Why?

[Bruce Alan Wilson]

No: HPFGUIDX 142992

"a_svirn:

Which calls for interesting question: just why should Vernon and 
Petunia Dursley adhere to Albus Dumbledore's "instructions"? Apart 
from the fact that he can turn them into frogs if they don't?"


Perhaps because when you make a promise you should keep it, and if you are
unwilling to keep it you oughtn't to make it in the first place?

Petunia had choices; she made them.  She made promises; some of them she broke,
and those which she kept she kept in a niggardly and minimalistic way.  There
are consequences to choices and to broken promises.  So far they have been
relatively minor.

Respect is an earned quality; the Dursleys have done nothing to earn respect.
They are contemptible; why not treat them with contempt?

Bruce