Awful Boy/What isn't Petunia telling?

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 83800

arcticalopex at a... wrote:
>>> I was wondering whom people thought that awful boy was.>>>

To which Del replied:
>>I don't think she was referring to James either. The expression she 
used : "that awful boy", doesn't strike me as being one she would 
use to talk about her brother-in-law.>>

Then Mandy wrote:
> I'm still convinced it's James.  Petunia refers to the all in the 
wizarding world with enormous spite. Including her own flesh and 
blood in Lily and Harry.  Why? We don't yet know and there are many 
theories. But it seems to me that Petunia hates all things witchcraft 
and I am not at all surprised she wouldn't call James by his name, 
and instead refers to him a something disgusting and awful.>

And now Kirstini:
I'm fairly sure that the awful boy in question is James. I'm fairly 
sure of this because he seems to be a fairly easy person to blame any 
sort of wizarding knowledge on, and because I think Petunia is 
lying.  Is it plausible that Petunia would hear the word "Dementor", 
and trot out a sentence like "They guard the wizard prison, 
Azakaban", if she had only overheard this information once, from a 
source she distrusted, twenty-ish years earlier? "Azkaban" is quite a 
tricky word, especially in these conditions, and yet Petunia uses it 
with a certain familiarity. She doesn't say "which I think is called 
something like Azkaboon" <tips hat to CMC>. Then she realises her 
mistake and needs to cover her tracks with a plausible explanation - 
and the only wizard (other than Lily) who Vernon knows she's met 
is "that awful boy" who Lily married.
Something else that doesn't ring true - Petunia doesn't use the 
word "wizard" ever. She says "you-know-what", or employs other 
similarlly delicate euphemisms. And yet, here she is making a 
distinction between "wizard" and "muggle". It would have been far 
more in keeping with what we know of her character for her to say 
something like "that lot's prison" or "the prison, Azkaban" 
(depending on how familiar she is with it). To say "wizard" *does* 
sound like she's quoting someone else, but not pureblood, wizard-bred 
James. Some other Muggleborn? Not Lily, because then she wouldn't 
have to have bothered with awful boys at all. In my wildest moments, 
I imagine some sort of support group for Muggle relatives of wizards. 
Then my common sense kicks in... 

Ah, who knew you could make such a long and involved post out of a 
sentence?
Kirstini, feeling a bit dizzy.