*squints* but like. it can be both. you can push a child academically, be overprotective and want them to succeed, but neglect them emotionally.Ā
Hermione sometimes thinks that accepting the existence of magic wasnāt all that difficult for her parents. The eleven years before thatāthose were difficult. It wasnāt the letter from Hogwarts, or the owl that delivered it, or the cat at the door that transformed into a tall, beautiful woman in the blink of an eye. It was that her parents had always been fiercely logical, and over the years, tiny, illogical things had attempted to erode that logic, and they clung to it more and more fiercely in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
To some extent it was a lucky thing that her father had ever taken an interest in physics. Her mother didnāt take the news all that well, Hermione thinks now, but her father had always paid more attention to the āodd goings-onā, never shrugged them off quite like his wife had. Heād absorbed them, commiserated with Hermioneās hapless mum when she couldnāt account for vanishing spoons, or teacups transforming into miniature flower arrangements. When the discussion turned to āmagical boarding schoolā and āmagicā, Hermione remembers her father shrugging, saying that the universe was large and people couldnāt explain most of it, so why not, after all, have magic in the world?
Of course, her parents were convinced that certain truths would never change, regardless of whether there was magic in the worldāor even an entirely separate magical world. To succeed in life one had to work hard, to learn everything that could possibly be useful, polish all of that knowledge to perfection. Surely, that didnāt change regardless of whether you were magical or not?Ā
They couldnāt help her, though. They couldnāt tell her what would be useful in her life anymore. They used to tell her that she would need maths in her life, that sheād best pay attention to science classes, physics and chemistry and biology. They would insist that this would be useful one dayāthough, of course, it would be embarrassing if she somehow managed to earn poor marks in literature. After all, literature was easier than maths.
It took Hermione a very long time to realise that they were afraid for her. Her parents, dentists with imperfect, often painful teeth, who hadnāt grown up with much of their own, who couldnāt help her with much more than some money to buy her books with and ask her if she was doing well at school.Ā
She hadnāt the first idea how to explain that it wasnāt just magic that flew in the face of a logical world order, but the magical world itself had somehow suspended all common sense. That numbers, which made sense of so much of the real Muggle world were feared or scorned or avoided. Nobody had even heard of physics; gravity could suspend itself for brooms; people could, theoretically, levitate. Chemistry was potions, but frankly it was all Hermione could do to keep up, trying to keep track of all ingredient properties. Her classmates didnāt have the inclination to research every single leaf and berry and powder that went into the cauldron, and for that matter even the properties of the cauldron and specifications for brewing time. She had the feeling that Herbology should have been able to cover that lack, but the curriculum didnāt matchā¦Ā
But for the most part, she could figure out what she needed to make it all work in her head on her own. Even if it took her hoursā more work than her classmates, who just accepted that magic could do that.Ā
And, sure, Hermione had a strong sense for when someone was wasting her time. Sheād learned that from teachers whoād ruined her favourite subjects for a year by making them boring, and by punishing her for trying to get ahead. It was never good to be know-it-all.
(When she first got a letter from Hogwarts, Hermione thought she finally understood why sheād never fit in. It wasnāt until the day with the troll that sheād realised people could be jealous of her, for knowing things. Sure, she knew that for some it was more difficult to learn and remember things than it was for her, but stillājealousy? What was the point? Though in a way it was weirdly comforting to know that while the Wizarding World was confusing and senseless much of the time, at least the human nature was more or less the same.)
Every time Hermione came home for the summer months, her mother never missed an opportunity to tell her that she was worried, that she couldnāt help her daughter, that Hermione had to figure out how to navigate this new world on her own. Hermione nodded, tried not to give into her irritation at the needless reminder, and curled up with a book to read. Practicing spells with a wand was out of the question, but she could read history, learn runes. Make basic potions, too. Sheād started to do that, after the first year, when her parents asked her what she was learning and Hermione didnāt really know how to tread the line between the Statute of Secrecy and reassuring them that she would be fine.
Theyād also panicked when she let slip that Hogwarts didnāt teach mathematics or science. Hermione appreciated the effort in two months of crammed home-schooling, but she sometimes couldnāt help but resent itāparticularly some of the conversations that started afterwards made her truly regret the slip. She could have figured out how to learn those things herself. She could have done. Then she wouldnāt have to listen to the rest.
Why are you still going to that school when they donāt even teach you how to survive in the real world, are you going to just fix every problem you run into with magic? What if you donāt want to work there, what if youād rather have a life in this world, what if you marry someone without magic, what if this, what if thatā¦
Hermione couldnāt remember when she stopped answering. She couldnāt remember how many times she said ābut I have friends thereā or āI finally fit inā, and she couldnāt remember if sheād ever said those things out loud. Emotional appeals didnāt work with her parents, sheād learned that even before Hogwarts.
She had no idea how to tell them about the war. About Voldemort, and the Boy Who Lived, and chambers and diaries and talking snakes and escaped convicts that masqueraded as big black dogs and Dementors who attacked her friend. She had no idea how to explain any of it, but she wasnāt a good enough actress to hide just how much it worried her, how it was a problem she was turning over in some part of her mind all the time. How she was a friend to one of the biggest targets in the Wizarding World. How that made her a target, and her family, all two of them.
The strangest thing was, she never had to work so hard on her lies with anyone else. Sheād hated lying to her parents, and hated that they almost always found holes in her stories, hated feeling like she had to lie. But with the Healers at St. Mungoās, when sheād feigned concern and pity for Professor Lockhart, and had, out of curiosity, asked if it would be possible to create a false memory for him, if ever those missing years were to cause him distressātheyād believed her, and theyād answered all her questions. More thanāthey explained the theory behind the creation of False Memories, explained the need for them to correspond to the personās past life and wishes at least a little, or else the conflict would result in depression and even greater distress.
Once, sheād somehow managed to get Kingsley and Moody to tell her about their old Auror assignments, protecting witnesses. Hermione had wondered aloud if theyād ever tried hiding wizards in the Muggle world, then asked about Muggle loved ones, and listened intently. Moody, for all his talks of āCONSTANT VIGILANCE!ā, didnāt seem to notice the directed line of questioning.
Kingsley did. Heād watched her closely, calmly, all throughout that conversation, and it gave her a familiar prickle up her spine. Later, he found her in the library, and struck up a conversation of his own, about her parents, about how she was at Grimmauld Place on Christmas, and wouldnāt she have preferred to spend time with them for the holidays?
So, she supposed, sheād met her match in an Auror. That wasnāt half-bad. Sheād just have to work harder to improve. In the meantimeā¦
In the meantime, she was too tired to lie about this. Tired of protecting her parents on her own by omission of important, incomputable truths, well aware that it wasnāt enough. She couldnāt protect them if Death Eaters came to call. Hermione couldnāt decide if it was stupid or selfish to keep them in the dark. But, then again, if she so much as mentioned what had happened at the Quidditch Cup, the Triwizard Tournament, her parents would readily uproot and take her to France again, or to Australia where theyād been born. She wasnāt even sure there was any place far enough in the world to get away from Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
In the end, the False Memory Charm was her own work. It was the most intricate bit of Mind Magic sheād ever attempted, but sheād always been good at details. Kingsley arranged a place for them in Australia to her specifications, with carefully built wards, and a two-way mirror she could use to make sure they were all right.
It was tempting. Perhaps never more so than in the Forest of Dean.
It was alsoā¦ painful. Sheād been right to act quicklyāYaxley had set off the wards on her home the very day after her parents left for their new life in Australia. But her False Memory charm, her instructions to Kingsley, it was all too perfect. They looked happy.
Her own fault. Hermione had written herself out of their lives, after all. Her parentsā faces had always been pinched with stress and worry. Now they looked years younger. It was a relief, and it was a terrible, terrible pain, to know that they couldāve been happy if sheād never existed. Happier, even.
It didnāt really occur to her that in the great span of possibilities, if the Grangers had never had a daughter, they would never have left Australia to become dentists with a private practice in England and a chip on each shoulder, and a fierce desire to see that their daughter have everything, and be able to achieve everything herself. Not really until she was lying on a rich manās floor with Mudblood cut into her arm, wondering if this was the last thing sheād see. Sheād thought about them then, thought how good it was they didnāt see this, didnāt know any of this, just like everyone else in the Muggle world. Thought about how happy they were, last time sheād dared to look in that mirror.
Realised, with a start, that theyād looked happy, but the look in their eyes was also just a little bit haunted, a little bit lost. Like somethingās missing. And sheād never said goodbye.
