[HPforGrownups] Dursley Questions

[Christina Gross]

No: HPFGUIDX 5156

On 04.11.2000 at 03:30:01 Jim Flanagan wrote:
>There are some questions I have regarding the Dursleys:
>
>- What do they know about Voldemort?  Surely they would have asked 
>questions when the Potters were killed and their house was blown to 
>smithereens.  Do they understand who Voldemort was (is), and what
>his 
>return might mean to Harry and his blood relations?

I don't think they do. They refuse to believe that anything that
happens in the wizarding world could have an impact on their lives.
Perhaps they didn't even read Dumbledore's letter properly after the
explanation that the Potters were dead and they were Harry's only
remaining relatives. 

>- Does anyone in a position to know ever say explicitly that Lily
>was 
>a muggle-born witch?  Could Petunia have been a squib in a wizard 
>household instead?  Harry *assumes* that his grandparents were 
>muggles, but do we know for sure?  

Hagrid says at some point that Harry's mother was muggle born but
still a very talented witch. I believe it is in CoS, when they took
the slug-spouting Ron to Hagrid's cabin and they explained to
Hermione and Harry what mudbloods are. 

>- When and how did Lily and Petunia's parents die? They must have 
>been comparatively young (50s or 60s) when Harry was born.  Might 
>they have been killed by Voldemort?  

I doubt it. If it had been important for Voldemort to kill Lily's
blood relations, why did he spare Petunia and Dudley? OTOH he might
not have gotten around to killing them before he found the Potters. 

>If so, could that have 
>traumatized Petunia into rejecting "the wizarding world" completely?

Petunia's rejection of the wizarding world goes back to the time when
Lily found out she was a witch. If wizards had killed her parents,
wouldn't she have blamed Lily and mentioned that in her litany about
the horrible things her sister did to her which we got to hear. And
she would take the threat Voldemort poses more seriously for Dudley's
sake. 

Gen wrote:
>What I continue to be 
>surprised about is that they continue to keep Harry, when they seem 
>only to keen to leave him at train station in PS/SS. Maybe that was 
>to scare him and they would have returned for him when he couldn't 
>find Platform 9 3/4. Perhaps having Harry around is something which 
>puts them in a good light. On the surface, they would appear to the 
>unknowing public as good upright concerned relatives.

The Dursleys do their best to hide the existence of their nephew from
the unknowing public. They never wanted Harry around and IMO they now
only keep him because they are afraid that his wizard friends will
make them if they refuse. 
I wonder why Harry doesn't permanently move in with the Weasleys,
though. The Burrow is considered a safe enough place for him to spend
half his vacation. 

Greetings 
Christina
--
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists
elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
 - Bill Watterson: Calvin and Hobbes. Weirdos from another Planet

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