This moment

[juli17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 175347

 
"potioncat" <willsonkmom@> 
> wrote:
>  >
> > 
> > 
> > Is there a moment in DH where you  really identify with a 
> character, or 
> > the character's  situation? It doesn't even have to be a character 
> you 
> >  generally identify with---just a moment that particularly speaks 
> to  you.
> > 
> > Potioncat, who will post her moment later, and  who is creating 
> light- 
> > weight threads because she doesn't  have the intellectual energy at 
> the 
> > moment to join in  with the heavier ones, but is reading them with 
> great 
> >  enjoyment.
> >

Adam wrote:

I've mentioned this before,  actually, but for me, it was Petunia's
letter to Dumbledore.

It makes  sense to me that most of us on this site have at some point
hoped we'd be  granted magic powers, or get to escape for real into a
world like those we  read about in books, but we grew up, and it never
happened.

And here,  we see two little girls, one of whom is invited to join that
world.   Told she has unbelievable powers, and there's an entire
alternate universe  that she is welcome to join.  And her sister isn't.
It broke my heart,  because I can't imagine what it would be like if my
sister, or friend, or  anyone suddenly got this magic ticket to a whole
new world, and I was told,  sorry, you can't come - even worse that it
was told so kindly by  Dumbledore.

And what kind of world does Petunia wind up in?  One  married to Vernon
Dursley, of whom we've seen precious little to regard as  worthwhile. 
Maybe Petunia did look for one of the biggest Muggles there is  to get
further from a world she could never join.

The most powerful  message of calvinism and fate dictated by birth
isn't Slytherin, it's the  simple fact of magic vs. non-magic.  There
is no choice, no personality  judgment, no qualifications.  But some
get the magic ticket, and some  get left behind.

Julie:
I hope you don't mind if I piggyback your response, but I had the  exact
same reaction. I have two sisters, and we are all close in age. I  recognize
some of Petunia and Lily's interactions (those not having to do with  magic).
At times during our childhood we fought like cats and dogs. Even more  so
as teenagers, when there was a near constant "You wore my sweater!" 
refrain in our house. Fortunately, as with most sisters, once we  became
adults, we realized how precious sisterhood is. Through friends,  lovers,
marriages, divorces, births, deaths, and all the other events life throws  
your
way, no one who is there for you at every moment of it all like  a sister (or
brother), provided you're lucky enough for that relationship to have  
weathered
the ups and downs of childhood and adolescence. (Note: We had very  loving
parents and as normal a childhood as can be had.)
 
But Lily's invitation to Hogwarts and Petunia's rejection  letter made me 
wonder,
could *any* sibling relationship weather this type of divide? As you say,  it 
is
like one sibling being invited to live at Disneyland, while the other is  
told "No,
your sister is good enough to come live and play in our wondrous,  magical
world, but you're not and never will be." On top  of that there's the added 
joy
of the chosen sibling coming home on holidays and telling the  reject sibling
all the fabulous things she gets to see and do that reject sibling will  
never be 
part of. Ever. Gee, thanks, sis.

 

Yes, I can see how this almost couldn't help BUT foster enmity and  bitterness
between the two. And when you consider how Hermione chose the WW more
and more over her Muggle family as she grew older, hardly sparing the  time
to rejoin the Muggle world more than once or twice a year for brief  periods, 
how
could two sisters ever maintain a real relationship, repair bruised  
feelings, etc,
when they literally live in two different and disconnected worlds?
 
I can't think of much worse to do to a child (other than outright abuse of  
course)
than what was done to Petunia. It doesn't excuse her rejection in turn of  
her only
nephew, but it does explain where that bitterness came from and how easily  it
could continue to fester into such a fanatical hatred of everything she had  
been
denied. It's easier for her to think she was denied something ultimately  
horrible
and freakish rather than something wonderful.
 
I can't recall if any other Muggleborns had siblings (Dean Thomas?) but  maybe
JKR didn't deal with this issue of acceptace versus rejection into the  
Magical
world beyond Lily and Petunia simply because there isn't a very realistic  way
to show a sibling, especially a child, graciously accepting such  rejection.
(Dean Thomas--did JKR say he came from a large family? This might be  the
only instance where I could see one sibling's specialness and entry into  a
Magical world not being entirely destructive to the sibling  relationships, 
because if it's *one* specially treated child and half a dozen *normal*  ones,
then the normal ones have got each other, and their majority may allow  them
to perceive Dean's invitation to Hogwarts as individual good fortune,  rather
than a rejection directed at their majority. If you know what I  mean.)
 
Julie, who already mentioned Harry's observation of James' air of being 
well-cared for and even adored, versus Snape's very discernible lack  of
the same.
 










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