Dudley Demented (???)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 107233

Snow wrote:
>> Lets look at what young wizards of Dudley's age had to say about
the experience of meeting a dementor and match it to what Dudley
himself had to say when the dementor attacked him.
<Young wizards' quotes snipped>
> Now lets match this up with what muggle Dudley had to say:
> 
> OOP pg. 30 "All dark," Dudley said hoarsely, shuddering. "Everything 
> dark. And then I h-heard
things. Inside m-my head
"
> OOP PG.31 "horrible," croaked Dudley. "Cold. Really cold." 
> " " " "          "Felt
felt
felt
as if
as if
" "As if you'd never be 
> happy again," Harry supplied dully. "Yes," Dudley whispered, still 
> trembling. 
> 
> Dudley in just the few statements he made expressed the sentiments of 
> all the other child wizards. In fact Dudley's reaction was more like 
> Harry and Ginny even Malfoy. Dudley threw up and was shaking, feeling 
> extremely faint. Even some of the young wizards like Fred, George, 
> Ron and Neville were not affected to "this" degree. 
> 
> Now take a look at the attack on Dudley from the dementor:
> 
> OOP pg 19 Dudley was curled on the ground, his arms clamped over his 
> face; a second dementor was crouching low over him, gripping his 
> wrists in its slimy hands, prizing them slowly, almost lovingly apart

> 
> The dementor took Dudley's hands away from his face. Dudley may have 
> had his eyes shut tight but he must have felt the dementor grab at 
> his wrists and pry his arms away from his face. How could he not
feel the tugging of something forcing his arms away from his face so
that  he could be kissed? 
><snip>
> Here lies the conflict; did Dudley see the dementor? Did he have his 
> eyes shut? What is meant specifically by "feel their presence"; is 
> it "sense" their presence or "physically" feel their presence? If it 
> is sense their presence then why did Dudley obviously feel something 
> pry his arms from his face? 
> <snip>
. Dudley appears to be a hidden wizard to me. 

Carol responds:
Although these are interesting passages, Dudley doesn't say that he
*saw* the Dementors, as he surely would have done if he'd really seen
them. Instead he reports *hearing* voices in his head. All he *saw*
was darkness.

As numerous posters have pointed out, Harry shouted to him to keep his
mouth closed no matter what. Dudley, if you recall, has been the
victim of magical mischief twice, once involving his mouth (tongue)
and he's protecting that vulnerable part of him, IMO, partly because
of that memory and partly because of Harry's words. Remember that in
GoF he claps his hands over his bottom to protect it--his previous
experience with magic involved a pig's tail.

As for feeling their presence versus feeling their hands prying his
hands away from his mouth, I think they're two different things.
Presumably Muggles are not the Dementors' normal prey, just as Muggles
don't have Doxies in their curtains. Any Muggle whose soul had been
sucked wouldn't have been able to report the experience of feeling the
Dementor's horrible hands. And we can't even be sure that Dudley *did*
feel them since he only reports cold, extreme unhappiness, and hearing
voices in his head. 

And Harry yells at Dudley, "COME BACK! YOU'RE RUNNING RIGHT AT IT!" 
(OoP Am. ed. ). Obviously if Dudley could see the Dementor, he'd have
done no such thing.

Again, I think that he kept his mouth tightly shut with his hands
clamped over it because the desperation in Harry's voice convinced him
that was the only way to protect himself. He certainly didn't know
about the Dementor's kiss, but he did know that very unpleasant things
could happen to his mouth. And he could sense that something horrible
was near him. But if he had actually seen something as terrible as a
Dementor, he would surely have fainted or screamed or run the other
direction--*not* toward it. That makes no sense at all.

Carol, who doesn't understand why anyone would *want* bully!Dudley to
be a wizard or believe that he could be one despite the narrator's
statements in *every book* that the Dursleys are Muggles