OOP: The tragedy of Petunia Dursley

[psychic_serpent]

"Ali" <Ali at z...> wrote:
> >I've read suggestions that Petunia went to Hogwarts and was 
> >expelled; I think it's unlikely.

> >Petunia's reaction to Harry's Dementor Kiss explanation in 
> >OoP suggests an understanding of it far greater than overhearing  
> >conversation 20 years previously. I would suggest that she has 
> >perhaps had more interaction with the WW than she cares to 
> >acknowledge.

Monika Huebner <mo.hue at w...> wrote:
> I also think that would be very unlikely [for Petunia to go to 
Hogwarts and be expelled].

I agree; perhaps Ali's right that the Evans parents died because of 
their connection to Lily, which would certainly start to explain the 
dearth of relatives on that side of the family, although it seems 
odd to me that Mr. and Mrs. Evans didn't have any siblings or 
cousins.  I supposed it's possible that they were both only 
children, and their parents only children (and their parents would 
have needed to be dead at the time Harry was orphaned, as well).  
It's possible that Petunia was even quite all right with Lily being 
a witch herself until their parents died, and that's how she knew 
about dementors.  I could see Petunia having a very hard time 
forgiving Lily for this.
 
"Ali" <Ali at z...> wrote:
> >I believe that either Petunia or Dudley had shown 
> >some sign of magical power, and Petunia's pact with Dumbledore 
> > was to prevent it from being taken any further. 

Monika Huebner <mo.hue at w...> wrote:
> Hm, not sure I agree here. How can you suppress magical powers in a
> person? The Dursleys couldn't suppress it in Harry, it happened
> accidentally all the time. They chose to ignore it, but it was 
> still there.

On the one hand, one might assume that the reason why the Dursleys 
always spoiled Dudley rotten was that they were afraid he'd get 
angry and manifest some magic (they really seem very nervous about 
upsetting him in the first book, when he thinks his total of 
birthday presents has fallen below the previous year's).  OTOH, they 
think nothing of filling Harry's life with stress, and you'd think 
they'd have learned ages ago that this is exactly the sort of thing 
most likely to make Harry manifest magic.  

So why should they treat the boys so differently if they were trying 
to squash the magic out of both of them?  I think the logical answer 
would have to be that they're not--they're just trying to squash it 
out of Harry (and, again, you'd think they'd treat him more nicely 
to avoid the wild outbursts of magic that have inevitably 
accompanied their maltreatment of him--not that we've been led to 
believe that they're very bright and could work this out).  

McGonagall tells Dumbledore, in PS, before Harry is left with the 
Dursleys, that Dudley was kicking his mother earlier that day.  
(Wasn't he a one-year-old at the time?)  The pattern of his 
demanding whatever he wants whenever he wants and his parents 
surrendering seems to have been set early, and apparently has 
nothing to do with Harry or magic.

"Ali" <Ali at z...> wrote:
> >I have chosen to think that it was Dudley who at a young age had 
> >shown some magical prowess, Petunia's reaction to it was Dudley's 
> >worst memory. 

Monika Huebner <mo.hue at w...> wrote:
> You mean maybe what he heard when the Dementors were near him? I
> wondered what that would have been, spoilt brat that he is. I also
> suspect there was a reason we weren't told what it was, maybe 
> that's one of the things JKR wanted to foreshadow. It would indeed 
> have been very interesting to get into Dudley's head at that 
> moment, I admit that I was just as curious as Harry was.

Oh, I think I have a couple of pretty good candidates for what 
Dudley might have been reliving when he was approached by the 
dementor, although I think it's a toss-up between the time Hagrid 
gave him a pig's tail and the Ton-Tongue-Toffee incident.  Although 
you never know with Dudley--it could have been that he was reliving 
the moment on his eleventh birthday when his Knickerbocker Glory 
wasn't up to his usual standards. <eg>

Monika Huebner <mo.hue at w...> wrote:  
> The whole structure of the chapters taking place at the Dursleys 
> was so different from previous books that I am sure there is more 
> like this to come in the two remaining books. I remember JKR 
> saying in an interview that a person would discover magical 
> abilities late in her life, and I tend more and more to believe it 
> will be Petunia. But maybe I just don't want to see Dudley with a 
> magic wand, knowing it can be a dangerous weapon. ;-)
 
Maybe it's just me, but I don't see much difference between the 
scariness of the phrases, "Dudley with a magic wand" and "Dudley 
with an armed nuclear device."  I think it might be Petunia as well, 
which would make it even more unlikely that she'd attended Hogwarts 
and was expelled, but now that Arabella Figg has been introduced as 
a Squib, she might be the dark horse candidate here.  Did JKR use 
the feminine pronoun, "her" to describe this person?  Otherwise, 
Filch might also a possible late-magic-bloomer. ::shudder::

--Barb, who thinks "Filch with a magic wand" is as scary an idea  
as "Filch with a Bazooka"