GoF: Sending Harry back to the Dursleys.

[irbohlen at email.unc.edu]

No: HPFGUIDX 17277

Gah! I spent an hour at lunchtime today trying to reply to this, 
previewing it about six times to get the line lengths right--and it 
never appeared so I must have hit cancel instead of send!

anyway...

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., catherine at c... wrote:
> This is all fresh in my mind, as I have just finished listening to 
> GoF on cd.  It really upset me.  Hearing it read aloud brought 
home 
> to me again what a traumatic experience Harry was put 
through.  
> Although he seem to be coming out of it, he does appear to be 
in 
> shock and traumatised by the all of the events which occur 
during and  after the third task.
> 

You know, this is weird..I had read GoF a couple of times when it 
came out and thought it was great, but really not as dark as I'd 
expected.

Then I was confined to bed for a month with a broken leg, and 
_listened_ to all the HP tapes [US versions] and, when I got to 
GoF--Wow! I too was incredibly upset. The scene with Voldemort 
was suddenly very frightening ...Cedric's death a tragic irony... 
Harry's return via portkey and refusal to let go of Cedric started 
the tears.. . and the scene with Molly Weasley afterwards had me 
bawling like a baby! Having read it again since, the effect has 
stayed with me. I just don't know why hearing it read was so 
much more affecting.

As to Harry going back to the Dursleys...well, I  think we have to
trust Dumbledore. He was right about making Harry tell the story 
of what happened right afterwards, when Sirius would have sent 
him off to a hospital bed; he was right about leaving Harry with 
the Dursleys in the first place for a "muggle" upbringing so that 
he could have 10 years of _not_ being "famous Harry Potter"... I 
think he must know what he's doing here. And I do think [well, 
hope really] Harry  will spend some time at the end of the 
summer at the Burrow.

It's hard to wait patiently until next year, isn't it? 

Ivis
[Hermione/Ron & Harry/Ginny shipper, but post-canon--they're 
only going to be 18 at the end, yes? :)]