Dudley's Dementor encounter (Was: CHAPDISC: DH3, The Dursleys Departing)

[kneazlecat54]

No: HPFGUIDX 177540

Carol wrote:
<snip>
> The only bad things we know of that have happened to Dudley before
the Dementor attack are the "giant" Hagrid breaking down the door of
the hut and giving him a pig's tail and the Weasley Twins giving him a
candy that caused his tongue to grow about four feet long, causing him
to choke and his mother to pull on it and make his pain and fear even
worse. <snip>

> I'm quite sure that those incidents are the experiences Dudley
relived during the Dementor attack... <snip> >

Laura:
I don't see how Dudley's reliving those experiences would lead to his
concern for Harry in DH.  They would tend to make him fear wizards,
reasonably enough, and they must have been quite traumatic.  But
according to JKR, Dudley saw himself exactly as he was when the
dementors attacked him.  The physical results of a dementor attack-
nausea, chills and so forth-were Dudley's first reaction after Harry
saved the two of them, and at that moment Dudley was in no condition
to think deeply (imagine Dudders thinking deeply about anything-what a
concept!) about what he experienced during the attack itself.

It would only have been much later, after he was fully recovered and
feeling safe again (well after Harry returned to Hogwarts) that he
would have been emotionally able to consider what he saw at that
time.  It's greatly to Dudley's credit that he confronted his memory
at all-human nature would be to deny that it had any reality.
Instead, he looked squarely at the picture the dementors presented to
him and acknowledged to himself that it was true.

Innocent people like Hagrid and Sirius (and Harry, of course)relived
moments of terrible emotional pain when they were in contact with the
dementors.  Evil people like Bella and the DEs weren't affected by the
dementors because they were emotionally and morally warped, so that no
memory of any act they'd committed or any experience they'd had could
hurt them.  Dudley is somewhere in the middle-he did bad things, but
he was not so morally stunted as to be beyond redemption.  For someone
like him, it appears that a dementor attack might be a very healthy
reality check-provided that the victim acknowledge the truth of what
he experienced-and that the attack ends before the dementor can kiss
him.