J.K. Rowling continues to be an ever-flowing font of information about the world of Harry Potter. The book and movie series have long-concluded, but we are still learning more and more about the boy wizard and his family.
One of her most recent revelations: why the Dursleys really despised the orphan they”d begrudgingly taken in as a baby.
It”s because of James.
Learn more about the truth of where things went south between James Potter and his in-laws in the video below:
In that first bad meeting between Lily”s then-boyfriend and the then-engaged Dursley couple, “James was amused by Vernon and made the mistake of showing it,” Rowling wrote on Pottermore. Things got worse and worse between Vernon and James there, until Vernon and Petunia stormed out of the restaurant.
James assured Lily he would make right with Vernon, but that never happened. Petunia didn”t want her sister as a bridesmaid because she was tired of being overshadowed. At the wedding reception, within James” earshot, Vernon described him as “some kind of amateur magician.”
So, it was a particular shock to the Dursleys when the child of the couple they had so clashed with and had long been out of contact with appeared on their doorstep.
“The Dursleys are reactionary, prejudiced, narrow-minded, ignorant and bigoted; most of my least favourite things,” Rowling wrote in the Pottermore post. She acknowledged that some readers wanted more from Petunia at her final farewell to Harry in Deathly Hallows but contends that she had her behave “in a way that is most consistent with her thoughts and feelings throughout the previous seven books.”