Innocent Alby?

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 122940


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "xcpublishing" 
<xcpublishing at y...> wrote:
 While reading CoS the other day, I was struck by Harry 
> mentioning his "worst birthday ever" and that the Dursleys rarely 
> even acknowledged his birthday.  (How would Harry even know when 
his birthday was?  I find it hard to believe the Dursleys would EVER 
have  brought it up, or even bothered to remember in the first 
place... but I digress.)  

Tonks now:
Harry knows his birthday because the Dursley's are not monsters. 
They are human beings that don't give Harry the same treatment as 
their own son, but they don't beat him, starve him, etc.  He feels 
like they do.  And we feel like they do because we are seeing the 
world through his eyes.  He gets some acknowledgement of his 
birthday. A hanger. A sock or something.   I am not saying that the 
Dursley's are wonderful people.  I am saying that they are not as 
terrible as everyone thinks that they are.  Harry hasn't had much in 
the way of material things and material things do not mean anything 
to him as a result. That is not a bad thing; in fact in some circles 
it is a very good thing.  Harry is alive and well, so he was not 
starved. Harry is not a fat, little indulged pig like Dudley, and 
that is a very good thing.


Nicky Joe said:
My issue with DD is this:  He takes a baby, drops it on  the 
doorstep of the "worst sort of Muggles imaginable" and never  
bothers to check on the child again, except to have Arabella Figg 
(who is FAR from the kindly grandmother sort, as Harry hated every 
minute he spent at her house, also) keep an eye on him from afar.  
Why in the heck didn't DD have someone drop in once in awhile and 
keep the Dursleys in line?  Or at least keep them from starving him. 
They wouldn't have to reveal that they were wizards, a simple, "I 
used to be a friend of your parents and like to drop by now and 
again to BUY YOU A DECENT SET OF CLOTHES" would suffice.  

Tonks now:
This is a lot like what a lot of people say about God. Why does he 
lets thing happen like this, why doesn't he step in and stop 
it...etc. etc.  DD probably has the same reasons God does.  As to 
someone saying to Petunia "I am an old friend of James and Lily"... 
that would tell right there that the person was a wizard. James and 
Lily, to our knowledge, did not have any Muggle friends.  And I 
think that there was a deal with the Dursley's that Harry would live 
in the Muggle world as a Muggle and that DD and his kind would stay 
away at least until the appointed hour.

Nicky Joe said:
 I just find it revolting to think that good and kindly Dumbledore 
allowed Harry to be raised in an environment that was not 
> only devoid of the magic he had inherited, but also devoid of 
> kindness, compassion, and love.  

Tonks now:
Again this is the anger that some people feel toward God at times. 
And DD had to put Harry with Patunia to protect Harry, it was the 
only way.


Nicky Joe said:
Sending Harry back to the Dursleys instead of letting him stay at 
Grimmauld Place with Sirius was the icing on that little cake.  And 
people wonder why Harry had a bit of anger going in OoP.
> 

Tonks_op
Harry stays at the Dursley's because that is his home and must 
continue to be his home for his own protection. As to Harry's anger 
in the beginning of OoP, that is his post tramatic stress reaction 
to the experience in the graveyard and the death of Cedric.

Tonks-op