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heidi891 · 1 year

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Snape didn’t know Harry had been abused

Albus kept everything he knew to himself (and I don’t think he knew much either, because he wasn’t really interested, as long as Harry was alive).

Professor McGonagall could have told others that the Dursleys spoilt their son. While it could mean that he was their golden child, it could also mean that they spoilt children in general.

According to the additional story, it was James who caused the breakup of Lily and Petunia’s relationship. At that point Snape wasn’t Lily’s friend anymore, so he didn’t know about it.

But he knew that when they had been friends, Lily cared about her sister. He also knew that Lily’s parents had been happy that their daughter had been a witch and that Petunia had wanted to be a witch too.

He didn’t know Vernon who was probably the main reason behind Harry’s abuse.

When Harry showed up at Hogwarts, he had a lot of money and could buy whatever he wanted, everything new and of excellent quality. If Snape had used some Legillimency during the first Potions lesson, he could have seen that Harry wanted to buy a golden couldron.

Harry’s traits—like arrogance or love for sweets as a child—were caused by home abuse, but they could have also stemmed from being spoilt.

In the third year the Dursleys didn’t give Harry a permit to visit Hogsmeade. While we know they were mean, the teachers could have understood that they were afraid for Harry’s safety when Sirius Black was on the loose.

Because of all the above, Snape could believe that Harry was simply spoilt, not abused.

It wasn’t until the Occlumency lessons when Snape saw Harry’s memories and realised that Harry had been abused.

Curiously, it was that year when the Order members talked to the Dursleys at the train station. What changed? Harry had always been talking that the Dursleys were horrible… but he had also never added any details, so it could just have meant that they were so "Muggle" and boring unlike the Wizarding World. Dumbledore wasn’t interested in Harry’s situation. The Weasleys ignored Harry’s situation even when Ron and the twins brought him home after the first year. The only thing that changed was Snape having had access to Harry’s memories. He could have told Dumbledore about it, then Dumbledore informed some Order members and told the Dursleys off himself when he was picking Harry up at the beginning of the HBP.

#harry potter books #severus snape #severus snape meta #pro snape #the dursleys #tw abuse

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lunar-serpentinite · 2 months

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harry who is very good at arts and crafts but he only built up the skill bc he spent his childhood creating his own toys and tools from the bits and bobs that the dursleys didn't want 👍

#harry potter #harry james potter #harry potter headcanon #the dursleys #they should be a tw/cw of their own tbh #my crafty lil pookie bear u deserved so much better

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 1 year

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Do you think if the Dursleys had been insanely physically abusive and obvious about it (almost killing him) Dumbledore might have removed Harry? Or potentially Mrs. Figg would’ve reached out for help?

Canonically, Petunia once hits Harry in the head with a frying pan, which very well could have killed him. They also starve him for punishment, which could easily have led to his hospitalization or death.

Later, Dudley's gang beats Harry up during the summers around the neighborhood.

The Dursleys were very physically abusive and not entirely subtle about it.

Dumbledore did not remove Harry, his only intervention is in the sixth book, where he awkwardly shows up at the Dursleys and makes fun of them and says, "I am terribly disappointed in all of you, now come on Harry, let's go bother Horace Slughorn."

Remember, also, that at least as of book 2, Dumbledore is planning Harry's death. If Petunia gets a little too overeager with that frying pan... unfortunate but it was going to happen sooner or later.

#harry potter #harry potter meta #harry potter headcanon #albus dumbledore #anti albus dumbledore #the dursleys #petunia dursley #tw child abuse #meta #headcanon #opinion

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whinlatter · 1 year

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Hello Elizabeth, I’ve loved all your metas so far, and you do a great job of pointing things out that we as readers may have overlooked. You honestly made me want to read the HP series again because I feel like I missed out on so much. Apologies if you’ve already done a meta on this before and I missed it, but how abused do you think Harry was by the Dursleys? We know the basics: malnutrition, neglect, and emotional abuse for the majority of his life, but I remember reading the book as a child and getting this uneasy feeling that he was being physically abused. If you read between the lines and pay attention to his interactions with the Dursleys in the beginning of each book, I think it's indirectly mentioned... but maybe I've been reading it wrong all these years? What is your take on this?

TW: generalised non-specific discussions of child abuse and neglect

Thank you so much for the question and for reading all my jumbled thoughts! Totally relate - I re-read the books for the first time in the better part of two decades last summer and was like, sorry all this stuff was there the whole time and I missed it? I learn so much for other writers' close readings revisiting these texts (@ashesandhackles's re-reads spring to mind, but there are many others) and love to be a part of these ongoing conversations.

On the Dursleys and child abuse... I haven't written anything on this before, and the short answer is: yes, I think it's clear that Harry experienced some level of physical abuse at the hands of the Dursleys, at the hands of both Vernon, Petunia, Marge and, to a lesser extent, Dudley.

That said, I do have some caveats. One is that I think fandom speculation over the extent of the physical abuse can sometimes risk overstating the canonical scale of the physical abuse (any abuse, including psychological abuse, is awful enough, and some fics claiming canon-compliancy can sometimes risk gratuitous depictions of really horrific abuse in problematic ways). Two, I think sometimes fanfic depictions of Harry at the Dursleys' can risk overstating how canonically Harry perceives his treatment at the Dursleys, in ways that risks predetermining how child victims of abuse ought to feel about their experiences rather than how they describe them themselves. Three, and the one that's particularly interesting to me as a historian, is how Harry's treatment at the Dursleys shines this fascinating light onto changing audience tastes and attitudes towards depictions of harm to children in mass-market children's and YA literature between the time of HP's initial publication and the present day.

I've done a longer little lunch-break discussion of some of this below the cut. Yes this quickly became a long-winded discussion of the character of the abused orphan/child in the publishing market for late twentieth century children and YA literature and Thatcher's Britain. I am sorry about that, and know that I apparently simply cannot be stopped.

It's undeniable that what happened to Harry at the Dursley's was child abuse and neglect, for all the reasons you rightly cite. Both Harry and the loving adult caregivers he finds in the Wizarding World recognise that he is abused and neglected at the hands of the Dursleys. This includes physical abuse, with examples readers rightly cite off the bat: Harry being held tightly around the throat by Vernon and later citing 'a need to duck' around his uncle (OotP), Petunia trying to hit twelve-year-old Harry with a frying pan (CoS), Marge hitting Harry with her walking stick (PoS), and repeated instances of the Dursleys withholding food and confining Harry to small physical spaces. I hope it goes without saying that these instances are plainly incidents of physical violence against children. Each is horrific on their own terms, and likely part of a pattern of repeated physical roughness and low-level violence towards a child (I say low-level only because the strangling incident takes place after Dudley appears to have been harmed in OotP, and Harry's response to Vernon holding him by the throat suggests this violent incident is particularly extreme even for Vernon).

It's also clear, though, that while Harry bitterly hates the Dursleys for all of the harm they have done to him, he does seem to see this physical abuse as part of a broader set of failings they committed as his caregivers, and doesn't single-out physical abuse as uniquely traumatising. Confinement, being shouted at, and failing to protect him from bullying by other children are all crimes the Dursleys commit against him that he clearly views as just as harmful as the physical abuse he endures at their hands. We don't know how Harry the character would come to think about his experiences with the Dursleys in adulthood, of course, and it's reasonable to speculate that he may come to acknowledge himself as a child abuse victim and have either suppressed memories of traumatic incidents he endured as a child. With that said, I personally feel a certain level of discomfort with fan speculation about further or escalated incidents of child endangerment against Harry at Privet Drive beyond what we see either in the text or is implied within patterns of the Dursleys' behaviour. What the Dursleys do to him in canon is bad enough as it is, and exaggerated depictions of the Dursleys' treatment can get dangerously close to implicitly suggesting child abuse has to be a certain level of physically egregious to be sympathetic to the reader that the canonical text doesn't achieve, which I think is intensely problematic.

One thing I will say, though, is that I think the example of the Dursleys' treatment of Harry is a fascinating case study in HP's reception history and the cultural acceptability of depicting and using child abuse as a plot device. The topic is such a good a litmus test for the gulf between how the series was read and consumed when first published and how it is increasingly thought about and revisited by audiences. Changing attitudes about Harry's experiences with the Dursleys reflect how HP as a piece of literature which was written, edited, published and marketed to a consumer audience with certain expectations about depictions of harm to children, but which now continues to be closely re-read/revisited through the films and consumed by a market audience with increasingly different comfort levels and expectations about child welfare.

Children's and YA literature in the mid-to-late twentieth century had certain certain norms and conventions. Often, this took the form of the orphan child as either the protagonist or as a key sympathetic hero. Lots of media used the abused child both as an immediately sympathetic character for audiences to empathise with, and also used the absence of things like family, safety and love as central motivators for these characters, which then sets up the plot of the media at hand to resolve. The literature that for most UK school-children became canonical between 1980 and 1997, so in Thatcher/John Major's Britain, often centred characters who were usually orphaned or bereaved and who experience child abuse, neglect or mistreatment, often depicted in a slapstick and almost pantomime-esque way. This includes predecessors to HP like Roald Dahl's Matilda (1988), Michelle Magorian's Goodnight Mister Tom (1981) and Jacqueline Wilson's various books but especially Tracy Beaker (1991). This period also saw enduringly popular older works of literature experience a resurgence as older English-language TV or film adaptations made in the UK or Hollywood became even more commercially successful and entered 'classic' status - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Roald Dahl wrote the Child-Catcher into the 1968 film - he's not in the book!), Ken Loach's Kes (1968), Peter Pan (including Hook (1991), the Spielberg version), or mid-nineteenth century works of literature that became commercially successful popular musicals after 1950, like Oliver Twist or Cosette in Les Mis. Even in media where children appear in dysfunctional but fundamentally loving homes - Billy Elliot (2000) - or face physical violence at the hands of adult villains - Home Alone (1990) - we can see from both critical reception and popular audiences responses that the consuming publicly were on the whole less likely to be disturbed by either violence or the threat of violence against children than audiences, especially young audiences, three or four decades later, who typically find such depictions, even in their slapstick form, abhorrent.

In this period of writing (and particularly publishing and/or market media production beyond print fiction), there was far greater flippancy about depicting violence or the threat of violence against children as an empathy device for readers, especially young readers. I think this is for reasons that I think relate to changing ideas (and legislation) around children's agency, child welfare, endangerment, protection and the boundaries of the state and family life in late twentieth century Britain and elsewhere (a mammoth topic for another day). These were increasingly pressing political issues into the 1990s, especially the late Thatcherite/Major period into the Blair years. The violence that was depicted in literature during this transitional period almost always had a slightly farcical, or even slapstick or comic dynamic to it that I think is true also of the Dursleys around Harry in those early books - the frying pan being a classic example. We're supposed to think of the Dursleys as ridiculous, a parody of Thatcherite Home Counties surburban culture. While authorial intent is to show a character defined by the absence of familial love at the hands of clear villains, the Dursleys aren't intended to be read as vicious child abusers inflicting irreparable psychological and physical harm on a pre-teen child. They're supposed to be within this genre convention of cruel but ridiculous adults who behave badly and embarrass themselves and who the reader is supposed to immediately root against.

My point, really, is that we as readers can certainly revisit these books decades later having absorbed this greater popular literacy about child trauma responses and PTSD and see these characters differently, but we should keep in mind that this is a lot about the changing sets of ideas and expectations we have as a reading audience than it does about how the author and the text's editors intended these characters to be received. If we are reading the Dursleys' treatment of Harry and thinking - how is Harry remarkably fine after all of this? How could Dumbledore leave him with these people? - we're asking questions that the aspects of HP as an artefact of literature fulfiling certain genre conventions was never set up to be able to answer. I just think is something that fandom discussions and fanfiction authors (particularly those drawn to canon-compliancy) need take into consideration when trying to reconcile their horror at the Dursleys' treatment of Harry and interest in how this abuse would shape him as a character, with an interest in remaining true to the canonical text.

(I absolutely don't mean to be overly relativist about this, and want to make clear I'm talking about depictions of children's abuse in literature. In reality, children who have experienced violence and harm at the hands of adult caregivers have always felt some level of pain and distress. My point here is less about the lived experience of abuse and neglect, and more about changing cultural norms, attitudes and tastes about fictional depictions about abuse and neglect.)

#ok lunch break's over i'll shut up now #i've talked a lot this week even i am sick of me #my ask box is full of interesting Qs i am v grateful for and desperate to answer #but don't want to spam everyone's feed so will be pausing/slowing down answering for a little while if that's ok!#the dursleys #meta #writing #fandom discourse #TW: child neglect

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urstarlitharlot · 3 months

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HOW I IMAGINED THE DURSLEYS

firstly their house. i honestly don't know much about the geography of england but ive always headcanoned them of living in a poorer working class area. i feel like canonically the thought of them trying to present rich n shit despite living in a lowet class area is like them pretending to be a 'normal' family, and i know the evans grew up in a lower class area so i feel like petunia never being able to run away from her sister and childhood is sad n ironic

i've always imagined as them having a nice interior, the iconic 90's apple kitchen and ocean themed bathroom, so that people were distracted from the empty wine bottles and the locks and catflaps on harrys door.

for petunia, ive always imagined her as an unstable bipolar who uses harry as her outlet. the thought of her having to live off of lithium, alcohol, and cigarettes while trying to seem put together means sm to me. i don't think she would BEAT harry, but she def treated him like a diary (offhanded comments to him talking shit about him or the neighbors, screaming matches w him, etc) and an occasional slap.

vernon on the other hand, i think would be different. i think that vernon is a genuinely bad person, mixed with a bipolar alcoholic wife and a busy job would be stressed and angry and take it out on harry. i do believe that petunia would encourage vernon to use him as an outlet, but that doesn't make vernon any better

#character study #the dursleys #petunia #petunia evans #petunia dursley #petunia evans dursley #vernon #vernon dursley #tw abuse #child abuse

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theresthesnitch · 2 years

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(a little something for Sirius and Harry Saturday that I decided was too long for @impishtubist's askbox...)

When Sirius moved in with the Potters, things were not just suddenly okay. Sirius acted out a lot. Testing boundaries, sure, but he also thought that they would eventually kick him out too, because if even his parents didn't love him enough to keep him, then why would the Potters?

Only, Euphemia and Fleamont were not Walburga and Orion. They responded to each outburst with kindness and love. They set reasonable boundaries and had reasonable expectations. Every time Sirius did something else to break those boundaries and force them to finally punish him, Euphemia would look at him and say, "I love you, but I don't love the way you are acting right now."

One night, Sirius came home, hours after abandoning James in some muggle neighborhood, drunk and high. Euphemia stayed with him until he sobered up, even though he slept through most of it.

When he woke up, she was sitting in a chair next to his bed, knitting. She saw he was awake, and proceeded to tell him that she loved him, unconditionally, and that she was worried about him. She promised to always be there for him, even when he scared her the way he did the night before.

Sirius had never had anyone worry for him before. He hadn't thought that what he was doing would scare her. He never again disappeared like that, or came back quite that out of it.

(She knit a sweater that night, which Sirius wore nearly constantly until he wore it to rags. She knit him another to replace it.)

When Harry came to live with Sirius and Remus after POA, he was overly well behaved at the beginning. Sirius and Remus had to convince him that he didn't have to wake up early to make them breakfast, he didn't have to sweep and mop and wipe down the counters and the toilets every night, and he did not have to stay out of the way so he was neither seen nor heard. It took a while, and the sacrifice of every single piece of the Black Family fine china launched at the hideous Black Family Tree tapestry, but they finally convinced Harry that it was alright to be a teenager.

With the new freedom, Harry rebelled.

It was small things, at first. Testing boundaries. When he found lines to cross, he did, and Sirius watched as Harry braced for whatever punishment he had been conditioned to expect. It never came, and every time, when Harry relaxed again, Sirius watched the confusion and awe on his face, and wondered whether Euphemia saw the same mix of emotions on his own face.

Remus didn't get it–why Harry lashed out at them. He couldn't get it; not really. His parents weren't perfect, but they loved him.

Sirius got it, though. He understood the absolute disbelief that someone could love you as you were, unconditionally. So every time Harry yelled at them, or broke something, or slammed his door so hard that the entire house groaned under it, Sirius thought of Euphemia and her kind smile and her kinder words.

I love you, but I don't love how you're acting right now.

#sirius and harry saturday #good godfather sirius black #euphemia is queen #wolfstar raising harry #wolfstar raising Harry after POA #tw drugs #tw alcohol #tw implied child abuse #vague mentiones of child abuse #canonical black family abuse #canonical dursley family abuse

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nodirectionhome-ao3 · 3 months

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Hey, I wanted to ask you if you have any tips in writing Lily and Petunia’s relationship. I’m trying to write a fic about Petunia and Lily’s sisterly relationship and how it started off great but then completely shattered into pieces. I really love the way you characterize each of them, the qualities and personalities. For example, in ksfm, the part where Petunia doesn’t show an ounce of remorse when Lily arrives to her home.

It really shows the differences between both sisters, thing is Lily would forgive Petunia for anything she did to her. But after knowing everything she did to Harry it’s just, the bridge of sisterhood was completely destroyed and for good reason. How did you come up with the scenes/flashbacks when Lily saw the memories of her son being neglected/hurt by her sister and brother in law?

At this point I surpassed “broken record” because ksfm is brilliant I hope you know this. I like that you didn’t shy away from the abuse that Harry went through and the rage that Lily felt. The complexity between Lily and Petunia is so interesting. They grew up in the same family, however they both went down two different paths. Not just magical vs muggle, the dynamic is unique in its own way.

personality wise, Lily is loving, caring and will do anything to protect the ones she loves. While, Petunia is vindictive, filled with jealousy that caused hatred to consume her. Which to be honest it’s something that every family has in real life, you could live in the same house, same parents and raised with the same morals. However, that means absolutely nothing when you go against everything, talking about Petunia here. Do you have any headcanons about these two sisters in particular?

I know, there’s lots of people who shouldn’t be parents, Hell… my sisters are bad parents and it fills me with absolute rage knowing they have children/teenagers when they don’t even love them. Example, one of my eldest sisters let her boyfriend implement “discipline” to her two boys by that it was making them kneel down as they held two thick books (like bibles) in each hand for over an hour during a cold shower, I found out about this after they told me a few years after, they felt trapped (I was only 13 when they told me this) My other sister calls my nieces (ages 9-18) horrid/degrading words everyday and anytime I speak out on that, she always says “your not a mom, but when you are you’ll do this very same thing” which boggles my mind because I would never (this is the same sister who is extremely racist and wants me to baptize her daughter like wth?)

sorry for the rambling but what I’m trying to say is thanks for showing how Harry grew up, because many times people don’t understand how horrid life could be. I feel you did a great job in showing this, yes it’s uncomfortable but it also helps so many people who have been through abuse and/or seen it firsthand.

Sorry for the multiple questions, 😅 I always try to condense my words but I end up adding more(Also, the moment Lily uses crucio on Vernon I listened to Bodies- Drowning Pool, because he deserves every bit of that from Lily.)

Hope you have a good day, friend ❤️

First of all, I just want to say that I'm so sorry for what your nieces and nephews have gone through. My heart aches to hear about that and I hope they're okay. I hope you're okay too, because I can't imagine how difficult that's been for you as well. I know this won't feel like much, but sending lots of love and hugs your way❤️🫂

As for your question, I think Lily and Petunia's relationship is so interesting and has the potential for so much depth. I definitely agree with your character analysis of both of them – it really is so fascinating how two people from the same family can end up so different! I like what you said about their relationship starting out good and then shattering as they grew up – that's definitely the headcanon that I went with in KSFM.

My approach to their backstory in KSFM is to think about their story in terms of two phases: phase one is before Lily (and her family) found out that she's a witch, and phase two is after. I like the idea that in phase one, Lily and Petunia were really close. I don't have a sister, but I do have a brother and all of my cousins are significantly older than me (at least a decade, most of them more), so I know from personal experience what it's like to grow up in a family where only one other person is close to your age. In my case, my brother and I were like partners in crime, fierce allies through it all. We were really close, because quite frankly there was nobody else we wanted to hang out with at family events (when our parents were with the other adults) and all the other various social things our parents would drag us to. That's sort of a tangent haha, but I'm just explaining where I'm coming from in this. I like the idea that Lily and Petunia were really close as little kids, particularly in those years before Lily knew what she was. I also think Lily definitely looked up Petunia growing up, because it's definitely a very natural thing for younger siblings to idolize the older one! Petunia might have even felt protective of Lily in those days, before the jealousy took over. In KSFM, Lily was homeschooled in her pre-Hogwarts days because her parents were so worried about the accidental magic (that they didn't understand) and what could happen to Lily if people found out about it. So Petunia and Snape were the only friends Lily had back then and I think, in those days, they both meant the world to her.

Their relationship started to sour when Lily found out (from Snape) that she was a witch. We obviously know from canon that Petunia was really jealous, and that jealousy was canonically what caused Petunia to become spiteful and (eventually) abusive. I also believe that Snape greatly exacerbated the growing divide between Lily and Petunia during those days. He obviously didn't like Petunia, and I think he wanted to drive a wedge between her and Lily so that he could have Lily for himself (that and the fact that he just clearly didn't like Muggles). I wonder if maybe a big part of Petunia's hatred for magic was Snape and the way he inserted himself into Petunia and Lily's lives. It's possible that if he hadn't done that, Lily and Petunia would've spent more time together as kids and maybe that would have tamed some of Petunia's jealousy. (Emphasis on maybe though because I don't want to let Petunia off the hook, she made her own choices about how she treated others.)

In writing KSFM, I wanted to add some more depth to Lily and Petunia's backstory because I didn't want Petunia to come off as a 3-dimensional villain purely motivated by jealousy. So, in KSFM, there's the added element of their mother's death and everything that came after it. I see that as the incident that fully doomed the sisters' relationship irreparably. It's a very tragic thing, because both of them were deeply hurt by it in different ways. For Lily, her father tried to protect her from the months of pain and didn't tell her that her mother was sick until she was on her deathbed, which is obviously a very horrible thing because Lily never got to say goodbye. I'm sure she also feels a certain level of enduring guilt because she wasn't there for her mother during that time, even though that's obviously not her fault since she wasn't told what was going on. On the other side, Petunia did know because she was there in Cokewoth through all of it, so she lives with the memory of those long months filled with hardship when her mother was in continuous decline. She probably did get to say goodbye, but that doesn't mean the experience was easy. It's just a different kind of pain.

All of this is an extremely long way of saying that Lily & Petunia both experienced a traumatic loss that affected the rest of their lives. Petunia's reaction to that was to externalize that pain and become bitter and spiteful. Lily's reaction was to internalize that pain and do everything she can to not let her loved ones feel it too. Petunia's backstory made her abusive while Lily's made her protective.

I also think you're right in that Lily would've kept trying to make amends with Petunia and likely never would've given up completely on their relationship if it wasn't for Harry. Petunia's treatment of her son makes her irredeemable to Lily. There's just no going back from something like that. It was really tough to write the flashbacks with Harry and the Dursleys because it's such a heartbreaking thing to think about but I knew it was important to the overall story to show it because Harry's childhood definitely affects him profoundly. I don't remember exactly how I approached writing that, but I was very conscious of the fact that even though Vernon was louder about it all, Petunia was just as cruel. If not more so. Treating Harry the way she did was her way of "getting back" at Lily for making Petunia feel so unappreciated and not being there for her during that difficult time with their mother (even though, like I said, none of that was Lily's fault). Petunia's logic is warped and twisted from spite, and Harry, sadly, is the one who suffered the consequences of that.

That's very long-winded (and I'm not sure I phrased it correctly) but I hope that helps? The fun thing from a writing standpoint is that we know very little about how Lily and Petunia grew up, outside of the small snapshots we get from canon, so there's so much freedom to create a dynamic relationship!

I can't wait to hear more about your Lily & Petunia fic. It sounds so interesting and I'm sure it will be brilliant!❤️

As always, thank you so much for your kind words about KSFM! I'm so so happy you're still enjoying it!!! (and sorry that this answer turned into a very long essay😅 Apparently I have a lot of thoughts!!)

Thanks for the ask!!❤️❤️❤️❤️

#kindly stopped for me #lily and petunia #the dursleys #tw: child abuse #character study

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therealvinelle · 2 years

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Do you think that if Harry's parents weren't magical and actually died in a car crash, with Harry surviving (and also having no magic) that the Dursleys wouldn't have been so harsh with him? After all, Petunia would never had any reason to feel jealous of her sister being special, since she was also a muggle, and her son Harry is also not 'a freak.' How different would Harry Potter's life be in this universe?

I think we're entering "why does abuse happen" territory.

Harry was abused by the Dursleys whenever he showed signs of being a wizard. He was also abused when he disobeyed, failed to perform a task, or performed it in a way that wasn't satisfactory. Dudley was allowed to torment him with his friends with zero interference from Petunia and Vernon. He was made to live in a cupboard when they had an available bedroom, and at birthdays he didn't get a gift while Dudley received thirty-seven gifts. Dudley was sent to a good school, Harry was to go to a shitty one - and Petunia wouldn't even buy him a uniform, preferring to make a terrible-looking one at home. He used to have an allowance, they took it away as punishment. When Vernon's sister Marge visits, she is allowed to torment the boy and call his mother, Petunia's sister, a bitch.

Say Harry is a Muggle child. Petunia and Vernon won't punish him for showing signs of wizardry, but does that mean they won't do any of the other things either? A reoccurring theme in their abuse is they don't want to spend their own money or even food on this child they were saddled with. Would this change if he was a "normal" child, or does Vernon see a boy he didn't sire and therefore shouldn't pay for? Say their precious Duddykins starts bullying Harry. Would they stop this if they saw an innocent child deserving protection in Harry, or would they let their boy have at it?

Conversely, the Dursleys treated Harry the way they did because they wanted to "stomp the magic out of him". If there's nothing to stomp out, will they be unable to justify their treatment of him? Was Dudley's abuse of Harry behavior he'd learned from observing his parents, could they have been brothers instead?

One thing worth noting is that Vernon's favorite thing about Dudley is how much of himself he sees in his son. There's nothing of Vernon in Harry: perhaps he'd love him anyway, perhaps he would tolerate him, perhaps he would find some other reason to hate him, no wizardry needed.

I think it's dealer's choice.

Some people will be a good spouse to one partner, and then the next is abused. A single child in a household may be singled out (I know a group of siblings where the youngest was punished corporally, and the older siblings didn't find out until they were elderly) because it's 'difficult' or 'headstrong' or in some other way attracted attention. Anything can trigger it.

So, maybe Harry wouldn't have been abused if he were a Muggle. He might even have had a good childhood.

However, Petunia and Vernon were capable of treating him horribly in the timeline where he was a wizard, and Harry being a wizard ultimately boils down to Harry being different and a perceived threat. Should Harry come out as gay, or make friends Petunia and Vernon don't approve of, or in some other way make himself persona non grata, they would turn on him.

#harry potter #petunia dursley #vernon dursley #dudley dursley #harry potter meta #cw child abuse #child abuse tw #tw domestic abuse mention #domestic abuse mention cw #cw abuse

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ratmom819 · 10 months

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tw: forced dieting, hunger, sneaking food, restricting a child's food

it's summer 1994, dudley is on a strict diet on his doctor's orders, and harry is forced on the same diet on petunia's orders. everyone is fairly miserable because none of them are eating enough.

harry is honestly used to it, because the dursleys never really gave him enough food. harry is also fairly sure that vernon and petunia are eating normal food after harry and dudley are sent to bed. but dudley has never been hungry before, not like this. harry can't help but feel a little sympathy for him, because harry understands better than anyone what it's like to be hungry.

of course, harry has never settled for hunger, intense self preservation instincts baked into him from the time he was one. he sneaks out of his room one night after he's sure vernon and petunia are asleep, choosing the right pattern on the steps so they won't make a noise.

he's not in the pantry long before the sound of someone creaking down the stairs meets his ears. he panics, leaves the pantry, but realizes that he has no good hiding places without crossing the view of the stairs. the best hope he has is hiding in the dark pantry and praying that whoever it is will only open the fridge.

he listens at the door, hearing the unmistakable sounds of someone trying to be quiet and failing spectacularly. probably vernon then, because petunia is frighteningly good at moving quietly when she wants to. harry hears the fridge open, hears some jars rustle around, and he has a glimmer of hope that maybe he'll get away with this.

but then he hears footsteps come towards the pantry door, and he braces himself for whatever punishment vernon will dole out for this. probably locked in his room for the rest of the summer. he backs away from the door as it opens, and someone flicks the light on.

"dudley?" he says, just as dudley says, "harry?"

it's quiet for a moment as they both process what to do, both of them caught sneaking food. harry can't help but feel nausea at the thought of dudley running up to tell his parents that he caught harry out of his room. but dudley looks as nauseous as harry feels, probably some combination of extreme hunger and fear of harry's magic. that strange sympathy wells up in harry again, for the hunger, mostly.

"i'll tell," dudley says, attempting confidence, but there's a shake to his voice. "you'll get locked in your room again."

it strikes harry, oddly, as absurdly brave. dudley's only experience with magic is a twisted combination of his parents' lies and traumatic bodily injury in the form of a pig tail and a ballooning aunt. he would have no defense if harry used magic against him, but he's threatening harry anyways.

dudley has been horrible to harry for the entirety of their relationship, has never done anything but hurt him, and yet harry also knows that dudley has vernon and petunia for parents, and that, even as he looms in the pantry doorway with clenched fists, he is a hungry kid. and so harry extends an olive branch that dudley probably doesn't deserve.

"don't take too much of one thing," he says.

"what?"

"when you take food, don't take too much of one thing, or they'll notice."

"...okay?"

"and if it's something like a pack of biscuits, shake them forward a little so it looks fuller than it is."

dudley is staring at harry with the most peculiar expression on his face.

"why are you helping me?"

harry shrugs. he doesn't have a coherent answer to that at 2am. he tells himself it's just because if his aunt and uncle realize someone (other than them) has been sneaking food, he'll be the one in trouble regardless of guilt. but harry knows that's not really his reason.

harry doesn't say any of this out loud. he takes a step forward to leave the pantry, and dudley skitters back into the kitchen, eyes wide. harry puts his hands up in surrender, slowly steps out of the pantry. they're both standing in the kitchen now, still staring at each other, unsure how to end this odd encounter.

"well," harry finally says. "night dudley."

"yea, night harry."

harry follows his usual path up the steps, thinking about how that's probably the first time that he and dudley ever wished each other good night.

harry lies in bed, expecting vernon or petunia to come knocking on his door at any minute, but they never come.

#migrated from twitter #with some edits #tw forced dieting #tw hunger #tw sneaking food #tw restriction #tw restricting a childs food #lightning era #harry and dudley #harry potter #dudley dursley #fourth year #rat writes

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sybill-the-seer · 11 months

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A Bath or Two

Read on AO3

Summary: Bathtime at Number 4 Privet Drive in 1984 is very different to bathtime at Harry and Ginny's house in 2002. Harry plans to keep it that way.

Note: Thank you so much to @turanga4 for her incredible beta help, and to the TTB discord server for their wonderful wizarding bath toy ideas (all credit goes to @not-steve42 for the Grindylow idea)!

TW: Child abuse

Harry sat, stiff and cold in the tepid bath water, trying to cheer himself with the thought that his ordeal would soon be over. Aunt Petunia scrubbed his arm roughly, then let it splash back down into the now nearly opaque water. As she reached for the shampoo, Harry only just stopped himself groaning in despair.

“Please don’t let it get in my eyes this time!” he whinged, but he knew it was useless. Aunt Petunia never listened to him.

Sure enough, Aunt Petunia merely pursed her lips at his words, scooped up some water with the plastic cup she used for bathtime, and dumped it on his head unceremoniously, wetting the dark unruly strands in preparation for a scrub.

Harry screwed up his eyes as the water poured down his face, bracing himself for what he knew was coming next. Now he felt Aunt Petunia’s bony fingers on his scalp, rubbing the shampoo into his hair none too gently. Harry felt her fingers leave his head, heard the splash of the plastic cup in the water behind him, and reached up to cover his eyes, but it was too late. The soapy water cascaded down through his bangs, straight into his eyes before rushing down the rest of his face and dripping off his chin.

“Ow!” Harry cried, as the stinging began, his fingers flying to his eyes automatically. But rubbing only made it worse, and Harry began to cry as another waterfall of water and shampoo fell over his head.

Harry was crying in earnest now – he was blinded by the soap and the stinging, and Aunt Petunia’s dumping was only making things worse. Now he could taste the foul, bitter soap in his mouth.

“Stop!” Harry wailed, pushing Aunt Petunia’s hand away in an effort to make the water cease. It worked for a moment.

“Stop this nonsense, boy, I have to get the soap out of your hair!” she snapped, scooping up another cupful of water.

Still blinded by water and soap, Harry thrust out his hand again to block the water cup, but missed. At least, he didn’t feel his hand make contact with anything other than the slippery side of the bathtub. And yet he still heard Aunt Petunia screech at the same time as a splash – but the splash didn’t land on his head. He heard the thump of what he thought was a crouched Aunt Petunia losing her balance and hitting the floor before –

“What in heaven’s name do you mean by it, boy?!”

Harry tried to open his eyes to see what had happened, but he was too late. Aunt Petunia’s hand had grabbed his hair roughly, and now he was face down in the water.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t come up for air, the hand was holding him down and Harry tried to yell at her to let him go but only bubbles came out…

It was only a moment before his aunt’s grip loosened abruptly, though it felt like an eternity, and Harry sat up, gasping and spluttering, blinking the water out of his eyes in shock. He looked over to see Aunt Petunia staring at her hand with astonishment and horror, water splashed all down the front of her blouse, the plastic bath cup far away from the tub on the floor. He wanted to ask what had happened, but stopped himself, deciding it would be unwise in Aunt Petunia’s current state. Instead, he watched her warily until she seemed to come back to her brisk self, ordering him out of the bath and tossing him a faded towel. He thought he heard her mutter something about “unnaturalness,” and “abnormalities,” before he scurried back to his cupboard to change into his pajamas.

________________________

Almost a lifetime later, Harry sat near his own bathtub looking down at the small boy splashing happily in the water. He held up a rubber duck to show Harry (a gift from Ginny, who found Muggle children’s toys delightful), chattering away about the story he was creating with all his bath toys. As he did so, his hair turned exactly the same shade of yellow as the duck.

“- he’s just crashed into that ship, see, and now the ship’s sinking – uh oh –” Teddy reached for the small ship, snatching it up into his little hand just before it hit the bottom of the bathtub.

“Saved it!” he cried, now holding both the ship and the duck in the air victoriously.

“That’s good,” Harry replied, “because we’re nearly done, and I don’t think we’d want to end bathtime with a shipwreck.”

But Teddy had already turned away, his mind lost to his imaginings once more. Harry filled the bath cup with water, cupped his hand to Teddy’s forehead, and poured the warm water over his bright hair. Teddy hardly noticed, now muttering an imagined conversation between the rubber duck and some sailor figurines who were shaking their little fists furiously.

While once Harry’s unpracticed hands had moved tentatively and unsteadily, unsure of how to angle the cup and his hand to avoid Teddy’s eyes, afraid of somehow slipping up and making him cry, now they were well used to the bathtime routine. In fact, Harry quietly prided himself on the fact that bathtime was never protested whenever Teddy came to stay.

Harry reached for the shampoo now, poured it smoothly into his other hand, and began massaging it gently into Teddy’s vivid hair, which slowly changed from yellow to black as he relaxed at Harry’s touch. Bath toys momentarily forgotten, Teddy tilted his head as far back as it could go and grinned up at Harry, his hazel eyes sparkling.

“That feels good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And with a little hum of contentment Teddy rolled his head back, Harry’s hands following his movement as he continued to massage in the shampoo. Teddy then reached for his little enchanted grindylow figurine that had been swimming lazily through the bathwater. As his hand approached it, it darted quickly away, and the boy laughed.

“Ok, time for a rinse,” Harry said, reaching again for the bath cup. “And then we’re all done.”

“All done?” Teddy whinged. “But I’m not done yet!”

“I’m sure Ginny will be waiting for us though – she probably has a game for us to play before bedtime. And don’t you want to try the hot chocolate we made?”

“I forgot about hot chocolate!”

“I thought you might have,” Harry chuckled, as Teddy turned away, now waiting impatiently for him to finish rinsing his hair.

Soon, Teddy had been helped out of the bath, into a warm towel, and finally into his pajamas covered with tiny custard puffskeins.

“Ginny!” he cried, rushing into the sitting room where Ginny sat, curled up on the sofa with a cup of hot chocolate. “Where’s my hot chocolate?” he asked, looking intently at her mug.

“Hmm, are you sure I didn’t drink it all myself? You were in the bath a long time…”

She grinned over at Harry, who shrugged helplessly. He had never been good at getting Teddy out of the bath promptly – it always took more than one coaxing to get Teddy out of the tub when Harry was in charge, and Ginny knew it. He didn’t mind though, as long as Teddy was having fun.

“No you didn’t! That cup’s not big enough for it all! I’m going to go check.” Teddy turned to race into the kitchen, Ginny getting up off the sofa to chase after him.

“You’ll have to beat me to it!” she called, and Teddy squealed happily.

Harry grinned and followed after them into the kitchen.

Note: I have a feeling I might get questions about this, so I’m just going to address it now: Petunia was NOT trying to drown Harry! It was an act of both rage and fear after the first instance of accidental magic, and an attempt to startle him out of crying. Still a completely unacceptable thing to do, and blatant child abuse, but no, she was not intending to drown him and I can’t see her ever attempting to go that far.

#fanfic #tw child abuse #child abuse #dursleys #petunia dursley #harry james potter #teddy lupin #godfather!harry #ginny weasley #background hinny #harry and teddy

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thatonebasicfan · 8 months

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Okokok I need to know something. Did Harry tell Sirius about the abuse in GoF? Like, in the letter that he writes to Sirius, he says that he's ok, because of Sirius, which seems to imply that Harry at least told Sirius that he was being mistreated to some extent.

but later in chapter 3, it seems to imply that Harry hasn't told Sirius about the abuse. But, of course that could be a bluff, because Harry is lying about Sirius's innocence, and could be also lying to the Dursleys and say that he hasn't told Sirius.

And I mean it was never explicitly said canonically that Harry told Sirius about the abuse, but if Harry and Sirius were so close, Sirius has to know at some point, right? Right?

#guys pls #help me #sirius black #harry potter #hp #the dursleys #child abuse tw #abuse tw #the goblet of fire #I MUST KNOW

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yumnasfunblog · 2 years

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It is likely that Harry was beaten at the Dursleys because Mr. Dursley was willing to hit Dudley in the first book so there's no reason why the least favorite child wouldn't get hit.

#tw abuse #harry potter #vernon dursley

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farieshades · 2 years

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:) :) :) :) :) :) :)

What parts (if any) would you change about Harry Potter?

I had the initial thought of “Scrape it all and start anew” but as I was writing that I was deeply reminded that the books, while deeply problematic in multiple ways, were a core part of a lot of people’s lives.

So, what would I change? I can think of 5 main things off the top of my head.

Slavery

And by that I mean, of course, the entire race being enslaved by Wix that only Hermione seems to find problematic. Like, there is absolutely no need for this. The Weasley house doesn’t have any House elves and yet there is enchantments on items to do the work for them, and in the Fantastic Beasts series we see a meal being made by a flick of a wand. So what’s to stop them from going ‘all these things can be done by magic’ not a slave race that ‘enjoy’ their status as slaves to wix.

Now, Nothingeverlost on tiktok does a video to a comment on how “She took brownies and tisted them into an enslaved society that people could abuse and belittle” and their video spoke about how Brownies/Brooni/eBrùnaidh/Gruagach worked on their free will and would be paid in a way for their service through milk or bread or cream, but these weren’t elves, they were household spirits.

[Illustration of a brownie sweeping with a handmade broom by Alice B. Woodward from Wikipedia]

So, what part would I change? Just the entire removal of this. It serves nothing in the lens of household chores and cooking. The only actions that it seemed to serve was when Regulus ordered Kreature to get out of the cave to destroy the locket. This could reliably have been done without the aspect of slavery put into place and most of the House Elf characters could have easily been replaced with just plain workers and staff.

2. Jewish representation.

I’m realising this is the second post im mentioning both House Elves and Goblins, but thats just a neat fact to myself.

Goblins, as throughout history, have been portrayed with antisemitism stereotypes and carictures [https://www.ushmm.org/collections/the-museums-collections/collections-highlights/500-years-of-antisemitic-propaganda-the-katz-ehrenthal-collection] , which isn’t a Harry Potter series issue, but a historical one in general that, apparently, a few articles have mentioned earlier in 2022. But nevertheless, there is still the portrayal of the Goblins with hateful anti-semetic tropes running the underground bank for Wix, while being called untrustworthy, greedy, and generally not positive.

Indeed, our first look in the books is in Philosopher’s Stone, when Hagrid, who raises monsters as a passion, warns Harry about goblins before he enters Gringotts with "They're goblins, Harry. Clever as they come, goblins, but not the most friendly of beasts." Despite the fact that Goblins are not "beasts," but rather a fully sentient, intelligent race much like humans.

I am of Jewish descent from my parents, thought I've only started reclaiming my faith through readings and research due to displacement from WW2, so i'm not quite 'qualified' to speak on matters like this in my opinion, but I wanted to mention it anyway, as it has distinctly been identified by others in the past. The images from Nazis look also strickingly like the Goblins we also see in the show, such as "Der Ewige Jude" and other such pictures and works.

[Der Ewige Jude - Ein Dokumentarfilm Uber Das Weltjudentum - Gertaltung: Firtz Hippler - Musik: Franz R Friedl - Herstellung u. Vertrieb: Deutsche Filmherstellungs u Verwertungs || The Eternal Jew - A documentary about World Jewry [The term Weltjudentum is derogatory for a global network of influential Jews that supposedly rules the world or aims at that] - Directed by Fritz Hippler - Music by Franz R. Friedl - Production and distribution: German film production and processing]

Now, in folklore, goblins are often depicted as cruel creatures, untrustworthy and likely to take any item they could get their hands on, not bankers that want to be in control of an economy with paper pushers and cartriders and dragon tamers in their heirarchical employ. This doesn't help with the lessons Hogwarts teaches in the droll class that Professor Binns teaches on that there are centuries of goblin oppression, segregation, mistrust, bad relations, exclusions, and revolts.

[Illustration of hooked nosed, hunched backed, dark haired with beard Jew with hands clasped together with a sense of greed or untrustworthy/connvining expression]

Of course, there is antisemetism through the works unrelated to the Goblins as well

The only canonically known Jewish character is Anthony Goldstein, and possibly the other Goldstein family members, which when it was announced did feel like a random name she remembered being said but then, Anthony is a Ravenclaw and we don’t see much of them outside of Cho and Luna.

Now, Frankie_Rose19 on Reddit mentions Severus Snape "being hook nosed, pale, dark hair and eyes and very academically minded and ambitious when he was younger is Jewish coded", they also reference Hermione in that. Now, Snape has a lot of symbolism that has been used to depict villains, and unfortunately, alot of that is based in antisemetic roots, but then Wix religion isn't quite talked about. Which makes sense in a heavily Christianized Europe under the KJV belief of "Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live". Now on Snape, I think @prismatic-bell has a post for the topic there.

So, what part would I change? Do we need to have Goblins running a bank, because I don’t think so. I like that there is mythical, sentient creatures, but the steeped antisemitism in their depiction within the race is unnecessary. The existence of Goblins could still be around the HP universe, but why are the Wix trusting a race known for untrustworthyness to protect their money when there have been revolts in the past. According to History taught by Binns, its that there is a law that prevents Wix from opening their own bank, but in what world [well, obviously this one] did Goblins want to serve Wix when Wix treat them as an inferior race.

And on the other religious representation, there could have been more characters than an offhanded comment by the creator. Rather, there could be plenty of references to diverse backgrounds, even in simple comments like offering a dish at the dining table to have someone refuse it or a piece of jewlery that is noted on.

3. Just to say fuck you, Trans!Hermione, because I too am a bookish fiend who will info dump onto unsuspecting friends, and I too am most assuredly not cis. And, like the above statement, the potential of Jewish-coded Hermione.

4. Wix Gay Marriage Rights.

No idea if there’s any comment on this in the books, but I want there to be. Even just an offhand couple doing random shopping things. Or two classmates getting together and it being told about through Lavender (who doesn’t change from a POC to a white girl when she becomes a love interest thanks).

5. The Dursleys.

There is alot wrong here.

In the first chapter of Philosopher Stone, young Harry is sent to live with his non-magical Aunt and Uncle proceeding the murder of his parents. While standing on the end of the street and conversing with Professor McGonagall, Dumbledore says, “It’s the best place for him— His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he’s older. I’ve written them a letter.” The Dursley’s were incredibly neglectful towards Harry. Harry often went days without meals and spent weeks locked inside the cupboard under the stairs. Later in Half-Blood Prince we also get the wonderful quote of “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.”

In fact, there are many times (at least once a year according to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) when the Dursley family went on holiday and they left Harry behind with Ms Figg. In 1995, she admitts that while she didn’t enjoy it, she intentionally kept Harry bored and miserable, as she thought that the Dursleys would remove him from her care if they thought he enjoyed it.

So, what part would I change? I’d choose to show the audience that the depictions of abuse are horrifying. That the adults, Vernon and Petunia, should have been punished. I’ve no idea what the Child Protective Services looked like in 1980-1998 but surely something could have been done. If not by the muggles, then by Ms Figg who was in contact with Dumbledore, and I don’t care how important the blood wards were, that's no excuse to leave a child in an abusive home environment. I’d also try to give positive muggle influences in the series outside of vague references to Hermione’s parents.

#Goblins #house elves #harry potter #dursleys #Trans!Hermione #antisemetism tw

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