Twins and Duddley

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 145553

Magpie: "Yes, I'm sure the fact that Harry would like seeing his old
bully tormented was part of their thought process. James probably had
similar thoughts when he flipped Snape upside down. He was a dark
wizard and I suspect did plenty of awful things to other people."

What the twins did to Dudley comes under the heading of "rough
justice." JKR has shown us several times she has no problem with
people who deserve it getting their comeuppance. What James did to
Snape was bullying. The intent of the twins, their state of mind, is
quite different from James's when he went after Snape.  With the
twins, you can count on it that if you don't mess with the twins or
their friends, or bully someone in front of them, you'll be okay.  The
twins don't pick on the weak; when they turned Neville into a canary
it was actually a form of acceptance that I bet Neville was glad for,
to be included in the fun even if it was slightly at his own expense.
In other words, the twins are just, DE's are not.

I don't know if James was like that. He certainly wasn't very
attractive in the scene with Snape we saw, and Sirius acknowledged he
wasn't proud of some of the things they'd done.  James seems to have
grown up after that, at least enough to get Lily to marry him and
fight Voldemort. I hope so.

Jim Ferer