interview that Hermione "went to restore their memories straight away" which suggests that she really had done what she said she had done and JKR had forgotten about Harry and V having that psychic link.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Well, sure. This is all typical of someone on level 3 of spiritual development: Peers matter more than family. Heck, peers are your family. We see that in Hermione's dismissal of her parents and the Trio's dismissal of Xeno's suffering in chapter 22. Ron is treated as a weirdo because his concern for his family causes the Hs to see him as still being in stage 1 or 2. He needs to grow up and get his priorities straight!

This also ties in with the incessant rehashes of Scumbledore's adolescent misbehavior. He's an adult--and a dead adult, no less--so you'd think he didn't matter. But he does, because what DH obsesses about is what he did as a teenager.

We see this in other parts of the series, too, most notably the way kids from nonmagical backgrounds are encouraged to abandon and ridicule their birth families in favor of their new, magical "family." Cults are notorious for keeping adults immature so they'll stay subservient to the cult leader. The "peers matter more than family" attitude ties in with that as well.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, it all depends if you are looking at Rowlinverse, or Rowling's head-canon or at actual bookverse. These contradictions that are never explained show she had no idea that what she wrote doesn't match up to what she imagined.

[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.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

At Hogwarts Dumbledore is the cult leader. Maybe that's why he likes half-bloods and muggle borns. Easier to cut them off from their families. The older Slytherin pure blood families have links to the board of governors. Malfoy Sr. can show up at the school even if Dumbledore doesn't want him there. There isn't the excuse that the parents wouldn't understand.

[sunnyskywalker]

Also, what, exactly, could Hermione have told her parents about Harry that would matter in the slightest? That he really likes treacle tart? That he's famous because [stuff everyone in the wizarding world already knows]? That he is impulsive and generally trusts people who are nice to him (hardly a secret...)? Unless she wrote them long letters during HBP detailing every memory Harry saw on Tommy's Home Video Nights, but that's hard to believe.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Exactly. Especially with Severus and Draco potentially reporting to Voldemort. What does Hermione know that those two don't? Unless she had her own reasons to think neither of them actually would want to help Voldemort.

Everybody knows whom Harry associates with, where he spends time while away from school. Maybe she thought she had some unique insights into his character?

[sunnyskywalker]

Well, I suppose only Hermione and Ron know just how much of Harry's homework was actually done by Hermione. That might give some clues as to weaknesses Voldemort could exploit. But I also doubt she told her parents exactly which spells, potions, etc. Harry doesn't actually understand because of her "help." How would that letter read? "Dear Mum and Dad, Tonight I let Harry copy my notes on healing spells after he got back from Quidditch practice. I don't think he understood a word he copied because he's so distracted with worrying whether Voldemort has really stopped peeking into his head..."

It can't be the insight that Harry tends to rush off to the rescue on the most ill-advised of promptings, because Voldemort had already figured that out by OotP. (Which makes it even more ridiculous that Voldemort doesn't try the same trick with a Weasley or two in DH. Did he mistakenly think Harry had learned better strategy and caution because of the DoM fiasco? If so, he ought to have realized he was wrong after the Trio broke into the MoM. Worst planning ever.)

Um. That he's as curious as a brick? Maybe that slipped by almost everyone at Hogwarts? Not sure how Voldemort could have used that, though. Something about his childhood with the Dursleys, which Voldemort could use to... um... torment Harry with dreams of being locked in the closet again, in hopes that poor sleep quality would assist in his downfall?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, I suppose only Hermione and Ron know just how much of Harry's homework was actually done by Hermione.
Surely she understands that Severus knows exactly how poorly Harry performs as a student? Even if Severus doesn't know the specifics of which Transfiguration lesson Harry got on his own and which he did not? Severus certainly knows that in Potions Harry can follow given instructions if he bothers to, but has zero understanding.

If so, he ought to have realized he was wrong after the Trio broke into the MoM. Worst planning ever.

Well, during that time Voldie was out of the country, searching for Gregorovich, and later that blond thief.

[sunnyskywalker]

Weird, the first time I tried to post this it got marked as spam and I hadn't even included any links. What's up with that?

Oh, I'm sure Snape understands plenty. I wonder if Hermione realizes just how much, though? She doesn't ever seem to worry that any teachers will suspect the boys of copying, even when she outright just writes an introduction for an essay for Ron - wizards may not have turnitin.com, but surely even they can recognize when writing style changes dramatically from one paragraph to the next. Is she cold-bloodedly calculating how much such "help" she can give for each class based on how she reads the teacher without the boys getting suspected of cheating? Maybe she thinks they've been getting away with it a lot better than they actually have, and in fact most of the teachers have just kept cutting Harry breaks because, well, this year he's in the Tournament with all that stress, and this year a murderer is gunning for him, poor dear... (And Dumbledore told Snape to lay off, presumably.)

I would hope that Voldemort left a two-way mirror or some other reliable communication method with his DEs and called in regularly for reports, but that's probably too much to expect from him by this book

[sunnyskywalker]

Testing, testing... Has the community started screening all comments, not just the ones with links?

[oryx_leucoryx]

I got your comment in email, but still don't see it here. There was a link to 'turn it in dot com'. And then another short post with no links.

[sunnyskywalker]

Interesting. I didn't code it as a link. I didn't realize it automatically translates urls typed as regular text into actual links automatically. Probably LiveJournal trying to be "helpful."

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

And Hermione wouldn't tell her parents anything that would make them want to pull her from Hogwarts. She would down play any danger. I don't think she told them about the troll, being petrified, fighting Death Eaters at the Ministry,etc.

[sunnyskywalker]

It would seem very odd if Hermione had actually told her parents all the dangers she's experienced and they never expressed any concern whatsoever. (Dear, last time we let you stay with the Weasleys during the summer you were caught in a riot instigated by terrorists specifically targeting people with your ancestry. Now you want us to send you to that same family earlier in the summer? To stay in a house owned by an ex-convict who nearly went insane in prison and has been living in a cave as a dog for the last year, and the werewolf teacher who forgot to take his medicine and nearly mauled you? To host a vigilante group? We think that summer calculus course has a lot to recommend it...)

But she's never so much as commented that her parents were a bit worried about her after the disaster of the year, but she convinced them that she would be perfectly safe with the Weasleys (or with Lucius kicked off the Board of Governors, or with the Aurors who would be hanging around, etc. depending on the year) and now they can do [fun event X or important world-saving activity Y). So I suspect you're right that she downplayed or outright didn't tell them a lot of it.

Seriously, what could she have told them about Harry?

[sunnyskywalker]

[Re-posted without the accidental link (forgot to do that earlier).]

I'm sure Snape understands plenty. I wonder if Hermione realizes just how much, though? She doesn't ever seem to worry that any teachers will suspect the boys of copying, even when she outright just writes an introduction for an essay for Ron - surely wizards can recognize when writing style changes dramatically from one paragraph to the next. Is she cold-bloodedly calculating how much such "help" she can give for each class based on how she reads the teacher without the boys getting suspected of cheating? Maybe she thinks they've been getting away with it a lot better than they actually have, and in fact most of the teachers have just kept cutting Harry breaks because, well, this year he's in the Tournament with all that stress, and this year a murderer is gunning for him, poor dear... (And Dumbledore told Snape to lay off, presumably.)

I would hope that Voldemort left a two-way mirror or some other reliable communication method with his DEs and called in regularly for reports, but that's probably too much to expect from him by this book.