Dumbledore's letters to Petunia (Re: Petunia's Eyes)

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 169995

> Jen:  You're saying JKR couldn't use Petunia as the limited 
> omniscient narrator in this chapter because she would give too much
> away? That's a new idea to me and it fits so well with a comment by
> JKR that you touched on in your post (from FAQ section of her 
> website): 

> Dung:
> That's brilliant! It's new to me, too. (Goodness, Carol, you're on 
> form at the moment! The pressure to come up with new takes before 
> the end of all this fun is showing!)

Carol:
> Thank you! Small correction; I didn't say that JKR avoided using 
> Petunia as the narrator (JKR doesn't use first-person narrators),
> just that, IMO, she avoided having the limited omniscient narrator 
> report events from Petunia's perspective and chose Vernon's instead 
> because, as Jen states, using Petunia's more knowledgeable 
> perspective would give too much away. 

Jen:  Thank you for clearing up my mistake there, Carol.  From the 
information in your post, I finally understand all the different 
types of narrators and resultant povs for relevant chapters in the 
series and can look for those occurrences in DH.

I wonder, is there any chance JKR will open Privet Dr. from Petunia's 
pov, sort of a nice symmetry with book 1, or will Petunia's 
information only come from conversations with Harry?  I'd love to 
hear from inside her head exactly what she thought of Lily and how 
she now sees Harry.  And as a total aside, any chance we'll *ever* 
get inside Snape's head??  He's another character I'd like to hear 
from directly (and to paraphrase Fred, 'don't we all.' <g>)

> Dung:
> Well actually, having a dead SK is perfect, because then nobody 
> else can ever be told the secret again. The weakness of fidelius
> lies in the SK, while the SK stood firm, the Potters were safe, if 
> the SK had died without revealing the secret, their hiding place 
> would have been completely safe.

Jen: Okay, that makes sense and also means it would be dumb of LV to 
actually kill the SK then.  Not that he wouldn't anyway. ;)  

Dung:
> I think the last thing they'd have been planning for was orphaned!
> Harry. James and Lily were the last line of defence, if they died, 
> they imagined, so would Harry. They could never have predicted what 
> happened at GH. Although... thinking about it, if they didn't know 
> about the prophecy, they might have thought that Voldy was after 
> them, rather than Harry, so they could have wondered if Harry would 
> be orphaned, I suppose. But if they did know it was Harry that 
> Voldy was after, I don't think it would have occured to them that
> they might die and that Harry might live.

>Amis:
> I do, however, think that the Potters would have planned for some 
> alternate care for Harry in the case of their deaths. Especially 
> when they thought that the person they were going to leave Harry 
> with, Sirius, had betrayed the Order. I'm not sure that this would
> be with the Dursleys. I do agree with Jen, however that it is 
> possible Lily thought Harry would be safer in the Muggle world. 
> Dumbledore likely offered to assist in his protection.

> Sylvia: The Potters didn't believe that Sirius had betrayed the
> order. Other people thought that after the Potters died. The 
> Potters knew he wasn't the Secret Keeper any more but after they 
> were killed noone else knew that they had switched to Peter 
> Pettigrew. I'm not sure whether they would have made special 
> provision for Harry. Harry was with them and I don't think that 
> they ever for one moment envisaged that he would survive if they 
> died. 

Jen: One small correction to my idea that Lily went to Dumbledore out 
of concern for who would be guardian for Harry should something 
happen to the Potters and Sirius - as Snape's Witch pointed out in 
#169990, Sirius was never actually the SK and I'd agree with that.  
However, he was still in line to be SK while being Harry's godfather 
from what I can ascertain about the timeline, so that alone wouldn't 
stop Lily from thinking ahead.

Now, to answer the above comments: I'm not sure why they went to the 
trouble of making Sirius Harry's godfather if they didn't hope by 
some slim chance that Harry might survive them?  I understand it may 
have been symbolic only but that's not something the WW seems big on, 
especially during a time when there's a war on and the Potters are on 
the losing side.  It seems more like a functional thing to have 
a 'rushed' ceremony appointing Sirius as Harry's godfather at the 
last minute with the expectation he might be called into service.  

Although the more I think about it, the more I wonder why.  Wouldn't 
it be more likely if they trust Sirius completely that *he* would die 
first when Voldemort kills him out of frustration for not revealing 
the secret?  As Dung said, the Potters were the *last* line of 
defense, not the first.  Hmmm.  

Dung:
> But

> How did Petunia find out about Voldemort? Canon gives us two 
> options:
> 1. Dumbledore's correspondence explained about Voldemort
> 2. The conversation Petunia overheard where she learned about 
> dementors.
> 
> Whatever was in Dumbledore's "last", (the letter he left with 
> Harry) is the reason why Petunia actually agreed to take Harry in, 
> and why she insists that he must stay when Uncle V tries to throw 
> him out.  The other letters, from beforehand, we know absolutely 
> nothing about from the books, just from that evil comment from JKR.

Jen:  True we don't know what was in the other letters, but we still 
have...er...42 hours, 17 days and some odd minutes to speculate 
according to the TLC counter, lol.  What interests me the most is why 
Dumbledore might contact Petunia in the first place.  He either did 
that because Lily asked or he decided to contact Petunia on his own 
imo.  The two reasons I can think of for Lily requesting it of him 
would be 1) wanting Dumbledore to send something to Petunia since 
they are estranged and she knows it highly possible she's going to 
die (in which case Petunia may have a letter or object for Harry that 
she finally coughs up in DH), or 2) concern for Harry's future.

But what would cause Dumbledore to contact an unknown relative on his 
own if that's what occurred?  The only plausible reason I can think 
of would be Harry's future.  Dumbledore knew the entire propehcy, 
understood how Voldemort operated and must have at least *suspected* 
Voldemort would attempt to kill one of the babies once it was clear 
he'd been handed the the first part of the prophecy.  Dumbledore 
knowing the entire prophecy also meant knowing 'and the Dark Lord 
will mark him as his equal,' which Dumbledore could have surmised 
meant the baby being attacked would be marked but not die.  That 
seems like a possibility anyway.  Meaning while Dumbledore didn't 
know exactly what would happen with Lily's sacrifice, he could have 
suspected there might be a way for the baby to live even after the 
parents died.  Maybe?

Dung:
> Alternatively, what happens if we hypothesise that when Vernon asks 
> Petunia if she's heard from her sister lately, and she replies "No, 
> why?" she is in fact lying? Could Petunia be the GH witness under 
> the invisibility cloak? Unlikely, I think, but worth opening up for
> speculation


Jen:  LOL, I like this one.  Unlikely, yes, but an interesting 
thought. :)