GOF Chapter 3: The Invitation

[oryx_leucoryx]

This is the obligatory Dursley chapter, in which we are treated to the home life of this family and learn how inferior they are to wizard families.

Dudley takes up a whole side of the square kitchen table. Ahem, I doubt a square kitchen table (as opposed to a dining room table) was designed to seat 8 people, 2 on a side. His parents excuse away his teachers' accusations of bullying. As opposed to the Weasleys who never receive reports making such heinous accusations against the twins (we'll see the school does occasionally owl their parents, but I don't see any awareness that some of what the twins do is bullying behavior). (This starts the theme of parents dealing with wayward sons in this book.) Dudley is forced into a diet of fruit and vegetables rather than his favorites. From the descriptions we get of the food Harry eats at Hogwarts I get the feeling Harry's favorites are closer to Dudley's than to the health foods, nor does he limit his intake. But somehow Harry remains thin, regardless of whether he gets starved by Petunia or stuffed by Molly or the House-elves.

Changing the food choices of the entire family is a good thing! However adjusting Harry's serving size to Dudley's (perceived?) emotional needs isn't. I don't begrudge Harry for working around a diet he doesn't need, but then I also sympathize with Dudley who does. Changing eating habits of years is hard.
This is also the place to say Dudley must have grown up as an emotional wreck. Knowing that his parents were capable of such physical and emotional deprivation of someone in their care - what if he ever failed to please them? I think a big part of his misbehavior is both making sure his parents know he *isn't* Harry as well as wanting the reassurance that they still love him, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Of Harry's 4 sources of help only one sends food he appreciates. Odd that even Hagrid managed to send an edible birthday cake. But how edible is it (or any of the others) 3 weeks later?

Harry is surprised that the Weasleys wrote directly to the Dursleys. Vernon is embarrassed that they didn't know how many stamps to use. But really, how hard is it to find out? Didn't they go to the post office to buy the stamps? What does it say about the exchange rate between Galleons and pounds that a family so poor finds it reasonable to spend on so many stamps for one letter? Molly's letter sounds as if she is trying too hard to make the Quidditch World Cup sound special and to make Arthur sound important. And of course she doesn't have enough imagination to realize that sending a letter by owl isn't normal for the Dursleys.

Harry is offended on Molly's behalf when Vernon calls her 'dumpy'. Since Molly likes Harry nobody is allowed to notice she is overweight.

I must say that the scene where Harry threatens Vernon with Sirius looks a lot less humorous now that I have seen Harry enjoy torturing a man for punishment, and Sirius engaging in Muggle-baiting.

If I am correct in my understanding that Ron is claiming that he and Molly wrote their respective letters at about the same time, then I am impressed with the UK post. Molly's letter arrived on Saturday morning. Pig arrived the same morning. Considering the speed of owls elsewhere, it looks as though Ron's letter was sent earlier that morning. So a letter got delivered the morning it was sent?

I am less impressed with the Weasleys. They plan on taking Harry regardless of the Dursleys' consent. One could argue that eventually Molly and Arthur realized their sons were not exaggerating when they said Harry had been imprisoned and starved, but seeing how Arthur views the treatment of Muggles, both in this book and in COS, I doubt this made a difference.

Harry is happy specifically because Dudley is suffering and he isn't. The seeds of the bully of HBP and war criminal of DH.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

At the end of GOF Molly says she asked to have Harry over for the entire summer but that Albus insisted he had to go to 4PD. Then the dementors attacked and *everyone* was telling Harry to stay indoors. And shortly later the Order picks Harry up. If he is so protected at 4PD why did they move him?

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

At the end of GOF Molly says she asked to have Harry over for the entire summer but that Albus insisted he had to go to 4PD.

It's the whole As-Long-As-He-Can-Call-4PD-Home thing...

But Harry's called it "home" for 11 years without a break; it seems to me that as long as he goes there once a year and spends one night, he can technically call it "home"...I mean if *I* go visit my mother in the house I grew up in, but haven't lived in for more than 30 years, I still refer to it as "going home".

So why all the angsty scenes of horrible summer vacations from Book 2 on? Seems to me Harry could have just gone to 4PD every June at the end of term, announced "Hi Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, Cousin Dudley...I'm only staying one night/a few days/a week, but then you'll be glad to know that I'll be going to stay the rest of the summer with my friend Ron and his family..."

Seems to me everyone would have been happy with that arrangement, and Harry would have fulfilled the "blood protection" requirement.

If he is so protected at 4PD why did they move him?

Perhaps the concern was that while Harry would be protected by staying inside, if Dementors and/or DEs were hanging around the neighborhood they may attack the Dursleys (as the Dementors indeed attacked Dudley)...so maybe they thought that by removing Harry from 4PD they would remove the danger to the Dursleys.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

But that requires positing that someone among the Order actually cared about what happened to the Dursleys, indeed valued them enough to put Harry at (a perhaps small but not negligible) risk during being moved. Which I for one don't buy for a second, given the way they treat the Dursleys usually. Most of the time the effect of their actions RE Harry upon the Dursleys doesn't even impinge upon the consciousness of wizards. They're only taken into hiding in DH when Harry is going to be moved *anyway,* so that's not exactly evidence that the Order would be willing to risk their boy wonder just for the sake of a bunch of unpleasant Muggles.

[oryx_leucoryx]

But Harry's called it "home" for 11 years without a break; it seems to me that as long as he goes there once a year and spends one night, he can technically call it "home"...I mean if *I* go visit my mother in the house I grew up in, but haven't lived in for more than 30 years, I still refer to it as "going home".


Unless the Dursleys move, of course. My parents moved to a different city years after I left home. When I go to their current place I'm going to visit my parents but I'm not going 'home'.

But even so, all this would mean is that if the Dursleys were to move Harry would have to spend a longer time with them that year, to establish their new place as 'home', and would have no bearing on spending more time with them before that.

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

You know, it is funny. My mum moved, too, some 5 or so years after I left the house, and she is living in her current flat for, wait, 10+ years. Not only I say I´m going to the mum´s, the same as you do, but I had a dream tonight, that we were in *her place*, I was visiting her - and guess what, it was the old one. :-)))
Memory is funny.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Not only I say I´m going to the mum´s, the same as you do, but I had a dream tonight, that we were in *her place*, I was visiting her - and guess what, it was the old one. :-)))

Actually my mother moved before she died, also.

But I'd often dream about going back to the house I grew up in, altho not so much in recent years. For some reason it was a common theme back in the 80s when I was active in anti-nuclear groups, I'd have what I called "nuclear war" dreams where it was the aftermath of an atomic bomb attack, and I'd gone home to live with my mother in our original home, which had not been damaged (altho utilities were sporadic and food hard to get). What was strange was that in these dreams I had a sense that I was remembering something that had already happened, not anticipating something that could happen in the future.

Also thru out the 80s and 90s I'd have recurring dreams of being back at the house I grew up in, standing out on the street with neighbors watching outerspace aliens fly by in beautiful ships that looked like Christmas tree ornaments in glowing neon. A variation on this were dreams where I'd be laying out on the grass of the backyard of this house watching the night sky. The sky was more beautiful than I'd ever remembered seeing it, many more stars than I'd remembered. But then some of the "stars" started moving, and I realized that I was watching spaceships in "dogfights", that there was some sort of war going on, and that everyone was outside watching the sky like I was.

I have no idea why I had these dreams, but they were recurring for almost 20 years, but it's been over a decade since I had any dreams like that.

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

Wow!
(And a matching icon, too!)
I´m trying to imagine your dream, and it is scary, but beautiful!

(I do remember that day when our teachers told us about Chernobyl, two days after the incident. They told us the cloud was directly above us. (It was travelling around Europe back and forth.) It was raining. They told us to go home as quickly as possible and stay at home. My friend and I, we went to my Granny, who lived nearest, and we were scared so much, that we weren´t able to tell her, what happened. She maked a cocoa, called our parents, that we were staying with her, and spent all the afternoon playing with us. :-)) You bet we loved her.)

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Wow! (And a matching icon, too!)

Yeah, that was one of the reasons I snagged the icon when I first saw it, because it reminded me of those dreams.

I´m trying to imagine your dream, and it is scary, but beautiful!

Yes, both of them were that way; the one with the "too many stars" started out with a sort of an "ooh and ahhh!" factor, gazing at the sky and thinking how beautiful it looked, but then realizing something wasn't right and then seeing that many of what seemed to be stars were really spaceships fighting with each other -- it sort of looked like a WWII aerial dogfight for the space age.

The other dream, with the parade of Christmas ornament type spaceships floating by, also started out with an "ooh and ahhh!" feeling, but then I realized that something wasn't right, that as beautiful as the ships looked, that the parade really represented that we were being invaded. In the dream I try to warn my family and neighbors, but no one wants to listen, they are too taken in by the beauty.

I do remember that day when our teachers told us about Chernobyl, two days after the incident. They told us the cloud was directly above us. (It was travelling around Europe back and forth.) It was raining. They told us to go home as quickly as possible and stay at home.

The closest experience I can relate to yours is back in October 1962, I was 9 y.o. and in 4th grade during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and for about 2 weeks we were convinced we were going to be annihilated in a nuclear holocaust. My school had had us go thru Atomic Bomb Drills back when I was in 1st grade, but had stopped after 2 drills because we kids freaked out.

(It's one thing to have a fire drill, you can stand outside the school and see it is not on fire and understand that you're just practicing in case it ever did catch fire. It's another thing to have little kids curl up into a ball with their hands clasped behind their necks FOR TWENTY MINUTES, and not have them believe that the Russians were really on their way to drop a bomb on your school!)

The Atomic Bomb drills were resurrected during the Cuban Missile Crisis, this time my classmates and I were old enough to understand that it was a drill, but we were also old enough to realize that this time it might actually happen.

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

Yeees, the drills! We had them, too. But our teachers were like "Damned drills, we should be doing something reasonable instead," so we knew there was no danger around. :-DD

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Yeees, the drills! We had them, too. But our teachers were like "Damned drills, we should be doing something reasonable instead," so we knew there was no danger around. :-DD

The first drill I remember was when I was in first grade (6 y.o.); my school was of the typical style built after WW2, mostly steel and glass. Our "desks" were really a piece of molded plywood for the seat, with hollow metal tubes for the legs, and two hollow metal tubes on the right side to which was attached the plywood writing surface. Underneath this was a bin/shelf made of thin metal where you could store your pencils, papers, dictionary, etc.

My first grade classroom had a bank of windows, almost from floor to ceiling, on the left side of the room. For the drill, the teacher closed the venetian blinds over the windows, made us crouch into a ball under our desks with our fingers clasped behind our necks, and then she turned off the lights.

Even at the age of six, I knew those flimsy "desks" didn't afford any protection, that venetian blinds weren't going to keep shattered glass from flying into us, and that shutting off the room lights only made a scary experience more terrifying.

And like I said, at that age it's hard for a child to understand that we're only "pretending", especially since we had to maintain that uncomfortable position for 20 minutes (because we were told that it would take Russian bombers 18 minutes to reach our state -- this was before ICBMs).

At the end of the drill I actually raised my hand and asked the teacher how what we had just done would save us from a bomb, since our desks weren't really desks, and we were exposed to the windows which would shatter.

In the 1980s when I was involved in antinuke groups I found out just how lame and bizarre the government's various plans to deal with nuclear war were (and still are -- I remember a FEMA representative back then telling me that even tho the "Duck and Cover" plan of the Reagan era may not work well in the event of nuclear war, it was still a valuable plan for natural disasters like hurricanes. We asked him if he'd actually READ all of the booklet -- he hadn't -- and we informed him that no, even in the case of a hurricane it wouldn't work because they hadn't addressed the issue of evacuating hospitals and nursing homes, prisons, what to do if people wanted to take their pets, what to do when you have hundreds of thousands of vehicles on the road and some start breaking down or running out of gas, etc. Sadly, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 graphically demonstrated that 20 years later, FEMA hadn't learned anything)...

Well apparently some desk jockey back in the late 50s -- who obviously was an alumnus of older schools that were built out of stone or brick and had desks that were real desks (back in those days, they also tended to be out of oak, so they were quite substantial) -- decided that if Russians decided to bomb the U.S. during the school day, that schools should have their students duck under their desks and wait for the bombs to drop. And in that era, just after the McCarthy era, school administrators wouldn't question the instructions from the government.

So no adult that worked at my school ever asked the question: "Is this really going to work?" when they got the order to conduct A-bomb drills, they just got a booklet that said "Have the students curl into a ball under their desks", and followed the directions without question.

I don't know if I was the only one to point out the absurdity, but a couple of weeks later we had another drill, but this time they had us go into the hallway and curl into a ball against the lockers. Still had to maintain that pose for 20 minutes, at the end a lot of kids were crying because they didn't understand it was a drill, they thought it was real.

That was the last drill; I think the teachers (and probably quite a few parents) thought that it was too traumatizing for the children to continue the drills. But like I said, in October 1962 we had to go thru the drill again.

Yep, it was just like in the movie "Atomic Cafe", we clasped our hands behind our necks, curled into balls, and kissed ourselves goodbye! :-P

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

We had a modern building, too. We were going to the basement, where were windows covered by violet paper to protect us against ultra-violet light. Stupid, yes. There were no curling, because the basement was full - every single student plus teachers were there. It was not so scary, though. We asked, whether this could work, too, and they told us better to ask at home (nobody dared to say it was very stupid "protection", too). My Granpa told me: "If you can see an atomic explosion, you are dead. Deal with it. Of course you can go to the basement, but it works only against normal bombs, on condition that the building is strong enough and is not hit itself. Yes, and don´t tell your mother I told you, she thinks you are too young for this info - as if she were any older during the World War, herself..."

Maybe the main difference is that our people use to make jokes, when the situation is unbearable. So I remember the basement, and that everybody knew it was stupid, and that everybody was joking about it, because there was nothing else to do... Maybe that is why it was not so scary for us - much more like some stupid game...

I remember the 20 minutes, too. And kissing goodbye. :-)) "Well, children, the bombs are here now, the city is flat, but we survived, go back to your classes." -- "But isn´t there a radiation in the class?" -- "Yes, it would be, but the school is in the middle of the town, so we would be dead, anyway. Go back to work."

There were some emergency plans from WWII that worked (not against atomic bombs, though), because people remembered it. But still, who was it, who said people learn to defend against weapons from the last war, which is of no use, when there are new weapons?

I feared that it would be all the world what would be destroyed; that there would remain no life on the Earth. I feared most for the trees (weird, yes). My Granpa was telling me this was so scary a scenario that nobody would really start it, but even he was not sure. (But he was right, in the end, and thanks for it.)

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

We had a modern building, too. We were going to the basement, where were windows covered by violet paper to protect us against ultra-violet light.

There was no basement in my school, so that's why they eventually settled on the hallway as a better option than the classroom.

My Granpa told me: "If you can see an atomic explosion, you are dead. Deal with it.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, we knew the missiles in Cuba could not reach us, the fear was that if war broke out, the Russians would send bombers.

At the age of nine, the only thing I understood about bombs is what I'd seen in movies and on TV, and that was primarily WW2 era, a plane would fly over the target and drop a bomb on it.

I remember one recess period right when things were reaching a crisis, we children didn't even play during recess, rather we stood around discussing whether we were going to die within the next day or two or not, and I kept saying I didn't know why the Russians would want to fly over our town and bomb it.

We finally realized that we were late to return to class from recess, but when we looked we saw our teacher just sitting on the back steps, watching us, not saying a word. So we went up to her, and I asked, "Miss Wallace, why should we worry about the Russians bombing our town?"

Now when I got older I realized that not only did we have a major factory in town that manufactured aircraft engines for the military, but we were also the home of Sikorsky Helicopters, so my town actually was a valid military target.

But that wasn't my teacher's answer; she very seriously answered: "Because we're halfway between New York City and New London, and the radiation that will result when they get bombed will kill us."

I knew about New York City, it's where we got most of our television channels in those days before cable and satellite TV, and my grandparents had taken my sister and me down to the city the summer before, so to me it was that big city that was FAR to the west. I didn't know anything about New London, our teacher explained that it was about as far to the east from us as NYC was to the west, and that it was the location of the National Coast Guard base, plus they made nuclear submarines for the Navy there.

So then I was even MORE upset, the idea that what I had to worry about wasn't some aircraft flying directly over me and dropping a bomb on my head, but that my town wouldn't get bombed at all, but that we'd all end dying due to nuclear radiation because we were between two targets that WOULD be bombed...

Maybe the main difference is that our people use to make jokes, when the situation is unbearable. So I remember the basement, and that everybody knew it was stupid, and that everybody was joking about it, because there was nothing else to do... Maybe that is why it was not so scary for us - much more like some stupid game...

I don't remember anyone making jokes about it back in those days. Bomb shelters were quite the thing back then, many people either built separate shelters in their backyards (actually UNDER their backyards), or spent a lot of money modifying their basements to allegedly withstand nuclear attack.

My parents didn't do that, they never even bothered with bomb drills in the basement. They never talked about it, but they probably understood the futility of such exercises.

But still, who was it, who said people learn to defend against weapons from the last war, which is of no use, when there are new weapons?

Here the saying is that generals are always fighting the last war...

Which is basically true. They learn lessons from the previous war, and expect them to apply to the current situation. Which usually results in disaster.

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

Here it was like: "Why should they bomb us?" -- "They don´t need a reason. They can just miss a bit. A few hundred kilometers here or there, who of them cares? We are between them. If anybody is stupid enough to hit the Big Read Button of Doom, well, goodbye, good old republic, it was nice to know you." It was like this all the time I remember until the end of the Cold War.

(In fact, it was equally possible for us to be hit by Russians as by Americans. The Americans could do it as our enemies, the Russians to create a radioactive zone in the middle of the Europe... And we did not have any real means to fight back.)

War is stupid. :-)) And trying to manipulate people with fear is even more stupid. :-)) I´m glad it is over.

And yes, the bit with taxes is good, too.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I remember the 20 minutes, too. And kissing goodbye. :-)) "Well, children, the bombs are here now, the city is flat, but we survived, go back to your classes." -- "But isn´t there a radiation in the class?" -- "Yes, it would be, but the school is in the middle of the town, so we would be dead, anyway. Go back to work."

During the Reagan era, one of the government's bright ideas about "surviving" a nuclear holocaust was to require banks to maintain mortgage records offsite at a secure location like Iron Mountain. This was in conjunction with government agencies keeping their tax records at a secure location, also.

The idea -- and I was actually part of a team at the bank I worked for at that time that tested this out -- was that after the last bomb was dropped, that tax bills could be mailed out as soon as possible...

Your home probably would have been annihilated in the nuclear blast, but rest assured your local and state governments would expect you to still pay taxes on it! :-P

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

They didn't call them A-Bomb drills for us, they were earthquake drills since we lived in Los Angeles and we had them through at least junior high (appx. 12-15). When we were old enough (because, back then, we had to wear dresses to school), we went into the hallway in two lines and cowered against the opposite walls. Walls give protection from falling ceiling masonry, you know.

I don't remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. I would have been in second grade and that year, I attended two different schools. I remember the Kennedy assassination but that's a year later and it happened while we were in school so our teacher brought a TV in for us to watch things as they happened. Our teacher was so distressed when the fourth grade teacher ran in to tell her that she ran out without leaving anyone in charge.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I remember the Kennedy assassination but that's a year later and it happened while we were in school so our teacher brought a TV in for us to watch

Back then we only got to watch TV in class if it was an astronaut being launched into space; it was the old Gemini program, they went up, they came right back down. But it was pretty heady stuff in the early 1960s! :-o

No TV in class for the Kennedy assassination, I had a teacher who thought children should be protected from bad news, the only thing she told us was that the president had been shot, and that we should all pray for him. This was after prayer in school had been banned, but no one objected. But she'd made it sound like he was still alive and that we should pray that he would be alright. It wasn't until school let out for the day that I found out from kids in other classes that Kennedy was dead.