When Petunia met James

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 71129

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "T.M. Sommers" <tms2 at m...> 
wrote:
> darrin_burnett wrote:
> > 
> > And she might have known EXACTLY what role he was believed to 
have 
> > had in Lily and James' deaths.
> 
> She would have no way of knowing that.  When Dumbledore left her 
> the note with baby Harry, he did not yet know of Sirius's alleged 
> involvement, so he could not have told her about it.  There is no 
> evidence of later contacts between Petunia and any wizards or 
> witches.


I believe, without going back to the post, that the sentences before 
the paragraph you quoted spoke about Petunia possibly being in the 
know, which would indicate contact. 

The theory was that Petunia, rather than being able to dredge up the 
name "Azkaban" from 15-20 years back, an nifty bit of recall, was 
actually lying through her teeth and knew much more than Vernon ever 
dreamed.

Dumbledore also likely did know that Sirius was involved somehow, 
because he knew that Sirius was the Secret-Keeper and did NOT know 
that Sirius had switched it to Pettigrew. 

Now, I doubt he tells Petunia that in the note, but he certainly 
might have told her later. It would have been easy enough, since 
Black made the Muggle news after the "gas explosion" that apparently 
killed Peter.

It's also very possible that the OoP Howler was not the 
first "reminder" Petunia had received, and she had managed to keep 
the others from Vernon. Certainly, they would have been tempted to 
chuck Harry out at other times.

The model might be the portrait of Phineas, who had no overt 
affection for Sirius, but was apparently devastated, in his own way, 
when Sirius died. I wonder if Petunia would have felt the same, and 
would have tried to find out what happened.

It all depends on what is really going on in that head of hers, which 
we have little evidence for or against at this point.

With other posters, there was a discussion about when Petunia might 
have met James, if he was the horrible boy. I know there was a 
suggestion of a parents' weekend (obviously since been canceled) but 
another idea struck me.

We saw James as a 15-year-old arrogant berk. BUT, we don't know what 
he was like as an 11 or 12-year-old. He might very well have been 
friends with Lily then, when he wasn't so arrogant, and that is when 
Petunia met him. 

And it might be easier to accept Lily marrying James if the arrogant 
berk we saw in the Penseive was a phase, rather than how he was for 
15 years before changing. Maybe he was a sweet 11- or 12-year-old.

I still tend to think that it was James and Lily and it was after 
they'd started dating. The Dementors might just have been put into 
Azkaban and James and Lily would have been discussing it, perhaps 
heatedly. Maybe James was even pro-Dementor and he and Lily were 
arguing.

Darrin
- The Dementoids would be a great band name.