Petunia and love for Lily? NOT

[jjjjjuliep]

No: HPFGUIDX 137704

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


> If "but" doesn't mean anything at all, than why did JKR say that 
> Petunia being a Squib was a very good guess? 

Because it *is* a good guess in the sense that JKR is complimenting 
the questioner on being able to make a connection between the concept 
of a Squib (based on remembering the 2 Squibs we'd met at that point) 
and the sister of a witch.  I am pretty sure, from the context, that 
it is not "good" as in "very close."  It's more like "good" as in "I 
commend you for thinking about the clues in the books, but 
unfortunately it's wrong."

> JKR specifically said, that although Petunia was a muggle, there's 
> more to her than meets the eye. That means that "but" in this case 
> means indeed "but", namely that although Petunia is just a muggle, 
> there's a "but".

Right.  "Petunia's a Muggle.  But..." "But she knows a lot about the 
wizarding world despite the fact she pretends it doesn't exist.  She 
knows what dementors are.  She has received correspondence from 
Dumbledore.  She's gotten owl-carried letters that Harry doesn't know 
about until she gets the Howler in OOtP. She knows why Harry has to 
stay in Little Whinging every summer.  She knows about the magic that 
protects him and her family."

I am sorry but IMO there's no canon for "But..." to mean "But she 
still has magical powers."  I understand that people are going to 
debate this until book 7 is released, but I am not given to making up 
huge long convoluted stories about the books which contain details 
which do not exist on the pretext that book 7 is somehow going to 
trace the discovery of last Horcrux, the finding of all of the extant 
Horcruxes, the destruction of all of the extant Horcruxes, and 
resolution of the plot line with Snape, and the downfall of Voldemort 
and yet explain to us that Lupin is secretly evil, Lupin and James 
were lovers, Ginny had to resort to a love potion perfume to get 
Harry's love, etc.  None of that is going to happen.  All of the 
backstories, save those that involve what happened in Godric's Hollow 
and Snape (and what Dudley saw when he met the dementor) are there.  
We'll learn some more about other things, but IMCO she's not going to 
stop the action flow of the book to discourse on how Lily was James' 
beard.  I hew close to the facts in the book, perhaps with a few 
leaps of logic based on deduction from things that are clear, in my 
approach to figuring out book 7.  Not every word in the book, nor 
every word she she uttered, has signficance.  Some elements are there 
just for fun and as a lighter touch.  And I personally think it's a 
big mistake to read a lot into the word "but" in an extemporaneous 
remark.

All of the above is simply my opinion based on my preferred way to 
disentangle the clues in the first 6 books.  I realize the mileage of 
others may vary and I am interested in what other folks say. I want 
to guess correctly about what will happen in the last book, and so I 
am happy to have my facts corrected so I can reach that goal.  But 
unless a counterargument is going to hew close to what is canon, it 
is going to be unlikely to sway me.  If we were on book 4--maybe.  
But there's only one book left to go and the story arc is going to be 
fairly tight.

jujube