Dudley Demented (???)

[mrslestrange]

No: HPFGUIDX 106959

Amey <sherlockholme_ac at r...> wrote:
> I was reading OOtP for some nth time for clues for HBP and came 
across this:
> 
> He had run barely a dozen steps when he reached them: Dudley was 
curled up on the ground, his arms clamped over his face. A second 
Dementor was crouching low over him, gripping his wrists in its 
slimy hands, prising them slowly almost lovingly apart, lowering 
its hooded head towards Dudley's face as though about to kiss him. 
(Dudley Demented, OOtP)
> 
> "Arms clamped over his face"??? Why? How should he know that the 
Dementor is going to kiss him?  From what he says later, he didn't see 
the dementor, then how does he know to cover his face??? >>>



YES!!!!
And why do they go after him, anyway? I thought they were supposed to 
be precision instruments, unless you were trying to block them from 
who they were after. I'm getting this from the PoA movie, however, so 
it's possibly not canon. Why would Umbridge sic them on Dudders?

Also:

(Dudley) "Everything dark. And then I h-heard...things. Inside my 
head..."
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia exchanged looks of utter horror.

PoA p. 30, US edition

Not to mention:

(Vernon to TV) "You didn't tell us where that maniac's escaped from! 
What use is that? Lunatic could be coming up the street right now!"
  Aunt Petunia, who was bony and horse-faced, whipped around and 
peered intently out of the kitchen window.

There are other instances in which Petunia reacts oddly to WW threats, 
and clambers protectively to Dudley, but I can't put my finger on 
them. Simple motherly love, or Deep

"mrslestrange"