[HPforGrownups] Re: DD at the Dursleys: Better Manner to Accept.

[Marion Ros]

No: HPFGUIDX 158045


Steve:
>>>Keep in mind that Dumbledore didn't beat the Dursleys
to a bloody pulp. The wine glasses simply annoyed them,
and the solution was very simple; graciously accept the
glasses but refuse the drink. Dumbledore was not trying
to force the Dusley to /drink/ the wine/mead, all they
had to do was take the glass from the air and set it on
the table, and the whole incident would have been over
with. <<<


Marion:
The Dursleys are absolutely terrified of magic. They're so phobic about it that they even consider their nephew to be so dangerous and disgustingly, subhumanly terrifying that they tried to ignore him and shut him away in a closet whenever possible. It's like you give a devoutly religious couple the baby of the woman's estranged sister (she joined a satanic cult) and it has, in their eyes, horns on its head and cloven hoofs for feet. But they *have* to accept it, because otherwise the satanists come and sacrifice them and their own son to the devil.

Something like that.

I mean, they're not just irritated by magic, they're really and truly afraid of it.

Doesn't anybody ever consider the possibility that the Dursley's are so keen on being 'normal' and 'middleclass ordinary' *because* they feel tainted by Lily's and Harry's magic? Petunia's insistence on being the perfect housewife, keeping her little middleclass semi-terrace sparkling clean, it always sounded so *desperate* to me. As if she tries to keep control in a chaotic, frightening situation by keeping her house immaculate (just this side to an obsessive compulsive disorder - note that compulsive obsessives perform rituals of compulsive cleaning to rid themselves of contaminants: Petunia's house is 'infected' by magic) and Vernon tries to bluff and blunder his way out of his fear and failing miserably. This family is suffering, I tell you. And it's not a situation of their own making. It was forced upon them.

And Dumbledore *knows* they are terrified out of their skin by magic. And so he barges in, even when they insist they want him out (but since when do Wizards listen to the silly bleating of Muggles anyway?) and he freaks them out with his parlour tricks, rubbing their noses in the fact that he is Magic and he is In Their House and they Can't Do A Thing About It.

It's all about showing dominance. Really, if Dumbledore was a dog, he would've peed in all the corners, showing the Dursleys he Owns Them. They have to sit there, in their own home, unable to chuck out their unwanted visitor, knowing that they might yet again have a wizard hexing their son on their hands and there it *nothing* they can do about it?  (pig's tail? choking on enlarged tongue? Hey, if you want to subdue the recalcitrant Muggles who won't sit up and give paw when the big mighty wizard tells them to, just threaten or deform their offspring, that'll larn them uppity Muggles)

Yes, I feel sorry for the Dursleys. Oh, they're not nice people. They're narrowminded and dull compared to the so-called wonderful world of magic (though personally, I wouldn't want to be a part of that world, more about that later) but how much of that narrowminded dullness is induced by heavy denial to the fact that they are forced to raise a magical baby?

Why are the Dursleys so afraid of magic anyway? 

Fandom tells us that Nasty Petunia had a Saintly sister who was just plain *better* than her. Cleverer. More beautyful. Magic. And that Petunia, like the Evil Stepsister in a hundred fairytales, was just plain *jealous* of her more talented sister.
Could be, of course. But Petunia herself tells us about 'turning teacups into rats' as an example of magic her sister alledgedly performed. But this could not have happed before Lily's seventeenth year, since it is forbidden for underage students to perform magic outside the school. But by the time Lily was seventeen, she had also hooked up with James. Around this time, Petunia met and fell in love with Vernon, on can assume (Dudley was born in the same year as Harry, so Petunia can't be very much younger or older than Lily. A few years perhaps)
James was a notorious prankster and he had three friends who were also notorious pranksters. 
I'll lay money on James and Sirius tagteaming in hexing Petunia and Vernon for fun and games. Hey, it was just *fun* you know. And they were *Muggles*. Oh yes, Lily probably 'defended' her sister just as she 'defended' Severus Snape, i.e. not at all (that Pensieve scene was so much about James going 'hey, notice me, the Bad Boy' and Lily going 'Ooooh.. you're just so *giggle* nasty!' it's no wonder it infuriated Snape. To be hated and persecuted is one thing. To be used as a prop in a courting ritual is quite another)

So, I'm guessing Petunia and Vernon have reason to fear magic.

I'm giving kudos to Vernon by the way for sticking with Petunia. He could've left her. He could loudly blame her for having bad blood or whatever. Yet they're still a couple. There is genuine love between them and their son, although the whole situation has warped their family into a twisted, hollow thing.

You know, what bothers me the most about that scene of DD and the Dursleys is how the magical world in general and DD in particular have *used* the Dursleys, without a single concern about what it did to *them*.
Yes, it needs to be said. I've heard several people going on about how DD is to blame that Harry was treated rotten by the Dursleys because he put him there, but I've heard nobody complain about how DD is to blame that this muggle family is a nervous wreckage. They're in denial, they're trying obsessively to be as 'normal' as they can be, but they're ripe for therapy allright. Except they can't get therapy, because if they ever tried to explain to a therapist or a doctor that they have a nephew who's a wizard, they'd be carted of to the loony bin. They're totally on their own. There's no support group. There's no Muggle Families of Magicals Anomynous to go to. They've been forced to take in this child which they feared and wanted to have as little to do with as possible, they've had no help at all when a young Harry started to 'spark' and do little magical things. For nearly their whole adult lives they've lived in fear for this parasite in their midst.

Because that's what this whole situation feels like, to me. There's this insect, a wasp I think, that lays it's eggs in living caterpillars. The larva develops inside the caterpillar and slowly starts eating it, from the inside out. By the time the new wasp hatches the poor caterpillar is finally allowed to die, it's body hardly more than a husk. 

Dumbledore *used* the Dursleys. He forced them to take Harry ("Remember my last, Petunia!"), gave them *no* support or help whatsoever. Didn't even tried to reason with them like one does with another human being, an equal. He needed Harry's bloodkin for his effing protection spell, and isn't that dandy! There was Petunia! And what Petunia wanted, desired or feared to do with her life was so much yesterday's litterbox linings.
And lo, Harry is still not seventeen and ready to burst from caterpillar/hostfamily the Dursleys, but the caterpillar-family has dared to object. Well, can't have that. Let's show them that we can burst into their home, against their wishes. Let's show them who's *boss*.

This seems to be the prevailing ethic of the WW: Might is Right. 

Yes, I feel very sorry for the Dursleys. They never asked for Harry to be delivered on their doorstep. They were never asked to foster a magical child. They were forced into it, and when they do not perform good enough as hosts, they are browbeaten into submission. Every interaction between wizards and the Dursleys leaves me with a dirty taste in my mouth.


Marion, who wanted to write more about the WW's ethics but decides she wrote enough for one mail.

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