The Dursleys

[va32h]

No: HPFGUIDX 167689

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, 

> > Pippin adds: 
> > She's not a witch, nor a squib. Petunia is ex-Phoenix.
> > We know you don't have to be magical to be in the 
> > Order, because there's Mrs. Figg.  Petunia ... make
> >  a very good spy.  And it would be helpful 
> > to Dumbledore  to have a Muggle's view of things--...


And bboyminn added:
 
 Petunia could very well be Dumbledore's secret eyes and ears on
> the muggle world. That is not really that far fetched an
> idea. Still, I don't buy it.

va32h thinks:

I think Tonks' father Ted is a weatherman for the local news, and 
*he* is the one living in the Muggle world and being Dumbledore's 
eyes and ears. Remember Ted the weatherman cheerfully reporting all 
the owl sightings and shooting sparks back in PS/SS? 

I don't know why people are so desperate to apply some sort of extra 
significance to the Dursleys. I don't think Petunia is anything other 
than a horse-faced, basically unpleasant woman who is obsessed with 
the appearance of "normalcy" and a very clean house. I know plenty of 
people like this (well not the horse faces) and none of them harbor 
dark secrets. 

At best, I think Petunia's mystery is information. Perhaps she saved 
the note that came with Harry on the doorstep, and it contains some 
useful info (like what Harry's parents did for the Order, or oh - 
their address, so Harry can find his old house). More likely, she was 
told or overheard something that she will pass on to Harry before he 
leaves Privet Drive forever. 

But any grand plot involving Petunia being a spy or having formally 
renounced her witch-hood just strikes me as too much Petunia in a 
narrative that will have far more important things to resolve than 
the future of any Dursley and which will probably see Harry in and 
out of Privet Drive in less than one chapter. 

bboyminn here:
> But I do want to make one correction, JKR /never/ said
> Petunia wasn't a witch. She said she wasn't a Squib and
> later said that Petunia never had and never would do 
> magic. But again, she never flat our said Petunia 
> wasn't a witch.

va32h here: 

But JKR did say "She is a Muggle" - which is the same thing as "not a 
witch", IMO.

va32h