HBP Chapters 27 - 30 post DH look LONG SORRY

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 184489

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:
>
> > 
> > Montavilla47:
> > You're setting up a false choice.  It's not either/or.  (Either
> Dumbledore ignores the Dursleys or he bullies them.)  As Alla pointed
> out a long  time ago, all it really took for the Dursleys to get Harry
> out of the  cupboard was a letter delivered by an owl.  Just the
> thought that they were being contacted by the wizards was enough for
> them to shape up.
> > 
> > Did Dumbledore need to bully the Dursleys?  How about simply
> > talking to them?  Dumbledore didn't even tell Petunia in person
> > that her sister was dead.  He wrote her a note.
> > 
> > How about providing them a bit of gold in return for taking care
> > of Harry?  How about a little felix felicis potion to help Vernon
> > get those all-important drill contracts?  Maybe they wouldn't be
> > so anti-magic if they could see some its advantages.
> 
> Pippin:
> So... it would be a positive example, nay, a moral duty, to bully or
> outright bribe the Dursleys for sixteen long years?

Montavilla47:
Again, you're limiting the choices, although extending them to
the concept of a "bribe."   I notice that you skipped right over
the idea of talking to Petunia and letting her know what was
going on.  You know, that approach did work with Snape, even 
if he was bit distraught at the moment.

Pippin:
> Some of us seem to have  very different ideas of what disgraces the
> name of wizard.
> 
>  What would Harry, and the soul bit inside him, make of such an
> example in human relations? What would the readers think? At least
> Harry has no doubt that the Dursleys are treating him badly. But if
> the people who love him are bullies, too, he's apt to be as confused
> about right and wrong as Draco Malfoy.

Montavilla47:
I have news for you, Pippin.  The people that love Harry are bullies.
There are many examples of this in the books, but we can start
with Hagrid hexing Dudley with a tail.

Pippin:
> Yes, the Dursleys do get bullied occasionally. Who doesn't? And it
> occasionally brings about a positive change, though seldom
> intentionally. As you say, it's not either/or. 
> 
> But  as I pointed out long ago in response to Alla, the
> letter from Hogwarts was not intended to get Harry a decent bedroom.
> It was intended to invite him to Hogwarts, a task at which it failed.
> And then Harry ended up on the floor of the hut on the rock, obviously
> a worse place than the smallest bedroom, and arguably also worse than
> the cupboard.

Montavilla47:
I agree with you that the letter wasn't intended to get Harry
a bedroom.  A letter addressed to Petunia and Vernon requesting
that Harry be put into a room, rather than a cupboard might have
had that effect.  A visit from Dumbledore, explaining that 
no amount of negativity is going to squash the magic out of 
Harry might have had even more effect.

Pippin:
> This sets up the pattern. 
> 
> Bullying does, sometimes, make the Dursleys behave a little better.
> But it doesn't last. Giving Dudley  a pig's tail didn't tame the
> Dursleys for long.
> 
> Every  time the Dursleys resort to bullying again, their behavior is a
> little worse. They never actually tried to starve Harry, until 
> CoS.

Montavilla47:
IIRC, they don't actually start starving Harry until they find out that
he lied to them and pretended that he'd be able to hex them
any time he wanted to.  Once they realized that he couldn't—and he
ruined Vernon's deal with his magic,  they locked him in his room.

It wasn't connected to the pig's tail, except in a most indirect 
way.  If they thought Harry was connected to the wizarding world.
If, for example, Harry had been regularly receiving the letters
that Dobby stole, then they never would have tried that.

Pippin:
> For all their neglect, they kept Harry clean and insisted on good
> grooming, until after the ton tongue toffee thing. 

Montavilla47:
I don't think you can blame Harry's lack of hygiene on Petunia
and Vernon.  They are, at that point, pretty much doing what
Harry wants, which is leaving him alone.  The only thing they
are balking at is having him watch the news with them.  How
are they supposed to force Harry to bathe?  He's got a 
murderous Godfather who'll hex them if they try.

Pippin:
>  They do seem chastened after OOP,  but then Harry's not a
> helpless little boy any more, he's a strapping self-confident young
> wizard who can more than take care of himself.  Besides, Dudley has
> had a change of heart, not because Harry  bullied Dudley but because
> he saved Dudley's life.

Montavilla47:
They were also directly threatened by a crowd of wizards, including
Moody, Arthur, Remus, and Tonks.

Pippin:
> Bribes might work for a while. But they have a way of getting bigger.
> As Harry guesses, Vernon's dislike of magic would not extend to a big
> pile of wizard gold. But Vernon's behavior does not suggest that he
> has learned the value of moderation. How long before Vernon asked for
> something that even Dumbledore couldn't give? And what would Harry
> have learned in the meantime? It can't be a bad thing to take bribes,
> if kindly old Dumbledore is giving them out.

Montavilla47:
I don't believe I used the word bribe.  That is your characterization of 
what could be a mutually beneficial relationship between Dumbledore
and the Dursleys.  It's not unreasonable for someone who 
assumes the care and feeding of a child to get financial support from
someone who leaves them with that child.  It's also not unheard of 
for the person leaving the child to *ask* the other to take on the
responsibility, rather than leaving the child on their doorstep in the
middle of the night.

Pippin:
> Bullies often hope that just a little bullying will put things right.
> Bribers always hope that the bribes will stay manageable.  And those
> without power or wealth enough to indulge in either like to 
> daydream that they would.   Harmless enough. But there are those in
> the WW like Voldemort and Grindelwald, with the art of  convincing
> people that such dreams can come true.
> 
>  Young Dumbledore pretended to himself that a  display of wizard power
> would be all it took to put the Muggles in their place, "only the
> force that was necessary and no more" all justified in the name
> of benefits for wizards. 
> 
> Grindelwald showed him how wrong he was.

Montavilla47:
Really? When?  I don't recall Grindelwald showing Dumbledore anything
about Muggles.  What he showed Dumbledore was that abandonning
a child in order to go take over the world might have bad repercushions
for the left-behind child.  

Pippin:
> I'm not saying the Dursley deserve a pass. They don't. But two wrongs
> do not make a right. A bad solution is not better than doing nothing,
> as putting Stan Shunpike in Azkaban showed. 

Montavilla47:
But nothing is exactly what Dumbledore did for 10 years of Harry's
life.  He left Harry with the Dursleys and did nothing—even though he
had Arabella Figg there to report what was going on.  In fact,
he told Harry that he was quite pleased at Harry's state when the 
boy arrived at Hogwarts, with just a little bit of annoyance at how
underfed he looked.

Pippin:
> Dumbledore's choice, very starkly, was between the Dursley's
> protection and Harry's murder by a vengeful Voldemort. 
> That's not an entirely realistic situation: in the real world criminal
> masterminds are seldom entirely bent on the destruction of one little
> boy, and there wouldn't be just one family with the magical power to
> protect him. But that wasn't Dumbledore's choice.
> 
> As I said, Dumbledore had to prepare against the worst case scenario
> even if that meant allowing things that under the best case scenario
> he would have prevented.   

Montavilla47:
His choice was between the Dursley's protection and Voldemort's 
vengence.  But that doesn't mean he couldn't take steps to
ensure that the Dursleys were treating Harry better than they did.
Even if that was only to send them an occasional note, asking after
his welfare.