Aunt Petunia & Hogwarts

[mochajava13]

No: HPFGUIDX 88343

sleepingdragonzz:
I was looking through my copy of the 5th book, and I'm wondering if
Aunt Petunia may have been invited to attend Hogwarts with Lily, but
refused. She does seem to know a great deal about the magical world,
even though she would rather pretend that it didn't exist. Wouldn't
it be interesting if Aunt Petunia had some magical powers that she
has tried to "squash" out through the years? As we all know, you
can't "squash" out the magical power of someone, even though Uncle
Vernon and Aunt Petunia had tried to do so with Harry. Anyone have
any thoughts??

Sarah responds:
Completely agree with you on this idea.  Aunt Petunia knows too much 
about the magical world; she knows about the dementors and knows 
about what the wizarding world was like when Voldemort was 
powerful.  And she is just too obsessed with being "normal".  It's 
as if she's trying to prove to herself that she's normal.  There's 
so many little things in the books that point towards this.  In book 
1, Vernon thinks that he can ignore the letters that Harry gets from 
Hogwarts and the letters will just disappear.  Petunia doesn't 
agree, but Vernon ignores her.  Maybe she knows this from 
experience?  Plus, if Petunia got a Hogwarts letter, it would have 
been when Voldemort was powerful, and out to kill muggle borns.  
Petunia thinks that Lily is a freak, and blames Lily for Lily's 
death.  (In book 1, Petunia say Lily went and got herself blown 
up.)  Maybe Petunia thinks Lily is a freak not only because Lily's a 
witch, but also because Lily voluntarily joined a world where people 
like them (muggle borns) were targeted for death by an evil wizard 
and his henchmen?  

Also, doesn't it say somewhere in book 5 that if a wizard's powers 
aren't used, they wither away?  (I think it was in Umbridge's speech 
at the beginning of the year...)