Hope you are doing well, I’ve been wanting to send you an ask but I want sure if you’ve answered this before, if you did already could you point to the post? I do love reading your responses and analysis of characters, it’s fun seeing things from a different perspective.
What do you think of the relationship between Petunia Evans and Vernon Dursley? Do you think there was a lot of love, or did it start that way and end up being more of a marriage of ‘convenience’.
Like, love dwindled over time and Petunia no longer feels love for her husband but she is headstrong and also doesn’t want to risk anyone knowing about how her sister was a witch, or the fact that she also was part of the reason that Harry was locked away in a cupboard. In divorces many times it can be messy, and I feel like the fear of losing Dudley (him being taken away and staying with Vernon) would just eat her alive.
I feel like we don’t see much of the dynamic between the Evans sisters (or the Black sisters for that matter but that’s a whole different ask for another day) and how they grew up so close together but then were torn apart so to speak and their relationship became almost nonexistent. And their relationship with their husbands, it’s just fascinating and I’d love to know if you have any thoughts on that. Or headcanons that you’d like to share about them.
Thank you, and as always I’m glad to see your thoughts/analysis ❤️
Sorry it's taken me so long to answer this! I don't think I have directly talked about Vertunia on here but I'm more than happy to because I love them/love writing about them! It's also fitting since their wedding featured in my most recent chapter. My problematic faves.
I do think there was actual love between them, but that doesn't mean it wasn't also convenient. There are several moments when Vernon, to his very small credit, seems genuinely protective of Petunia-- such as when he tries to 'shield' her against Arthur in GoF. Also in the first chapter of the entire series we see Vernon genuinely quite worried about his wife's feelings on her sister and trying to bring up the matter delicately. Honestly, given what a terrible person Vernon is in general, he could definitely be a lot worse as a husband.
Personally I don't see them as really even coming close to divorce at any point. They always seem to be a united front, to the point that it's seems unprecedented when Petunia disagrees with Vernon about kicking Harry out in OotP. Even on that occasion, Vernon accepts his wife's decision pretty readily. I think generally, if it weren't for Harry, the Dursleys would be perfectly content in their mundane little lives, and certainly content with each other and the perfectly lovely middle-class household they'd built together.
I definitely think what attracted Petunia to Vernon was his status in the company, his ego, and of course his stubborn ordinariness. I see Petunia as embarrassed about coming from a working-class town like Cokeworth, embarrassed about her 'freak' sister, and wanting to escape from her background. Vernon would have represented everything she wanted to escape to. This is from the Pottermore entry on them (one of my faves)
Petunia Evans, forever embittered by the fact that her parents seemed to value her witch sister more than they valued her, left Cokeworth forever to pursue a typing course in London. This led to an office job, where she met the extremely unmagical, opinionated and materialistic Vernon Dursley. Large and neckless, this junior executive seemed a model of manliness to young Petunia. He not only returned her romantic interest, but was deliciously normal. He had a perfectly correct car, and wanted to do completely ordinary things, and by the time he had taken her on a series of dull dates, during which he talked mainly about himself and his predictable ideas on the world, Petunia was dreaming of the moment when he would place a ring on her finger.
As for Vernon, I think there were a few reasons he'd have been attracted to Petunia. I've talked about this before, but though I think Petunia was plain (especially compared to Lily) I don't think she was bad looking, and the fact that she was thin and blonde and probably took great care of her appearance helped her at least meet normative standards of appearance. I had a scene where Petunia meets Vernon's family and they all gush about how pretty she is haha.
Furthermore, I think Petunia would have worked extremely hard to present in the 'correct' way at her job. Appropriately conservative clothing. Appropriately normative attitude and interests. She would have been flattering of him and an eager audience for his 'predictable' tirades about the world. I think Vernon would definitely seen her as 'wife material' haha. Also Vernon's such an unpleasant person I don't think he'd have been very popular with the ladies lol (unless they were exactly like Petunia) so I think he'd have felt genuinely fortunate to be with Petunia.
So there was convenience, because each provided the other the type of partner they wanted. Vernon a dedicated, blonde little housewife on his arm who would parrot his views. Petunia the comfort of middle-class status and her idea of a 'dream life' involving a fat engagement ring, a lovely church wedding, a house in the suburbs. But I don't think this means it was a loveless marriage; rather they just really worked well together, and it was a good partnership on many levels.
I think if Petunia was ever worried Vernon would leave her, it was at the beginning, before she'd told Vernon about Lily. When Vernon tells Petunia "that he would never hold it against her that she had a freak for a sister," it was probably a very important moment for Petunia and established a lot of trust between them. It probably didn't hurt that they then had something to be set against together, as a couple haha.
While Petunia's choice of husband likely caused further strain on the relationship between the Evans sisters, it was already heading that way long before she met Vernon. If she hadn't met Vernon she would have met some other Vernonesque man, because that's what Petunia wanted. Vernon validated all of Petunia's beliefs about her sister and her sister's world, thereby alleviating any guilt she might have felt over the estrangement, and Petunia could happily throw herself into the arms of her new and improved family, the Dursleys. Marge was her new sister, the Dursleys better parents in her eyes (more admiring of her, more respectable,) and of course Vernon himself, with his impressive job title and swanky car. I think Petunia would have latched onto that with great enthusiasm.
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