Hey everyone! Welcome to another episode of Harry Potter Theory.
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Near the beginning of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows (pt1), the Wizarding World was in
turmoil. The imminent threat of Voldemort and the Deatheaters meant that not only witches
and wizards were in danger, but muggles too. Knowing that the danger would eventually stretch
beyond the confines of the wizarding world, Hermione granger knew that she would have
to make a difficult choice. Hermione was a prominent figure in the fight against Voldemort,
and this made her a target- and by extension, her family as well. And when things really
started to get out of hand, she was struck with the crushing realization that everything
going on would effect her parents.
This prompted her to take action, action which was very differently represented by the books
and films. Effectively, what Hermione needed to do was erase her parents memories. This
would disassociate them from her, and possibly save their lives, as they couldn’t possibly
reveal information about someone that they had never met. For dramatic effect, the film
really put a lot of focus on this scene, while the book only sort of mentioned it in passing.
In the book, Hermione says to Harry:
“I’ve also modified my 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 have now done. That’s to make it more difficult for Voldemort to track them
down and interrogate them about me — or you, because unfortunately, I’ve told them
quite a bit about you. ”
Hermione’s actions prompted the new couple, deemed ‘Monica’ and ‘Wendell’ Wilkins,
to act on their ambition to move- packing up their belongings and heading straight for
Australia. This also happened just in the knick of time, as the home of Hermione’s
parents was visited by death eater Corban Yaxley shortly after they had left. Had he
been successful in finding them, then I’m sure that the death eaters would have been
able to very successfully leverage the lives of Hermione’s parents- so it’s good that
she took action when she did.
As we can see from what Hermione says to Harry, she doesn’t seem to mention a particular
spell that she used, or indicate that this is an irreversible process. It’s obviously
sad, and she doesn’t want to do it, but it doesn’t seem like she’s done something
that can’t be undone.
In the film however, it’s really quite a dramatic scene. It’s dark, dull, dreary,
and devoid of happiness.
Hermione’s mum calls her for tea, and when Hermione wanders in to her parents living
room, she quietly utters the words ‘Obliviate’, pointing her wand at the back of their heads.
This immediately begins to strip the room of anything pertaining to Hermione, as her
image from the family photos fades away and she is effectively taken out of her parents
memories.
This raises a couple of questions:
First of all, did Hermione ever fix her parents memories?
The answer to this question is YES, and it was actually mentioned in the books that she
always had every intention of finding them and fixing their memories. After explaining
to Harry that she stripped their memories, she follows up with this:
“Assuming I survive our hunt for the Horcruxes, I’ll find Mum and Dad and lift the enchantment.
If I don’t — well, I think I’ve cast a good enough charm to keep them safe and
happy. Wendell and Monica Wilkins don’t know that they’ve got a daughter, you see.”
JK Rowling also confirmed in a web chat that Hermione did in fact eventually restore her
parents memories. She was asked the question: “Was Hermione able to find her parents and
undo the memory damage?” to which she responded “Yes, she brought them home straight away.”
Okay, so we know that they got their memories back. Hooray. But this is also where it gets
a bit hairy. The undefined spell that Hermione uses in the books is clearly described as
something that you can undo, however, in the films she used Obliviate, which is irreversible.
This is a bit of a major oversight on the film’s part as it directly contradicts the
book.
Jk rowling even says in an interview: “They are two different charms. She has not wiped
her parents’ memories (as she later does to Dolohov and Rowle); she has bewitched them
to make them believe that they are different people."
This makes things a little bit more confusing, and I’m really not sure why the film used
obliviate. But, I expect that once again we can just hash it down to book/movie differences
and a desire to increase the level of dramatic effect. ‘Obliviate’ just has such a resonance
when it’s uttered.
However, I do want to look further in to the minutiae of memory charms and how they work.
Many years before Hermione performed the memory charm on her parents, a memory modification
charm was also historically used by Barty Crouch Sr on Bertha Jorkins. When Jorkins
visited the Crouch estate, she discovered that the Crouch family were keeping their
convicted death eater son, Barty Crouch Jr, inside of their home under the imperius curse.
"Yes," said Crouch, his eyelids flickering again. "A witch in my father’s office. Bertha
Jorkins. She came to the house with papers for my fathers signature. He was not at home.
Winky showed her inside and returned to the kitchen, to me. But Bertha Jorkins heard Winky
talking to me. She came to investigate. She heard enough to guess who was hiding under
the Invisibility Cloak. My father arrived home. She confronted him. He put a very powerful
Memory Charm on her to make her forget what she’d found out. Too powerful. He said it
damaged her memory permanently."
And it turns out that it was Crouches memory charm that led to the forgetfulness that Jorkins
had been known for. However, it turns out that Voldemort was still able to extract information
from Jorkins, despite her memory being terribly damaged:
“My master had found out that I was still alive. He had captured Bertha Jorkins in Albania.
He had tortured her. She told him a great deal. She told him about the Triwizard Tournament.
She told him the old Auror, Moody, was going to teach at Hogwarts. He tortured her until
he broke through the Memory Charm my father had placed upon her. She told him I had escaped
from Azkaban. She told him my father kept me imprisoned to prevent me seeking my master.”
What this tells me is that the memory charm that Hermione used was probably never all
that useful. Had Voldemort really wanted to find Hermione’s parents, he would have easily
been able to lift the enchantment and find out what he needed to know. Crouch wanted
to permanently remove information from Bertha’s mind, but that still didn’t seem to work,
so given the fact that Hermione used a milder version of this charm, then I really don’t
expect that it would have held up if Voldemort captured them.
But here’s the thing, Hermione altered her parents memories for a couple of reasons.
Not just to keep them safe, as we’ve addressed, but also to prepare her parents for a reality
where she may not exist. Hermione knows that she’s in very dangerous circumstances, and
that she’s embarking on a very dangerous venture. She knows that she may die, and by
removing herself from her parents memories altogether, she’s able to more comfortably
move forward with her task knowing that her parents won’t have to deal with the grief
of her death. Hermione did the kindest thing that she could for her parents, as if they
were unable to remember their daughter, then they would never have to live their lives
with the emotional distress of not knowing what had happened to her.
After the second wizarding war had ended, Hermione found her parents straight away,
and restored their memories. At this point, they returned to England, and just a few years
later gained both a new son-in-law, Ron Weasley, and grandchildren, Rose and Hugo. Had the
wizarding war ended differently, life would have been very different for the Granger’s,
or should I say, the WIlkins, the parents that found their daughter to be quite peculiar,
but were proud of her all the same.
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UNTIL NEXT TIME
YER A WIZARD ARRY