Harry and the Dursleys

[Anne]

No: HPFGUIDX 54652

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "mlle_bienvenu" 
<mlle_bienvenu at h...> wrote:
However, [the Dursleys] are 
> not concerned with Harry's welfare, but rather for their things 
(they 
> were concerned about their -house- and their -car- being blown up) 
> Which makes me wonder, what were they going to do when Dudley and 
> Harry were no longer in school together? (If he hadn't gotten his 
> Hogwarts Letter) Dudley was going off to Smeltings while Harry was 
> going to somewhere else. Since he would no longer be in the company 
> of a family member, would that have put the other school in danger 
of 
> a Death Eater attack?

IIRC Harry was going to attend "Stonewall High", a publicly funded 
day-school for local kids, while Dudley was going to Smeltings, which 
is what would be called a "boarding school" in the U.S. We had a huge 
and lengthy discussion about the British school system on the OT-
Chatter list recently, so if you want to see how the two systems 
compare (or wish to restart that discussion), you'll need to read the 
OT-Chatter list messages. Anyway it appears that when Dudley went off 
to Smeltings, Harry would have continued to live with the Dursleys 
had he not finally received his Hogwarts letter.

Anne U
(who just realized that the Dursleys kind of treat Harry like a house-
elf, but much less kindly...perhaps they treat him like the Malfoys 
treated Dobby??)