[HPforGrownups] Re: Lily and Petunia

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 176491

Bart:
>And maybe Petunia got the keeping up bug and never let go of it.  
>Maybe she mistook having to pay for the new color console TV monthly 
>as being poor.  Maybe richer kids taunted her the same way she 
>taunted Snape.  Or, she could have been so soured on the magical 
>world, and afraid of suddenly having WW neighbors, that she spied on 
>the neighbors and hoped they didn't spy back.

Bart:
I asked a question during the DH flood that kind of got lost. I think that this is a good place to bring it up again. 

The Dursley's were VERY big on "keeping up with the Joneses" (or, more precisely, BEING the Joneses). It was not good enough to be well-to-do (well, upper middle class). They had to SHOW everybody that they were better than everybody else. That was part of why they kept Harry in hiding. 

My question is, why did they allow Harry out in such shabby, ill-fitting clothes, especially going to school? What did they think people would think of them treating an orphaned nephew that shabbily? And I KNOW that isn't a custom in England; as I mentioned in my earlier piece, I had contact with a wealthy family in Britain who took in a lower-middle class girl to be a playmate for their own daughter, and, from simple observation of the way they treated the girls, you would never know which was the companion, and which was the natural daughter. I was told at the time that this was not an uncommon practice. 

To summarize, why would people like the Dursley's, who seem to be so incredibly conscious of what people think of them, publicly treat their nephew so badly?

Bart