Petunia and Lily (was why do people dislike this scene)

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 158071

katssirius:
> Petunia never comes across as hateful to me.  She is terrified.  I 
see her as a snapping dog in a corner that will bite you and run out of 
pure animal terror.  

Ceridwen:
My youngest, age 14, has a class in school that talks about success in 
high school and other things like relations with parents.  They were 
shown a movie about the way different age groups see things 
differently.  A face was shown to a group of teens and a group of 
adults.  The teens thought the face was angry, the adults thought it 
was scared.

We have independent proof of this.  We have a picture of my great-
grandmother hanging on our wall.  The entire time I was growing up, I 
thought the woman was angry and hateful.  When I look at it now, I see 
her as frightened.  The white-knuckles on the arm of the chair, faded 
in the picture, and stiff posture, are a good indicator that I'm 
right.  I asked my daughter what she thinks of 'old hawkface', and she 
thinks the woman is angry.

We can't physically see the Dursleys in the books.  So what one reader 
brings away as anger and abuse, another reader brings away as utter 
fear.  It depends on our own experiences, I think, personal experiences 
and knowledge of the experiences of others, rather than age.

Fear and anger can play against one another in a character, so fear 
will make a person hateful, anger can lead to fear since anger is 
illogical and can make a person do things without good judgement of the 
outcome - a frightening scenario once the anger has subsided.

Marion commented that there doesn't seem to be some support group for 
Muggles in charge of budding wizards and witches.  As far as we know, 
given the limited POV, no WW counsellor has ever come out to the 
Dursleys to assist them in dealing with a magical child.  As far as we 
know, there is no one Muggles entrusted with a magical child can call 
when the child flies to the roof of a building at school, or grows his 
hair back overnight.

This isn't just a comment about the Dursleys, but by extension, about 
the Grangers, the Creaveys, Mrs Thomas, and other Muggle parents or 
guardians of WW children.  From the time these children are born, they 
are recognized on the Hogwarts rolls, so the WW knows they're out 
there.  But until they receive their Hogwarts letter, there is no 
communication, no attempt at helping frazzled parents who are watching 
the strained peas float across the kitchen.  I too think the WW is 
xenophobic, to the point of undermining their own Statutes of Secrecy 
by not offering help for Muggles in these situations.  They certainly 
aren't making friends of the Muggles who are subject to outbursts of 
accidental magic from their exceptional children!

I mean, can you imagine how different things might have been if some WW 
liaisson had come to the orphanage before young Tom Riddle started 
hanging bunnies from roof beams?  An adult wizard or witch could have 
dealt with Tom where Mrs Cole couldn't.  Things would have eased off on 
the orphanage staff, and Tom wouldn't have thought DD was there to drag 
him off to an assylum.  What it might have done for intervention with 
Tom's later goals, I don't know.  Maybe nothing.  But the situation 
would have been much different, in my opinion!

katssirius:
> She is an extremely overprotective mother.  Again begging the 
question why does Dudley need protecting?

Ceridwen:
I always got the idea that, if Harry would have been attacked, that 
means the Dursleys would have been attacked, too.  Why not go after 
Lily's Muggle relations, even though Lily was no longer around to see 
it?  My impression was that the blood protection falls on the entire 
household, which explains Petunia's horror that it is going to be 
removed the next summer during the talk with DD.  She knows about 
Dementors, I believe she knows exactly what happened to her sister and 
brother-in-law, and knows that, without the protection, the non-magical 
Dursleys are sitting ducks.

This also explains for me why Vernon decided to kick Harry out only 
after Dudley was attacked by Dementors.  The assured protection didn't 
work (actually, it did, the attack happened away from home, but Vernon 
isn't thinking clearly), therefore, get rid of the cause of this danger 
to his family.

And, since all this brings an earlier thread to mind, I think DD's 
Howler got to Petunia so quickly because, once Mundungus was informed 
of what had happened during his absence, he contacted Dumbledore, and 
DD arrived at the scene and sent an owl from within a block of the 
house at Privet Drive.

Ceridwen.