There seem to be a lot of life debts...

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 95231

vmonte wrote:
<snip>
> I have a question. JKR has implied that someone will gain magical
> powers late. If Dudley has been somehow repressed from having
> magical ability (we don't know what deal DD did with Petunia to
force her to keep Harry at their home) will Dudley owe a life debt to
Harry for saving his life during the Dementor attack?


Carol:
JKR's words are "late in life." Dudley, who will still be seventeen at
the end of Book 7 (his birthday is in June) doesn't qualify. My bet is
Mrs. Figg, who definitely does. Surely a Squib with life-long contact
with the WW has more chance of accessing latent magical powers than a
boy we've constantly been informed is a Muggle like *both* of his
parents and *all* of his grandparents? (Lily, we're repeatedly told,
is Muggle-born. Petunia, we're repeatedly told, is just a Muggle.
Dudley, therefore, can't possibly be a Squib, which requires at least
one magical parent, or a latent Muggle-born wizard with the power
squashed out of him.)

That's what the Durselys tried all along to do to Harry, and it didn't
work. We're also told that a life debt is owed by one *wizard* to
another. There's no way that Dudley, whose only form of defense is
boxing, could save Harry. The best he could do is hand Harry his
glasses if they somehow fall off.

Carol, who will be most unhappy if she's been lied to about the
Dursleys being Muggles for five or more books