Why did the Dursleys hate Harry Potter so much?

Mondo Entertainment Updated on 2024-03-02

J.K. Rowling once shared an article titled "Vernon & Penny Dursley" on Pottermore**, which is now the official website of "The Wizarding World", revealing the reasons behind the Dursleys' dislike of their nephew Harry Potter, and also explaining why she chose to let Penny Dursley leave Harry without saying a word in the last book.

Rowling revealed that some readers were "looking forward to hearing more from Aunt Petunia during this parting."

At the beginning of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry is about to leave his so-called loved ones forever - his cousin Dudley shakes his hand, his uncle Vernon yells, "We're running out for time", and his aunt only gives him one last glance.

Rowling describes it in the book: Aunt Petunia stops and turns around. For a moment Harry had a particularly strange feeling, as if Aunt Petunia wanted to say something to him: she looked at him with strange and timid eyes, as if hesitant to speak, but then she shook her head sharply, rushed out of the room, and chased after her husband and son.

In this article on Pottermore, Rowling describes the Dursleys as "conservative, biased, narrow-minded, ignorant, and bigoted," which encompasses almost all of her least favorite traits.

Rowling reveals that she had wanted to give them "something decent," such as "a long-forgotten but faintly burning love for her sister."

In the final goodbye, Aunt Petunia realizes that she may never see those Lily-like eyes again, but she is unwilling to admit and unable to show those long-hidden feelings.

In the article, Rowling writes that while some readers are disappointed, she is convinced that Penny's performance in ** is "most in line with what she thought and felt in the first six books."

Penny Dursley and her husband Vernon were forced to adopt Harry after Harry's parents were killed. Although they kept Harry with their own child, Dudley, they kept him in a storage room under the stairs.

Rowling explains that the reason they treat Harry this way is because Penny has been jealous of her sister Lily's magical abilities since she was a child, while Vernon hates anything "extraordinary" and even looks down on "those who wear brown leather shoes and black suits".

So when he found out that Petunia's sister turned out to be a witch, he didn't react much.

Rowling revealed that Penny and Vernon had a falling out when they first met Lily's boyfriend, James Potter.

Vernon arrogantly mocked Jaime, believing that wizards lived on unemployment benefits.

However, when Jaime retorted that his parents had a large sum of gold in the wizarding bank at Gringotts, Vernon was even more furious.

Since then, the future brother-in-law has been on a strained relationship and has not reconciled. Vernon even disparaged James as an "amateur magician" and decided not to attend the Potters' wedding.

And then Vernon had a bad attitude towards Harry because Harry looked too much like his obnoxious father.

To a certain extent, Harry can be regarded as "paying the debt of the father and the son", who made Snape look at Harry so unpleasantly, and it is also for this reason!

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