Highlights
- Aunt Petunia's jealousy of her sister's magical abilities is revealed in "The Prince's Tale" chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
- Petunia felt like an outsider and laughed at Severus Snape for calling himself a wizard.
- Petunia's deep-rooted insecurity and feelings of inferiority led her to belittle her sister and Hogwarts, calling them "freaks" and "weirdos."
In the first Harry Potter book - The Sorcerer's Stone, Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts, arrives to collect Harry from the Hut-on-the-Rock and tells him all about his magical legacy. Harry, freshly turned eleven, learns he is a wizard, and that he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hagrid has to walk him through the whole truth, and in the midst of this great revelation, the young wizard asks his uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia if they know. Then comes a shocking statement from Harry's mean Aunt Petunia, who as a young girl vied for a place at Hogwarts:
Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that - that school - and came home every holiday with her pockets full of frog-spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was - a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!
Petunia was nearly out of breath, but her great tirade conveyed that she was still a jealous sibling. Petunia and her husband, Vernon had fostered Harry begrudgingly and tried their best to stamp the magic out of him, but Harry was destined for great things in the Wizarding World. Therefore, the Dursleys isolating him in a shack on a remote island failed to keep him from receiving his acceptance letter and boarding the Hogwarts Express. Harry Potter had just begun, and Aunt Petunia hid a secret that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will bring to the fore.
The Prince's Tale
While the Dursleys and Vernon's sister, Marge keep insulting the memory of Harry's dead parents, Chapter 33 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - "The Prince's Tale" (or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) reveals interesting details about the Evans' sisters childhood. Harry's former Potions Master, Severus Snape also comes into the picture. After Harry takes Snape's last thoughts in a crystal flask and pours them into the wide basin of the stone Pensieve in the headmaster's office. Harry thought he'd be escaping into Snape's head for a while, and Snape's thoughts revealed another side of young Aunt Petunia, jealous of her sister's magical ability and yearning to attend Hogwarts like her.
The scene opens with two girls, swinging and a boy watching them from behind the bushes. The eldest of these girls is Petunia and the younger (Lily) affectionately calls her "Tuney." Lily let go of the swing and landed safely on the ground, and the elder one asked her not to do it.
Mummy told you not to!
While Petunia shrieked at Lily's magical abilities, she longingly asked her sister how she managed to do it. At this point, Severus Snape revealed himself from behind the bushes and told Lily that she was a witch. At first, Lily is affronted but Snape explains what he means:
My mum's one, and I'm a wizard.
At this point, Petunia, who obviously felt like the odd one out, sniggered at Snape for calling himself a wizard and for being born on the wrong side of the tracks (Spinner's End by the River).
While Snape and Lily became friends with time, Petunia grew increasingly jealous of them. She told Lily Hogwarts didn't exist and that her friend, Snape was lying to her. In one reformed scene, Petunia hid behind a tree and spied on the duo.
The Ugly Confrontation
As the scenes dissolved and reformed, Harry saw his Evans, his Aunt, his mother, and Snape on platform nine and three-quarters. The two sisters stood apart from Mr. and Mrs. Evans and Lily kept saying how sorry she was that Petunia wasn't accompanying her to Hogwarts.
Maybe once I'm there - no, listen, Tuney! Maybe once I'm there, I'll be able to go to Processor Dumbledore and persuade him to change his mind!
While Petunia maintained she didn't want to attend Hogwarts, the truth is, she'd already exchanged letters with Dumbledore. She called Hogwarts a "stupid castle" and her sister "a freak" while believing quite the opposite. Everything she said stemmed from deep-rooted insecurity, the inferiority she felt because she was a Muggle. Petunia's words filled Lily's eyes with tears, and she reminded her sister to watch her manners. Petunia would still go on:
A special school for freaks. You and that Snape boy... weirdos, that's what you two are. It's good you're being separated from normal people. It's for our safety.
Having had enough, Harry Potter's "The Prince's Tale" reveals that Lily confronted Petunia about writing to the headmaster and begging him to take her. Petunia defended her actions to the best of her abilities and chastised her sister for going through her mail. Snape had found the envelope and went through it out of sheer curiosity. He couldn't believe a muggle could contact Hogwarts. This is where Petunia would call her sister "a freak" once again and leave.
Petunia's Jealousy
Petunia was merely jealous of her younger sister, Lily left for Hogwarts knowing her sister hated her because she and Snape saw the letter from Dumbledore. The two sisters were estranged. The first Harry Potter novel reveals that later in life, Petunia and Vernon didn't want to be associated with the likes of Lily and her husband, James Potter. Their core values were akin to the British upper-middle class, and Lily and James were anything but. Petunia was estranged from Lily at the latter's death, unaware and oblivious to the challenges her sister and brother-in-law had faced.