Petunia;well adjusted Harry

[antoshachekhonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 114153

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Hannah" <hannahmarder at y...> wrote:
> > kmc wrote:
> > 
> > IMO Petunia ignored Harry from day 1.  You just don't start 
> treating a child like the Dursley's treated Harry at say age 3 or 
> 4.  Don't forget the memories of the red bike and the fact that 
> there have never been picuters of the other boy who lived in the 
> house.
> > 
> > We have cannon that Harry was left with Arabella Figg when the 
> > Dursely's took Dudley out for his birthday treat.  IMO Mrs Figg 
> came over and was sympathic about Petunia having two babies to care 
> for and did Petunia want some assistance with caring for these 
> babies.  
> > It is only as Harry became more self-sufficient that Petunia would 
> > need Mrs Figg less and less.  I have no cannon for this than the 
> fact  that Arabella was in the original Order and see made Harry 
> look at pictures of her cats.  One of her cats was watching Harry in 
> the beginning of OotP.  I think DD knew at lot about Harry's early 
> > 
> > At night, I think Vernon was the one who cared for Harry.  My 
> cannon for this opinion is:
> > Vernon is the one who talks to Harry about behaving at the Zoo. 
> > (PS/SS)
> > Vernon is the one Harry asks to take him to Platform 9 3/4 (PS/SS)
> > Vernon is the person Harry goes to when he needs his form signed. 
> > (POA)
> > Vernon is the person who wakes up when there are noises in Harry's 
> > room. 
> > 
> Hannah now: What an interesting idea.  I don't know that I agree, 
> though.  Vernon is always made out to be worse than Petunia, and JKR 
> did make that statement about Vernon (not Petunia) being her least 
> favourite character.  I think Harry asks Vernon things, such as 
> about the form/ the trip to London, because Vernon is the 'head of 
> the household' (bit of an old fashioned concept, but it does seem to 
> be true of the Dursleys).  Petunia will normally defer to Vernon, 
> and leave decisions to him.
> 
> I doubt Vernon did any 'night duty' with the babies, partly because 
> they don't seem terribly enlightened about men doing 'women's jobs,' 
> partly because Vernon has to go to work, whereas Petunia is a full 
> time housewife, so it would make more sense for her to disrupt her 
> nights to see to the babies.
> 
> I like the idea of Mrs Figg helping with Harry.  The only problem I 
> have with it is why Harry doesn't have more memories of this, or a 
> closer relationship with her.  And I agree the Dursleys wouldn't 
> have suddenly changed their treatment of Harry.  I was thinking that 
> they were never overly attentive to start with, and that their 
> feelings about Harry deteriorated slowly over the ten years.
> 
> Hannah

Antosha:

It is interesting that, when Vernon is about to kick Harry out of the house (OotP, "A Peck of 
Owls") and Petunia gets the Howler from Dumbledore, Petunia overrules Vernon and he 
caves in almost immediately. There are two possible reasons for this: a) Vernon's status as 
paterfamilias is just for show and Petunia is, in fact, the real power in the house or b) he's 
astonished that she's stood up to him. (I have a memory of him backing down to her once 
before, but can't find it.)

It seems pretty clear that Petunia is the one who insisted that Harry be kept--I rather like 
the image of her taking a certain amount of pride in the idea of squashing the 
freakishness out of Harry. "Tough love" of a sort. (And Petunia seems like the kind of 
person who would read parenting books by the dozen and understand none of them.) 
Vernon and his sister Marge seem always to have loathed Harry. It seems possible that 
Petunia would have enjoyed showing her dead sister up by being the perfect surrogate... 
until Harry began to manifest just how freakish he really was. At which point she would 
have been stuck.

I'm looking forward to seeing JKR's answer re: "Remember my last!" on her site. (That 
seems to be the runaway winner in the latest poll.) It seems to me that her answer will 
probably give nothing away, else she wouldn't have posted the question. Nonetheless, it 
might give us some insight into Harry's entry into the Dursley household.

BTW, I agree (as a dad who DID do 'night duty') that Vernon doesn't seem likely to have 
participated in that particular joyful bonding ritual/Purgatory. (Women's bodies are 
flooded with hormones post-partum; this is wonderful, because it allows them to lactate, 
increases their endurance and ability to function on diminished sleep, etc. Of course, it 
also can lead to post-partum depression, sweats, acne, and a bunch of other really fun 
side-effects. Dads, of course, do without entirely. No hormonal depression, but no 
assistance with sleep-deprivation either. But I digress.) HOWEVER, by fifteen to twenty 
months (Harry and Dudley's approximate ages on the Night), the boys should have been 
sleeping through the night--if not completely, then mostly. The addition of a new toddler 
with a new sleep-cycle would probably have been a bit of a hardship, especially because 
one would have to imagine that he would have been having some pretty horrible dreams. 

Perhaps this was the cause of his exile to the closet--so that Vernon and/or Dudley 
wouldn't be woken by his night terrors? Pure speculation, of course, but it makes a certain 
amount of sense...

Antosha, who is still trying to find his lost sleep...