Book Hangover Thoughts: Harry Potter

 I’m sure we’re all well aware of how the Dursleys treated Harry Potter. (Please note the use of British English for this)

While they made it very clear that they didn’t approve of magic, there could be an underlying motive for it, at least for Petunia. 

She spoke of her parents’ pride in her little sister with resentment because she’s clearly envious. I mean, imagine your sibling got to go to a special school and learned to do all kinds of amazing things that you could only dream of doing. Wouldn’t you feel at least a little inferior? And when she married a wonderful man from a well-to-do family and gave birth to a son a month after you had, stripping you of the honour of giving your parents their first grandchild, that was the icing on the cake. 

I’m guessing their parents were unaware of this because knowing Petunia, she was too proud to admit her feelings and since Mr. and Mrs. Evans died when their grandsons were infants, they never knew. And because Lily and James died before the sisters could reconcile, Petunia took the guilt over never apologising to her sister as well as the anger towards the magical world for taking her sister away from her out on the son who Lily had given her life to protect. 

Harry was the constant reminder of the sibling she’d lost. Especially since every time her nephew looked at her, Petunia was reminded of her sister, and I mean that literally, because as multiple people have reminded him, Harry has his mother’s eyes. 

He has every facial feature of his father (excluding the scar for obvious reasons), but he has Lily’s bright green eyes.  In fact, that’s the reason Professor Snape wanted Harry to look at him when he was attacked by Nagini, Voldemort’s snake. He knew he was dying and wanted to be sure that his childhood best friend’s eyes were the last thing he saw. Which as strange as it sounds to ask for that favour during an all-out war, it’s a fairly reasonable request. I think the last memory a good person makes before they die should be a good one. Especially if the only thing you’ve wanted for almost twenty years is to reconcile with your best friend.

The reason I use the term “envy” and not “jealousy” is because Petunia was envious of Lily, not jealous. Envy is when you want what someone else has while jealousy is when you worry someone will take away what you have. She envied her sister because their parents would go on and on about Lily and the amazing world Petunia could never be a part of. She wasn’t jealous of the Wizarding World until it took Lily and James’ lives. (Mentioning that detail because I have been dying to make this point). 

Also, I’m pretty sure the story about Lily supposedly being pregnant with her second child at the time of her death isn’t true. That’s way too dark, even for this kind of character backstory! (Although, I have always wondered, since Harry looks like James with Lily’s eyes, would a second Potter child have looked like Lily with James’ eyes? That would be a redhead with hazel eyes). 

Some situations can have different versions of the same problem. Take for example, the Black sisters, but you might know them as Bellatrix Lestrange, Andromeda Tonks and Narcissa Malfoy. While all three were magical, they clearly didn’t have the magical vs non-magical issue. Instead, they had the issue of the Blood Statuses of their husbands. 

This is because Narcissa and Bellatrix both married pureblood wizards Rodolphus Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy, but Andromeda’s heart was stolen by a muggleborn, Ted Tonks. Her family was not happy with this decision. Her cousin, Sirius Black confirmed that his mother had literally blasted Andromeda’s name off the family tree because of this. 

I don’t think Bellatrix and Narcissa ever even met their niece. Her name was Nymphadora, but everyone just called her Tonks because she preferred to go by her surname only. Sure, they probably knew she existed, but if Bellatrix was telling the truth and they legitimately never spoke to their sister again after her wedding (which I’m guessing the groom’s family paid for), they’d have never seen her daughter. If they did by chance bump into her on the street, they wouldn’t know.

 Both because they’d never met her and because I’m not sure if Tonks noticeably took after her mother or not. She was a Metamorphmagus which means she was born with the ability to change her appearance at will, so I have no idea if she looked like either parent even without her wide variety of wild and neon hair colours. In fact, besides her trademark bubblegum pink hair, which I think was her favourite, I don’t think we ever saw Tonks wear the same look twice. Then again, while I firmly believe that most of the Death Eaters only sided with Voldemort because they were afraid not to, Bellatrix and Rodolphus were quite possibly legitimately sociopathic.