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McGonagall is a trusted associate of Dumbledore’s, but she isn’t part of the team yet — Dumbledore isn’t alarmed to find her at the Dursleys’, but he didn’t assign her to be there, and he’s not angry at her for deserting some other position.
Even though Dumbledore seems to trust McGonagall, I still would’ve expected him to be disturbed to find out that his plan to relocate Harry was so easy for someone on the outside to figure out. He was so unconcerned that he then left Harry on the Dursleys’ front step for several hours at night. It’s a weird thing to do even if Dumbledore left other agents watching from the shadows.
(By the end of the series, we’ve learned how devious Dumbledore can be, so I wouldn’t put it past him to use Harry as bait in a trap for the remaining Death Eaters.)
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He was so unconcerned that he then left Harry on the Dursleys’ front step for several hours at night. It’s a weird thing to do even if Dumbledore left other agents watching from the shadows.
This is a really really really good point. And I’ll be honest, I don’t know that it’s ever struck me as odd. We think of suburbia as safe, almost to the point of foolishness. Perhaps not in so much as people used to, but there was a time when people left their homes and didn’t bother locking their front doors if they were going to be out for only a short time.
My point is that all throughout the chapter, we are given to understand that the magical world has infiltrated the mundane. Where once the magical folk would attempt to blend in or even eschew the mundane, they are out in broad daylight, cloak and all. No place is SAFE right now because the normal restrictions and precautions about not intermixing with the mudnane world has been lifted by the events of the past 24 hours. Dumbledore should know that leaving this newly touted savior on a front porch for roughly 8 hours is a totally unwise move. Hagrid returns the motorbike; McGonagall is encouraged to leave; Dumbledore himself vanishes. Who in the world is watching baby Harry? Is anyone watching Baby Harry?
ETA: the fact that no one finds Harry and the fact that he isn’t swept up in the middle of the night by Voldemort’s men might come down to, as McGonagall said in the first movie, “sheer dumb luck!”
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I always wondered about a baby being left on the doorstep overnight, too. Even in towns raccoons, possums and rats are known to ramble around at night (at least in my region). Maybe Dumbledore placed some sort of enchantment over the basket or set people to watch over the baby to make sure he was taken in. Or he could have even waited it out himself. (Flashforward fact: He doesn’t need a cloak to make himself invisible. 😛 )
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Maybe Dumbledore placed some sort of enchantment over the basket or set people to watch over the baby to make sure he was taken in. Or he could have even waited it out himself
That’s possible but you have to wonder why Jo didn’t write it so that the audience sees Dumbledore doing that. Going back to this chapter for hints, she doesn’t bother to hide the magic, just the explanation for it. McGonagall turns from cat into a woman and while JKR does not offer a conversation between the characters to inform the readers that this is a practice known as Transfiguration and McGonagall is an Animagist, she at least lets the audience see the magic. Same with the puter-outer. We know, later, that most wizards do not speak their spells out loud but there is still a flick of the wrist/wand, however imperceptible it might be.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"CHAPTER 2: THE VANISHING GLASS
Summary:
Ten years have passed since Harry Potter was left on the Dursleys’ doorstep. Privet drive is much the same except for the photos depicting Dudley Dursley’s growth through the years from spoiled baby to a large spoiled boy. Despite there being no sign of Harry in the house, he does still live there. Our chapter opens on Mrs. Dursley, his aunt, awakening Harry from his bed in a cupboard under the staircase to mind the breakfast as she’s getting everything ready for Dudley’s birthday. Harry has grown to be a very scrawny, small boy with broken glasses who is often the target of his cousin’s bullying.When Dudley comes down to see thirty-six presents on the table, he throws a fit because it’s two less than the previous year. After Mrs. Dursley reminds him that he didn’t count the present from his Aunt Marge and promises to buy two more in an effort to placate him, Dudley calms down. However, bad news strikes again when they discover the babysitter they had arranged, Mrs. Figg, cannot not watch Harry for the day. Every year, Dudley and a friend went somewhere fun with his parents. Harry was never permitted to go and had to stay with a babysitter whose house smelled of cabbage and cats. Harry, excited to not have to go to Mrs. Figg’s and eager to have the house to himself to do all the things he was never permitted, pleads with his relatives to let him stay behind.
The Dursley’s fear of leaving Harry alone, though, eclipses their dislike of his presence so they bring him along on the trip. Mr. Dursley warns Harry not to make any ‘funny business’. Harry never means for things to happen, they just do. His wild hair grows rapidly when cut, clothes he hated shrunk mysteriously as his aunt tried to force them on him, and he once was able to escape Dudley and his gang by inexplicably landing on the roof of the school.
Despite the warning, Harry has a good time at the zoo. He is never allowed anywhere but school and it’s a treat for him. His fun, however, was about to come to an end as they visited the reptile house after lunch. Dudley and his friend were quickly bored by the unmoving snakes and walked away. Harry, finding much in common with the encaged animal begins talking to it, commiserating with it’s captivity. Surprisingly, the snake responds back. Dudley and his friends notice the interaction and push Harry away and pound on the glass, harassing the boa constrictor. Somehow the glass just disappears and the snake slithers away and Harry could swear it told him thanks.
Harry is blamed for the mishap at the zoo and is banished back to his cupboard under the stairs with no meal. Alone in the cupboard, he thinks about his life. He has visions of a blinding flash of green light but doesn’t know what it means. He can’t remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle refuse to talk about them and there are no pictures of them at all in the house. He dreams of some unknown relative coming and taking him away. He also sometimes gets the feeling that strangers on the street know him. Very odd people approach him and then disappear. And at school he has no friends for nobody wants to go against Dudley and his gang.
Analysis:
Harry Potter is not a Dursley. If nothing else, this chapter drives home this concept again and again. When we last saw Harry, he was a baby swaddled in a basket and sitting on the Dursleys’ doorstep. However, this chapter begins with a time jump. It’s ten years later when we next meet this family and little has changed on Privet Drive. It’s when you start to look deeper, behind the façade of normality, that we see how unusual the Dursley household actually has become. Two boys of the same age reside in the house, yet only one’s pictures grace the mantelpiece–and it is not Harry’s. When we finally meet the young boy the extraordinary baby has turned into, it is with Mrs. Dursley yelling at him to wake up from his ‘bedroom’ which is revealed to be a dark cupboard under the stairs. He is ordered to finish breakfast, reduced to role of a servant, a trope often used in fairytales. Meanwhile his ungrateful cousin Dudley is lavished with presents for his birthday and indulged in activities of amusement and fun:
Every year on Dudley’s birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. He hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she’d ever owned.
–Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, U.S. edition, p.22
It’s quickly illustrated that the two boys are not treated equally. In other households, two children in this situation would be raised as siblings, yet it’s painfully obvious that both boys know their place in the hierarchy of the family. Even when Harry gets to go to the zoo with the others for Dudley’s birthday, it’s not because they want him there but because their distrust of him being alone supersedes their dislike of bringing him along.
The differences between Harry and his family also extend to the physical. Where as Dudley is described as a large boy who was “very fat and hated exercise”, Harry is the opposite:
Perhaps it had something to do with living in the dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley’s, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was.
–Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, U.S. edition, p. 20
Even Harry’s black unruly hair is a counterpoint to Dudley’s own blondness. His bright green eyes are covered by a pair of glasses that are only held together by tape, another sign of his neglect, and the only thing Harry actually liked about his appearance is a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead that he was told was put there in the car crash that killed his parents.
With all these inequalities foisted upon Harry, one would think he would be resentful, depressed, or even hateful. But it appears as if he is a normal boy. The abuse at the hands of his family, and even at school, does not appear to have adversely affected him. That doesn’t mean he is happy. He is extremely lonely as illustrated by this passage:
When he was younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family.
–Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, U.S. edition, p.30
He yearns for something else and even imagines that strangers sometimes seem to know him. Not only does the neglect happen at home, but because of Dudley’s bullying, nobody at school wants to be friends with him. Not necessarily because of Harry, himself, but because the other kids don’t want to be targets of Dudley and his gang themselves.
One last point is that even J. K. Rowling’s nomenclature in the book further illustrates the differences between Harry and others. Harry, who is destined to be this great figure, has a perfectly ordinary name. Nothing unusual or eye-catching about it. And yet the family that is obsessed with normality is given the name Dursley. An uncommon, harsh sounding name that tells readers immediately that they are probably not people to like or trust. Even the glimpses we have into the magical world show that wizarding names like Albus or Daedalus from the previous chapter have a whimsical quality. And, yet, Harry Potter, who has a “perfectly normal” name is turning out to be by no means perfectly normal.
Foreshadowing:
–Talking to snakes. Harry was able to communicate with the snake at the zoo, an ability to look out for
–Mrs. Figg and Aunt Marge. Names are not usually brought up unless they are important to the story and come up at a later point.
–Latent magical ability. Although Harry doesn’t know it. The strange things like the vanishing glass will make sense soon.
Discussion Questions:
1. Could one or multiple people be watching over Harry through his childhood?
2. How would Harry have turned out if the Dursleys had treated him fairly and like a family member as he was growing up and not like an outcast?
Keeper of Rumplestiltskin's and Neal's spears and war paint and crystal ball.
Excellent write up Jo!
Two boys of the same age reside in the house, yet only one’s pictures grace the mantelpiece–and it is not Harry’s. When we finally meet the young boy the extraordinary baby has turned into, it is with Mrs. Dursley yelling at him to wake up from his ‘bedroom’ which is revealed to be a dark cupboard under the stairs
This breaks my heart. He’s a young boy and he’s being forced to live under a staircase in a dark closet. It’s abuse. People have often talked about how HP in general is “kids” literature to which JKR once replied, “you know opens with a double homicide, right?” This another example of how HP is a darker children’s tale (if, indeed, we even want to classify it as children’s lit)–Harry is being abused and it’s not a sort of magical abuse that exists outside our frame of reference as mundane humans. This is actual everyday abuse. There are kids who are beaten and punished and neglected and Harry is one of them.
Meanwhile his ungrateful cousin Dudley is lavished with presents for his birthday and indulged in activities of amusement and fun:
Sometimes I ponder which Dursley I dislike the most. Vernon is almost a caricature. He’s gruff and corpulent but he’s also…stereotypical for middle class suburban males, I think. Dudley I dislike a lot but I almost can’t hate him because he’s the product of his environment. They spoiled him and gave into his every whim and children learn through these experiences what works and what doesn’t. It has been years since Dudley really cried, but he knows how to manipulate the situation because it’s worked in the past. There has never been any sort of correcting him and his behavior. Petunia…Petunia I loathe. She knows what her sister is, she knows how her sister died (the letter Dumbledore left back in Chapter 1) and yet she keeps her sister’s son in a closet.
He yearns for something else and even imagines that strangers sometimes seem to know him. Not only does the neglect happen at home, but because of Dudley’s bullying, nobody at school wants to be friends with him. Not necessarily because of Harry, himself, but because the other kids don’t want to be targets of Dudley and his gang themselves.
This is a large portion of the hero’s journey like I said a page or so back–they must be alone. Either through circumstance or neglect, they often are totally alone in the world until they start down their monomyth path. Take a look at Emma Swan. She was alone for a good portion of her life and when she did met someone (Lily, Neal) it ended badly and reinforced her own (negative) self-worth. Remember the pilot where she describes herself as a friendless orphan and her wish on the blue star that she wouldn’t be alone on her birthday? It’s like Harry who wishes that someone–anyone–would come and save him from this life of being neglected.
One last point is that even J. K. Rowling’s nomenclature in the book further illustrates the differences between Harry and others. Harry, who is destined to be this great figure, has a perfectly ordinary name. Nothing unusual or eye-catching about it. And yet the family that is obsessed with normality is given the name Dursley.
Excellent point. And this is something Petunia even brings up in the first chapter, that Harry is a nasty common name.
1. Could one or multiple people be watching over Harry through his childhood?
A lot of our Chapter 1 discussion centered on Dumbledore and his rather odd behavior leaving Harry alone on the doorstep. I have to wonder if he just left Harry alone, never spied on him or looked in on him. If Dumbledore ever did look in on him, then he KNEW what was going on with the Dursley’s and did nothing. It’s one thing to be worried that the most famous wizard in the world could have his head turned by all that fame, but it is another to leave a little boy in a household where he was neglected, abused, ill fed and ill treated. This is another thing to look out for: how JKR carefully subverts archetypes. Dumbledore is, without question, the wise old wizard who guides the hero on his journey. But given what we’ve been talking about and the implications of Dumbledore knowing what the Dursely’s were doing and not interfering, we have to wonder if he’s not a bit more ruthless and cold than he appears.
2. How would Harry have turned out if the Dursleys had treated him fairly and like a family member as he was growing up and not like an outcast?
I think this is one of the great “ifs” of the HP world. It is so hard to say because on the one hand, his whole life could have been different, in a positive way. He could have known love and joy and not been so depressed at the tender age of 11. On other hand, they could have treated him like Dudley and Harry would effectively become Dudley 2.0. (Or, in the magical world, a Draco Malfoy).
Another passing note, but Harry dreams of a flying motorbike. Infants don’t exactly retain memories at that young of age. I think the general consensus is that we start to form lasting memories around 3? Either JKR is using literary license or Harry’s abilities have manifested way earlier because of his trauma.
Finally, the snake and the glass. It’s worth pointing out, from a character standpoint, that even though Harry has had these magical experiences before he never thinks of himself as magical or special. He doesn’t start to wonder if he’s magical or has some sort of power deep within himself. We can argue it’s because he is unaware of the other world and therefore doesn’t even contemplate a world in which he could be magical, but it also speaks to his extremely low self esteem and the idea that he’s just Harry. Ordinary, everyday, run of the mill, nothing special, better if forgotten Harry.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Even during my first reading of the books, I was struck by how cruel the Dursley’s are to Harry and at this point, we (and Harry) are given absolutely no explanation as to why. In all honesty, if something were to happen to Harry, there would be little to no proof that he had actually existed. So when RG said earlier:
It’s worth pointing out, from a character standpoint, that even though Harry has had these magical experiences before he never thinks of himself as magical or special. He doesn’t start to wonder if he’s magical or has some sort of power deep within himself. We can argue it’s because he is unaware of the other world and therefore doesn’t even contemplate a world in which he could be magical, but it also speaks to his extremely low self esteem and the idea that he’s just Harry. Ordinary, everyday, run of the mill, nothing special, better if forgotten Harry.
It’s so apparent in this chapter how little Harry thinks of himself and how he has just accepted his lot in life. He’s absolutely miserable, and he just thinks there is no way out (“the Dursleys were his only family” page 30). He is utterly alone. In the last chapter, we discussed what we thought of the Dursleys and here is one of the main reasons I will never like them or ever feel a modicum of sympathy for them ever.
“I’m warning you, “he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry’s, “I’m warning you now, boy – any funny business, anything at all – and you’ll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas.”
“I’m not going to do anything,” said Harry, “honestly…”
But Uncle Vernon didn’t believe him. No one ever did.
The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was no good telling the Durlsey he didn’t make them happen.
By this small piece of text, we know that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia know something. They know he can do things, make things happen. They know that Harry is different, even if Harry doesn’t. And they’ve been lying to him for his whole life. No mention is made of Harry’s parents, questions are not allowed and he doesn’t even know what they look like. He doesn’t know who had the messy black hair, or where he got his bright green eyes. Family is really important to me, we have pictures of family members brought over from Italy, so I can’t imagine not having a connection to that. To knowing whose nose I have (my great great grandmother) or ears (my grandfather, Irish side). And the Dursleys kept all that from him, and would continue keeping that from him his entire life. It’s just cruel and mean.
1. Could one or multiple people be watching over Harry through his childhood? I would be shocked if no one was checking in on him somehow over the years. McGonagal stood outside their door for less than a day and knew they were terrible people. But if someone did check in on him, why did nobody see how they were treating him and do something about it? That is what astounds me.
2. How would Harry have turned out if the Dursleys had treated him fairly and like a family member as he was growing up and not like an outcast? Would the Dursleys have treated him differently if he had ended up being just like them? What if he had been just a terrible kid, what if he had been bigger and meaner than Dudley? I think the point of the chapter is nature vs nurture, that Harry was a good, kind, soul despite being raised by jerks. If Harry had turned out to be like them, we wouldn’t all love the story so much.
Keeper of the Cheshire Cat’s smile, Baelfire’s sword, Snow’s backpack, Robin Hood’s bow, Ariel’s purse, Ariel’s smile, Henry’s heart, Belle’s shoe collection
They know that Harry is different, even if Harry doesn’t. And they’ve been lying to him for his whole life
To take this out of the magical world for a second, but I also think that JKR is trying to make a larger and more salient point. For those who track social media, JKR has become quite the outspoken advocate for LBGTQ rights and I think a lot of her social justice views can be found in her work (not surprising. Most authors insert their own personal stances on the “issues of the day” into their writings). What if Harry were not magical but gay? Or transgendered? The Dursely’s recognize that Harry is the “other” and they are treating him as an “other.” This type of “othering” is constant in our real, non literary world. I’m not going to get on a soapbox at this point and talk about social justice rights (cause that is a can-o-worms) but JKR is using magic vs mundane, I think, to make a point about the broader world and how we (the collective society) treat anyone that is perceived as different.
I would be shocked if no one was checking in on him somehow over the years. McGonagal stood outside their door for less than a day and knew they were terrible people. But if someone did check in on him, why did nobody see how they were treating him and do something about it? That is what astounds me.
I makes me wonder how…tyrannical…Dumbledore can really be. McGonagal knew (like you said) from the very first chapter the sort of people the Dursely’s were. She was clearly concerned, and certainly wasn’t mollified by the idea of a letter from Dumbledore. I keep coming back to this idea that Dumbledore is imposing very strict rules on those that follow him and live under his guidance. He might allow McGongal and the others to look in on Harry but tells that in no uncertain terms are they allowed to interfere in Harry’s life before the age of 11. Because can we really see Hagrid not stepping in had he known what was going on? McGonagal might have obeyed orders but surely it had to be a constant “Albus, we shouldn’t be doing this! He’s just a boy!” with Dumbledore. I think one of the larger questions we’ll be asking each book is not just “was Dumbledore right to do X?” but also, “how alike are Dumbledore and Voldemort?”
I think the point of the chapter is nature vs nurture, that Harry was a good, kind, soul despite being raised by jerks. If Harry had turned out to be like them, we wouldn’t all love the story so much.
Yup. And I think in about–oooh–5 books from now we’ll be coming back to this question of nature vs nurture when we visit a certain orphanage.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"They know that Harry is different, even if Harry doesn’t. And they’ve been lying to him for his whole life
To take this out of the magical world for a second, but I also think that JKR is trying to make a larger and more salient point. For those who track social media, JKR has become quite the outspoken advocate for LBGTQ rights and I think a lot of her social justice views can be found in her work (not surprising. Most authors insert their own personal stances on the “issues of the day” into their writings). What if Harry were not magical but gay? Or transgendered? The Dursely’s recognize that Harry is the “other” and they are treating him as an “other.” This type of “othering” is constant in our real, non literary world. I’m not going to get on a soapbox at this point and talk about social justice rights (cause that is a can-o-worms) but JKR is using magic vs mundane, I think, to make a point about the broader world and how we (the collective society) treat anyone that is perceived as different.
Yes, I’ve noticed this as well. It could easily be interpreted in a racial way as well. Petunia is clearly NOT magical by any means, and her sister is Harry’s mother so we can only assume that she was at least born into the “normal” world. Petunia clearly didn’t agree with or condone her sister’s marriage or “lifestyle” for some (at this point unexplained) reason. So therefore, Harry’s mom must have married an “other” and is the result of that. (I mean no disrespect here, just using the same terms as above). Here in the U.S. it wasn’t legal for a white person and an AA person to get married until what, 60 some odd years ago? So I guess the question is why the Dursleys, particularly Petunia, have such a distaste for Henry’s parents?
I would be shocked if no one was checking in on him somehow over the years. McGonagal stood outside their door for less than a day and knew they were terrible people. But if someone did check in on him, why did nobody see how they were treating him and do something about it? That is what astounds me.
I makes me wonder how…tyrannical…Dumbledore can really be. McGonagal knew (like you said) from the very first chapter the sort of people the Dursely’s were. She was clearly concerned, and certainly wasn’t mollified by the idea of a letter from Dumbledore. I keep coming back to this idea that Dumbledore is imposing very strict rules on those that follow him and live under his guidance. He might allow McGongal and the others to look in on Harry but tells that in no uncertain terms are they allowed to interfere in Harry’s life before the age of 11. Because can we really see Hagrid not stepping in had he known what was going on? McGonagal might have obeyed orders but surely it had to be a constant “Albus, we shouldn’t be doing this! He’s just a boy!” with Dumbledore. I think one of the larger questions we’ll be asking each book is not just “was Dumbledore right to do X?” but also, “how alike are Dumbledore and Voldemort?”
That’s a really interesting question. There is obviously a reason that Dumbledore chose to leave Harry with the Dursleys, knowing the “sort of people they were”. I think it would be much easier to discuss a lot of these in more depth, if we discussed the series as a whole. But how far do we want to go? So far, those of us participating have read the series a number of times so there will be no spoilers for us… But it’s proving difficult to discuss without jumping ahead and having to pretend we don’t know some of the answers. Shall I propose spoiler tags? Forgive me RG if I mess this up, I haven’t done it in a while.
For instance, we know that Dumbledore left Harry with the Dursleys because of the blood ties between Petunia and Lily. He knew that Voldemort would be back, and it was the only thing that would truly keep Harry safe. So knowing this, was it fair of Dumbledore to keep Harry there, knowing he would be miserable, knowing he would be unloved and hoping he would turn out ok, when he knew that it was quite possibly the only thing keeping Harry alive? But then does it make it more unfair, if Dumbledore ultimately knew the outcome, and left Harry there anyways?
DD and Voldy are a lot more alike when you think about it. Both are “end justifies the means”, both think they are doing things “for the greater good”.
What do you guys think about using spoiler tags for more further discussion of things coming up? Or should we keep it purely to what is happening now in the story?
Keeper of the Cheshire Cat’s smile, Baelfire’s sword, Snow’s backpack, Robin Hood’s bow, Ariel’s purse, Ariel’s smile, Henry’s heart, Belle’s shoe collection
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