Redeeming the Dursleys

[Juliet <chetah27@hotmail.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52884

My take of the Dursley's has always been that they evelope themselves 
in varying layers of Denial and Ignorance.  Quick Examples- "Dudley? 
Overweight? And a Bully?  I've never heard such lies!" and "All 
Magic=Bad".  IMO, the only way for the Dursley's to truly redeem 
themselves is if they themselves willingly throw off some of these 
layers and actually realize they are wrong about some 
things*coughHarryandMagiccough*.  I know, I know, it all sounds 
absurd when you're talking about the Dursleys.  

Eric Oppen:

>>One of the things that has been made abundantly clear in all four 
books of
the series so far is the Dursleys' love for their son Dudley. >>

Well, a parent's undying love for their child is rather central to 
the books, wouldn't you say? =P  I think this will play out with the 
Dursley's, as well.  I think one way for them to redeem themselves is 
if they find out Magic is not All Bad, as they believe already.  

Oh, a quick jump to something else.  In your post, you come up with 
various reasons for Vernon's dislike of Magic, most giving him a 
juicy background.  Well, I can easily see his dislike stemming from 
Petunia's.  She went on a rather long rant in SS/PS(in which she 
firmly gives her opinion of her sister), and this quote has always 
stood out to me-  "She stopped to draw a breath and then went ranting 
on.  It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years."  


The M-word has always been a no-no at the Dursley's house.  They 
probably refrained from EVER speaking of Magic and the Potters when 
they could help it, so as not to give Harry enough information, for 
fear he would figure things out(as I said, they like ignornace).  
When Harry popped up on their doorstep, I'm sure Petunia owed Vernon 
an explanation on this child(if she hadn't already given him one, and 
to me I think she would have wanted to have someone who shares her 
views on her sister's "bad" habits and takes her side for once).  I 
can easily see Petunia dressing up the Evils of her sister the Freak, 
and thus painting a very dark picture to Vernon.  So, now we have 
Misinformed!Vernon, it seems.  Well, not near as exciting as 
MemoryChamred! or EmotionallyScarred!Vernon... :)

Well, back to the redemption topic.  I do think that if the Dursley's 
are to get scared into accepting Magic, Dudley will be the key.  As 
for his obecity being the problem Harry has to fix- well, that would 
get rather sticky.  Magic and Medicine already don't mix quite as 
well as I'd like, and to make it believable it'd require quite a bit 
of explaining, I think.  But, then again, maybe that explains the 
hugeness of OotP?   

To make it more simple, something Bad needs to happen(say...some 
crazed maniac breaks into their house, something that our young Hero 
can easily deal with ;).  Something Bad that cannot be related back 
to Harry(and with the Dursleys, that's always trickey. Bad and Harry 
are synonyms, to them).  And it needs to happen to Dudley, and then 
Harry needs to make this Bad go away with magic.  This puts the 
Dursley's in debt to Harry.  What happened the last time someone who 
very, very much disliked Harry was in debt to him?  They helped him, 
because of that debt.  I don't expect the Dursley's to ever really 
*like* Harry.  But, it'd be nice if they could learn to appreciate him
(the appreciativeness stemming from Harry doing them a Big Favor), 
and not be as outrageously unfair as they have been.

Or, Dudley needs to do something Bad.  Something his parents can't 
overlook(again, this requires it be someting Big).  So, preferably, 
Dudley needs to do something Bad that has enough of an effect on his 
parents for them to realize his faults, and in turn, realize their own
(IOW, flinging off that security blanket of Denial).  My first 
thought is a sort of biting the hand that feeds(or shall we say over 
feeds?) him case.  He's already shown a rather greedy nature that 
doesn't stop when it comes to something of his parent's.  I.E., in GoF
(I think..) when Dudley takes his father's slice of grape fruit.  
Just out and grabs it, the little bugger does.  If this were taken to 
the extremity, then the Dursley's might be forced to do something 
about it.  *shrugs*  We'll have to wait and see, I suppose...

~Aldrea, who has always found the Dursley's a little 2-d for her 
liking and thinks a redemption might just be what gives them some 
texture.