Petunia and love for Lily? NOT

[antoshachekhonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 137359

> vmonte:
<snip> 
> We have three choices for who this person [the later-in-life magic user] is:
> 
> 1. Filch (Who everyone thinks is a Squib.)
> 2. Mrs. Figg (Am I remembering her name wrong? She is also considered
> a Squib.)
> 3. Petunia (Who everyone thinks is a Muggle.)
> 
> I could see why JKR would giggle about any of the above people
> turning out to be the late bloomer.
> 
> But I think it's Petunia. JKR likes to get revenge on nasty
> characters. She is not going to kill them, that's for sure. Having
> Petunia and her family die at the hands of DEs would be the worst
> thing JKR could do.
> 
<snip>

Antosha--

But JKR has flat-out said she's a Muggle. And--so she told us--she's never knowingly lied 
when asked a question. There's no way that Petunia could turn out to be a witch without 
that quote becoming a willful misstatement of fact.

However, I was reading to my daughter last night and we got to a description of Professor 
Slughorn and something occurred to me: he sounds like he's related to Vernon. What if 
Vernon and Marge's mother had been a Squib niece of the portly Slytherin?

By this reckoning, my guess is that the later-in-life mystery magic user will be Dudley. 
Which would make a different kind of sense out of Dumbledore's admonition that the 
Durselys have been abusing Dudley. What if they've been suppressing his natural--if not 
particularly large--magical ability?