What Petunia knows (Re: The Dursleys:)

[chuck.han]

No: HPFGUIDX 173752

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jen Reese" <stevejjen at ...> wrote:
> ...

> Petunia knows enough about the WW to correspond with DD prior to
> his 'last', the letter on the doorstep.  I'm intrigued how these
previous
> letters fit in.  Petunia was chosen because of the blood connection so
> I don't see how Dumbledore would have corresponded with her about
> the possibility of baby Harry living with them until the blood tie
became
> a necessity.  And yet DD appears certain the Dursleys will accept Harry
> with just one letter of explanation; even McGonagall is surprised that
> Dumbledore believes a letter will be enough.  I'm thinking the previous
> letters would fill in this particular gap because they need to be
relevant
> to the missing parts of the story revealed in DH.
> ...

Bravo, Jen, very prescient.  I was looking through HBP looking for DH
connections and the passage concerning Dumbledore mentioning that he
had corresponded with Petunia caught my eye:

"'We have corresponded, of course.' Harry thought this an odd way of
reminding Aunt Petunia that (Dumbledore) had once sent her an
exploding letter,
but Aunt Petunia did not challenge the term..."

JKR has, again, slightly pulled back the curtain on events that would
be revealed in DH.  The correspondence, of course, does not refer to
the Howler, as Harry thinks, but to Dumbledore's and Petunia's
back-and-forth in which Petunia pleads with him to allow her to go to
Hogwarts after Lily gets the letter...

Chuck