How much do the Dursleys know?

[erisedstraeh2002]

No: HPFGUIDX 44020

Karla (williaka44)wrote:

> What I'm wondering about is what the letter that Dumbledore wrote 
> to the Dursleys said exactly.  

Now me: 

I don't think it's clear (then again, is anything perfectly clear in 
the Potterverse)?  When Hagrid rescues Harry from the Hut on the Rock 
and tells Harry he's a wizard, Uncle Vernon says "We swore when we 
took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish...swore we'd stamp it out 
of him!" (SS, Ch. 4, p. 53 US ed.).  Which implies that Dumbledore's 
letter told them Harry he was a wizard, but that the Dursleys thought 
they could "cure" Harry somehow.  But then Aunt Petunia says (in 
response to Harry's asking "You knew I'm a wizard?"): "Of course we 
knew!  How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she 
was?...and of course I knew you'd be just the same, jsut as strange, 
just as abnormal..." (p. 53).  Which implies that they assumed Harry 
was a wizard because his parents were wizards, but not that they had 
been told this in Dumbledore's letter.

However, Hagrid is under the impression that Dumbledore's letter 
explained everything "You never told him?  Never told him what was in 
the letter Dumbledore left fer him?" to which Uncle Vernon 
yells "STOP! I FORBID YOU!" and Aunt Petunia gasps in horror (p. 
50).  But I think it's perfectly believable that Hagrid assumed this, 
since Dumbledore rarely discloses information to anyone.

I don't see any evidence in canon to support the Dursleys knowing 
about Voldemort, although Aunt Petunia does say that Lily "got 
herself blown up" (p. 53) which suggests that she knows *something* 
about how Lily died.

~Phyllis