Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Places/Privet Drive
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
| Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Place | |
| Number 4 Privet Drive | |
|---|---|
| Location | Little Whinging, Surrey |
| Permanent Residents | Harry Potter, Vernon Dursley, Petunia Dursley, Dudley Dursley |
| First Appearance | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone |
Contents |
[edit] General Overview
Number 4 Privet Drive is a thoroughly ordinary house on a thoroughly ordinary street where Harry Potter lives with the Dursleys, his thoroughly ordinary aunt, uncle, and cousin.
[edit] Extended Description
Harry lives in a cupboard under the stairs until he begins receiving letters from Hogwarts, addressed exactly to his "cupboard under the stairs". In what is possibly an attempt to avoid future letters being sent, or possibly an attempt to prevent outsiders from knowing how Harry is being treated, Harry's aunt and uncle move him to his cousin Dudley's second bedroom, where Dudley stores his extra and broken gifts. Throughout the rest of the series, Harry retains the use of this bedroom when he is living at the Dursleys, though the broken gifts are apparently moved somewhere else. Harry is apparently locked into this room at times, just as he was locked into the closet under the stairs initially, at one point even having bars placed over the window.
[edit] Analysis
The ordinary, non-magical nature of the house on Privet Drive is repeated throughout the series. It reflects the Dursley's views on magic, that it should not be tolerated, it should not be allowed. Even the fireplace has been walled up and an electric fire placed in the wall where it was; the possible randomness of a real wood fire is just unthinkable for the Dursleys. This is contrasted with the rather amazing pile of magical construction that is The Burrow, Harry's favorite place to stay (apart, perhaps, from Hogwarts).
[edit] Questions
[edit] Greater Picture
Harry absolutely hates the time he spends in the house on Privet Drive; he would much rather be living with wizards. However, the protection he gained from the death of his mother, when she was trying to save him from Voldemort, will remain in force only so long as there is a place that he can call home, which is owned and occupied by his own blood – in this case, Petunia, his mothers' sister. Harry is not allowed to know this until late in the series, and even when he does understand the necessity for it, his knowing it does not improve the feelings about his required presence in that house. This protection ends once he comes of age at seventeen, which will happen early in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; he is then equally at risk wherever he is, and so there is no need for him to return to Privet Drive ever again, for which he seems to be profoundly grateful.
