And This is Petunia

I have heard theories that Petunia Dursley received a Hogwarts Letter but refused to go. Personally, I don't buy it (even without JK Rowling's referring to her as a Muggle). Petunia's insistence that Wizards are "abnormal freaks" was not the reason she refused to go to Hogwarts, in my opinion, but the result of her never having been invited. She knows Lily really was: "special" so finds a way to make ordinary superior. That in itself isn't a bad thing--for all the talk about not being bigoted all the characters in these books look down on non-magical people as naturally as they breathe. In this chapter Hagrid introduces the word Muggle by using it as an insult. Squibs seem to get treated with no respect whatsoever, but are still programmed to want to be wizards rather than Muggles. Frankly, if one is going to draw parallels to racism concerning Muggleborns, it seems inaccurate to only focus on families like the Malfoys who think Muggleborn wizards aren't good enough, because one could draw just as many racist parallels about non-magical people and the way everyone's expected to want to "pass" for a wizard. Embracing one's Muggle-ness or non-magical identity is not an idea that seems to have hit the WIZARDING WORLD. (Squid Power!) I can completely understand Petunia wanting to never hear a word about the WIZARDING WORLD world again, because the whole thing is just painful to her. And it would have worked too, if it weren't for that meddling kid!

See, the Wizarding World isn't just painful because it reminds Petunia that once again, Lily was the special one. In Petunia's words about her sister in PS/SS there's an emphasis on her "leaving" and "disappearing." The WIZARDING WORLD took her sister--or her sister abandoned her for it. Think of the one Muggleborn we know well, Hermione. She has barely anything to do with her parents. She keeps secrets from them because they "won't understand," stays at school for Christmas, cuts short vacations. They don't/can't visit her when she's incapacitated, if they even know about it. If she had a sister as she was supposed to, and that sister was a Muggle (which, in my opinion, she should be--the idea of Muggles producing 2 wizards makes no sense to me--are we sure Mr. Creevey is really the father of Colin and Dennis?), Hermione would, in my opinion, have no relationship with her at this point. In fact, I suspect she might be as disliked by her sister as Petunia claims to dislike Lily.

Once I had a discussion with someone about Hermione's estrangement from her parents and she made a good case for this being normal boarding school culture. This poster's grandmother had had to go to a school far away and rarely saw her parents. There were no regular long distance phone calls at the time, so they just had to write letters. But of course at that time the family was also prepared for this kind of separation. The parents, presumably, decided how to handle this separation with regular letters etc. That's slightly different from a modern family who unexpectedly has their daughter whisked off into another world they can't follow her to, where it is now entirely up to her to keep in touch (and OotP does, in my opinion, contain a very clear hint that all is really not well between Hermione and her parents when she cancels their holiday at the last minute). More importantly, it's very different from relationships between siblings.

If Petunia and Lily were to continue to have a relationship, I think their parents would have had to have made an effort to be sure that happened. As it was, communication was entirely on Lily, since it's not like Petunia could send her anything by Muggle post or call her up. If the two girls weren't overly close to begin with they may not have naturally started writing letters to each other--it would be up to Mum and Dad to make sure they kept in touch and find ways to reconnect them. And this is assuming they weren't close--it's possible when Lily first went away she clung to her older or younger sister and tearfully begged her to write every day...only to lose interest and stop writing herself once she got caught up in the world of Hogwarts. Or perhaps Petunia, smarting from being passed over herself, already considered it an unfair imposition that she should be expected to write letters of encouragement to a girl who already had everything.

The practical fact is that if you take two kids and separate them for most of the time from ages 11 to 18, you can't expect them to really know each other at the end of that time. It seems, in fact, like the time Lily did spend at home only fostered more resentment in her sister, who probably felt more and more like she didn't matter, even though she was the one actually at home. Imagine Petunia living through a summer where everything Lily did was amazing and her parents were thrilled to have her home, then sitting in the car on the ride home from the train station when they dropped her off. I imagine, "Darn, now it's just YOU again," felt unspoken all the way home. It would probably have taken a very different girl than Petunia to overcome those sorts of feelings.

By the time Lily left Hogwarts it seems like Petunia had fled to her own life--then here comes Harry. Harry has to stay with Petunia because she's family. But is she? See, this is where I can really identify with Petunia. Once Lily became a witch she "disappeared into that school." She wasn't her sister; she was a witch, part of a different world. Harry is part of that world too. When Dumbledore says "family" he means "blood bond." That's important to wizards (another reason all this talk about blood not mattering is so lame). Dumbledore isn't giving Harry to Petunia at all. He's telling her to take care of Harry until Lily's "real family" comes to get him! He's a wizard; Petunia knows that. At 11 Harry is going to disappear into that school as well. I would resent the imposition too, and would probably also think twice about fooling myself into thinking Harry was mine the way Dudley was mine.

This is not to say that Petunia was mean to Harry because she didn't want to be hurt by losing him. I don't think it's that Petunia was fighting some natural maternal love for ickle baby Harry--she'd have been fine to have never even met the kid had James and Lily lived. I think it's more that Harry is a perfect symbol to her of what "family" means to wizards, as opposed to Muggles. Dumbledore's leaving Harry as part of a spell in a way makes a mockery of everything painful to Petunia about Lily. She's still a Muggle as far as Dumbledore's concerned, but her DNA is helpful for his spell. I mean, let's face it, there's no question of Dumbledore giving Harry to the Dursleys in any real sense. It's not like they ultimately have any say in what happens to him in terms of his future. When he's 11 years old, he's going to Hogwarts to be educated to be a wizard and fight Voldemort. His time in the Muggleworld is just temporary. I suspect Harry's family ties to Petunia are, in her eyes, just as much of a lie as Lily's were. She might as well be some object from Lily's house for all her value to the WIZARDING WORLD.

To me, this really says something disturbing about how the WIZARDING WORLD views Muggles, given that to wizards family is the most important tie there is. All the wizarding kids we know are defined by their families and identify with them more than most kids I know in our world. Malfoy is the most obvious with his, "Father says..." but in fact all wizarding children at some point state opinions by referencing their parents. In OotP almost everyone's reactions to Harry come down to their family: Ernie's parents have always supported Dumbledore, Seamus mentions his mother believes the Prophet and later reports back to her that she's wrong, Neville and his Gran believe Harry, Luna's father supports any move against the Ministry like the DA, Marietta's mother pressures her not to annoy the Ministry, Cho's defiance of her own parents is small--they don't work for the Ministry. The only students whose parents don't matter are--surprise!--Dean and Hermione, both of which imply they have kept their parents intentionally ignorant of what's going on. The fact that family ties are so important in the WIZARDING WORLD (OotP has major stories about the bonds of no less than 4 families: Ron's, Harry's, Sirius' and Hagrid's--that's besides the Death Eater children) makes it even more significant, in my opinion, that they think nothing of taking Muggleborns from their own families and turning them into wizards. It seems to imply a disturbing disrespect towards Muggles to assume they don't have family ties like wizards do, so can be taken from their nests in ways wizards would never allow their own children to be taken, in my opinion. I know the Dursleys are presented as so dreadful it seems obvious to blame Petunia for her estrangement from wonderful, kind, loving Lily, but I don't know. The fact that Lily was so perfect and loving makes me feel even more sorry for Petunia, because I think I imagine her feeling even more intentionally shut out from it.

This is mainly where I identify with Petunia. That is, I had a sister who left home when I was about 8 and cut off communication with my family for years. She came back, but you can't lose contact with somebody around 9 years old and then expect them to feel like your sister at 25. It's very strange for me to remember being young and having this important person as part of my life--when you're a kid a sister is a major part of your identity--but as an adult I really don't feel like I have one. I can't really remember what it's like to have a "real sister," which I think is how I felt as a kid. When I remember anything about her, it's always bad things--I mostly remember her teasing me.

It's not exactly the same situation as Petunia and Lily, particularly since I assume they were closer than age (my sister is 9 years older), but there are some things in common there. I don't hate my sister or want bad things to happen to her, but when it happened on some level I think I was hurt by it, though it was a gradual thing so I can't point to one moment when I felt really hurt. I know I remember the day she left for college very vividly (particularly because she left for college the very same day that my best friend who lived next door moved away, taking with her a family who had also been a major part of my life like a second family up until then), and in my head it does seem like the day both relationships (with her and with the family) ended. It's not something that bothers me regularly or anything, but it probably did make an impression on me. How could it not?

When it does bother me is just where I'm expected to act as if this never happened and we just have a normal sister/sister relationship. That just infuriates me. I talk to her and am friendly, but then I rarely have a problem making small talk with strangers. It's just occasionally I feel like there will be some expectation I just don't want to fulfill, or some way I'm apparently supposed to act where I don't do it, and then I wind up feeling angry and upset beyond the way I normally would in that sort of situation. It just bothers my sense of reality; I see no reason to pretend about these things. That, in my mind, is often where Petunia is coming from. She's long covered over and denied the part of her that was hurt by being left behind, but then this wizard she hates shows up and says, "Of course you have to take care of this baby! She's your sister!" as if Lily and Petunia have any of the closeness sisters are supposed to have, and 10 years of estrangement haven't happened. Like apparently the family bond only matters when wizards need something--it's not like there was any question of Lily remaining in the Muggle world because her family was there.

Even worse Petunia's supposed to take care of this wizarding baby, as if she was ever welcomed into that world, and would naturally be happy to hold the kid for a while until they come to take him back to his real family. Possibly she feels they think she should be flattered by any chance to be part of a spell or part of the WIZARDING WORLD--who knows? The main thing, I'd imagine, is that this expectation is there without Petunia's feelings about Lily ever being resolved or even acknowledged by most people. I can't say this for certain since we don't know the Evanses at all, but it seems from the way she's described as sounding like she "wanted to say" this stuff "for years" that Petunia's feelings weren't acknowledged by her family. Admittedly, I probably just assume they didn't since mine never were. It's not that I was badly treated or something, it's just that yeah, I think this really is a major thing that happened I don't feel like has ever been acknowledged by my family whereas my friends, naturally, see the situation exactly as I do. My family, otoh, does tend to act like I'm being selfish, weird or childish whenever I try to put my foot down in this area.

I don't know if I should hold out much hope this will ever be acknowledged for Petunia, either, since the way her feelings have manifested themselves make her the bad guy--taking it out on a baby was pretty low. Unfortunately, too, Petunia's cruelty towards Harry seems, within the story, to just reinforce the very prejudices it came out of. Harry never belonged with the Dursleys: he was always too good for them and he knows it, too. They can never be as good as he is, and this makes it all the more inappropriate for them to ever pretend they are.