[HPforGrownups] Dursleys (WAS: Harry's dreams/Petunia/Draco's Wand/Hagrid & Crookshanks=Clues

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 53634

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "grace701" <grace701 at y...> wrote:

Could it be that Sirius 
> will be cleared up in perhaps book 5 and come to take Harry away 
> from the Dursleys.  From what I understood in Debbie's post on 
> Dursley's Fears, it seems that Vernon maybe afraid of magic because 
> Sirius and James played tricks on him.  It would be great to see the 
> look on Vernon's face to see Sirius, again.  This can be debunked 
> though: Why recognize Sirius's name in the news?  Did he know if 
> Sirius's last name?  

I'm not certain what Greicy is debunking here, and I'll apologize in advance if I've misread her post, but if she means that Vernon should have recognized Sirius from his appearance on the news in PoA and that his failure to do so indicates that they have never met, I don't think it does, for the following reasons:

1.    Harry doesn't recognize Sirius even though Sirius is in the wedding picture in the album Hagrid gave him.  Sirius has changed too much in Azkaban.  There's no reason to expect Vernon to recognize him.

2.    At least in the portion of the news report the reader hears, Sirius is referred to only as "Black" which is of course a very common name.  Moreover, although the Dursleys are stated to be watching TV when the report on Sirius airs, Vernon looks over his newspaper to stare at the photo of Sirius at the end of the report, indicating that he has likely been reading it and has not been paying attention closely. 

3.    It's unlikely that Vernon and Petunia attended the Potters' wedding (a circumstance in which they likely would have learned Sirius' full name, as he was best man).  In the first chapter of PS/SS, it is stated that Petunia hadn't met Lily for several years.  Based on the Lexicon timeline, several years would date back before the wedding, since this was 1981.  Lily didn't leave Hogwarts until 1978, and the wedding couldn't have been before that.  

4.    In any encounter between James and friends and the Dursleys, it's very possible that James' friends were nameless accomplices, or that Vernon only learned Sirius' first name.

So I don't think any theory involving face time between Sirius and Vernon can be debunked merely because of the news.

Debbie



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