Dursleys abuse

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 117461


Alla wrote :
"Your Honor. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury. It is the prosecution 
position that Petunia and Vernon Dursleys should be found guilty of 
abuse and /or neglect of their nephew Harry Potter.

(snip)

P.S. Strangely enough, I tried to think about any possible defense  of
Dursleys and ... well, I failed.

It is very easy for me to imagine the defense of Snape. For Dursleys,
well, I see none. One can say that Dursleys did not ask for Harry to
be brought to live with them. True, they did not. But to me, the
sister does have some kind of obligation to take care of her orphan
nephew if necessary, so this defense does not sit well with me, either."

Del replies :
I'm not saying that the Dursleys aren't guilty, because they are IMO.

But I do think that the point you brought in their defense matters.

Yes the sister has an obligation, moral and maybe even legal, to take
care of her orphan nephew. But take care she did ! 

Harry did not die of starvation. He apparently did not suffer from any
nutritional deficiency either, though his scrawny appearance might
indeed have been due to the fact that he didn't eat enough for his needs.

He went to school. 

He wasn't left naked.

He wasn't physically tortured. The Dursleys did beat him up (but never
anywhere near to death), but they seem to consider this as acceptable
in all cases where discipline is required. They never see that Dudley
needs to be disciplined by them, but we don't hear them complaining
because someone else disciplined him either.

He was used as a servant, but not continually. When Harry had to spend
the whole day working like a dog in the sun in CoS, it was made very
clear that this was exceptional.

All in all, the Dursleys did take care of Harry. They did a pretty bad
job of it, granted, but it was still a good enough job that Harry
managed to live at Hogwarts.

Petunia obviously had deep emotional issues regarding her sister from
a quite young age. The enmity and jealousy she felt towards her were
enormous. The efforts she made to cut herself off, both physically and
emotionally, from Lily were amazing. She built a life for herself, a
life as close to pefection as she could imagine, with a powerful
husband and an adored son, in a neat little house in a respectable
neighbourhood. She had finally obtained total control over her own
life, and she had discarded everything that had made her teenage years
miserable : the facts that her sister was a freak, and that their
parents favoured Lily because of it (at least in Petunia's eyes).

She might have come to a better understanding of the situation and to
some kind of healing, if she had been given enough time, but things
didn't turn out that way. Petunia was still pretty young and she had
barely had time to settle into her perfect life when Harry was dropped
on her doorstep. I have no problem understanding that she blew up a
casket, especially since she was also left alone to deal with the
situation (a DD specialty apparently). She received no support, she
received no incentive to behave, she was left to deal with the
situation as she could. But she *couldn't* deal with it, as DD knew
very well, so she got everything all wrong.

I don't approve of what she and Vernon did, but I can't completely
blame them either. They are only human, and what was asked of them was
inhuman in my idea, especially without giving them help or at least
keeping a watchful eye on them.

Del