Slightly OT: Is Aunt Petunia a witch?/Chrestomanci Books

[Alix Petty]

No: HPFGUIDX 8368

This made me think of Miss (argh! can't remember her name - can someone help
me out?) in the Chrestomani book Witch Week; she lived in a world where
witchcraft was verboten, and only ever cast one spell in her life, to ensure
that no one ever found out she was a witch.

This is an interesting question; perhaps Aunt Petunia has supressed this
part of herself since she was a child through inate fear and just discreetly
threw the Hogwarts letter away, then was consumed with jealousy as she
watched her sister go off to Hogwarts without a care.  However, I think the
most likely explanation is that she is a muggle, who started off being
jealous of her witch sister, and then maybe became even more vehement
through fear when she saw what happened to Lily and James.

I don't see the muggle community having a great communal fear of witches and
wizards; after all, the muggle born students' families seem to accept having
a witch or wizard without any major problems.  However, this may be just
because the wizarding world keeps itself so well concealed; if it were more
widely known, maybe people would panic.  After all, the unknown and
unfamiliar seems to be what people fear most.

Alix


> Amy wrote:

> IMO, if she's a witch, she doesn't acknowledge it to herself.  I.e. I
don't
> think she's the thing protecting Harry.  She is WAY too hostile.  I do
kind
> of like the idea of self-hating witches and wizards.  If magical folk are
a
> feared and downtrodden minority, stands to reason a lot of them would be
in
> the closet to themselves as well as the rest of the world.  Aunt P could
be
> one such.