CHAPTER DISCUSSION: PS/SS 3, The Letters from No One

[geoff_bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 187811

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> wrote:

> > 4. Why do you think Vernon and Petunia decide to move Harry into a bedroom?
 
Pippin:
> Their relationship to Harry is a bit like the relationship of Sirius to Kreacher, IMO. The Dursleys aren't hateful to children generally, or Dudley's friends wouldn't be coming over every day. But they don't think of Harry as being like other children. I think Petunia is determined to see that Dudley never feels slighted the way she did, and this feeling swallows up any pity or concern she might have felt for Harry's plight.

Geoff:
My original take on it was that the Dursleys in some way feared that more 
letters might be delivered or that some other form of contact might occur.

With hindsight, knowing that Petunia was not ignorant about the workings 
of the Wizarding World, she might well have expected this but perhaps the 
apparent disinterest of the Wizarding World over ten years had initially lulled 
them into thinking that any contact could be easily rebuffed by moving Harry's 
location - a view which proved futile. 

Their flight was progressively tracked by the deliveries, first to the Railview 
Hotel at Cokeworth and finally when Hagrid caught up with them. The 
delivery of the letter was intended from day one. This was intimated in 
Dumbledore's comment to Professor McGonagall after Godric's Hollow:
'"Famous for something he won't even remember! Can't you see how much 
better off he'll be growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?"'
(PS "The Boy Who Lived" p.16 UK edition)

The Hogwarts contact was "in the diary" from that date onwards.