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Divination Three: Back to the Dursleys

‘I heard – that awful boy – telling her about them – years ago,’ she said jerkily. ‘If you mean my mum and dad, why don’t you use their names?’ said Harry loudly, but Aunt Petunia ignored him. She seemed horribly flustered.

Into the Penseive: On the Hogwarts Express, the day after the funeral, Hermione is reading the Daily Prophet, which makes no mention of Scrimgeour’s covert diplomacy but merely stresses that the situation has changed following the death of Dumbledore and there is a need to explore all alternatives. Honouring Dumbledore’s wishes, Harry is returning to the temporary safety of Privet Drive, accompanied by his two best friends. (Hermione and Ron are now an item and have tacitly admitted this to Harry.) Meeting the trio at the station, the Dursleys are horrified to learn that Harry has guests but can do nothing to prevent this as Ron and Hermione are legally of age and allowed to do magic out of school. When Harry reveals that Dumbledore is dead, killed by Snape, Aunt Petunia is appalled and frightened. It appears that the name of Severus Snape is not unknown to her. Harry has to resort to Legilimency (perhaps) to question his Aunt, who is forced to reveal something of her connection to the former Potions Master. [Minor edit - see comments below - thanks Beth!] It turns out that Petunia and Lily grew up a long way from suburbia in the same neighbourhood as Snape: the ‘Muggle dunghill’ of Spinners’ End. The Evans family took in teenage Snape – ‘that awful boy’ – after something happened to his parents (perhaps Eileen Prince-Snape finally retaliated against her bullying husband Tobias and was sent to Azkaban for using magic on a Muggle, explaining her son’s precocious knowledge of Dementors). Unfortunately, the young Petunia ‘cherished a secret, burning passion’ for Snape who only had eyes for her older magical sister Lily. After the events of ‘Snape’s Worst Memory’, Snape wrote to Lily to apologise and confessing his feelings, only for the letter to be intercepted by the jealous Petunia. When Lily left Hogwarts to wed her true love James, Snape secretly married Petunia, taking advantage of her loneliness and unrequited love, as an act of revenge on the Potters. Lily, appalled and horrified, knew that Snape could not love her Muggle sister, but was unable to prevent Petunia’s marriage and the two sisters became estranged. However, Lily alerted Albus Dumbledore and it was he who eventually helped Petunia to escape from her miserable position, protecting her from the usual consequences of having broken a magical marriage contract. Petunia turned her back on the wizarding world and married Vernon Dursley in an effort to forget the past (though Snape appeared once and threatened her, when Dudley was a baby – as recalled by Dudley in the Dementor attack). With Dumbledore vainly encouraging her to tell Vernon the truth, Petunia would admit no more than her connection to Lily and James but even then she hated to dwell on the subject. The guilty woman overcompensated by placating Vernon and spoiling Dudley, but felt obliged to take in baby Harry, at Dumbledore’s request. A revelation of this kind creates shock waves in the household. Distraught Petunia begs Vernon to forgive her deceit; but he storms out to Marge’s, never to return. Dudley wants to leave with Vernon, but his father rejects him, vowing to have nothing more to do with Petunia’s blood. Harry is confounded by the idea that Snape loved his mother and is furious that Dumbledore never told him.

Omens & Portents: Canonical Clues & Questions

1. Concerning Snape/Lily…

• ‘I told you to empty yourself of emotion!’ ‘Yeah? Well, I’m finding that hard at the moment,’ Harry snarled. ‘Then you will find yourself easy prey for the Dark Lord!’ said Snape, savagely. ‘Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked easily – weak people, in other words – they stand no chance against his powers!’ (OOtP24) Why is Snape so scared of his emotions?

• ‘LEAVE HIM ALONE!’ Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily. ‘Ah, Evans, don’t make me hex you,’ said James earnestly. ‘Take the curse off him, then!’ James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the counter-curse. ‘There you go,’ he said, as Snape struggled to his feet. ‘You’re lucky Evans was here, Snivellus –‘ ‘I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!’ Lily blinked. ‘Fine,’ she said coolly. ‘I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash out your pants if I were you, Snivellus –’ (OOtP28 ) Although it is still an official secret, the evidence is mounting that Severus Snape had an unrequited passion for Lily Evans-Potter. It has never been denied and there are plenty of clues.

• Most tellingly, Snape has maintained an unpleasant vendetta against Harry Potter for six years, taking every opportunity to insult his dead father, while never once using his mother’s memory against him. Isn’t it odd (for a former Death Eater) that none of Snape’s taunts have involved Lily, considering that she was a ‘Mudblood’ and that Harry is ‘half-blood’? This, on top of the fact that she was a Gryffindor, generous, witty and popular (the antithesis of Snape) and romancing his enemy. Indeed, were it not for that unfortunate incident with the Pensieve, Harry would never have heard Snape refer to her at all. It is as if her name is too sacred to be abused even for the purpose of hurting Harry. And isn’t it more logical that Snape’s worst memory was not of James tormenting him (a fairly frequent occurrence) but of the time when Lily defended him and he spurned her? Might Snape have had a stronger reason to resent James and Lily using him as a prop in their courtship?

• The possibility that Snape loved and lost Lily can account for so much … not least why Snape has such a tortured relationship with Harry Potter. Harry is a living symbol of his parents’ union – every time Snape looks at him he sees Lily’s eyes in James’s face – so no wonder Snape loathes Harry on sight. ‘Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had got from the teacher’s look – a feeling that he didn’t like Harry at all.’ (PS7) The idea that Snape was inadvertently responsible (via Harry) for the death of the woman he adored would certainly explain his warped mind. ‘You have no idea of the remorse Professor Snape felt when he realised how Lord Voldemort had interpreted the prophecy, Harry. I believe it to be the greatest regret of his life and the reason that he returned –’ (HBP29) Moreover, Snape is haunted by the knowledge that Lily sacrificed her life for Harry: ‘your mother needn’t have died … she was trying to protect you.’ (PS17) If Lily Potter was only ever in danger because she defended her husband and child, then Snape’s grudge against James and Harry becomes more understandable. And despite it all, Snape feels driven to protect Lily’s son, even after discharging his life debt to James in Book 1. (One might take the psychological speculation further to suggest that Snape has been unconsciously goading Harry to treat him with the hated he thinks he deserves… deliberately provoking him from the beginning, as if in readiness for the day when Harry found out about his betrayal.)

• Other subtler mysteries can also be explained by the Snape/Lily hypothesis … Why did Snape go ballistic in the Shrieking Shack? (Because he blamed Sirius Black for Lily’s death.) Why has the information about Snape’s Boggart and Patronus been withheld? (Because both used to reflect his obsessive love (though I think it’s possible that Snape’s Patronus changed after Dumbledore’s death). I’m a big fan of Aluna’s theory that Lily’s Patronus was a unicorn, the alchemical opposite of the stag and a symbol of purity and slain innocence in the Potterverse. Snape’s Patronus might have changed to resemble Lily’s after her death.) Why is Snape so horrible to Neville? (Well, because Neville is the Almost-Chosen-One: if Voldemort had decided to kill him instead then Lily might have lived.) And what is Snape doing teaching Potions when it was the DADA job that he wanted?

• Apart from the fact that he needed Dumbledore to give him any position, it appears that Snape’s choice of career might well be a tribute to Lily. A well-researched and eminently plausible editorial by Lady Lupin established that Lily is the most likely author of the corrections in the Half Blood Prince’s textbook. After all, it is curious that Slughorn (who taught them all) repeatedly equates Harry with Lily (specifically mentioning her creative brilliance), but compares him favourably to Snape. ‘But I don’t think I’ve ever known such a natural at Potions! Instinctive, you know – like his mother! … Well, then, it’s natural ability! I don’t think even you, Severus –‘ ‘Really?’ said Snape quietly, his eyes still boring into Harry, who felt a certain disquiet. (HBP15) In other words, Lily demonstrated the sort of imaginative instinct as a Potioneer that even Snape lacked, though her talent is inside his textbook. On further reflection, it makes perfect sense that there are two intelligences contained within that book: the intuitive, empathetic Lily Evans and the secretive inventor of Dark spells, Severus Snape. And I think Hermione could be right about a female mind at work, though wrong about the handwriting, if Snape copied Lily or they collaborated in Potions. This also lends some retrospective poignancy to Snape’s initial interrogation of Harry in PS/SS, as if Snape was trying to find out whether Harry was his mother’s or his father’s son.

• Snape had ‘always been fascinated by the Dark Arts, he was famous for it at school’ (GOF27) and is a likely choice to have known about Dementors. But did Lily really like Snape well enough to invite him to visit in the holidays? It is certainly possible that the kind-hearted girl befriended him at Hogwarts, though we have seen no firm evidence that they were friends. More likely, IMHO, is the idea that they were connected in the Muggle world. After all, Lily’s shocked reaction to Snape’s ‘filthy little Mudbloods’ taunt suggests that they might well have known each other before the incident. Also, the fact that he knew she was Muggle-born is interesting. Perhaps she also knew of his blood status, in which case she did well not to retaliate in kind.

Concerning Snape, Lily & Petunia…

• ‘I heard – that awful boy – telling her about them – years ago,’ she said jerkily. ‘If you mean my mum and dad, why don’t you use their names?’ said Harry loudly, but Aunt Petunia ignored him. She seemed horribly flustered. (OOtP28 ) One wonders if Harry’s question contains a deliberate clue; why else would Petunia miss the chance to insult Harry’s good-for-nothing father to his face? Moreover, James and Lily didn’t start going out until seventh year (OOtP29), by which time they had only a few years to live. At the beginning of Book 1, we are told that the sisters ‘hadn’t met for several years’ (PS1). Lily seems to have married straight out of Hogwarts and Harry didn’t see Aunt Petunia in the photograph of his parents’ wedding (POA11). Can we be sure that James and Petunia even met?

• We can deduce from HBP that Snape – a half-blood boy – endured an unhappy childhood in the ‘Muggle dunghill’ of Spinners End (HBP2). Is it possible that the two families lived in the same neighbourhood? Childhood poverty would explain the adult Petunia’s fanatical house keeping – her kitchen is ‘unnaturally clean’ – and social climbing, as well as her spoiling of Dudley; perhaps she sought to escape her origins by marrying Vernon, in which case her habit of spying on the neighbours derives from insecurity. We don’t know much about Snape’s upbringing, besides the glimpse we gained when Harry broke into his mind – ‘a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner’ (OOtP26) – but one has to wonder what happened to send him off the rails. Snape’s subsequent behaviour suggests his allegiance to his witch-mother, Eileen Prince. Did his Muggle-father, Tobias, abandon the family? Was he violent towards his wife and child? Or might Eileen have performed magic in retaliation – to protect her son – and been sent to Azkaban as a result, leaving the teenage Snape alone, despising the authorities and ripe for exploitation by Death Eaters? Could it be that Lily’s parents took pity on the young Severus – even took him in – giving Snape an opportunity to develop his hopeless infatuation with Lily Evans – his only friend – with the added complication of her Muggle-sister? This would explain both Lily’s fierce defence of him and her look of betrayal when he insulted her. We know that Harry’s maternal grandparents (though Muggles) had a fairly enlightened attitude to magic: perhaps a distant family tradition. Petunia says they ‘were proud of having a witch in the family!’ (PS4) If there were indeed three children in that extraordinary household then we might have had a glimpse of a young Petunia in Snape’s memory: ‘a girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick –’ (OOtP26).

• In any case, the possibility of a connection between Snape and Petunia – a strange couple, united by their mutual dislike of the male Potters – is intriguing. What would Petunia have made of ‘this little oddball … up to his eyes in the Dark Arts’ (OOtP29)? ‘Slimy, oily, greasy haired kid, he was’, according to Sirius Black (GOF27) and a miserable youth, as well, to judge from the unkind nickname of ‘Snivellus’. What would Snape have thought of ‘bony and horse-faced’ Petunia (POA2), so unlike her pretty sister?) Both Snape and Petunia seem to have barely acknowledged feelings about Lily at odds with their public persona, suggesting some difficulty in dealing with her death. Both would appear to have at least a rudimentary conscience about Harry – (HBP3) Dumbledore tells Harry that Petunia ‘knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years’ (OOtP37) – though they has often made his life a misery. Their feelings towards Lily’s son seem to consist of mingled resentment and guilt: Petunia appears ‘oddly flushed’ when Dumbledore upbraids her ill treatment of Harry (HBP3) and Snape is near distraught when Harry names him a coward (HBP28). And both seem to have had close ties with Albus Dumbledore – he who believed in second chances. It would be fitting if their mysteries were connected.

• Aunt Petunia undoubtedly has secrets. Despite the recent confirmation that she is a Muggle, she appears to know more about the wizarding world than she wants to admit and she was in correspondence with Albus Dumbledore before Harry ended up on her doorstep. We still don’t know why she agreed to take Harry with such great reluctance. Did Dumbledore have some hold over her? Did Petunia’s apparent hatred of her sister amount to more than the perception that their parents favoured magical Lily? Is it relevant that Petunia knew of Harry’s birth at the beginning of PS, despite not being in contact with her sister? What is the significance of her secret correspondence with Dumbledore? One has to wonder what else Petunia is keeping from Vernon. We know little about her, other than a few salient facts:
• her anger and resentment towards her dead sister,
• her cringing appeasement of Vernon and Dudley and cruel neglect of Harry,
• her extreme nosiness,
• her obsessive cleanliness and dislike of animals
• and her phobia of magic.

• Petunia certainly behaves like someone who has had her fingers burned by the magical world. As ‘the nosiest woman in the world’ (POA2), has her interfering put her family in danger (herself, Dudley and Vernon as well as the Potters)? Have Death Eaters threatened her in the past? Threatened Dudley, which might explain his response to the Dementors? ‘What would spoiled, pampered, bullying Dudley have been forced to hear?’ (OOtP2) From what we know of Lily’s character, she would want to protect her sister and nephew however much trouble Petunia had caused. Alternatively, did Petunia break wizarding law? Was Dumbledore protecting her from Azkaban or worse? How will Petunia react to the news that her protector is dead?

• Could it be that Petunia somehow intervened to cause trouble between Snape and Lily, with disastrous results for all concerned? In Julian Barnes’s novel, Flaubert’s Parrot, a petunia is said to signify an intercepted love letter. Might Petunia have been jealous of Snape’s feelings for Lily and withheld his letters from her sister or alternatively told him something devastating out of spite? We don’t know what happened in the ‘lost years’ after Snape, Lily and the Marauders left Hogwarts, but sometime during this period the sisters’ quarrelled (never to meet again), Lily and James were wed, Petunia married Vernon (turning her back on magic) and Snape joined Voldemort’s ranks. Could all these events be connected? All we know is that by the time of Book 1, Vernon was afraid even to refer to Lily’s existence for fear of upsetting Petunia. At the mention of her sister: ‘Mrs Dursley looked shocked and angry … they normally pretended she didn’t have a sister.’ (PS1)

• JKR is a fan of E. Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Could there be echoes of Heathcliff-Cathy-Isabella in a Snape-Lily-Petunia love triangle?

• One more thing to add … though Snape might well have a lifelong obsession with Miss Evans, the real time frame of his connection with her is impossible to judge. Was it all over (from her POV) at the age of fifteen, with Snape resigned to worshipping from afar, or were they partners and friends in a NEWT level Potions class, with the ‘Mudblood’ slur long forgotten? Did Snape believe he had a realistic chance of winning Lily back or was he just developing an unhealthy fixation with her? Might they even have worked together post-Hogwarts as, for example, Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries?

Legilimency… what is JKR thinking?

‘Let’s go again … on the count of three … one – two – three – Legilimens!’ (OOtP24)

• After Book 6 “you’re left with a very clear idea of what Harry’s going to do next.” [JKR, Time Magazine, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• JK had fun with the romance in Book 6. She hopes that the trends are now entirely clear. “I really enjoyed writing the Ron/Lavender business.” Ron needed to “grow up emotionally.” [JKR, Mugglenet/TLC, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• There’s stuff coming with the Dursleys that people might not expect. [JKR, The Oregonian, 2000 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Aunt Petunia has never performed magic, and will never be able to do so. [JKR, website – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Aunt Petunia is truly a Muggle, but there is “a little bit more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye.” “She is not a squib, although that is a very good guess. Oh, I am giving a lot away here. I am being shockingly indiscreet.” [JKR, Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Petunia knows about Dementors because she “overheard a conversation” between Lily and someone else. But there is more to it than that; we will learn more in Book 7. [JKR, ITV, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• What did Dumbledore’s Howler to Aunt Petunia mean? (“Remember my last?”)

• Dumbledore is referring the letter he left for Petunia upon the Dursleys’ doorstep (along with Harry). It was his “last” because there were letters to Petunia before that. [JKR, website – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• We will find out what Dudley experienced when he saw the Dementor. [JKR, World Book Day, 2004 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Dudley is nothing more than he seems; he gets very few lines in Book 6. [JKR, Edinburgh Book Festival, 2004 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• JKR thinks that the thought of Snape in love is a “very horrible idea” and is stunned that someone wonders if Snape might fall in love. We will find out why in book 7. [JKR, WBUR interview, 1999 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• A few of the Hogwarts professors have spouses, but the information is restricted – we’ll find out why! [JKR, BBC Red Nose Day chat, 2001 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Someone has loved Snape. [JKR, Mugglenet/TLC interview, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Telling us Professor Snape’s Patronus and Boggart would give too much away. [JKR, World Book Day, 2004 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• Of all her characters, JKR dislikes Uncle Vernon the most. [JKR, World Book Day, 2004 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

• [The books are] kind of a litany of bad fathers. That’s where evil seems to flourish, in places where people didn’t get good fathering.” [JKR, Time Magazine, 2005 – Madam Scoop’s Index]

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