This is my first post to this community. Thought I'd post it here as well, instead of just to my friends. There are no book six spoilers. (Edit: Sorry about the bad formatting before.)


An In-Depth Analysis of Petunia Evans Dursley

Petunia is Harry Potter's aunt and Lily Evans Potter's sister. Whether she is the younger or the elder is unknown. She is also the wife of Vernon Dursley and the mother of Dudley. Most fans would also say that she is not the nicest of people based on her treatment of Harry, and wonder just how Lily got a person like Petunia as a sister.

One thing I have learned from reading the Harry Potter series is that no one is quite what he or she appears to be at first glance. There is usually more to a person than is first apparent. I believe, therefore, that there is more to Petunia than we would think.

So what DO we see when we look at her? We see a skinny, bony, horse-faced woman. What do we know about her? She, along with her husband, spoil their only child, giving him whatever he demands and overfeeding him until his school stepped in. She seems to believe her son can do no wrong, and doesn't care if he bullies Harry. She keeps an extremely neat house, even going so far as to do a scrubdown of the kitchen before retiring for the night. And she wants nothing to do with the world of magic, even going so far as to pretend that she never had a sister.

I think these attributes merit taking a closer look. She pretends to have no knowledge of the Wizarding World. But we know that is false, since her sister was a witch. When they were both girls and Lily got her Hogwarts letter, Mr. and Mrs. Evans were extremely proud of Lily, happy to have a witch in the family. One wonders if Petunia ever got praise for anything, or if she was lost in Lily's shadow. We can pretty much assume Lily was more beautiful and intelligent than Petunia, too. How hard must it have been for Petunia to grow up like this, never being able to be as good as her sister, who wasn't even home for much of the year in her adolescence, in her parents' eyes?

It's hard to say whether Petunia was truly jealous of Lily at first, and turned her jealousy into fear and loathing, or if Petunia was always afraid of magic, and was furious that her parents didn't agree with her. Petunia tells Harry (and us) that she considered her sister a freak for pretty much their entire childhood. However, it became even worse for her when Lily, after finishing school, chose to remain in the Wizarding World and married a wizard. I get the impression that she wrote Lily off as lost to freakishness forever when that took place.

So we have Petunia the young woman, afraid of magic, afraid of her sister. Although Voldemort was around at this time terrorizing the Wizarding World, it is unknown at this time if Petunia was aware of him before Lily married James. Her fear of the Wizarding World only increases after Lily is killed (or maybe not long before, if Lily warned Petunia that Petunia could be a target since Lily was in the Order). But is it just external magic of which she's afraid?

I'd like to move to her treatment of Dudley. Here we have a boy who is spoiled beyond belief. He wants something, he gets it. Food, toys, games, whatever it is, how expensive or rare it is, it doesn't matter. She never disciplines him. On the contrary, when Dudley is on the verge of having a temper tantrum over not having as many presents on his eleventh birthday as he did the previous year, she is very quick to assure him that they'll get him more presents that day. She also does everything she can to get rid of Harry when Dudley starts having a fit about him going to the zoo with them.

I kind of wonder if Petunia does this not because she's really that dumb of a parent, but out of fear. I get the impression she is afraid of her son getting too angry, upset, or experiencing any other negative emotion. But why is she so afraid of this to such an extent that she'll do anything to make him happy?

Think about Harry for a moment during his pre-Hogwarts days. When he was angry, frustrated, or afraid, he accidentally and unknowingly used magic. Petunia, having grown up with Lily, had to have seen these sorts of weird, unexplained things happen with Lily in their childhood as well. Her own sister was a witch. I believe that Petunia is deathly terrified that Dudley, as well, will become a wizard simply because that "freakishness" is already in the family. Having Harry around probably only reinforces that fear, as he inherited his abilities from his parents.

And yes, I am aware that Petunia did not give in to Dudley about Harry going to the zoo, although Harry came up with a suggestion that could perhaps have been applied. He said he could just stay home by himself while they went to the zoo. This was Petunia's response: Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon. "And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.

I've always enjoyed that phrase. On the surface, she could just be implying that Harry will rip the house apart if left to his own devices, but I think she's recalling how her sister's house appeared after Voldemort had been there. Even though Voldemort had not returned yet, I think this bit indicates that she does fear either Voldemort or one of his allies showing up and doing the same to her house because they were looking for Harry.

But back to my point. I've addressed that Petunia is afraid of the Wizarding World, and she's afraid that her son will become a wizard as well, even though he's shown no inclination to do so in all his sixteen years that we know of. But is that it?

I mentioned earlier that she was also a neat freak. She has a fit if there is a speck of dirt to be found anywhere, and she goes through the effort of wiping down the kitchen at night before going to bed. People aren't this obsessed over cleanliness unless something's not right with them. The knee-jerk response is to say, "So the pot was calling the kettle black! SHE'S the freak!" But that'd be just too easy.

What's the one thing I've been hammering home in this essay? Petunia is AFRAID. Lily was a witch. Harry is a wizard. She seemed afraid that Dudley would be a wizard. But what if Petunia was afraid of becoming a witch herself?

Petunia considers anyone who can do magic a freak, or at least that's what she told Harry. She could, however, be terrified that she would have some magic in her own blood. Or maybe she has manifested it herself once, and has kept that part of herself buried deep down. That last is just speculation, but I do remember JKR saying once or twice that there are some people who, late in life, can use magic, but it's very rare. Petunia could be the one of whom she spoke. But even if it's not, that doesn't change Petunia's fear over what might be in her blood.

Purebloods consider having a Muggle in the recent family tree to be a taint in the blood. Petunia, on the other hand, sees Wizarding blood as the taint. Even if she has never shown any inclination to being a witch, I believe she sees herself as being tainted just because of Lily. She would dearly love to eradicate that taint from herself and her life. She can't just up and kick Harry out, and she can't go back and rewrite history so that Lily was never born, so I believe this desire manifests itself in her obsessive cleanliness.

So, with all this in mind, aside from Petunia's fear that she might have the "taint" in her blood and pass it on to her offspring, do we even HAVE any indications that Petunia is anything like her sister?

Believe it or not, I did stumble on one. It's from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when the Weasleys come to take Harry to their place. Dudley eats the Ton-Tongue Toffee and is more or less helpless on the floor with the oversized tongue.

I don't have the book with me, but right after this happens, Arthur says he can sort it out, and does his best to try to put Dudley right. The book says something about him advancing on Dudley with his wand out and pointed at him.

If we didn't know Arthur and/or the situation, this sentence would sound threatening. Petunia DOES see Arthur as a threat. This threat is advancing on her son with his wand out. What is her reaction? She puts herself between Arthur and Dudley, and when Arthur tries to convince her to get out of the way, she refuses. She gives the impression that Arthur will only get to Dudley over her dead body.

Sound familiar?

One last little thing on Petunia before I close that interests me. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when people discuss Voldemort's return, relatively few people believe Harry when he says Voldemort's back. He also has a problem convincing the Wizengamot that he and Dudley were attacked by dementors. But who is among the very first to believe all of this? Petunia Dursley. Instead of just thinking Harry was terrorizing Dudley, conjuring things up to scare him, and going on about Voldemort for attention's sake, she believes him. She understands fully and completely what it means if Voldemort has returned, but instead of denying it like much of the Ministry of Magic, she does believe him.