Harry in the care of Dursleys -- Petrification -- notification/mandrake

[joanne0012]

No: HPFGUIDX 33482

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "david_p2002ca" <david_p at i...> wrote:
> Rosie wrote:
>  
> > Yes, I agree! For all the reasoning in the world, I do not think 
> > that  Harry should have been left in the care of the Dursleys. They 
> > clearly  hate him, and how they have got away with all the abuse for the 
> > past  13 years is weird.
> 
> I don't think they hate so much as fear him and what he could do.  
> Plus, they have seen the result of magic: it killed Petunia's sister 
> and her husband.  So magic also cost the Dursleys any chance of ever 
> reconciling with the Potters.  Again, as with Snape, Harry is a 
> lightning rod for unresolved emotions and suffers for it.
> 
> Plus, as JKR alluded in one of the Scholastic chats, Dumbledore did 
> not leave Harry without magical supervision.  Remember the old lady 
> who would sometimes care for Harry - Mrs Figg (PS/SS)?  At the end of 
> GoF Dumbledore tells Sirius to "...alert Remus Lupin, Arabella Figg, 
> Mundungus Fletcher - the old crowd."  So the doddering old neighbour 
> may well turn out to be a powerful witch protecting Harry.

In another interview, JKR confirmed that Mrs. Figg and Arabella Figg are one and 
the same.  Or at least, when someone asked whether they were, she said, "Well 
spotted!"  

http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/author/transcript2.htm

But Mrs. Figg lives "two streets away" and only sees Harry when she watches him 
on Dudley's birthday.  So how closely COULD she be keeping an eye on things?  If 
she's an animagus (registered in the 1800s so she wouldn't be on the list 
Hermione saw -- she is apparently elderly, after all) she could be spying on them 
Rita-style but it's just not evident HOW she could be helping Harry on an ongoing 
basis.  Still, as a local ally of Dumbledore, she could be providing periodic reports 
on Harry or serve as a local contact in a wizarding emergency. 

> 
> Dumbledore isn't perfect, I'll admit.  But hiding Harry amongst the 
> muggles (with a magic bodyguard hidden nearby) does make sense, with 
> DEs still on the prowl, torturing and killing.  

Yes, exactly.  Even if Dumbledore knows how badly the Dursleys treat Harry, he 
really has no other choice -- as he explains to McGonagall before leaving Harry 
there.  Harry must have the protection of living with blood relatives.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "jrober4211" <midwife34 at a...> wrote:
> Here is how I would react if I were notified that my child was in a 
> petrified state. I would demand a refund of my tuition paid. I would 
> have no choice but to leave the child in the care of Nurse Pomphrey 
> since there would be no cure in muggle medicine. I would seriously 
> reconsider allowing my child to continue their education at Hogwarts. 
> Depending on whatever waivers I had to sign before enrolling my child 
> in Hogwarts, I might even consider a law suit. But no one ever sues 
> Dumbledore or Hogwarts, god knows they certainly would have several 
> cases against them by muggle legal standards.  

Wizard standards for risk and liability are clearly different from Muggles'.  No 
waivers were presented for the Dursleys to sign.  Kids at Hogwarts are routinely 
exposed to hazards that would be unthinkable in current Muggle schools -- boils 
from accidents in potions class, actually getting killed in Quidditch matches, troll 
in the dungeon, moving staircases.  The only parental response we've seen is 
Malfoy's reaction to Draco's encounter with Buckbeak, and he's not doing that 
because Draco was injured, buit rather to get at Hagrid.  We also have no 
evidence that Hogwarts charges tuition, though Uncle Vernon assumes that they 
do.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "blenberry" <blenberry at a...> wrote:
... are mandrakes that rare that no mature ones could be acquired 
> for months, from anywhere?  I just wondered why Madame Pomfrey, Snape 
> or Dumbledore didn't send for some from Diagon Alley, so that the 
> stricken students didn't have to spend most of a term petrified.  

Perhaps they must be live or fresh for making the potion, and it would be 
extremely hazardous for a merchant to keep  live ones -- no magical creature is 
more lethal.  Also, even though Hogwarts must have notified the parents of the 
petrified students, they wouldn't want to show up in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley 
advertising that they needed quite a large quantity of an unusual ingredient.

How is it that the wizarding world doesn't seem to hear about all the various 
goings-on at Hogwarts over the years -- surely the students are writing  home to 
their parents about this stuff.  Rita digs up lots of material, but the parents of 
Hogwarts students seem very clsoe-mouthed.  Or perhaps the students are NOT 
telling tales out of school, even to their parents.