[HPforGrownups] DD at the Dursleys: Why do people dislike the scene?

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 157561

Lupinlore wrote:
Let us turn our attention for a moment to a scene that gets a lot of
discussion and no little heat:  DD at the Dursleys at the beginning of HBP.
Several people have expressed discomfort with or dislike for this scene.  I
confess to being utterly baffled.

It seems that the scene serves two purposes.  One, the more minor purpose,
is to get Harry out of the house while providing some comic relief and maybe
a couple of hints (i.e. Petunia's blush) as to what might be coming.



Sherry now:

Personally, I adore the scene.  I believe we have enough evidence in canon
that the Dursleys have abused Harry, emotionally and physically.  For them
to get tapped on the head by glasses of Meade, and to have a couch come up
and force them to sit doesn't even begin to pay them back for abusing a
child.  Not only did they lock him in a cupboard, then later starve him and
lock him in an upstairs room with bars on the window--what if the house had
ever caught fire--but in this same chapter, Harry thinks that experience has
taught him to stay out of Vernon's reach.  I don't think it's because Vernon
has a thing for shaking hands with his nephew.  I laugh every time I read
the chapter.  I love every second of it.

Sherry