Is Petunia magical?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 160331

Davida wrote:
> Petunia was afraid of what the neighbors would think if Harry used
> his magic. Though DD did send her a howler when Vernon was wanting
to kick Harry out. She might have had magical powers but chose not to
use them even though her sister Lily had magical powers.
>

Carol responds:
As others have pointed out, JKR herself has squashed that rumor.
Petunia is a Muggle and will never exhibit magical powers--except that
"magical" ability to create a sparkling clean house that some people
with OCD exhhibit in real life. (She'd get along reasonably well with
another fictional character, Adrian Monk.) And given Petunia's
jealousy of "the witch in the family," I can't see her choosing not to
use her magical powers if she had them, much less marrying the
arch-Muggle Vernon Dursley. Nope, she'd have gone to Hogwarts and
probably been placed in Slytherin, if only because that's where JKR
places most of her unpleasant characters.

It's been clear, at least to me, since Book 1 that Petunia knows more
about the magical world than Vernon does and that she's keeping
secrets from him as well as from the neighbors. When she looks out the
window in PoA "as if expecting to see an escaped rhinocerous" after
seeing Sirius Black on TV, it's just possible that she knows who
Sirius Black is (Harry's godfather and a friend of the Potters). Does
she also know that he was (supposedly) the Potters' Secret Keeper, the
betrayer of her sister and brother-in-law? Might Mrs. Figg have told
Petunia (but not Vernon) about the aftermath of Godric's Hollow,
including Black's ostensible role? (If so, he could very well be the
"awful boy" who told Lily about Dementors.) Or does Dumbledore's
"Petunia, remember my last!" imply a correspondence with Dumbledore as
opposed to a single earlier letter tucked inside Harry's baby
blankets? (Must have been some sort of spell on him to keep him from
toddling off if he woke up in the night, BTW!) At any rate, Petunia
knows more than Harry or Vernon thinks she does about the WW. I hope
she'll at least show Harry the note tucked into his baby blankets in
Book 7, possibly after Harry saves her life.)

I expect (and hope) that it'll be Mrs. Figg who reveals previously
dormant magical powers in Book 7, and I think that one of DD's
purposes in imposing himself on the Dursleys' hospitality in HBP was
to mention 12 GP as "headquarters" in front of the Dursleys so they'll
be able to take sanctuary there in Book 7 despite the Muggle-repelling
spells and other protections, which perhaps Mad-Eye or Bill Weasley
can lift now that the SK has told them the secret. (Maybe Vernon won't
make it out of 4 Privet Drive alive, but I suspect that Petunia and
Dudley will, as JKR has promised to reveal what Dudley heard when the
Dementor attacked him.)

Carol, imagining Petunia shrieking in horror at the house-elf heads
and standing on a chair to avoid Kreacher