Harry Potter Theories

THE HORCRUX IN HARRY IS WHAT MADE THE DURSLEYS HATE HIM.

As much of a burden as a baby suddenly dropped on your doorstep might be, the Dursleys' antipathy toward the orphan in their care has always seemed unusually virulent. And while Harry may be an unwanted responsibility thrust upon them, there seems to be no justification for treating him as sub-human—unless some sort of external force were warping their own humanity.

Tumblr user graphicnerdity has proposed a rationale for the Dursley's horrible behavior that, like all things in the wizarding world, has magical origins: namely, that the Horcrux within Harry is such a powerful negative influence that exposure to it over an extended period of time—say, the entire decade of Harry's upbringing at Privet Drive—could naturally drive a good person to unkindness, and turn "your garden variety insufferable human beings into horrible, heartless monsters." If the Horcrux contained in Slytherin's locket could drive Ron to such jealousy that he would abandon his best friend in the middle of the woods while his life was in constant, immediate danger, it seems entirely plausible that such concentrated Dark Magic could steer the Dursleys to all sorts of atrocities.

Alas, there's a more mundane explanation as to why the Dursleys are such terrible people: They just really, really hate Harry. Petunia's aversion to her nephew clearly stems from resentment of his mother, the magically gifted one of the two Evans sisters, the golden girl who left her dull Muggle sister behind. In Harry, Petunia has a reminder of the fascinating another world she was never permitted to join, staring back at her from green eyes identical to those of the sister she could never compete with.

Vernon, on the other hand, sees in Harry echoes not of his mother, but his father: charming but arrogant James Potter, who managed to offend Vernon once and never had the chance to make up for it, as Rowling revealed in a story published on Pottermore. At an optimistic meet-the-family dinner, Petunia introduced her new fiance to her sister and her sister's boyfriend, and it all went terribly wrong. Vernon's attempt to patronize James by asking what car he drove and assuming that all wizards had to live off unemployment benefits led to James's flippant description of his top-of-the-line racing broom and the family inheritance of solid gold pieces piled up in Gringotts. Unable to win this game of one-upmanship, Vernon and Petunia left in a rage. Though James promised to a tearful Lily that he would make things right, their untimely deaths prevented any sort of reconciliation between the two couples, and so Harry was doomed to a truly terrible childhood.