CHAPTER DISCUSSION PS/SS 6, The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarter

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 187966

Pippin wrote:
> <snip> The Dursleys were laughing as they left King's Cross, though. If Harry wanted to put himself in the hands of the madmen who got his parents murdered, abandoned him in the first place, and now, suddenly and unaccountably (to the Dursleys) want him back again, let him go, and see how he likes it. <snip>

Carol responds:

I think they were laughing for a simpler (and crueler) reason--there's "no such thing" as Platform 9 3/4 (which, of course, is inconsistent with "The Prince's Tale," but JKR isn't known for consistency.) They've left Harry stranded, so they think, with no money, a huge trunk, and a caged owl--and no way to go anywhere, not even 4 Privet Drive. 
I suppose they expect him to make a frantic phone call (collect, since he has no money) and request them to pick him up, after which he'd spend some time in his room without food and be sent to Stonewall High. Or maybe they're not thinking that far into the future, just laughing at his predicament. As Movie! Vernon says so memorably in the PoA film, "You've no place to go!"

Carol, who thinks that the Dursleys can't imagine anyone carrying enough about Harry to care whether he made it to his "freak" school