The Dursleys' fear of magic (Was: the whole Christian/Baptism debate . . .)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 153911

<snip rest of post, which Gerry has beautifully answered>
Marion wrote:
> > The Dursleys are scared to death of magic (and why, I wonder? Did
they see something that scared them? Did somebody do something nasty
to them? This is speculation, but I wonder) Just being smallminded and
> bourgois doesn't add up to the overwhelming terror they display. <snip>

Carol responds:
I think that *Vernon's* "terror" results from his view of magic as
abnormal and freakish (possibly he saw Lily performing it when he
visited Petunia before their marriage). Petunia would have had to
assure him that she shared this view (as she probably did, given her
intense jealousy of Lily) for Vernon to continue dating and eventually
to marry her. By SS/PS, she's been so convincing in her aversion to
magic and her magical relatives that he's afraid to mention the owls
and the people in cloaks for fear of offending her (SS Am. ed. 7). Not
that her aversion isn't real--she wants Vernon to see her as different
from her sister, not only sharing but reinforcing his view--but her
fear of magic is based, IMO, on a closer personal acquaintance with it
and with the WW than his.

Certainly, both of them are worried that the neighbors will discover
Harry's "abnormality." (Magic isn't normal; they don't have magical
powers; their son doesn't; Marge doesn't; the neighbors don't. You and
I don't. Even the narrator concedes that Harry is anything but a
normal boy.) Their connection with the Potters is consequently a
shameful secret, rather like having a mother-in-law who's a closet
alcoholic. (My apologies to any list member in a similar situation;
I'm trying not to step on anyone's toes. Maybe the madwoman in the
attic in "Jane Eyre" is a better analogy.)

But, I totally agree, there's more to their terror than this true but
incomplete explanation. (Such explanations are common throughout the
books for everything from DD's reasons for trusting Snape to what
really happened to DD's hand--I could give many other examples of this
tactic, which we ought to be wary of by now, but I want to stay on topic.)

We see from the first book that Petunia knows more about the WW than
she lets on to Vernon. Her "shock and anger" when Vernon mentions her
sister are explained away by the narrator ("after all, they normally
pretended she didn't have a sister," 7), but I think Petunia knows by
that time that something is going on, quite possibly that her sister
is in danger or dead, and that she may have to care for her sister's
child against Vernon's will. ("Remember my last" suggests that DD has
communicated with her more than once.) At any rate, she seems to be
overreacting to Vernon's tentative references to the Potters. I'd be
very surprised if she hasn't at least seen owls and cloaked strangers
herself and drawn her own conclusions, rather grimmer than Vernon's
fears that the neighbors will discover their relationship to the
Potters. It's no accident, IMO, that JKR has chosen Vernon rather than
Petunia as her POV character for this section of the chapter. And it's
Petunia who finally releases her pent-up frustration to Harry when
Hagrid tells him he's a wizard. Finally, she can say aloud that her
sister was a witch, or rather a "freak," who carried frog spawn in her
pockets and transfigured teacups and that Harry's parents weren't
killed in a car accident. It's almost as if the secret has been
torturing the gossipy Petunia, for whom a secret is something to be
passed on, not kept--unless it concerns yourself and your family.
(BTW, I wonder what would have happened if Petunia had married, say,
Peter Pettigrew instead of Vernon.)

At any rate, I agree that there's more to their terror, especially
Petunia's, than "being small-minded and bourgeois"--i.e, worried about
being looked down upon by the neighbors and losing business prospects
because Petunia's relatives (and later, the nephew they've unwillingly
taken into into their home) aren't "normal" or "respectable," in the
sense that they would use those terms. Yes, Petunia regards Lily as a
"freak," but she also knows about Voldemort and Dementors, as we
discover in OoP. In SS/PS, she accidentally reveals to Harry that his
parents were "blown up" (perhaps she's confused, not knowing about the
AKs and thinking that they died when the house exploded). Even Vernon
knows that magic can blow up a house, which is why he's afraid to
leave Harry alone in the house (SS 25). And both of them have
witnessed Dudley being given a pig's tail by a strange "giant" with a
pink umbrella and dropped through melted glass into a cage with a
giant snake. More recently, their fears have been reinforced by the
"blowing up" in a different sense of Vernon's sister, strangers
bursting out of their fireplace, Petunia's Howler, and the effects of
the Dementors' attack on Dudley. Vernon has been forced to concede
what Petunia knew all along, that magic is real, but recent events
have done nothing to diminish their fear and distrust of magic and
everything to increase it.

I'd say that they have good reason to fear magic, increased with every
book. Not that their fear in any way justifies their treatment of
Harry, but it certainly explains their attempts to suppress his
magical tendencies and their unwillingness to send him to Hogwarts in
the first place, as well as their fear of what the neighbors will think.

Carol, hoping that Petunia will finally tell Harry what she knows
about GH and the WW before he leaves the Dursleys forever