Petunia and love for Lily? NOT

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 137338

-> Jen wrote: 

I had to laugh a little about this. Being almost 40, "quite late in
life" doesn't equate with Merope using magic at age 20 or however old
she was at the time! And she wasn't a Squib, either, her powers were
merely diminished because of her abusive father. When she cast an
'inaudible' spell at the pot she dropped, it sped across the floor. A
Squib couldn't do that. And Merope was not in 'desperate
circumstances' when she started performing magic, either---that was
the best time of her short life when the Gaunt men went to jail!
> 
> I'm pretty certain we haven't seen the event JKR describes above.


Carol responds:
I agree that we haven't yet seen the event and that it isn't Merope
(or Petunia, who has been established over and over again as a
Muggle--though I do think she knows more about the WW than she has yet
revealed and we'll see that in Book 7).

It seems patently obvious to me that the character who performs magic
"quite late in life" is not the middle-aged Petunia or the very young
Merope but the elderly Mrs. Figg, whom we've already seen in somewhat
desperate circumstances defending Harry, and who, I think, will pick
up his wand when it's been knocked out of his hand and point it at a
Death Eater. (I expect Harry's glasses to be knocked off, too--JKR has
said that his eyes are the key to his vulnerability.) Figgy has lived
in the WW or on its fringes all her life. She knows its vocabulary
(e.g., "The cat's among the pixies now!") and she undoubtedly knows
the names of at least some spells and their corrsponding incantations.
She could shout "Stupefy!" for example, and the bit of residual magic
in her (she can talk to cats and presumably, like Filch, see Hogwarts)
would surface--rather like the surge of adrenaline that once enabled
120-pound me to lift the rear end of my car out of a ditch rather than
starve to death in a pine forest far from help.

Petunia might know which end of a wand is the handle, but it would be
no more use to her in a battle against DEs than a spatula. As for
Merope, she had the power all along, just not the will or the ability
to use it. Her age was very far from advanced, and her circumstances
were not nearly as desperate as the battle Mrs. Figg is likely to
witness when the Death Eaters come to Privet Drive the moment Harry
turns seventeen. (Good point about her using magic when her
circumstances became *less* desperate.)

Carol, who has liked Figgy ever since she battered Mundungus with
those catfood cans