Petunia and love for Lily? NOT

[jjjjjuliep]

No: HPFGUIDX 137389

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "antoshachekhonte" 
<antoshachekhonte at y...> wrote:
 
> 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?

JKR has said absolutely nothing about this scenario so it is not 
possible.  At this point, with one book to go, she's not going to be 
introducing convenient and previously unmentioned and unsupported 
storylines like this into the story.  
 
> 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?

JKR has said that there is nothing more to Dudley than what you see:

-------------------
http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/news_view.cfm?id=80
Sunday 15 August 2004
J K Rowling at the Edinburgh Book Festival
Is there more to Dudley than meets the eye?

No. [Laughter]. What you see is what you get. I am happy to say that 
he is definitely a character without much back story. He is just 
Dudley. The next book, Half Blood Prince, is the least that you see 
of the Dursleys. You see them quite briefly. You see them a bit more 
in the final book, but you don't get a lot of Dudley in book six—very 
few lines. I am sorry if there are Dudley fans out there, but I think 
you need to look at your priorities if it is Dudley that you are 
looking forward to. [Laughter].
---------------------



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "vmonte" <vmonte at y...> wrote:

> jjjjjuliep wrote:
> 
> > Is Aunt Petunia a Squib?
> 
> > Good question. No, she is not, but—[Laughter]. No, she is not a
> > Squib. She is a Muggle, but—[Laughter]. You will have to read the
> > other books. You might have got the impression that there is a 
> > little bit more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye, and you will 
> > find out what it is. She is not a squib, although that is a very 
> > good guess. Oh, I am giving a lot away here. I am being 
> > shockingly indiscreet.
> -----------------
> 
> > JKR has made it abundantly clear that 1. Muggles cannot do magic,
> > and 2. Petunia is a Muggle.
> 
> > Second, I think it's pretty clear with Book 6 that Merope is the
> > person how uses magic late in life. The magic late in life comment
> > goes back to 1999:
> 
> vmonte:
> Merope? I'm confused, wasn't she a witch already? Didn't she die
> young? Besides, why would JKR be laughing the way she is in the 
> quote if she was talking about Merope?

She's not.  You have 1. confused the two quotes and 2. taken them to 
somehow refer to the same person.  If you read them both again, in 
their entirety, and in the context of my post 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/137265) you will 
see that in one interview, from last year, JKR says categorically 
that Petunia is a Muggle. This is the interview where she laughs.  I 
also quoted an interview from 1999 where she made the "magic late in 
life" comment.

> 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.

Again, you have confused the two separate interviews and ascribed her 
behavior (laughter) in one of them to the other, which is incorrect.
 
> 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.

[deletia]

> But making Petunia a witch would be sweet revenge. This is the 
> worst thing that could happen in Petunia's eyes (except for Dudley
> turning out to be a wizard) while at the same time be the funniest 
> thing that I could see happening to her.

Where on Earth, or in the books and interviews, is the canon for 
this?  I am extremely perplexed as to how the author of the series 
can say over and over that Petunia is a Muggle and yet those comments 
are completely ignored.

Isn't this supposed to be a canon-oriented list?  The canon says, 
uneqivocally, that Petunia is a Muggle:

-------------------
http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/news_view.cfm?id=80
Sunday 15 August 2004
J K Rowling at the Edinburgh Book Festival

Is Aunt Petunia a Squib?

Good question. *No,* *she* *is* *not*, but—[Laughter]. *No,* *she* 
*is* *not* *a* *Squib.* *She* *is* *a* *Muggle,* but—[Laughter]. You 
will have to read the other books. You might have got the impression 
that there is a little bit more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye, 
and you will find out what it is. She is not a squib, although that 
is a very good guess. Oh, I am giving a lot away here. I am being 
shockingly indiscreet.
------------------

The fact JKR laughs means nothing.  She's doing a live interview, 
she's interacting with people, and they're laughing together.  

And there's this quote from this year:

--------------------------------
http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet-
anelli-3.htm
Anelli, Melissa and Emerson Spartz. "The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet 
interview Joanne Kathleen Rowling: Part Three," The Leaky Cauldron, 
16 July 2005

MA: What about Harry's family — his grandparents — were they killed?

JKR: No. This takes us into more mundane territory. As a writer, it 
was more interesting, plot-wise, if Harry was completely alone. So I 
rather ruthlessly disposed of his entire family apart from Aunt 
Petunia. I mean, James and Lily are massively important to the plot, 
of course, but the grandparents? No. And, because I do like my 
backstory: *Petunia* *and* *Lily's* *parents,* *normal* *Muggle* 
*death.* James's parents were elderly, were getting on a little when 
he was born, which explains the only child, very pampered, had-him-
late-in-life-so-he's-an-extra-treasure, as often happens, I think. 
They were old in wizarding terms, and they died. They succumbed to a 
wizarding illness. That's as far as it goes. There's nothing serious 
or sinister about those deaths. I just needed them out of the way so 
I killed them.
-------------------

The Evans family is Muggle through and through, with the sole 
exception of Lily--not unlike Hermione's case.

If the canon says, without the trace of a doubt, that Petunia is a 
Muggle, and this is said quite clearly by the author herself--the 
person who knows how the books are going to turn out and the person 
who has never lied to us in interviews, then how is it possible that 
Petunia is going to do magic?  I am completely perplexed.  Do the 
author's own words mean absolutely nothing to some people?



>--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "esmith222002" <c.john at i...> 
wrote:

> As for Petunia, canon suggests that she knows more about the 
> wizarding world than she is letting on. We also have canon that 
> Petunia is a nosy neighbour. Therefore, I'm sure she would have 
> been interested in Lily's 'world'. IMO, Petunia has a piece of 
> information that is going to help Harry.

I do agree with this assessment of how Petunia will surprise us.

> If i was going to guess (and I see no problem with guessing!), I
> can see Vernon making a disparaging remark about DD entering his
> house again and Harry blurting out that he had been killed by 
> Snape. At this point Petunia will link Snape & Lily in some way!

But this I don't.  ;-)  I think Petunia will produce the letter that 
Dumbledore left with Harry and also reveal the mystery behind 
the "PETUNIA REMEMBER MY LAST" Howler.



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:
 
> 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.

A well-reasoned, well-supported idea (as usual from Carol) which is 
not entirely convincing to me.  ;-)  See, this is much too "deus ex 
machina" for me, and IMO out of keeping with JKR's plotting style, 
which doesn't cheat like that.  But if the option of thinking it is 
Merope were not on the table, this is the most sensible option in 
accordance with the canon.

jujube