Harry *wasn't* abandoned

[D.G.]

No: HPFGUIDX 68789

"pippin_999" wrote: 
Just starting my third read of OOP, and this leaped out at me: 

"Harry was very pleased he was concealed behind the bush, as 
Mrs. Figg had taken to asking him round for tea whenever she 
met him in the street." 
It seems to me if Harry had taken her up on it, she'd have told  him 
what was going on. It's interesting that Harry never thinks of  this, 
and goes on being cross with Dumbledore for leaving him without any 
contact with the WW even after he finds out that Mrs. Figg is a 
Squib. 

Me:
 
True, but on the other hand, Harry has been living at the Dursleys' 
for a long time, and there's never been evidence of anything or 
anyone remotely Wizard-friendly within miles (dimensions?) of the 
place.  I think he can be forgiven for assuming that anyone who lives 
near the Dursleys is probably a Muggle through-and-through, and quite 
possibly a vehement ant-Wizard bigot to boot.
 
More pertinent, perhaps, is why it's taken his erstwhile allies so 
long to figure out that the conditions under which he lives on Privet 
Drive are inhumanely abusive and intolerable [which they should have 
known from the beginning, or at least since Hagrid's initial visit to 
pick Harry up], and then get together and do something about it.  If 
anything, Harry should be angry at Dumbledore for allowing this to 
continue, and also for not letting him know he had an ally nearby 
[and if that ally was too dotty to keep the secrets she was supposed 
to keep, then someone else could have been assigned to the job -- the 
Ministry (and/or Dumbledore) sometimes seem maddengly lax in 
assessing the competence of the people they send on some of their 
most important missions!]
 
Parenthetically, I must admit I've been more than a tad 
uncomfortable, since the beginning, with JKR's almost offhand 
portrayal of the treatment Harry receives at home.  In real life, 
parents or other caretakers who lock children up in closets and feed 
them scraps for dinner are arrested for child abuse, and quite 
frankly I was appalled when I saw that kind of thing being described 
in such nonchalant, everyday language in the early books.  [Haven't 
seen the movies yet --I'm "old school" and I prefer to let my 
imagination create my images for me, when I really love a story-- but 
I'm told that the Dursleys are portrayed, more or less, as 
ineffectual, almost slapstick cartoon villains. That does not jibe 
with what I see going on in the books themselves.]
 
Please don't think I'm being "PC" about all this -- I know it's just 
a story; I realize that Harry's Wizardry powers have imbued him with 
greater-than-normal inner strength;  I also realize that the horrors 
of Privet Drive are essential to the overall plot [an epic hero must 
suffer trials and tribulations].  Nonetheless,  it remains very hard 
for me to get through the opening chapters of most of these books.
 
D.G.  ("JazzmanChgo")