Why Live With The Dursleys

[tenpinkpiggies at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 28432

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Rowena Grunnion-Ffitch 
<rowena_grunnion_ffitch at y...> wrote:
>    Frankly this has been puzzling me ever from the
> first book on. *Why* does Harry keep going back to
> those horrible people? (yes I know he's protected
> while in their care but *he* doesn't know that so why
> doesn't he take action to escape?). 

Aside from the obvious fact that the Dursleys are great characters 
and perform an important role in the book by functioning as foils to 
the wizarding world (ie. muggles) and all the metaphoric resonances 
towards attitudes of snobbery and intolerance that that role entails, 
there are the facts that Harry cannot do magic outside Hogwarts until 
he is of age, he has no muggle money, and he is loath to spend is 
knuts and sickles as he doesn't really know how long they must last. 
Remember how disciplined he was when he REALLY wanted that firebolt?

Cheers,
-Cornflower "Queen of the run on sentence" O'Shea

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"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" - Albus Dumbledore
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