So Hagrid's job was to deliver the letter to Harry but I would guess Dumbledore gave him an implied mission of forcing the Dursleys to consent to sending Harry to Hogwarts. My question is whether the Dursley's could have complained to the ministry and still refused to send Harry.
Posted Jul 7, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC
They were his legal guardians. So Yes. In principle, theory and legally they could.
Just check beginning of first movie and you realize that they actually TRY to stop Harry from attending Hogwart.
If they have spine, and little courage they could stand there grown and prohibit Harry from attending Hogwart.
Thankfully Dursley's do not have spine and courage.
Theoretically, yes, but if they did, I'm sure that whoever the Hogwarts faculty send as their representative (e.g. Dumbledore, Hagrid, McGonagall, etc.) would do everything in their power to convince the Dursleys that Harry is less dangerous to them if he's trained to control his magic rather than letting him remain uneducated and risk having his magic just fire off at random (e.g. when he accidentally trapped Dudley behind the glass at the zoo's snake exhibit).
Children with magic abilities who aren't properly trained or in situations like Harry's are incredibly dangerous as we see in Fantastic Beasts.
The Dursley's had no idea what Harry might become if they kept him locked away. It's the responsibility of all magical folk to make sure shit like that didn't happen.
Obscurials only occur in cases where the child's magic is actively suppressed, not merely not given an outlet.
Do you honestly think the Dursley's would let Harry's magic run wild? They already keep him in a damn closet.
I think there's a good chance that the reason they weren't already treating the early expressions of his magic (e.g. the thing with the snake) even worse is because Petunia knew (from either Lily and Snape or from Dumbledore) that an obscurial was a possibility.
He had only just begin to show magical ability just at the start of the book.
And I doubt Petunia cared. She was intentionally going to hold back Harry because she envied what she didn't have. These are the same people who keep him under a crawlspace and despise his presence, and that's before he has magic.
[deleted]
What I believe doesn't matter. What Rowling believes, though, that could be relevant.
Her own FAQ states, and I quote:
An Obscurus is developed under very specific conditions: trauma associated with the use of magic, internalized hatred of one’s own magic and a conscious attempt to suppress it.
The Dursleys were too frightened of magic ever to acknowledge its existence to Harry. While Vernon and Petunia had a confused hope that if they were nasty enough to Harry his strange abilities might somehow evaporate, they never taught him to be ashamed or afraid of magic. Even when he was scolded for ‘making things happen’, he didn’t make any attempt to suppress his true nature, nor did he ever imagine that he had the power to do so.
Harry would not have become an obscurial. End of story.
They threw him into his closet or barred up bedroom every time he ever used magic, even on accident.
If you don't think that isn't even slightly a form of negative reinforcement I don't know what to say. God knows what would happen if Hagrid never went there and dragged the boy out himself.
I think someone would have overruled their refusal eventually, but it might have taken years. Hagrid says something to the effect of, "He's had his name down ever since he was born!" That suggests Harry has a reserved spot that people aren't going to just forget about. I'm sure the Dursleys would have had that spot taken away already if they had that power.
But, considering how the wizards cruelly left him to the Dursleys with no contact or magical instruction for all those years, it might have taken quite a while. Maybe it wouldn't have been until after the Quirril incident, or even the Tri-Wizard Tournament, that Dumbledore says, "You're muggles; what you want doesn't matter; he's going to school." And if Dumbledore didn't act, then eventually Sirius Black or Hermione or someone else would figure out that Harry was important to the Second Voldemort War, and they would come get him — to kill him, if for no other reason.
I doubt it. The Dursley's likely do not know how to directly contact the Ministry to file a protest much less have to desire to. Vernon seems to be terrified of interacting with magic when Harry gets more control of his powers - until he learns that he can't use them.
He seemed to think it was preferential to run and hide from them instead of replying with a No. The decision appears to be Harry's primarily.