Harry's Fairy Godmother and the ancient magic protecting him

[xp39c]

No: HPFGUIDX 41572

stephanie howeth wrote:
  
>>>>>>>>>>>I believe Arabella is a part of what is protecting Harry as well, 
but I have a different point on why she treats him like she does.  
The Dursleys do not want Harry to be happy in any way, so they would 
never send him to a place that he wants to go for babysitting.  If he 
was excited about going to Mrs. Figg's, then the Dursleys would never 
allow him to continue to go there, since they want to keep him as 
downtrodden as possible.  I believe that Arabella acts like she does 
to ensure the Dursleys keep him coming over.  They have to believe 
that she is an old lady with similar attitudes to their own who just 
tollerates the boy, or they would never trust her.  I think when we 
see Arabella again, Harry will be surprised at how nicely she treats 
him, when she is not incognito.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

That would make sense.  Now that I think about it, I have another 
theory about why Mrs. Figg treat Harry the way she does.  Maybe it's 
because she thinks it's how Muggle old ladies behave?  She probably 
grew up in a wizard family and was around wizards all her life, so 
she would have no idea how normal old ladies behave.  When she moved 
into the neighborhood, she had to quickly learn to act like a 
Muggle.  Someone might have told her that Muggles, especially old 
ladies, like to show pictures of themselves and their friends and 
families to other people.  Since she can't show Harry the pictures 
she already had, as the people in them would be moving, she had to 
take pictures of her cats.

On a related note, is she going to be the next DADA teacher?  It's 
going to be someone female, according to JKR, and Fleur Delacour 
aside, Mrs. Figg seemed to be the other obvious choice.

--Hei Lun