Dursley's and Harry (The Dursley's are awful!)

[vmonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 122979


Alla wrote:

"And laughing like a maniac, he dragged Harry back upstairs.
Uncle Vernon was as bad as his word. The following morning, he paid
a man to fit bars on Harry's window. He himself fitted a cat-flap
in the bedroom door, so small amounts of food could be pushed inside
three times a day. They let Harry out to use the bathroom morning
and evening. Otherwise, he was locked in his room around the clock.
.........
The cat-flap rattled and Aunt petunia's hand appeared, pushing a
bowl of canned soup into the room. Harry, whose insides were aching
with hunger, jumped off his bed and seized it. The soup was stone-
cold, but he drank half of it in one gulp. Then he crossed the room
of Hedwig's cage and tipped the soggy vegetables att he bottom of
the bowl into her empty food tray. She ruffled her feathers and gave
him a look of deep disgust. "It's no good turning your beak up at it -
that's all we've got." said Harry grimly.
He put the empty bowl back on the floor next to the cat-flap and lay
back down on the bed, somehow even hungrier than he had been before
the soup." - CoS, p.22, paperback.

vmonte responds:

I agree with you Alla. The Dursley's are cruel and abusive. JKR's 
description of Harry in SS/PS is that he is a small skinny child. 
Even Dumbledore makes a comment in one of ther later books about 
Harry's condition when he entered Hogwarts. IMO Harry was often 
starved in that house, and was smaller than other children his age 
because of it. That is abuse. I don't know any social worker who 
would condone the guardians of a child who lock him/her in a room, 
placing bars on the windows, and creating a cat flap so that cold 
bowls of soup can be pushed through the door. (People in prison get 
better treatment.) And how thoughtful it was of them to allow Harry 
to go to the bathroom once in the morning and once at night. They are 
sick!

Vivian