Etiquette WAS Re: polite Dumbledore?

[Bruce Alan Wilson]

No: HPFGUIDX 142709

Orna:
I agree that DD could have bullied the Dursleys into treating Harry 
better. The mere owl-post addressed towards Harry in the cupboard 
was enough to give him a room upstairs. But, that wouldn't be the 
point. I mean - the whole thing about caring and loving is that it 
has to be done willfully. That's what Voldermort is incapable of 
understanding, when he coerces people into obedience, and thinks 
himself powerful, because of that. I don't see DD coercing the 
Dursleys into caring-like behavior, if it's not an absolute MUST. I 
liked the scene, because, DD's real power was the way he talked, and 
that's also IMO what made Petunia flinch - something got through to 
her.  (Reminds of his wandless dialogue with Draco, which has the 
power to bring Draco to some real confession of the terror he is 
from Voldermort) .  I think that JKR is very consistent in ways of 
showing the many faces of power, and drawing a (not always easy 
line) between coercive and abusive power, and "love-power". 


Bruce Alan Wilson: 
 
DD could have frightened or coerced the Dursleys to be 'nice' to Harry, but he could not have forced them to LOVE him.  Love cannot be forced.  What DD was able to accomplish is to make the Dursleys think about the way they treated Harry and to feel ashamed of it.  While 'shame' has been given a 'bad rap' the last couple of decades, it can be a good thing if it can impel one to change one's behavior from what caused the shame.
 
Now, one might argue that DD shouldn't have put Harry with the Dursleys in the first place, or should have kept a better eye on them during the first 10 years, but I'm sure that he had reasons for doing what he did.  Harry would have grown up with a very different personality had he grown up in more congenial surroundings; perhaps DD knew that he would need the tempering of an adverse upbringing to face what he had to face.
 
Also, I would make a tepid defense of the Dursleys.  They COULD have put Harry in an orphanage, but they didn't.  And I don't remember Uncle Vernon, for all his bluster, ever hit Harry, nor did Aunt Petunia.  When he got the Hogwarts letter, they didn't seem relieved, they didn't say, 'We can wash our hands the brat.'  No, they seemed to think that going to Hogwarts was a bad thing.  Vernon refers to wizardry as 'dangerous nonsense.'  When Petunia talks about Lily's
going to Hogwarts and becoming a witch, she is angry and jealous, but also FRIGHTENED.  In spite of her jealousy, it seemed that Petunia loved Lilly, and Harry is the only link she has to her.  Going to Hogwarts got Lilly killed (or, at least, that's what Petunia probably thinks), and now Harry is going off just like Lily did--and may get killed in the same way.  Petunia is terrified of that, and Vernon (for all his faults) I think loves Petunia and will do anything
to make her happy.
 
All that being said, their treatment of Harry very bad, but they didn't do it out of sadistic love of cruelty for its own sake.  What they did was wrong, but they did it for the right reason, and they will never, never understand WHY they did wrong; that is their tragedy, in a way.

Bruce Alan Wilson