Could Petunia be a witch that got expelled from Hogwarts?

[codswallop]

Originally Posted by KRIS_CO789

I dont think that Aunt Petunia is a witch as she loathes this type of poeple. If she is a witch Dudley could have powers like Harry. Strange things could happen.

Wouldn't be great irony if she was....

[samilovesfred]

I seriously doubt it. The way that she talks about the place and her sister, I don't think she could have been one. I think that she would have found it an insult if she got one. But then I think that she is hiding something. Something big. So, maybe so could be some form of a magical being, but I doubt it is a witch that got expelled. Maybe she somehow was able to go to the wizarding world. Dumbledore found her and told her to never speak of it again. Or she could be just a simple squib. Who really knows besides JKR herself? We will just have to stick it out till the final book.

[HedwigOwl]

Originally Posted by samilovesfred

I seriously doubt it. The way that she talks about the place and her sister, I don't think she could have been one. I think that she would have found it an insult if she got one. But then I think that she is hiding something. Something big. So, maybe so could be some form of a magical being, but I doubt it is a witch that got expelled. Maybe she somehow was able to go to the wizarding world. Dumbledore found her and told her to never speak of it again. Or she could be just a simple squib. Who really knows besides JKR herself? We will just have to stick it out till the final book.

Petunia's not a squib, either. JKR answered that question directly.

[firecyrstal]

Good theorie! I diffantly think there is a possibility that petunia is a witch and is just jealious because she got expelledi might be wrong but in the books it says nothing about her parents being full muggles. maybe one of her parents were a squib and it was passed down through generation



[IMG]<img src="http://nimbo.net/quiz/gryff2.gif" alt="i'm in gryffindor!"><br>[/IMG]

[ComicBookWorm]

Originally Posted by firecyrstal

Good theorie! I diffantly think there is a possibility that petunia is a witch and is just jealious because she got expelledi might be wrong but in the books it says nothing about her parents being full muggles. maybe one of her parents were a squib and it was passed down through generation



[IMG]<img src="http://nimbo.net/quiz/gryff2.gif" alt="i'm in gryffindor!"><br>[/IMG]

Lily was a muggle-born. That means her parents were muggles.

[Wimsey]

Originally Posted by samilovesfred

Or she could be just a simple squib. Who really knows besides JKR herself? We will just have to stick it out till the final book.

JKR has provided a few clues. Petunia is not a Squib, but a Squib is only one particular type of failed wizard. JKR's exact words are:

Originally Posted by Rowling

You might have got the impression that there is a little bit more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye, and you will find out what it is. She is not a squib, although that is a very good guess. Oh, I am giving a lot away here. I am being shockingly indiscreet.”

So, we need something that shares some traits with a Squib but that is not one. As Petunia is Muggleborn, she cannot be a Squib. However, if she were a Muggleborn with magical potential but refused (or failed) to learn it, then she would continue to be just a Muggle. She would share the trait with a Squib of being a failed wizard, which would justify JKR calling it a "good guess."

Given JKR's notes, there must be many such Muggles, especially in Eastern Europe where Durmstrang refuses to educate them or (presumably) inform them why funny things happen around them.


JKR also has left clues in terms of the general themes of the book. "Choice" and the fact that we are not simply what we are born or just our talents, but what we make of ourselves is prime among them. Bravery also is: if Petunia condemned herself to a lifetime of mundaneness, then this would be a great example of someone “failing” because of cowardice, and very much in keeping with the overall story.


JKR is telling a story, and a story has meaning beyond the plot and narrative details. At this point, we should know what the story is about: choice, loyalty, bravery, irony and isolation. This gives us a lot of clues about where Petunia fits into everything!

Originally Posted by codswallop

Wouldn't be great irony if she was....

Irony is one of the themes, and it was the primary story of PoA. HP themes are like baroque music, with similar themes being played off against each other at once in counterpoint, and one theme rising to the top for each "movement." Failed-witch Petunia would combine the irony and (probably) bravery & loyalty themes quite nicely.

[HedwigOwl]

Originally Posted by Wimsey

JKR has provided a few clues. Petunia is not a Squib, but a Squib is only one particular type of failed wizard. JKR's exact words are:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rowling
You might have got the impression that there is a little bit more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye, and you will find out what it is. She is not a squib, although that is a very good guess. Oh, I am giving a lot away here. I am being shockingly indiscreet.”

So, we need something that shares some traits with a Squib but that is not one. As Petunia is Muggleborn, she cannot be a Squib. However, if she were a Muggleborn with magical potential but refused (or failed) to learn it, then she would continue to be just a Muggle. She would share the trait with a Squib of being a failed wizard, which would justify JKR calling it a "good guess."

Your quote of JKR's answer leaves off the part where she says that Petunia is a muggle. Here's the entire answer from the Edinburgh Book Festival, August 15, 2004:

Is Aunt Petunia a Squib?

Good question. No, she is not, but—[Laughter]. No, she is not a Squib. She is a Muggle, but—[Laughter]. You will have to read the other books. You might have got the impression that there is a little bit more to Aunt Petunia than meets the eye, and you will find out what it is. She is not a squib, although that is a very good guess. Oh, I am giving a lot away here. I am being shockingly indiscreet.

So taking JKR at her word, she is a muggle...so no possibility of magic there, she could not have been a failed witch.

[Wimsey]

Originally Posted by HedwigOwl

So taking JKR at her word, she is a muggle...so no possibility of magic there, she could not have been a failed witch.

A failed witch is a Muggle. (A failed witch is NOT a witch - if you fail to become something, then you are not that thing.)

This is especially true if she chooses to live in the Muggle world as a Muggle.

Remember, Wizards and Muggles are NOT races. That is the mistaken belief of the Malfoys, and one of the prime themes of the book: people who think that your ancestry alone diagnoses you are incorrect.

It also ignores another main theme: our choices as much if not more than our abilities make us what we are.

[ONEWITCH]

I have often wondered this myself about her( Petunia), and have often wondered if she was born with no magical powers and therfore a squib ? like mr. filch. i mean she knows a lot about the magical world , as she tried to snuff it out of harry , and when dudley got attacked by the dementor's she knew about them . .......

[HedwigOwl]

Originally Posted by Wimsey

A failed witch is a Muggle.

I can see a squib would be a failed witch, since they're born to at least one magical parent. But a muggle is someone with no magic blood at all. And JKR has said that Petunia is not a squib, that she's a muggle.

[Wimsey]

Originally Posted by ONEWITCH

I have often wondered this myself about her( Petunia), and have often wondered if she was born with no magical powers and therfore a squib ?

Given that her parents were Muggles, she would not be a Squib if she were born without magical powers.

However, if she (like Lily) was born with the ability to do magic, but failed to learn how (for whatever reasons), then she would still be a Muggle, but she would have something in common with a Squib.


Let us recast the statement. Let us say that we have two sisters named Lily and Petunia, who both had natural talent at football (soccer to us Yanks). Let us say that Lily pursued it aggressively whereas Petunia deemed football unlady-like and refused to play even after demonstrating an early aptitude. Let us consider a third girl, Arabella, who was born to a family of football fanatics and loved the game, but was completely incompetent due to a lack of foot-eye coordination.

Arabella and Petunia have something in common: they are failed athletes. Note by this that NEITHER is an athlete. Lily is an athlete.


Replace "football" with "magic" and "athlete" with "witch" and you have a scenario completely consistent both with everything JKR ever has said AND with the themes of the Harry Potter story. Lily is an athlete/witch by choice, Petunia is not by choice, and Arabella is not because she lacked the basic aptitude.

[codswallop]

Originally Posted by HedwigOwl

So taking JKR at her word, she is a muggle...so no possibility of magic there, she could not have been a failed witch.

I thought I read the quote as she is a muggle but....leaving room for speculation.

[amylynn121]

ok, theres aton of stuff here, and i havent gotten to read it all yet so im sorry if im repeating what someone already said, but, i highly doubt the 'petunia was a death eater' theory, because if thats true, i dont think harry would be in her care, even if she escaped voldemort and decided to change her ways, that would still put her in alot of danger cause voldemort would want to kill her for betraying her, so when dumbeldore said that petunia and vernons house is the safest place for harry, i dont think that would be true if voldemort was after petunia too.

[Wolves4me]

This could be VERY possible...

[HedwigOwl]

Originally Posted by codswallop

I thought I read the quote as she is a muggle but....leaving room for speculation.

Yes, the quote does say that. But it could mean dozens of things other than Petunia's somehow being a muggle and being magic at the same time. I don't think JKR would suddenly change the definition of a muggle after five books. When Harry asks Hagrid what he means when he calls Vernon a muggle in SS/PS, he replies "Muggle is what we call non-magic folk like them." Muggle has always been written as non-magic so far. The "but..." could mean, "but she dated a wizard" or "but she tried to do magic like Lily though it never worked" etc. etc.

[ComicBookWorm]

But she knows more about the wizarding world than she let on. But they are descended from Gryffindor and she and Dudley are non-magical heirs of Gryffindor.

[amylynn121]

ComicBookWorm: But they are descended from Gryffindor and she and Dudley are non-magical heirs of Gryffindor

where does it say they are descendents of gryffindor? just curious....

[ComicBookWorm]

Originally Posted by amylynn121

where does it say they are descendents of gryffindor? just curious....

It doesn't. I was just postulating. It has no more or no less validity than creating a new type of muggle who used to be magical.

[Tane]

Originally Posted by *Darth Voldemort*

We know how much Petunia loathes her late sister Lily. But does she really think wizards are freaks? Or could she be jealous of her sister? Because Lily was a witch and Petunia is a muggle? Petunia knows far too much about the wizarding world for being a simple muggle! I cannot imagine, that Petunia knows what Dementors are, simply because she heard James mention them once (as she mentions). So, could it be that Petunia knows so much about the magical world, because she once was a part of it?

Could it be, that Petunia once was a Hogwarts student herself???

Her being expelled and her wand destroyed could explain the jealousy she feels towards her dead sister. Perhaps Petunia did something really bad and was not only expelled from school, but sent to Azkaban!!!! Then she would know EXACTLY what a Dementor is! It would also mean, that she hides her magical heritage from Vernom and Dursley. (':??:')

I do not think Petunia went to Hogwarts or she would still have the ability to do magic. What might have happened to cause Petunia to act towards her sister in the way she did? Well Petunia may have not hated her sister but loved her too much, so much so that when the letter came from Hogwarts stating that she was a witch and was accepted to that school hurt Petunia. Why would it hurt Petunia, well she was a child back then and spent the first 11 years having a sister always around, then all of a sudden this school wants to take her sister away from home, away from Petunia between September and July. Now I can imagine Petunia as a little girl thinking that Hogwarts meant more to Lily than she did, of course we as adults would realize that this is nonsense but to a child those feelings can happen when a sisters move suddenly away from home for a long time. I think Petunia was jealous of Hogwarts and magic because she felt they meant more to Lily than her own sister. Now imagine if a boy named James comes along and Lily decides not to go home for Christmas to see her family and her sister who might be missing her a lot, Petunia might find that very hard to accept (from a child's point of view it could be read as my sister loves him more than she love me just because he can do magic). This might be why Petunia acts the way she does towards her sister because she never understood why she had to leave home to go to that school knowing how much it upset her to see her sister go.

[potter_7]

That does make sense but no, I don't think she ever went to Hogwarts. I don't really think she knows too much about the wizarding world. She knew some stuff that she found out from Lily. (Lily would probally have a lot to tell her family) She's just an ordinary muggle. Thats a good idea though.