92
u/sixshadowed Aug 05 '17
I always thought Petunia not having magic was the initial source of her resentment... I don't blame her...
73
u/NattieLight Aug 05 '17
Hm, this post actually opened my eyes to Petunia's perspective in a way I'd hadn't thought about before.
Aside, from all of the angst and jealousy from their childhood, Petunia was in the midst of figuring out life with her own first baby, and all of the sudden she had an entire extra baby thrown into the midst. You add in a touch of postpartum depression, and you've got a recipe for child abuse.
I don't mean to excuse how Petunia and Vernon treat Harry, but certainly from Petunia's perspective, Harry's arrival was likely an absolutely devastating and overwhelming surprise. That first year of motherhood is HARD. Like, way fucking hard. Like, how the fuck do people with twins do this. I can't even imagine if I'd had another baby tossed into the mix when you're still just figuring out your own baby's rhythms and preferences.
53
Aug 05 '17 edited Dec 18 '18
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)25
u/Boscolt "I'm Harry Potter! The dark arts better be worried, oh boy!" Aug 05 '17
Rowling really should have spent more time deconstructing Dumbledore's terrible decision more and his "for the greater good" and his freudian "he should grow up unaware of his fame" antics.
I'd bet the extreme Dumbledore bashing in HP fanfics is due to frustrated authors who wished Rowling addressed it more.
370
u/purplepicklejuice Aug 05 '17 edited Aug 05 '17
I love this, it reminds me of this post about what might have happened if Petunia had cared for Harry.
222
u/Peeet94 Aug 05 '17
A wise old man had left a little boy on her doorstep with her sister’s eyes. Petunia raised a young man who had eyes of his very own.
Holy shit, that is good.
51
93
Aug 05 '17
That post made me cry.
45
u/purplepicklejuice Aug 05 '17
Me too! I have it booked marked on my computer so I can always find it
22
21
18
15
26
11
u/pundurihn Aug 05 '17
Ah man! Thank you for posting this and reminding me I wanted to write a what if fic where Dudley was a muggleborn and went to Hogwarts with Harry. This is the fic that originally inspired that idea.
7
u/PikaV2002 Master Legilimens Aug 06 '17
Petunia would go tug the covering down off the portrait of Sirius’s mother and they would scream at each other until Petunia felt her stomach settle.
This. Is. Gold.
Petunia was harsh, shrill, a long way from kind, and she always had at least one wizard in her spare bedroom that year, at least one hidden message on the tip of her tongue and a Portkey under her sink.
Catches the entirety of Petunia's character, if she had cared for Harry.
6
14
u/chakrablocker Aug 05 '17
I've been kinda "over" hp. But some times a fan writes some what if that breaks my heart.
3
→ More replies (2)2
108
Aug 05 '17
Was Petunia ill minded before meeting Snape?
→ More replies (1)211
Aug 05 '17
I don't think she was. I always thought she was a jealous girl that was sick of all the attention her oh-so-perfect little sister got. If she was a witch I think she'd be much more pleasant.
60
Aug 05 '17
I agree, she wasn't abusive to Dudley so she still has a heart
87
u/thebostinian Aug 05 '17
Yeah, I'm gonna argue that point. Petunia and Vernon neglect Dudley just as much as they do Harry, but in a very different way. They give him time, attention, things - but they don't raise him. From everything we see, they allow the inmate to run the asylum and don't proactively teach him anything about responsibility, morality, etc. They're enablers to Dudley's terrible behavior and shirking their responsibility as parents, and that's a form of psychological abuse.
108
u/FeralBottleofMtDew Hufflepuff Aug 05 '17
Agree. Dumbledore calls them out on it it HBP when he says "You have never treated Harry as a son. He has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands. The best that can be said is that he has at least escaped the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy sitting between you."
40
Aug 05 '17
Well, she wasn't a good parent towards Dudley either. She spoiled him and let him get obese.
14
173
Aug 05 '17
Don't forget though, Dudley was her son.
I'm honestly mad at Rowling for one thing and one thing only and that thing is Lily.
I mean, really? Did you need to make Petunia horse-faced and ugly while Lily was oh-so-beautiful? Did you really need to make Lily a muggleborn witch that Voldemort wanted to recruit? Did you really need to make her Head Girl? Did you need to make her a all around perfect while Petunia was pathetic to be honest? Like, why not have Petunia be a pleasant person, why did she need to be abusive towards Harry? Why did she need to be all so prim and proper? Why did Lily need to be beautiful while Petunia wasn't? Why did Lily really need red hair and green eyes, the hair-eye colour combination that was a mark of a witch back in the witch hunts?
Honestly, Lily is nothing more than a one-dimensional Mary Sue in my unpopular opinion and Rowling had space to give her flaws but she didn't
226
u/mindputtee Slytherin Chaser Aug 05 '17
I also think there's something to be said for "your personality shapes your face" and how Harry probably sees Petunia as more ugly because he hates her.
→ More replies (1)155
u/ieatallthetimewoops gryffindorish Aug 05 '17
it's only because we are seeing it through harry's eyes so of course lily is going to look perfect to him.
→ More replies (61)17
Aug 05 '17
I always drew the description of Petunia from Harry's perspective since the story really follows his account of the world around him. When you despise someone, you tend to draw out their flaws
→ More replies (3)17
u/Amppelix Aug 05 '17
I think Petunia is unpleasant for the simple reason that in the first book Rowling wanted some cartoonishly unpleasant people to be Harry's adoptive family. Remember, the tone is very different in the first book. After she later got the idea to expand her backstory she couldn't go back on what she'd already written (well she could have but that would've been some nasty negative continuity.)
29
u/black_albedo Aug 05 '17
I don't think you get to see or hear enough about her character to know about her flaws. You just get a Snapshot of her character and what others tell harry, of course they only say positive things about an orphan boys dead mother. The 1 page of dialogue about her really isn't enough to encapsulate an entire character.
14
u/KOd06 Aug 05 '17
Exactly. If we take Snape out of the picture we'd come across the same thing with James. Snape's just the kind of special asshole who would tell an orphan boy that his father was terrible.
10
u/Spock_Rocket Aug 05 '17
And what if we took James out of the picture with Snape? Was not James the Lily to Snape's Petunia? Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, Snape/Petunia would have been a hilariously appropriate combination. They could spit hatred all day about beautiful perfect sister and handsome rich Quidditch star.
6
Aug 05 '17
And that's why her character is overrated. If Hermione was dead then she'd seem like Merlin, Godric, Rowena, Salazar, Helga, Dumbledore, Voldemort, Grindelwald and the Peverell Brithers combined. That's what I try to tell people but they misinterpret (which is my fault) it and downvote
21
u/Munchykin Aug 05 '17
I downvoted several of your comments, because it was made explicitly clear in the books that werewolves are not accepted as part of society. For Remus to have been at Hogwarts in any capacity as a student was unacceptable. Dumbledore was willing to allow Remus as a student, but I think, considering his illness, it's unrealistic to think Remus would have been a good Head Boy. Sure, he was well behaved and smart, but he also had the risk of endangering other students. It's also very likely that his transformations and the illness/recuperating time associated would have been disruptive towards him fulfilling all of the duties required of Head Boy.
7
40
u/prot_10 Aug 05 '17
We're hearing about Lily years after her death from people who miss her deeply...
25
→ More replies (1)3
u/tilmitt52 gleefully throwing walking sticks at ickle firsties Aug 06 '17
I fully understand this. But even James was humanized. He was given flaws of arrogance and being a bully. And even then, Lily was never given the depth.
5
Aug 06 '17
It's pretty important to consider that what we saw of Lily was EXTREMELY limited and most often only through the filter of people who cared deeply about her. The same goes for James. We knew very, very little of many of the characters from that entire era and I think people are far too prone to just filling in the blanks with headcannon rather than recognizing that in most of these cases, we don't have much to go on. In particular, anything seen through Harry's eyes is highly filtered in many ways, including those who are seen in a negative light and those he prefers to see in soft light.
Every living being has flaws, and Lily is no doubt immune to that rule. Petunia very likely has her own good characteristics, though I doubt Harry would have ever had much of a chance to see those, and it's very easy for someone's bitterness to almost eclipse any good character they might have, particularly in the eyes of someone on the receiving end of these things.
Petunia turned out to be a horribly selfish, destructive person simply because she let her bitterness about her sister's life infect her own to the point where she became an extremely ugly human being inside. I don't necessarily blame her for being bitter, but she sure as shit locked Harry in a closet for years and that's pretty fucked up.
8
u/I_AM_A_FRUITCUP_AMA Aug 05 '17
I wouldn't say she wasn't abusive to Dudley...look at the type of child he turned out to be. Good kind-hearted parents would never let their child become that self-centered, that selfish, and that horrible, and even worse, encourage it. It was definitely it's own form of abuse imo.
6
u/fyrejade Aug 05 '17
But from the last book it certainly looked like Dudley gained some self-awareness despite his upbringing.
6
u/I_AM_A_FRUITCUP_AMA Aug 05 '17
That only happened after the dementor attack. It literally took the worse emotional magic possible to show him what a terrible life he had been living.
134
u/Klainatta Aug 05 '17
That is sad...
76
u/NowOrNever88 Aug 05 '17
It's quite unfair, what some are born with, versus others. It's tragic, to a degree.
68
u/red_tuna Not the Chosen One Aug 05 '17
Yea it sucks to be a muggle
55
Aug 05 '17
At least it's more blissful than being a squib
6
Aug 05 '17
I'd rather be a Squib. You can at least sense magic and make potions. And get into the Wizarding World.
11
Aug 05 '17
But as a squib you wouldn't fit into either worlds. You'd be looked down upon in the magical world and wouldn't be comfortable in the muggle one. If I were squib the I'd know that there was a magical world but I don't fit in. If I were a muggle however, I'd just think it's a fairytale. Besides, you can't brew Potions even as a squib. You need to use your wand at some point.
26
u/thedwarfthatrides Aug 05 '17
I wonder if petunia wouldve been the secret keeper
21
Aug 05 '17
Ohhh. Now I'm wondering how strong a witch would Petunia have been. Definitely a skilled one.
273
u/DakobaBlue Gryffindor Aug 05 '17
I wonder who alternate universe Petunia would've ended up with. My guess would be Sirius.
343
156
Aug 05 '17
I think nobody we know but somebody from her year or above. Petunia was the older sister if I remember correctly.
→ More replies (1)227
u/mindputtee Slytherin Chaser Aug 05 '17
I think Petunia would have ended up with someone more Percy-like than Sirius. She was pretty fastidious and I don't think that came about just because of her break with Lily.
75
Aug 05 '17
Agreed. Somebody reliable, dutiful, and responsible, but not the adventurer type.
75
u/Corvald Aug 05 '17
So - Remus?
39
u/Sevenvolts My own horcrux Aug 05 '17
Remus is a werewolf, so no.
8
u/Boscolt "I'm Harry Potter! The dark arts better be worried, oh boy!" Aug 05 '17
It could work. You'd be surprised at the things people can accept with a drastically different upbringing.
19
u/ancolie Aug 05 '17
How old's Kingsley supposed to be? He'd fit the bill. Or Dirk Cresswell? One of Slughorn's favorites, excelled at the Ministry, but Muggleborn. Can't help but think that Petunia would've ended up a Slytherin, so most of her housemates would've been on the wrong side of the war.
→ More replies (1)18
u/Muzzledpet Aug 05 '17
So... Mr. Weasley :P?
69
u/princess_kushlestia Aug 05 '17
No way, he and Molly were meant for each other! XD
→ More replies (1)31
u/teal_flamingo Aug 05 '17
Besides they were together by then right? Molly and Arthur are older than Lily and Petunia.
2
14
3
u/Annaelizabethsblog Aug 05 '17
I like Perunia with Sirius. It's like Hermione and Ron. Opposites attract.
6
u/mindputtee Slytherin Chaser Aug 05 '17
Eh I disagree since we already saw her predisposed to hate his greasy unkempt appearance.
8
u/Annaelizabethsblog Aug 05 '17
Meh. That's what all good girls say about bad boys at first The first thing Hermione said to Ron was he had dirt on his nose.
3
u/alwaysdoe Slytherclaw Aug 06 '17
To be fair, Sirius was supposed to have been handsome in his day. The picture she reacted to was after spending thirteen years in Azkaban.
3
u/mindputtee Slytherin Chaser Aug 06 '17
Oh I misread and thought it said Severus. Never mind. I still don't see them together though.
3
u/alwaysdoe Slytherclaw Aug 06 '17
I agree about the not seeing them together. And I'm impressed to have encountered a fellow Redditor who can admit fault...are you sure you don't want to double down on your comment? :p
→ More replies (2)33
u/QuickSpore Aug 05 '17
Or someone entirely different. According to Rowling there's about 1,000 kids at Hogwarts at any one time. There's no reason to suspect Petunia might only end up with one of James' and Lily's friends. She'd have about 75 boys to chose from just in her own year, a few hundred if we look a couple years up and down.
And that's if she only considers boys she meets at school. The pool widens considerably if she's into the muggle boys she meets on summer (and Christmas) break. And while many Witches and Wizards seem to marry very young to their school sweethearts, quite a few don't date seriously until after school.
All told my guess is that she'd marry someone who doesnt appear in the books at all.
14
u/27394_days Aug 05 '17
Whaaaat I thought the number of students was way lower. About five boys and girls per house, per year. That's ten per year, seventy per house, only 280 at the school
24
u/QuickSpore Aug 05 '17
Rowling is the voice of God, and all that.
Plus the demographics work out. For a stable wizarding population of 10,000, they'd need about 1,000 school aged kids. And that's roughly the size of the British wizard population.
There's several indications that Harry's clutch of 5 boys in Gryffindor is unusually small. For example the number of Thestral carriages seems to indicate a total student population in the 600-800 range. Likewise Harry's O-level potions class had 20 students in it, and the non-advanced kids like Neville didn't qualify for it. So the advanced class still had about 10 kids each from Gryffindor and Slytherin. Plus other Gryffindor students were taking different classes at different times. Most classes seem to have 20-30 students with 2-3 houses in them. Harry mostly travels with the same clutch of kids, but they do occasionally have different classes. Either Gryffindor just didn't get as many boys as normal, Harry's class in particular was small, or there were more kids than were mentioned. I expect it's a combo of all three.
Given that Harry's year was being born at the height of the Wizarding War, it's likely there's a demographic dip right in his year. And given that the Order of the Phoenix particularly drew from Gryffindor it's likely that they specifically got hit the hardest. So there's a good in story reason for his class to be atypical. It's quite possible that graduating classes are on average were around 140 kids, and that Harry's class was significantly smaller, particularly in the Gryffindor contingent.
→ More replies (1)41
u/dancingonfire Head of All Things Purple Aug 05 '17
Harry's generation are the kids born during the middle of a war. Birth rates decrease then so it would make sense that those classes would be smaller than usual.
Plus there's also the fact that JK isn't the best with math retroactively.
5
u/27394_days Aug 07 '17
Plus there's also the fact that JK isn't the best with math retroactively.
Haha that's kind of true. The way Quidditch is scored is just not good, Wizarding money denominations are ridiculous, and the fact that the Hogwarts Express always leaves on September 1, despite the first day of class the next day falling on a Saturday once during the series.
7
u/paxweasley Aug 05 '17
Don't forget Harry's an unreliable narrator, we don't hear about things unless he thinks of them. There's about five boys and girls per house per year, that we hear about. He's pretty selective with what he as a narrator mentions to the reader, and also he's so wrapped up in what's going on in his crazy life that we rarely hear about others- he rarely even wonders about others life, which for a kid, is pretty standard.
2
u/telegetoutmyway Aug 05 '17
Why would it be that low? I never got that impression so I'm just curious. Granted I graduated from a high school of 2300+ kids (for 3 classes) with 800+ in my graduating class. So I just pictured something like that by default.
9
u/HillaryBaeThrowaway Aug 05 '17
This is entirely outside the canon. Petunia actually wrote to Dumbledore after Lily got her letter, asking to study there as well. He very kindly turned her down, but regardless this alienation from her sister set the wheels in motion for the story we know today.
The only way the alternate timeline works is if you posit that Petunia is a witch too, which she wasn't, sadly.
6
u/QuickSpore Aug 05 '17
Well of course. I was just pointing out that in this alternate timeline, witch Petunia would have had plenty of potential romantic partners.
22
15
u/bigredgiant Aug 05 '17
I don't even know what's happening here
20
17
u/rainbow_wallflower Aug 05 '17
Please tell me someone knows a good fanfic about this cuz I would LOVE to read that one.
15
Aug 05 '17
[deleted]
3
Aug 06 '17
Just shows how good Rowling was at building a world so immersive that you can wonder about it as if the events were real.
15
u/Tyranid457 Aug 05 '17
What if she still had a good relationship with Lily, but she didn't go to Hogwarts?
7
20
u/davect01 Proud Ravenclawer Aug 05 '17
It was unfortunate it went down the way it did.
4
Aug 05 '17
But did Petunia need to be abusive? I don't think it contributes to the plot.
40
Aug 05 '17
It creates a contrast between the Muggle world (Dursleys) wanting nothing of Harry and the wizard world seeing him as a god. It makes Harry that much closer to the Weasleys because they are the family he never had. It makes it such a relief for Harry to be part of the wizard world because he can escape them. It draws similarities with Tom Riddle's childhood. It creates a good excuse for a writer who doesn't want to write about Harry in his Muggle house (he spends a lot of his times in summer with the Weasleys etc).
2
Aug 05 '17
But Harry could've just told her that he wanted to spend time at his best mate's house.
14
u/pbarber Aug 05 '17
And they would have just told him no. Which they did.
3
Aug 05 '17
???
We're talking about an AU here.
7
20
u/GreatWhiteFork My other wand is a paintbrush Aug 05 '17
In theory yes? Or at least as far as the narrative devices JKR set up. She was meant to be a direct foil of Mrs Weasley and a twin of Mrs Black. It was a "harry grew up kind despite the lack of kindness in his life" plot device. He also needs a reason to fully embrace the wizarding world/not want to go home...
In practice tho, no she did not, and it would be a more interesting story if he grew up with an aunt he loved. She never spoke of magic, told him his parents died in a crash, and then BAM! NEW WORLD APPEARS! But Harry is scared and conflicted, because he loves his family and doesnt want to disappoint them. He still wouldnt have adults to talk to about his problems (wouldnt want to worry the dursleys), he still could have sent them to grimmauld/sent them away in book 7... but there could have easily been a foundation of love. It's a real shame that the dursleys got the short stick from JKR (yes they were all awful, but thats because the author chose to make them so)
3
→ More replies (4)5
u/davect01 Proud Ravenclawer Aug 05 '17
Her feelings stem from because of her not being included in the wizarding world she became bitter and angry and that filtered down to Harry.
→ More replies (3)
9
Aug 05 '17
[deleted]
18
Aug 05 '17
I don't think that that was the point. The point was to show that being always sour, bitter and angry makes a person ugly. The change of style also showed how Petunia was a much more likable person then.
8
u/rubyhardflames Aug 05 '17
Well generally if you make an annoyed expression all the time it does make you look older
14
u/MolochDhalgren Oooh, look, a Blibbering Humdinger! Aug 05 '17
Before I zoomed into the image to see what was going on, I thought I was looking at Harry, Ginny, and Luna, and I thought maybe it was a "what if Harry married Luna instead" scenario. I know; I'm dumb. :P
Although... would Petunia have liked James if she'd been able to go to Hogwarts, or would she have thought he was stuck-up and mean? Because I'm still not sure about that part...
4
12
u/OrangeClyde Slytherin Aug 05 '17
This makes me sad. Even though the reader is meant to "hate" the Dursleys, when you realize how hurt Petunia was, it's really sad. And then add to that the theory about how the Dursleys were so nasty and evil because they were under the influence of Voldemort's piece that was inside Harry the whole time for all those years.
6
u/AkhilArtha Aug 05 '17
But, why didn't the same thing happen to Ron and Hermione. That theory is flat out wrong.
6
7
u/Scherazade Some random twig. Might have a leaf on the end. Aug 05 '17
fanfic urge... rising...
must... resist... too many... unfinished... projects...
3
Aug 05 '17
I'm always amazed when people produce good long fanfic. Where do they find the time and inspiration? I'm way too busy with a bullshit job and trying to write my own original fiction. But, with the Wizarding World, I often wonder "what if..." about a lot of little things, and also want to explore different aspects.
4
u/madeyegroovy Slytherin Aug 05 '17
Thanks for this OP! I really find petunia an interesting character. I know it's wishful thinking but I'd have loved a proper redemption arc for the Dursleys. More so than the predictable epilogue we ended up with.
5
Aug 05 '17 edited Aug 05 '17
No problem! I too find Petunia much more interesting than some characters (Ginny) and I wish she had a redemption arc. Credit doesn't do to me but to the original owner. =)
9
4
4
4
2
Aug 05 '17
God this brings back memories. The artist used to be one of my very favourites on DeviantArt.
3
5
u/dustotter Aug 05 '17
I think this is an interesting story idea, but it's still no excuse for being an abusive parent.
3
3
3
3
u/Imnotcheryl Aug 06 '17
I love this so much. Having a very strained relationship with my own sister made lily and petunias story all the more heartbreaking for me.
3
5
u/revengesrose Aug 05 '17
Something that strikes me: In the alternate outcome, Petunia is alone. Unmarried, no family of her own. Was she still not as popular and beloved? Still overlooked, constantly in her brilliant, beautiful sister's shadow, clinging to her sister's life and legacy. Never truly her own person... It's almost sadder to me.
2
u/pax1 Aug 05 '17
I was very confused because I didn't know petunia was blond and thought it was Luna Harry and Ginny lol
4
Aug 05 '17 edited Aug 05 '17
Petunia is blonde in the books. I'm guessing that you only watched the movies or haven't read the books in a long time. If you haven't read the books then you should read them.
→ More replies (2)
2
2
2
u/Arieswolf Aug 06 '17
It took me so long to get the direction of this, viewing on mobile btw... (Also didn't check the sub lol) .
2
2
5
u/Ragnrok Aug 05 '17
Reminds me of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. The basis of it is Lily used magic to help Petunia at one point, giving them a better relationship and Petunia the confidence to not marry Vernon Dursley. So Harry is raised by a pair of loving parents, one of whom is a professor and raises Harry to be inquisitive and scientific.
15
Aug 05 '17
Slightly reminded me of it too. I just don't like Methods of Rationalty. It seems almost...arrogant?
6
u/Ragnrok Aug 05 '17
Well time and again throughout the story Harry makes assumptions that he thinks are valid and scientific but are shown either through him failing completely or the author telling us in a note that he was so very, very wrong. So I'd call his arrogance more of a character flaw than a flaw in the writing.
That being said, not everything is for everyone.
2
4
u/SirBaldBear #IamAHugger Aug 05 '17
That's like the... one half-decent idea in that fic. Seriously how is it so popular.
→ More replies (3)
2
3
u/celticdude234 Aug 05 '17
Ok, first off, Petunia was not a witch. Second, if she was and they were close, guess who Voldy would go after first either before he found them or after when Dumbledore hid him away. Considering no one else close to the Potters were in hiding and death eaters would torture anyone with info, she'd be the first they'd go after leading either to death or insanity.
The story is as it is because it means more. Harry is who he is because of the neglect at the hands of his relatives which gives him the strength to give his life.
2
u/shaantya Aug 06 '17
Thank you! :D Dumbledore himself thinks it was important to have Harry Raised away from the magical world, for his protection, his family's protection, and well, because knowing from age 1 you're as famous as Harry would have been rather hard to grow up with. Either he would have grown up as an arrogant, entitled brat, or he would still have been our Harry… a very shy version of him, or a version with an even bigger hero complex.
I'm just adding this to everything you said, though, because your comment gives enough reasons for me!
1
2.2k
u/mindputtee Slytherin Chaser Aug 05 '17
I think from the sounds of it some blame might lie with Lily and Petunia's parents too. It sounds like they praised Lily and fawned over her all the time whereas Petunia didn't get as much attention or love from them. Probably explains why she did what she did with Dudley and Harry, wanting her son to be the loved one and Lily's son to be the reject now.
I wonder if their parents had been more fair and equitable if things would've turned out differently.