Petunia and Lily

[hfakhro at nyc.rr.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 17154

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Chris <eyegrrl at e...> wrote:
> Is it possible that Petunia wasn't so turned off my magic until she 
met 
> Vernon and he had some extreme thoughts on the idea which colored 
her own 
> issues from childhood.  I do think that we'll be seeing a huge 
revelation 
> from Petunia at some point in the next book or two. I think there 
are too 
> many loose ends concerning Lily's side of the family.

We definitely need to hear more about Lily's side of the family - I'm 
very curious to know about the people who were grandparents to both 
Harry and Dudley! Uncle Vernon definitely seems to get angrier about 
magic than Petunia, so maybe he did influence her views in that 
direction. However, if we remember the infamous Petunia speech at the 
hut, it seems her resentment of Lily and magic stemmed from 
childhood. She talks about how her parents were so happy to have a 
witch in the family and how Lily used to turn teacups into frogs or 
something. I have the feeling that the dislike of magic definitely 
came from childhood and not necessarily from Vernon.

> 
> Maybe Petunia is just upset because the magic gene obviously 
skipped her 
> and her son (that we know of so far) and seeing Harry get the 
letter brings 
> all these old feelings of inadequecy to the surface again.  We know 
that 
> Dudley wants (and gets) everything he asks for, and some things he 
> doesn't.  We know that the Durselys can't say no to Dudley, so what 
if all 
> of this 'magic hating' was premeditated to trick  Dudley into not 
wanting 
> the letter if it ever arrived for him.  When it arrived for Harry 
and not 
> Dudley, he was in the boat with his parents regarding his attitude 
toward 
> magic.  He wanted notihng to do with it, therefore saving Vernon 
and 
> Petunia from dealing with giving Dudley something he 'wanted'  

OK I'm not sure about this idea - I was under the impression that 
Dudley was completely unaware about magic prior to the scene at the 
hut.. and he is quite impressionable and conditioned to believe in 
the same things his parents do, but I don't think they specifically 
had a magic-hating attitude for Dudley's sake. I think the magic-
hating goes much deeper than that... we can see that in the first 
chapter of PS (prior to Harry's arrival) when it says that the 
Dursleys hadn't seen the Potters in years and didn't want to have 
anything to do with them... I think there's something much further 
back that we still don't know about. Also, I think they *can* say no 
to Dudley - they completely ignored him in PS, when he didn't want 
Harry to come with them to the zoo, when he wanted to see the letter 
from Hogwarts, and when Uncle Vernon took them on the frantic escape 
in the car, and Dudley is crying, something about how he had "never 
had a worse day in his life." Usually they spoil him rotten, but when 
it comes to magic, I don't think the Dursleys behave in character. I 
wonder why..