Threatening the Dursleys at the station (was Re: Why not BRIBE ...)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 123067


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kjirstem"
<stonehenge.orders at v...> wrote:
> 
<SNIP>
> 
> kjirstem:
> 
> Seems to me that paying the Dursley's to treat Harry better is pretty
> close to paying them to take him into their house.  To me it seems
> likely that bribery would negate the blood protection charm that
> allowed Harry safety at the Dursley's house.  After all, could he
> really have called it his home if they were paid to take him in?

Excellent point.  The problem is we don't know that the charm requires
any "willingness."  It may or may not.  It may have required
willingness at the first instance but not later.

However, this raises another very important point.  If bribing the
Dursleys undermines the "willingness" factor, surely threatening them
does so even more.  And yet this is precisely what Lupin and the
Weasleys and MadEye did at the end of OOTP.  Now, if they couldn't be
threatened or bribed before, why is it suddenly all right to do it
NOW?  And if it is all right to do it now, why in the world didn't
Albus get off his be-robed butt and do it a looooong time ago?