Epilogue
After a long and emotional series of hugs, declarations, and tearful apologies, Hermione quickly set about explaining her reasons for what she’d done to her mother and slightly abashed father. He wasn’t upset, per se, more so saddened that he never felt the pull of grief that his wife had. He felt that surely he must have loved Hermione just as much as her mother, but the fact that he wasn’t plagued by doubt and grief rather pointed to a nebulous conclusion there. How does one truly measure the depth of love, and should it ever be compared? Hermione didn’t seem concerned with his responses, she had been unaware that it was even possible to feel as her mother had felt at all so confident was she in her own magic that after casting the spell she’d focused only on her own grief and fear of losing her parents forever.
The fact that magic existed seemed entirely secondary to her parents once she’d explained everything – she hadn’t even cast the reversing spells yet but she did, for the sake of transparency and validation, cast a series of transfigurations and even one pop of apparition, just to ensure them that yes, resoundingly, magic was real and she was magical and that’s how she took their memories away. She would return them in full, she promised, but she didn’t want to risk harming their minds in the process. She would be taking them to St. Mungo’s for observation during the process. They wanted to go immediately.
Having no other plans that day, now that ‘retrieving the Wilkins’ from Australia’ was not on the agenda, Hermione readily agreed. At the hospital, she asked the mediwitches rapid fire questions about why her spell didn’t take hold for her mother, for Jean. They weren’t entirely sure, having not studied many muggle obliviations, but they did suggest that obliviation magic between magical family was notoriously difficult to get right.
Apparently, love was it’s own form of magic. Hermione should have known that, seeing it firsthand in how love protected her very best friend from one of the darkest, most powerfully corrupted wizards of all time. She just didn’t think it was relevant in her analysis logically, when trying to decide how to protect her mother and father.
Jean, however, was immediately unsettled by grief upon the loss of Hermione, even though she couldn’t recall what she’d lost. It was like every ounce of love transfigured into grief, and then confusion, and then anxiety. Had it not, it is likely that the obliviation magic would have simply worked it’s way through her defenses, fizzling out her suspicion. The grief would have remained. But the details would be lost again and again to the power of the memory spell.
As it was, Jean fought the obliviation the moment it was cast upon her, without realizing that was what she was doing. However, that was only partly why the spell had not successfully eradicated every trace of her daughter. She was only a muggle, after all. And even the strongest willed muggles were not matched to withstand even the weakest magics. And Hermione’s magic was renowned for its strength.
So, while obliviation could erase memories, events, people, even feelings…to a degree, the inherent strength available to every mother on earth could not undo decades of love that was powerful enough to rewrite biology.
Powerful enough to allow women to move cars barehanded and un-wand from atop their children.
Powerful enough to overcome distance, and time, and death.
Enough to cast a protection spell against a dark wizard hell bent on destroying a family.
The power of a mother’s love was simply too much to dismantle entirely, even if the person could be erased – the feeling could not be.
And what is grief if not love without the person to give it to?