[HPforGrownups] Why not BRIBE the Dursleys, for heavens sake?

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 123130

Eggplant speculated:
>buys his son lots of expensive gifts.  I don't think Vernon got all
>that money selling drills, he's not smart enough to have a job that
>good. They clearly hate Harry, especially Vernon, and treat him poorly

Well, it's certainly canon that Vernon was in that job _before_ he and
Petunia took on responsibility for Harry.

We don't know the age difference between Lily and Petunia (though I think
it's reasonable to assume that Lily was the younger sister) or how old
Petunia and Vernon were when they got married. But I can imagine the young
Vernon as a rising young sales executive in Grunnings and being something of
an icon of safety, solidity, and respectability to Petunia, faced as she was
during Lily's teenage with a sister who was suddenly able to do outrageous
and incomprehensible things to bend reality (as well as hanging around with
equally outrageous and incomprehensible friends). (And it got her killed in
the end, adds Petunia).

We also have very little canon for Vernon in the workplace. But if
Potterverse history is the same as ours, his firm has survived through two
of the worst periods of economic disaster for English manufacturing industry
and it's still there. If he was _that_ incompetent, he'd either have been
"let go" (sacked to you or me) or have dragged the firm down into bankruptcy
or merger, the way so many others went in those dark times.

I'm not setting myself up as a Vernon fan, but I don't think we can knock
him down on that front,

Cheers

Ffred

O Benryn wleth hyd Luch Reon
Cymru yn unfryd gerhyd Wrion
Gwret dy Cymry yghymeiri