On the other hand (was Re: Disliked Uncle Vernon)

[a_reader2003]

No: HPFGUIDX 93107

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> What reason did DD give to Minerva that night in Privet Drive? He 
> didn't want Harry growing up spoilt and thinking he was somebody
> special. What better place to avoid that than with kindly, 
solicitous Uncle Vernon. 

Carolyn:
After we find out about how arrogant James and Sirius were at school, 
and their evidently well-off and privileged backgrounds, I have often 
wondered whether another factor for DD was to ensure Harry didn't get 
that kind of upbringing. There was the issue of the blood protection 
for Harry, of course, but the kind of life he was going to get at the 
Dursleys may actually have appeared to be another 'good thing' in 
DD's judgement. 

Perhaps he had seen too many parallels in the behaviour of young 
James and young Lucius Malfoy, albeit they were on different sides. 
Draco certainly struts his stuff in just the way Harry might have 
done if he had been brought up in a mansion somewhere, complete with 
magic scar and interesting hero-history.

DD's a pretty cold fish, and the WW is a rough place at the best of 
times, with people hexing each other at the slightest provocation 
(look at the queues at St Mungo's on Christmas Day, or the way the 
kids hex Malfoy & co on the train - no one acts particularly 
surprised or calls in the aurors or hit-wizards). I am not sure he 
would be bothered that Dudders might beat up Harry - Harry's magical 
after all, and can't really be harmed. 

The psychological damage to Harry of being unloved is another matter, 
but I don't think DD would have given it great weight. By the end of 
OOP he maybe has begun to have more of an insight here, because of 
his own care for Harry which has grown up since the boy arrived at 
Hogwarts, but I personally was pretty unmoved by his tears when he 
talked to Harry after Sirius's death. They struck me as more self-
pitying than produced by Harry's suffering.