Harry Potter – Muggles / Characters

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The Dursley Family

General

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dursleys_poa.png

A Muggle family, and the only known living close relatives of Harry Potter. Due to Petunia's maternal connection to Harry, he was sent to live with them after his parents were murdered by Lord Voldemort. They raised Harry... with abuse and neglect, and maintained him in total obliviousness to his wizarding heritage, until the day he was sent his acceptance letter from Hogwarts.

The Artifact: The Dursleys' over-the-top abuse and bullying of Harry wouldn't be out of place in a Roald Dahl book, with them being on par with James Trotter's aunts Spiker and Sponge. This was fine for the first two books, but as the series progress from a children's series to targeting young adults the Dursleys' almost cartoonishly poor behaviour became more than a little out of place in the increasingly serious plot.
Butt-Monkey: Their connection to the wizarding world through Harry brings them a load of grief and misfortune, and while they usually bring it upon themselves, a couple of times they suffer merely for happening to be in the line of fire when trouble comes looking for Harry.
- Order of the Phoenix: Dudley very nearly suffers a Fate Worse than Death at the hands of Dementors sent after Harry, who go after Dudley simply because he happens to be with Harry at the time. The experience has an extreme and profound effect on Dudley (although it does eventually motivate him to become a better person). During the ensuing argument with Harry, they discover that they're not even allowed to kick him out of their house despite him having an unstoppable madman trying to kill him.
- Deathly Hallows: Due to their relationship with Harry, they're forced to go into hiding until the situation blows over, as they'll be prime targets for torture and murder if Voldemort's forces find them. However, it's likely that the conditions of their temporary displacement were reasonable and ended up lasting less than a year, so this is certainly the least they've been humiliated in any of the books. Dudley even manages to start the process of repairing his relationship with his cousin, although Vernon and Petunia can't quite bring themselves to do the same.
Chubby Mama, Skinny Papa: Inverted. Vernon is the chubby papa, and Petunia is the skinny mama.
Demoted to Comic Relief: While the Dursleys were never strangers to comedic moments, their treatment of Harry could still be seen as rather sinister in the early books. As the story progresses, their quickly diminishing relevance to Harry's story results in whatever serious traits they may have had disappearing, with their roles pretty much becoming entirely comedic.
Demoted to Extra: Happens in the books to an extent, but it’s especially prevalent in the movie series: The Dursleys were completely Adapted Out of the movie versions of The Goblet Of Fire and The Half Blood Prince. They do appear in The Deathly Hollows: Part 1, but only briefly in one scene, with their emotional moments cut.
Does Not Like Magic: The Dursleys hate and fear anything having to do with magic, and spent ten years trying to squash the magic out of Harry, to no avail. In fact, simply saying the word "magic", even in a completely innocuous context (such as "you've forgotten the magic word") sends Vernon into a violent rage.
Everyone Has Standards: They might be abusive jerks, but even they don't really like Aunt Marge. Petunia and Dudley clearly only tolerate her because she's family (and in Dudley's case, because she gives him stuff). It's implied even Vernon's love for her is not truly sincere.
Fat and Skinny: Vernon is the fat to Petunia's skinny.
Fat Bastard: They have a tendency to be overweight, except Petunia, who married into the family. They also have nasty tempers.
It's All About Me: Another negative trait that they share, as the Dursleys are frequently portrayed as caring about their own self-image and desires.
Karma Houdini: Aside from some harsh words from Dumbledore and some Order members, and a handful of amusing magical disasters they've gotten caught up in (read: the Ton-Tongue Toffee incident), the Dursleys never suffer any long-term consequences for turning Harry's childhood & teen years into a walking nightmare.
Karmic Butt-Monkey: Their connection to the wizarding world through Harry brings them a load of grief and misfortune, pretty much in every book. Their unabashed cruelty towards Harry and obnoxious and unpleasant personalities are almost (but not quite) always the direct cause of this misfortune.
- Philosopher's Stone: The clearly upper-middle class family spends a night in a cheap, run-down motel, and then the next night in a worn-down shack on a small island during a massive storm with meager rations and supplies, in an attempt to hide from Hogwarts's attempts to contact Harry. And then, when Hagrid gets involved personally in rescuing Harry, Vernon gets emasculated by the much larger, stronger man, and Dudley walks away from the encounter with a pig's tail that he lives with for a month before being surgically removed.
- Chamber of Secrets: For the first several weeks of summer, the Dursleys are clearly living in fear of what Harry might do to them now that he's been educated on his magical powers, heavily altering the power dynamics in their relationship. Then, Vernon loses out on a massive order of drills that he implied would have bought them a vacation home thanks to Dobby sabotaging a dinner party in an attempt to force Harry to not go to Hogwarts that year. It's quite clear from the scene that, were it not for Dobby, Vernon would have gotten his drill order. His attempt to punish Harry (after discovering that Harry isn't allowed to use magic outside of school) by locking him in his room and starving him lasts all of three days before he's sprung by the Weasleys, which also leads to Harry spending the rest of his summer vacation at the Burrow, where he's far happier than he's ever been with the Dursleys.
- Prisoner of Azkaban: The visiting Aunt Marge insults Harry's parents while drunk, and Harry loses control of his powers, causing Marge to inflate like a balloon and float to the ceiling. While in this case, the Ministry of Magic was able to make it like the incident never happened and even wipe Marge's mind, the family is still quite incensed over it. At the end of the school year, they're informed that Harry now has a godfather, on the run for mass murder (Harry keeps the fact that he was framed to himself), who is very keen to make sure that Harry is being treated well and will get involved if he believes otherwise, wiping out the advantage the Dursleys gained on finding out that Harry can't use magic.
- Goblet of Fire: For starters, the entire family goes on an extremely restrictive diet due to Dudley's obesity, and Harry is the only one in the house eating well thanks to the food his friends smuggled to him via owl. Harry is then able to successfully hold the threat of his godfather over Vernon's head so he agrees to let him go to the Quidditch World Cup. Finally, when the Weasleys arrive to pick Harry up, Arthur has to blow up half the living room to get in (even though he's able undo this instantly), and the Dursleys are forced to stand there and take it without a word out of fear of what Arthur could do with his magic if they upset him. Arthur even forces Vernon (at wandpoint, from Vernon's perspective) to say goodbye to Harry. Oh, and Fred 'accidentially' drops a trick toffee on the ground and the half-starved Dudley eats it, causing his tongue to swell up to four feet long before it's reversed.
- Order of the Phoenix: The family is tricked into believing they've won a phony award for lawn care, something the Order made up to get them away from the house for awhile so they can pick Harry up.
- Half Blood Prince: Not too bad this time, but they still have to contend with a rather humiliating meeting with Albus Dumbledore, who is very clearly trolling them, knowing that they're too scared to stand up to him. He dresses them down for their abusive treatment of Harry, and then indicates they have done an even worse job raising Dudley, with them saying nothing in their defense.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
- What would have happened if Vernon and Petunia had raised Harry to be as mean and nasty as Dudley? What if Harry had been as much of a porker as his cousin? As Dumbledore implies - to their faces - in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that by abusing him, indirectly, the Dursleys saved him from a much worse fate: Dudley's.
- By obsessively refusing to admit that magic is real, they made Harry oblivious of his true nature and thus never tried to suppress it. Book 7 and especially Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them show the consequences of young wizards knowingly suppressing their power. It ain't pretty.
Obnoxious In-Laws: The books have implied that the Dursleys were this to Lily and James Potter during the latter's lifetimes. J.K. Rowling herself and Pottermore have confirmed this.
Obsessively Normal: The Dursleys strive to be normal and to fit in with their community. Because of this, they hate and abuse their nephew Harry Potter for his magical heritage. It should be noted that the Dursleys are partly a case of Sour Grapes: Petunia's resentment comes from never getting over that she didn't get to go to Hogwarts like her sister, while Vernon had issues with the fact that the Potters were independently wealthy (and James inadvertently rubbing it in his face).
Parents in Distress: The Dursleys are given Order of the Phoenix protection in 'Deathly Hallows to avert this to prevent the Death Eaters from kidnapping them and trying to torture information about Harry out of them. Vernon and Harry make it clear that they both know Vernon would sell out Harry in a second and it wouldn't work anyway with the Dursleys not knowing Harry's whereabouts, but the Death Eaters wouldn't know that and probably wouldn't care either way.
Pet the Dog: As terrible they are to Harry, they can sometimes be kind, if that's the word they would use, to him. For example, after he blew up Aunt Marge in a fit of rage for her insulting his parents, they never invited her again as long he was in the house, so Harry never had to see Marge again.
Satellite Family Member: To Harry. They only appear when he isn't in the Wizarding World and their mistreatment of Harry makes him a tragic and sympathetic figure. The cruel, stupid, and spoiled Dudley is used as a Foil to Harry, making the latter appear more kind, intelligent, and humble by comparison. In later books Dudley and Petunia receive a little more characterization beyond being "Harry's awful relatives", but this is not explored with much depth.
Shadow Archetype: To the Barebones of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Both hate magic with a passion, but while the Dursleys were Obsessively Normal and denied magic exists, the Barebones were Cassandra Truth tellers working to expose magic to the world. Their hatred both ruined their adopted son/nephew's childhood. But since Credence was taught to hate his magic, he developed a powerful Obscurus, while Harry never knew what was wrong with him, so had no idea what to suppress.
Thicker Than Water: As a pattern, it's noticeable that Petunia and Dudley, the Dursleys with blood ties to Harry, both have Pet the Dog moments, whereas Vernon, his uncle by marriage, never does.
The Worf Effect: At the start of the story, they basically exert complete control over Harry's life, and make his every waking moment miserable through their abuse and hatred for him, and Harry has no way to resist or fight back, as he's just an eleven-year-old boy with no control over his magic. Throughout the series, the Dursleys become less of a threat and more of an annoyance to Harry, and in the last couple books may as well just be his roommates. This is due in part to Harry simply getting older and more independent, him learning how to use magic at Hogwarts making them afraid of him, Harry facing death several times a year at school making the Dursleys seem far less threatening to him in comparison, him being able to threaten getting his friends and allies from the magical world involved, and only spending a few months a year with them. In a meta sense, as J.K. Rowling became a better writer and the books started to be targeted to an older, more mature audience, the Dursleys being over-the-top, cartoonishly-evil, Roald Dahl-esque characters ceased to fit in as well.

Vernon Dursley

Portrayed by: Richard Griffiths, Paul Bentall (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, first West End run), TBD (Cursed Child, first Broadway run)

Voiced by: Jorge Santos (Latin American Spanish), Júlio Chaves (Brazilian Portuguese)

"He will not be going, I tell you! We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to all this rubbish!"

Harry's uncle. Vernon is a blustering, social-climbing, materialistic Jerkass with an incredibly insular world view. Both he and his wife Aunt Petunia are very Roald Dahl-esque villains.

J. K. Rowling once cited him as her least favourite character in the entire series. And yes, this was after Lord Voldemort and Dolores Umbridge had been introduced. As for the fandom, let's just say you won't find many fanfics in which he wears leather pants.

Abusive Parents: Vernon Dursley is rather cruel towards Harry as his guardian - sometimes taking it to ludicrous lengths, like literally putting bars on his window. He was also a bad father to Dudley because of the constant spoiling and teaching his son to bully his cousin (and everyone else, come to that). Dumbledore even says that the best thing the Dursleys had ever done for Harry was to make sure he didn't grow up to become a Spoiled Brat like Dudley.
Achievements in Ignorance: Because he doesn't understand how dangerous Voldemort really is, he's not afraid to say his name, something even most wizards can't do.
Adaptational Comic Relief: While the general idea behind the character remains the same, Film Vernon is a more comedic character than Book Vernon, with his abuse of Harry being slightly scaled back and replaced with blustering stupidity.
Adaptation Dye-Job: His hair changes from being dark in the books to a greyish ginger in the movies (and eventually white as snow in the final film). A clear sign that he is aging.
Adaptational Intelligence: In the film he's not shown resisting Harry on relocating his family like he is in the book, despite it being blatantly explained to him that Voldemort was the most dangerous man alive and would come after them just to get to Harry. In fact, the deleted scene shows he's quite eager to get away and cut his nephew loose, which Harry seizes as one last chance to throw his uncle's cruelty back in his face.
Harry: Besides, I'm just a waste of space. Isn't that right, Vernon?
Adaptational Nice Guy: Heavily downplayed, but his film counterpart lacks some of the nastier traits and most hostile moments that his book counterpart had. In the beginning of the third movie, he acts more cordial to Harry when he's asked about signing the permission slip, and they both mutually agree to lie to Aunt Marge rather than Harry being forced to. Heck, his facial expressions during the whole scene, along with trying to defuse the situation by sending Harry to bed, implies that even he is shocked by Marge's belittlement of Harry's parents. Film Vernon also holds off on the threats of physically beating Harry that Book Vernon occasionally indulged in, and the scene of him trying to kick Harry out of the house after finding out Voldemort is hunting him is omitted from the film.
Angrish: All the time. The most memorable quotations are "He made a sound like a mouse being trodden on" and "Mimble wimble".
Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Oh so very averted. Unlike his son who came to appreciate Harry for saving his life, and his wife whose feelings are more complicated in origin, Vernon just flat-out doesn't like his nephew, and never did. Exemplified and Played for Laughs in the last book where Vernon gruffly moves to offer Harry a handshake but can't bring himself to stick the landing on even that gesture, and ends up just awkwardly swinging his closed fist back and forth.
Ax-Crazy: At his worst, he borders on this - the main example is when Dudley is afflicted by the Ton Tongue Toffee. Though, frankly, his actions early in Philosopher's Stone after the letters start arriving (Dudley even lampshades it by saying, "Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he mummy?") and in Chamber of Secrets (where he literally imprisons Harry and tries to prevent his escape by main force out of sheer spite) suggest that he was going off the deep end even then.
Berserk Button: Say anything related to magic in front of him and he'll fly into a frothing, screaming rage. Even the mention of "the magic word" (please) will set him off.
British Stuffiness: Somewhat. He's stuffy all right, but he's much more boorish than the stereotype would suggest.
The Bully: He enjoys shouting to his employees and keeping Harry under his thumb. He approves and even encourages his son to do the same.
Bullying a Dragon:
- There's his mistreatment of Harry, of course (which stems from before he knew Harry wasn't allowed to magically retaliate), but there's also the matter of Hagrid arriving to collect Harry. Even though Vernon has witnessed Hagrid demonstrate his Super-Strength by bending a shotgun, and even after seeing Hagrid get mad, he proceeds to make the half-giant angrier until he ends up doing the one thing that makes Hagrid truly apoplectic with rage (i.e. insulting Albus Dumbledore), instead of keeping his mouth shut. Not to mention that Hagrid is at least twice his size - and Vernon himself is no small fellow.
- Averted in the later books, when Vernon mostly keeps his temper in check when confronted by Arthur Weasley, Alastor Moody and Albus Dumbledore - though he does go berserk at Arthur during the Ton-Tongue Toffee Incident. His experience with Hagrid seems to have taught him the value of not shooting your mouth off.
Cosmic Horror Story: From his point of view, the first chapter looks like this.
Decoy Protagonist: He's the protagonist of the first chapter before his nephew is introduced.
Demoted to Extra: In the films as the series goes on after Prisoner of Azkaban. His scenes in Goblet of Fire and Half Blood Prince are outright skipped, and he makes very small appearances in Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows Part 1.
Denied Food as Punishment: One of the more frequent punishments he inflicts on Harry whenever he can't control his magic.
Didn't Think This Through:
- In Chamber of Secrets he tries to punish Harry for ruining the dinner party with the Masons (albeit being framed for it by Dobby) by effectively imprisoning Harry in his bedroom and telling him he'll never go back to Hogwarts. Somehow Vernon managed to forget how well this went when he tried it the previous year.
- It happens again in Deathly Hallows where Vernon is leaning towards refusing protection from the Order of the Phoenix. Harry points out how well his previous attempt to hide from the wizarding world went, and Vernon for the first time has no real rebuttal.
Dirty Coward: He talks a big game, but once he meets someone who he can't bully, he pathetically backs off.
Does Not Like Magic: To the extent that merely mentioning anything to do with magic is his Berserk Button.
Doting Parent: The bad Spoiled Brat producing type.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He's a deeply unpleasant man - while he abuses Harry horribly, he is genuinely Happily Married to Petunia and he spoils his son rotten in the misguided view that this is good parenting. In Prisoner of Azkaban, he also becomes outraged with Harry when he causes his sister Marge to inflate.
Everyone Has Standards:
- In the film adaptation of Prisoner of Azkaban, before officially "suggesting" it, he can be seen silently agreeing with Harry that he should go upstairs out of the way when Marge begins insulting the boy's parents. He could just be wanting to avoid setting Harry off, but the implication is there that even he finds her behaviour to be appalling.
- In the end of the final book, when Harry declares the Dursleys consider him a waste of space, Vernon awkwardly does not respond, implying that he knows there was no justification for the horrible way he treated Harry, and now he feels some guilt about it, but is either too proud to apologise for it or considers doing so redundant.
Evil Uncle: Not to the point of trying to dispose of his nephew as is the case with most fictional evil uncles who are more active about it, but still abusive to Harry.
Fantasy-Forbidding Father: An uncle variant. He very specifically tried to crush the potential for magic out of Harry with all sorts of means.
Fat Bastard: His fatness is only second to his unpleasant personality.
For the Evulz:
- Vernon loathes Harry and hates having him around his house, but also hates Harry being happy or having fun seemingly even more, so he'd rather force Harry to stay with him so he can keep him miserable. Harry even directly references this in Goblet of Fire when he asks to go to the Quidditch World Cup, knowing that Vernon is battling fiercely between his desire to get Harry out of his house and desire to not give Harry something he wants. It's more or less stated Vernon would have denied him permission to go to the World Cup if Harry hadn't threatened to bring Sirius into it.
- Even disregarding Harry, the guy is a sadistic boss who loves to bully his employees just because he enjoys it.
Green-Eyed Monster: Pottermore reveals that part of the reason he and James Potter got off on the wrong foot was that Vernon, a materialistic social climber, was angry after James revealed that he came from Old Money and did not need to work.
Happily Married: For all his other flaws, he and Petunia really love each other.
Harmless Villain: After Harry goes to Hogwarts, Vernon spends the rest of the series being more of an annoyance than anything, especially after Harry informs him about his godfather who happens to be a wanted criminal. When the Order of the Phoenix members - including the one who previously demolished half of his living room - warn him about mistreating Harry, Vernon just ignores Harry altogether.
Hate Sink: Until the real story gets underway, the readers only have him to hate. He also lacks the occasionally sympathetic moments that Petunia and Dudley have, aside from Even Evil Has Loved Ones. While not a full-on threat, he nonetheless has very few redeeming qualities even by the standards of Harry Potter antagonists.
Hey, You!: Vernon tends to refer to Harry as "boy".
Hidden Depths: Pottermore reveals he stuck by Petunia even after she told him about Lily being a witch. Considering how Vernon normally acts, that's probably the nicest thing he's ever done.
Hypocrite: Harry thinks he's one for referring to Molly Weasley as a "dumpy sort of woman" when Vernon himself is a Fat Bastard and his son is about the size of a young killer whale.
Idiot Ball:
- Yes, Vernon, pissing off the very large and very angry half-giant is a good idea... especially in the film, where Vernon proceeds to antagonize Hagrid moments after the latter twisted a shotgun into a knot with his bare hands in front of him.
- As is trying to talk back to Alastor Moody. Even if you don't know of Moody's background and history, one look alone at Moody's heavily scarred face and missing leg should indicate this is not someone you want to pick a fight with.
- You'd think a man who hates his nephew with every fiber of his being would jump at the chance to have him taken away to Hogwarts whenever possible. Instead, he constantly tries to keep Harry at home for no reason whatsoever, which always works out poorly for him.
Intro-Only Point of View: In Philosopher's Stone.
Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: The only Dursley to not get any kind of redemptive moment with Harry by the end of the saga. Dudley thanks Harry for saving his life right before they depart, and by the end of the seventh book, Harry is aware that Petunia's resentment of Harry stems largely from her regretting that she never made up with her sister (Harry's mother) before she was killed, and Petunia being jealous over not being a witch herself. Vernon, however, just accuses Harry of trying to steal 4 Privet Drive out from underneath him, and then can't quite bring himself to shake his hand when the two part ways.
Lack of Empathy: When it comes to Harry. In Order of the Phoenix, he is fully prepared to throw Harry out of his house, despite full knowledge that doing so would put his life in grave danger, and when Harry is put on trial for underage magic, Vernon comes right out and says he hopes Harry gets the death penalty.
Large Ham: His shouting is almost always in all-caps, such as "MOTORBIKES DON'T FLY!"
Muggle Foster Parents: He and Petunia raised Harry since he was a baby. Largely involuntarily, though. He's not particularly fond of Harry.
Never My Fault: He spends most of his chapters in later books raging about how much trouble Harry and by extension the wizarding world has caused his family, willfully ignoring that most of it was his fault. Dudley would never have been been given a pig's tail had Vernon just kept his mouth shut in front of Hagrid, and Marge blowing up into a balloon only happened because he wouldn't stop her from repeatedly insulting Harry's dead parents. On a broader level he takes zero responsibility for abusing and traumatizing Harry for the first eleven years of his life — only finally awkwardly realizing there's no excuse for his behavior in Deathly Hallows, and even then he doesn't get a Heel Realization like Dudley does.
No-Neck Chump: He's so fat that his neck isn't visible, in contrast to Petunia who has too much neck.
Oblivious to His Own Description: He is outraged and reacts as he's being insulted when he's addressed as a "Muggle." The idea that he may have a right to be offended by the term is never really brought up.
Offing the Offspring: Doesn't actually happen, but he hopes Harry gets the death penalty from his fellow wizards for (supposedly) cursing Dudley.
Oh, Crap!:
- When he insults Dumbledore in front of Hagrid, he immediately seems to realize he finally pushed Hagrid too far.
- In the film version of Prisoner of Azakban when Aunt Marge's finger starts inflating he knows what's about to happen.
Papa Wolf:
- Say what you will about his parenting, but he will not hesitate to act if he thinks Dudley is in danger. At one point he shows that he is perfectly willing to throw himself between Dudley and Hagrid without a thought for his own safety.
- When Dementors coming for Harry threaten Dudley in the process, he is this close to throwing Harry out of the house entirely.
Paper Tiger: Vernon makes a big show of threatening and bullying people. Whenever he's confronted by someone who won't be intimidated like Hagrid, the Order of the Phoenix members, or Dumbledore, he's immediately cowed into silence.
Parental Obliviousness: Explains away his son's many flaws or makes excuses for them, just like his wife.
"Aunt Petunia always insisted that Dudley was a very gifted boy whose teachers didn’t understand him, while Uncle Vernon maintained that ‘he didn’t want some swotty little nancy boy for a son anyway'."
Pet the Dog:
- Subverted in the first book. He allows Harry to go on a trip to the zoo along with Dudley... but this is because his babysitter injured her leg.
- The only genuine example is that he does care for Petunia and Dudley. The one time Vernon goes as far as trying to kick Harry out of his home is when he discovers that Voldemort has returned, and Vernon tells Harry to get out on the grounds that he isn't putting his wife and son in danger. Not that it excuses trying to throw a 15-year-old boy out on the street, but Vernon puts Petunia and Dudley first.
- After finding out that his sister-in-law is a witch, he tells Petunia he doesn't hold it against her.
- He seems to genuinely like Kingsley Shacklebolt, who is the only wizard he's ever expressed genuine praise for. Granted it's not clear whether this is due to genuine respect or just because he's good at passing as a muggle.
- The backstory mentions that Vernon did try to bond with James Potter when they met, but since James was a wizard and Vernon could only really talk about cars, they had little to talk about.
Politically Incorrect Villain: He hates wizards and views them as abnormal freaks. Contrast that to most of the villains in the series, who view Muggles like him as subhuman. He also has many unflattering things to say about people below his own socio-economic standing, believes in corporal punishment, is glad that he doesn't have a "swotty little nancy boy" for a son, which hints at sexist/homophobic and anti-intellectual beliefs, and he reads the notoriously reactionary Daily Mail. However, his approval of Kingsley Shacklebolt (who, unlike most wizards, can dress in normal muggle clothing and blend in among 'respectable' muggles with ease) suggests that despite his many, many prejudicial beliefs, he isn't overtly racist.
Starter Villain: He's the main villain for the first few chapters in the series... but he's far and away from being the Big Bad.
Stealth Pun: Vernon manages a company that makes drills. His work is "boring".
Take That!: At one point Vernon is shown to read The Daily Mail. J.K. Rowling has admitted that she used Vernon as a proxy to take potshots at the UK-based tabloid given what sort of person Vernon is, which has published unflattering articles about her.
Tempting Fate: Vernon boldly - albeit stupidly - asks Mad-Eye Moody if he looks like the type of person to be intimidated. Moody obliges.
Vernon: And do I look like the kind of man who can be intimidated?
Mad-Eye: Well... <pushes back his bowler hat to stare at Vernon with his creepy Mad Eye, causing Vernon to leap back in shock and crash into a luggage trolley> Yes, I'd have to say you do, Dursley.
Token Evil Teammate: Downplayed since none of the Dursleys are good people, but Vernon is the only one who never gets either a Freudian Excuse (Petunia spent her entire life in Lily's shadow and never got a chance to reconcile before her murder, Dudley has been spoiled to the point of losing all touch with reality) or a genuine Heel Realization (as Dudley does offscreen during the fifth book). He's just a cruel jerkass who abuses his nephew just for being different and never shows any remorse for it.
Ungrateful Bastard: Not even Harry saving Dudley from the Dementors makes Vernon treat him any better. In Deathly Hallows he acts like he's doing Harry a favor by going along with Order of the Phoenix protection despite knowing full well how badly his previous attempts at hiding from wizards have gone.
Villain Opening Scene: It's debatable whether Vernon is significant enough an antagonist to qualify as this, but he's a colossal jerk at best and the first book starts off from his POV.
Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: He thinks that Harry should be more grateful to him and his wife for taking him in, feeding and clothing him, and giving him a place to live. Never mind that they abused him relentlessly, fed him the bare minimum when not punishing him by taking away his meals, only gave him their son's raggedy and ill fitting hand me downs to wear, treated him like a servant, made him live in a cupboard under the stairs and let his cousin bully him.
Vernon: How many times do I have to tell you not to mention that unnaturalness under my roof? You stand there, in the clothes Petunia and I have put on your ungrateful back—
Harry: Only after Dudley finished with them.
White Collar Worker: Vernon appears to be something in middle management rather than a mere drone, and probably not a very good one, but close enough; the line between the two sometimes gets a bit blurry anyway. This also informs his choice of paper; a working-class man would read the Sun, and a professional would read the Daily Telegraph, but being middle-class, Vernon reads the Daily Mail.

Petunia Dursley (née Evans)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/petunia_dursley.jpg

Portrayed by: Fiona Shaw (films), Helena Lymbery (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, first West End run), TBD (Cursed Child, first Broadway run)

Voiced by: Norma Iturbe (Latin American Spanish, Philosopher's Stone, Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows Part I), Pilar Escandón (Latin American Spanish, Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban), Monserrat Mendoza (Latin American Spanish, child, Deathly Hallows Part II), Geisa Vidal (Brazilian Portuguese)
Appears in: Philosopher’s Stone | Chamber of Secrets | Prisoner of Azkaban | Goblet of Fire | Order of the Phoenix | Half-Blood Prince | Deathly Hallows | Cursed Child (flashback only)

"My mother and father were so proud the day she got her letter. 'We have a witch in the family. Isn't it wonderful?' I was the only one to see her for what she was... a freak!"

Harry's aunt. As a kid, she was involved in The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry with Lily, Harry's mother. After Lily turned out to be a witch, Petunia got jealous and came to hate magic.

As an adult, Petunia is a Stepford Smiler who favours her own son Dudley over Harry. She is not as overtly nasty to Harry as her husband is, but she's still mean to him in a catty sort of way. She also tends to be humorously overemotional.

Abusive Parents: Much like Vernon, she treats Harry very poorly as his caretaker. As Dumbledore and Rowling point out, she's a bad parent to Dudley as well, their hopeless spoiling and enabling of his actions leading him to grow up with little in the way of a moral compass. It takes Harry's Embarrassing Rescue and a Dementor attack (which showed him just how awful a person he was) to teach Dudley the humility and compassion that his mother never taught him.
Adaptation Dye-Job: Petunia is blonde in the books, but dark-haired in the film to downplay the franchise’s overuse of evil blondes.
Affectionate Nickname: Lily called her "Tuney" when they were kids.
Ambiguous Situation: Petunia claims that she was the least-loved of herself and Lily, and that the latter took all of their parents' affection. Was that actually true? Or did she just see it that way, to make her grudge against Lily easier to support? Either is entirely possible.
Animal Motifs: Described as having horse-like teeth and nearly twice the usual amount of neck (for spying on the neighbors).
Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
- In a deleted scene from Deathly Hallows Part 1:
  "You didn't just lose a mother in Godric's Hollow, you know. I lost a sister."
- Averted in the book, where she briefly stops as if to say something but Can't Spit It Out because years of denial have hardened her. She was however going to say something similar as per Rowling.
- Somewhat more tragically, this is a good part of the reason she's so nasty to Harry; she was still in the middle of something of a feud with Lily when Lily was killed, and thus Harry is a walking reminder of what she lost and the fact that she never had the chance to reconcile with her sister.
- Also more tragically: when James and Lily were murdered, Petunia was the one to make the funeral arrangements for them.
- It's probably made even worse by Cursed Child; she kept Harry's baby blanket, likely because her sister made it... and it's something she has to remember Lily by that she doesn't have to hate.
Big Sister Bully: Out of bitterness and jealousy that Lily was accepted into Hogwarts and she wasn't, Petunia began to hate her sister and all things magic, and their relationship never recovered.
Young Petunia: I don't — want — to — go [to Hogwarts]! You think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a — a — you think I want to be a — a freak?
Young Lily: (teary-eyed) I'm not a freak. That's a horrible thing to say.
Young Petunia: (with relish) That's where you're going. 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.
Birds of a Feather: Her and Vernon's relationship is built on their compulsive need to be normal, and their disdain for anything "unusual".
Cain and Abel: The Cain to Lily's Abel.
Cannot Spit It Out: She has a hard time acknowledging that yes, her sister was brutally murdered and they never got to reconcile. What's more, she knows that the way she and Vernon treated Harry was wrong but cannot apologize or even say goodbye when they part ways permanently. In book seven, she knows that she doesn't deserve her family being taken into hiding as the Second War starts and her nephew goes to fight in it. Harry spells out to her and Vernon that Voldemort will gleefully torture and murder them in turn if they don't go with the Diggles, once the magical protection is gone. Even then, she can't say sorry. Petunia in a Deleted Scene in the film gave the closest thing to an apology: "You didn't just lose a mother in Godric's Hollow, you know. I lost a sister."
Chekhov's Gun: In Order of the Phoenix, she remembers hearing about dementors because she overheard her sister being told about it from "that awful boy", with the implication being that said boy was James. In Deathly Hallows, that's revisited, as Harry peers into Snape's memory and watches Lily and Petunia hear about the dementors... from Snape, not James as previously believed.
Demoted to Extra: In the films as the series goes on after Prisoner of Azkaban. Her scenes in Goblet of Fire and Half Blood Prince are outright skipped, and she makes very small appearances in Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows Part 1. (However, she does have several scenes in Part 2 during the flashback sequence)
Doting Parent: She is arguably worse than her husband in this regard. It doesn't help that she seems to still see her Dinky-Duddydums as a toddler. Indeed, while she may think she was a doting parent, she merely served as his enabler in all his bullying.
Dream-Crushing Handicap: As a child, she wanted to be a witch like her sister and attend Hogwarts, but she couldn't because she was a Muggle.
Dropped a Bridge on Him: She has passed away by the time The Cursed Child rolls around.
Everyone Has Standards: She clearly doesn't like Marge's visits, and who could blame her. She is obviously only doing this to please Vernon. In the film, she is visibly upset at Marge's comments on Lily and James, even when she called her dead sister a bitch. When she's floating away, she is just staring in awe at the moment, even waving at her goodbye.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- For all her flaws, she genuinely does love Dudley, even if her parenting makes him the fat, spoiled bully he would become, and her and Vernon's relationship appears to be a fairly happy one.
- Deep down, past the decades of resentment, she loves Lily.
Facial Dialogue: In the film version of Prisoner of Azkaban, she has a clearly distraught look on her face while she listens to Marge insulting Lily.
Fatal Flaw: Her womanly short-temper and jealousy work against herself and her family at certain points.
Floral Theme Naming: Lily and Petunia are both types of flowers.
Foolish Husband, Responsible Wife: More intelligent and reasonable than her husband, though not by very much. In Order of the Phoenix, she's the only Dursley who believes Harry's story about Voldemort's return and convinces Vernon not to throw Harry out the house. Granted, her being sent a Howler by Dumbledore played a factor.
Freudian Excuse: Her sister was born magical and she wasn't, leading her parents to favour Lily over her. She wrote to Dumbledore asking to be accepted into Hogwarts, but was kindly denied for obvious reasons. Also, Lily was prettier than Petunia, at least when they were adults although Lily was probably prettier as a child as well, and at least as intelligent as Petunia if not more so. Petunia really got the short end to the stick, so it’s no wonder she became so screwed up.
Frying Pan of Doom: Tries to hit Harry with a frying pan in the second book, but misses.
The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: With her sister, Lily. Namely, Petunia initially had Sour Grapes over not having magic, which developed in a full on hatred of magic itself.
Gossipy Hens: She is one, but we never see her interact with any others. The only female friend of hers we know about is someone named "Yvonne", who is only mentioned once in the first book.
Green-Eyed Monster: Her resentment of her sister and her nephew by proxy stems from the fact that Lily was a witch while she wasn't.
Happily Married: A rare example where in unpleasant characters (the Dursleys don't quite count as villains) where this isn't used as a sign of Hidden Depths. That is to say, she and Vernon do genuinely love each other (and Dudley, though they raise him very badly), but it's mere background to how much they hate and mistreat Harry.
Hypocritical Heartwarming: Only she can demean her sister; Vernon has the sense not to mention Lily unless it's necessary. Anyone else who does it receives a Death Glare. She's less than pleased when Aunt Marge insults Harry by likening his mother to a "bitch" in dog breeding.
Ignored Epiphany: When Harry and the Dursleys part for the last time, there's a moment when Petunia looks like she wants to say something kind to Harry, but ultimately she can't do it and just continues on out the door. In a Deleted Scene from the movie version, she manages to say it.
I Just Want to Be Special: As a child. A good case can be made that she still wants to be special even as an adult and that she is just overcompensating in her "normal life" because she is fully aware of it, which also leads to her treatment of Harry, which she is later implied to regret like Dudley. Moreover Dumbledore counted on this yearning for her connection to the wizarding world when he appointed her as Harry's caretaker and provider of the blood protection that would keep Harry safe in Privet Drive.
I Just Want to Be Normal: Becomes this as a way to cope with Lily being a witch, while she wasn't. Both her and Vernon have an obsessive need to be as plain, and socially acceptable as humanly possible, preferring to sweep Lily, Harry and any mention of the Wizarding World under the rug.
I'm Standing Right Here: Much like Harry, she has to endure Marge calling Lily a "bitch" despite being clearly hurt by hit.
Jerkass Has a Point: Petunia isn't certainly a pleasant (or the most pleasant) person, especially how she can treat her nephew and her family at times but has a good point to make at times. Case in point, in Philosopher's Stone, she stands by her and Vernon's decision to lie about how Harry's parents died. While Harry and Hagrid are understandably shocked, her behaviour seems more pragmatic than spiteful, since it saved them (and, by extension, Harry) from unwanted attention, especially knowing how Death Eaters like to gather information.
Laser-Guided Karma: Petunia doesn't get any comeuppance in the series, though she fairly obviously misses out on a couple of benefits that could have been hers if she'd treated her nephew kindly…like getting the love and attention that she believed was stolen from her by Lily.
Meaningful Name: In the language of flowers, petunias symbolize anger and resentment.
Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: Petunia seems to have the idea that her teenage son is just an oversized toddler and treats him accordingly. Dudley doesn't seem to mind, as it makes her easy to manipulate. He just has to act upset in front of her and she'll give her "Diddykins" whatever he wants.
Morality Chain: While by no means a decent person herself, she sometimes reins in Vernon's worst impulses.
Muggle Foster Parents: She and Vernon raised Harry since he was a baby, though EXTREMELY reluctantly on Petunia's part and entirely involuntarily of Vernon's.
My Beloved Smother: To Dudley, but not so much with Harry.
My God, What Have I Done?: The Deleted Scene of her talking to Harry in Deathly Hallows, Part One features this. She's standing in Dursleys house with all the furniture packed away, preparing to go into hiding but staring at the empty space. It hits her that she spent seventeen years abusing her nephew and spoiling her son rotten, all to preserve a social status and feud that meant nothing in the wake of the Second Wizard War. There are people out there who don't care about the lawns and will just wipe her out with no second thought. Harry comes to her and kindly tells her that leaving her house means she won't be tortured, so they'll all be safe. Petunia finally admits that she knows exactly what the people who murdered her sister will do if they catch her, and that she wishes it hadn't happened. Lily is dead, and nothing can fix that.
Never Got to Say Goodbye: She never managed to reconcile with her sister Lily before her death; not helping is their sole attempt at it led to their romantic partners bickering. When Harry sees her alone in her home in Privet Drive prior to her and the Dursleys' departure, she laments on losing her sister on the night of Voldemort's attack in Godric's Hollow.
"You didn't just lose a mother that night in Godric's Hollow, you know. I lost a sister."
Nosy Neighbor: Spies on her neighbors.
Not So Above It All: While she looks down on wizards as an adult, as a child she actually wrote to Dumbledore and begged him to let her attend Hogwarts.
Obnoxious In-Laws: She never got along well with the Potters.
Parental Favouritism: Petunia likes Dudley more than she does Harry, even though Harry deserves better.
Parental Obliviousness: Petunia has a huge blind spot when it comes to Dudley's many flaws. Most notably in Book 4, when after years of denying it is forced to admit that her son needs to diet — but only after his school no longer has knickerbockers in his size.
Parents as People: The reason she spoils Dudley so much is because of her childhood spent being The Un-Favourite next to her magical sister (who is also implied to have been prettier than her - Lily is consistently described as beautiful, while Petunia's description is much less flattering), so she desperately wanted her son to feel special and loved.
Parting-Words Regret: This is apparently one of the reasons she hates Harry so much — he's a living reminder of how she never got to reconcile with Lily before her death.
Psychopathic Womanchild: It's implied that Petunia, at the end of the day, is still at heart a resentful teenager who never got what she wanted.
The Resenter: It's implied that Aunt Petunia's reactionary attitude toward the revelation that her sister Lily was a witch was partly out of envy, and this contributed to their falling out.
Selective Obliviousness: As described in Pottermore, the reason Vernon chose the hut on the rock to hide from the Hogwarts staff trying to contact Harry was because he and Petunia believed in the old superstition that witches cannot cross water. This is despite the fact Petunia had frequently seen Lily jump streams and run across stepping stones in their childhood.
Sour Outside, Sad Inside: While it doesn't excuse her behaviour towards Harry, it becomes progressively clearer that Petunia is still grieving for her sister's death and that there will never be a way to make amends.
Stepford Smiler: Petunia is a fine example of the sort who initially seems to be her mask. Deathly Hallows suggests that her mask developed as the means to deal with her jealousy over her younger, "perfect" sister Lily getting magic and not herself.
Tragic Dream: As a child, she desperately wanted to attend Hogwarts, but couldn't because she was a Muggle. She was unable to get over her jealousy of her sister being a witch, and it destroyed their relationship for the rest of their lives.
Tragic Keepsake: She kept the baby blanket that infant Harry arrived in, because it was the last memento of her sister that she had left. Sometime after she passes away, Dudley finds the blanket among her possessions and sends it back to Harry.
Troubled Abuser: Her parents loved her sister more than her, which made her believe that Lily was a freak. This belief led to her abusing her own nephew. It's also one of her few redeeming qualities which prevents her from being a 100% Hate Sink.
The Un-Favourite: We don't actually know since we never get to see Lily's and her parents, but it is implied the reason she is so bitter and resentful towards magic and the Potters is that she felt left behind when her pretty, popular sister got a letter from Hogwarts and she didn't, although much in the books and later material seems to suggest that her parents did heavily favour Lily over her.

Dudley Dursley

Portrayed by: Harry Melling (films), Jack North (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, first West End run), TBD (Cursed Child, first Broadway run)

Voiced by: Diego Armando Ángeles (Latin American Spanish), Erick Bougleux (Brazilian Portuguese)

"Thirty-six?! Last year I had thirty-seven!"

Vernon and Petunia's beloved son and Harry's cousin. Initially, he's an overweight Spoiled Brat and the dim-witted leader of a Gang of Bullies who torment Harry. Of course, Vernon and Petunia turn a blind eye to the bullying and act as though Dudley were the perfect son. By the fifth book, Dudley has become an outright juvenile delinquent, but his parents remain oblivious.

After Harry saves him from a couple of Dementors, Dudley starts to change and ultimately he is the only member of the Dursley family to make a complete Heel–Face Turn, a development cut from the movies (though a scene was filmed). Rowling says he and Harry are on friendly terms as adults.

Adaptation Dye-Job: Like his mother, he was blond in the books but dark-haired in the film.
Adaptational Attractiveness: Dudley in the books is constantly described in rather unflattering terms such as looking like a pig or a young killer whale and at one point he becomes so obese his school has run out of uniform sizes that fit him. Harry Melling, on the other hand, does not even remotely resemble either of these descriptions and his weight never reaches obesity levels.
Adaptational Nice Guy: His bullying of Harry is toned down in the films, aside from him rudely saying in the second movie, "Who'd want to be friends with you?"
Adaptational Ugliness: However, Dudley's appearance in The Deathly Hallows movie is actually less attractive than in the book. By that point in the novels, Dudley's described as big and muscular, while the movie instead has Harry Melling wearing a fat suit.
Adaptation Personality Change: A slight one in the Philosopher's Stone movie. In the book, he doesn't want Harry to come on his birthday trip to the zoo and cries Crocodile Tears in front of his parents to try and convince them not to bring his cousin. In the film, he seems excited that they're both going (even if he's disturbing Harry by jumping loudly on the stairs above his cupboard to wake him up).
Affectionate Nickname: His mother calls him a number of infantile nicknames like "popkin," "Diddy darling," "Ickle Dudleykins," and "Dinky Duddyums," even when he's a teenager. Strangely, he doesn't seem to mind them at all.
Alliterative Name: The first letters of his first and last name start with "D". And the last three letters too end with "-ley".
Animal Motifs: Pigs, due to his gluttony. According to Hagrid, he looks and acts so much like one, a pig tail isn't much of a change.
Awful Truth: According to Rowling, when he was attacked by dementors, he didn't have any traumatic memories for them to make him relive, because his parents spoiled and pampered him so much. Instead, he was forced to see himself the way other people saw him, and to realize the truth about himself—that he was nothing but a big, fat, mean, stupid, spoiled bully, and had been his whole life. This actually triggers his first step towards becoming a better person.
Bad People Abuse Animals: He runs over a neighbor's dog with a miniature tank and throws his pet tortoise through the greenhouse roof.
Big Brother Bully: He's technically a month older than Harry. Although he's Harry's cousin rather than his brother, he picks on him endlessly and makes his life miserable. That is, until Harry becomes a proper wizard...
Big Eater: To the point that by the fourth book, he's the size of a young killer whale and wider than he is tall.
The Bully: Not just towards Harry, but also towards his classmates and the younger children in the neighborhood. The reason why Harry didn't have any friends at primary school was because the kids knew anyone who befriended him would become a target of Dudley's bullying as well.
Bullying a Dragon: He rubs Cedric Diggory's death (as well as Harry's mom's death in the film) in Harry's face in Order of the Phoenix, which enrages Harry to the point of him pulling out his wand and looking ready to use it. It doubles as Idiot Ball considering how well Dudley does whenever wizards are involved - though, to his marginal credit, in both the book and the film he immediately freezes up, scared witless, when Harry draws on him.
Bully Turned Buddy: He spends the first five books being nothing but mean to Harry, but then Harry saves his very soul from a Dementor, and on top of all that the Dementor effectively Mind Rapes Dudley into realizing that he's a spoiled, cruel bully. The rest of Book 5 and of Book 6 has Dudley trying to be better (though awkwardness on both sides makes it tricky.) When he and his family go into hiding in the final book, he shows concern about Harry and he finally manages to apologize, with he and Harry parting on good terms. They become amicable if awkward with one another as adults.
Butt-Monkey: Hagrid tried to turn him into a pig, but ended up just giving him a pig's tail. He ate some of the Weasley twins' joke candy and got an Overly-Long Tongue. And then there are those dementors. Basically, whenever something magical shows up in the Muggle world, Dudley is about to get hurt.
Cain and Abel: The Cain to Harry's Abel of the adopted brother variety.
Carry a Big Stick: His Smeltings Academy uniform includes a knobbled cane, which students are supposed to hit each other with when teachers aren't looking. Supposedly, this is said to be good training for later life.
Character Development: He spent most of his youth making Harry's life miserable. After Harry saves him from Dementors in OOTP, he becomes a lot nicer. In fact, he was the only one in Deathly Hallows who told Harry goodbye.
Clashing Cousins: He's a cruel bully who takes particular pleasure in tormenting his cousin Harry.
Crocodile Tears: He uses these when trying to convince his parents to not include Harry in his birthday visit to the zoo.
Delinquents: Harry's inner monologue observes this of him and his gang in Order of the Phoenix. They spend most of their summer evenings in the streets around Little Whinging, terrorizing younger children.
Demoted to Extra: In the film series. Of all of the Dursleys, Dudley gets hit with this the worst, as his Heel–Face Turn in Deathly Hallows, while filmed, was cut from the final product.
Dumb Muscle: He's the biggest and stupidest of his friends.
Early Personality Signs: When McGonagall is spying on the Dursleys in cat form, she observes Dudley as a toddler "kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets," setting the stage for the gluttonous Spoiled Brat he'll become later.
Everyone Has Standards:
- Normally he's happy with leaving Harry out of things. After his Heel–Face Turn, however, it hits him that Harry is not going into hiding with him and his parents. Dudley is actually horrified by this since Harry has warned the Dursleys that the same killer that wiped out his parents will go after them and torture them, and Harry instead is going into the fray. It gives him the courage to try to say goodbye and thank him.
- Even at his worst, Dudley finds Aunt Marge so unlikeable that he has to be bribed in order to spend any time with her.
Fat Bastard: Bloats to the size of a young killer whale by Book 4 and never quite slims down. (He's "as vast as ever" in the next book. In his defence, however, a lot of the fat has been replaced with muscle due to "a year's hard dieting" and his newfound talent at boxing.)
Fat Idiot: Can't figure out 37 + 2 at the age of eleven. ^note Supposedly doesn't know who the Prime Minister is at age fifteen. Note his parents are actually proud of the latter; "as if a normal boy cares what's on the news." (In the books, he doubles as a male example of the Dumb Blonde.)
Formerly Fat: Dudley becomes a boxer in Book 5, losing weight and bulking up muscle instead.
Freudian Excuse: Downplayed. While nothing truly traumatic happens to him until the fifth book, his parents' spoiling and enabling of his worst behaviour is what made him a bullying hedonist. Dumbledore states at one point that his parents spoiling him rotten has damaged him just as much as their abuse of Harry, perhaps even moreso. While Harry has at least learned to become self-sufficient after being neglected by his aunt and uncle, Dudley, having been completely spoiled all his life, has no skills to survive in the real world.
Happily Married: As an adult, he marries a Muggle woman and has two children with her.
Harmless Villain: Much like Vernon. After Harry joins the wizarding world Dudley goes from being Harry's bullying tormentor and the reason he has no friends to a Butt-Monkey who comes off badly from almost every encounter he has with wizards. The villain aspect winds up getting averted after Harry saves Dudley from the dementors, prompting his Heel–Face Turn.
The Hedonist: Prior to his Heel–Face Turn, he really doesn't care about much other than eating, enjoying himself and picking on Harry (and anyone else unfortunate enough to become a target).
Heel–Face Turn: After reliving his worst moments in life because of a Dementor attack, he comes to realise just what a bully he was. Between that and Harry ending up saving him from the attack, he starts treating his cousin much nicer afterwards. By the time of the epilogue, he and Harry actually have a quite admirable relationship with each other.
Heel Realization: Word of God says that what the Dementors made Dudley see was how he looked in other people's eyes — a stupid, spoiled slob. This is probably the only time in the series that someone being attacked by a Dementor has been a good thing.
He Is All Grown Up: By the Deathly Hallows, he's described as "large and muscular".
Hero with an F in Good: His first action to make amends towards Harry is to make him a cup of tea in book seven. The problem is he leaves it on the floor, where it gets cold, and Harry steps on it. Harry assumes it was a booby trap, until he and Dudley part.
In-Series Nickname: His friends start calling him "Big D" in Order of the Phoenix. Harry also uses this nickname mockingly.
I Owe You My Life: He becomes a whole lot less hostile towards Harry after he saves him from a Dementor attack, as he is quite aware that he likely wouldn't have survived the ordeal without Harry's help.
Jerkass Realization: Following the Dementor attack against him and Harry, Dudley comes to regret his actions and treatment towards Harry, and the two depart on good (albeit awkward) terms before the Dursleys leave Privet Drive.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a very rude, boorish and annoying brat but later becomes a more behaved kid later on.
Karma Houdini Warranty: After years of being cruel to Harry, he finally gets his comeuppance at the hands of the Dementors, who torture him with the information of his misdeeds and show him that he truly is an idiotic and overweight brat. This is what triggers his Heel–Face Turn.
Kids Are Cruel: For much of his and Harry's life, he was a cruel boy to his cousin. He eventually grows out of it.
Large and in Charge: "Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader."
Momma's Boy: His mother constantly spoils and dotes on him, and makes excuses for all his bad behaviours.
Near-Death Experience: In Order of the Phoenix, he comes close to a Fate Worse than Death when his soul is almost eaten by a dementor.
No Social Skills: Dudley isn't the most socially articulate person. As a kid most of his behaviour boiled down to beating people up or threatening to beat people up, and his first action to mend his relationship with Harry is to leave a cup of tea at his doorstep without any explanation. His attempt to apologize to Harry wasn't much better, but he was able to get the message across.
Oh, Crap!: When he and his friends keep insulting Harry's dead mother, Harry was mere moments into his Rage Breaking Point, and pulls out his wand. To his friends, they think it's funny. To Dudley, he reacted as if he's got a gun pointed at his head.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Discussed when Harry firsts sets foot in the wizarding bookstore Flourish and Blotts. Harry notes that even Dudley, who never reads anything, would be wild to get his hands on the books in there.
Pretty Fly for a White Guy: He and his Gang of Bullies dress like upper class delinquent chavs while cornering Harry in Order Of The Phoenix.
Reformed Bully: He spends the first fifteen years of his existence as a spoiled and selfish bully, but nearly getting his soul sucked out by a Dementor and being forced to see how pathetic he is sets him on the road to redemption. He mends fences with Harry at the beginning of Deathly Hallows, and as adults they are on Christmas card terms.
Scare 'Em Straight: When the Dementors attack him, he barely survives the experience. The dementors can't feed off of his worst memories, so they instead show how horrible he has been to others and how much of a conceited, idiotic, enabled brat he is. With this revelation, he is left in a catatonic state for a good long while. As soon as he recovers, he starts turning his life around but nobody notices until Dudley says goodbye to Harry. Or rather, Harry notices, vaguely, but he believes his gestures are part of a prank. As adults, their relationship is far better than it was when they were kids... though still pretty awkward.
Sinister Swine: He's a cruel, selfish, and fat bully who is often compared in text to a pig, and even gets a curly pig tail (courtesy of Hagrid). Hagrid remarks that he actually meant to turn Dudley into a pig entirely, but "I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do."
Spanner in the Works: In The Cursed Child, he of all people plays a major hand in stopping the Big Bad. After his mother dies, he finds Harry's baby blanket among her possessions and sends it to him. Albus Potter, who is trapped in 1981, uses the blanket to send a message to his father to bring the cavalry.
Spiteful Gluttony: As a child, he would always watch to see if Harry wanted some food, only to quickly grab it and eat it himself - even if he was full, even if it made him sick.
Spoiled Brat: Dumbledore makes the interesting case that what the Dursleys have done to Dudley is actually worse than what they did to Harry. Since he was abused for the first ten years of his life, Harry rarely took anything he had for granted, nor did he expect the world to ever make any leeway for him, even with his status as the Boy-Who-Lived. Compare this to Dudley, who, being spoiled rotten and given everything he ever wanted, had his worst traits enabled and even encouraged, leaving him with barely anything resembling a moral compass and ill-equipped to deal with the real world.
Stout Strength: Even as a young, chubby kid, Dudley is surprisingly strong for a fat slob. After taking up boxing in the fifth book, he's apparently quite formidable. By the sixth book, he's described as a huge, muscular guy.
Stress Vomit: After encountering a pair of dementors and being forced to endure horrible, soul-crushing despair for the first time in his life, Dudley is in such psychological pain that he throws up on the doormat of his house after getting home.
Strong Family Resemblance: Mostly resembles his father, except for his mother's hair color.
Tongue Trauma: In Goblet of Fire, knowing that Dudley's on a diet and can't have sweets, Fred and George "accidentally" drop a load of brightly wrapped candies in front of him. Of course Dudley picks up one and eats it, and it turns out to be a prank sweet called a Ton-Tongue Toffee that makes his tongue turn purple and grow four feet long.
Took a Level in Badass: Offscreen, but he takes up boxing in the fifth book and becomes rather formidable.
Took a Level in Kindness: The only person in the series who a Dementor attack does some good for. It both gives him a Heel Realization, and he is quite grateful towards Harry afterwards for saving his life, and the two depart on good terms in Deathly Hallows. Rowling says that he and Harry stay in touch after the series, and visit every now and then - an amicable, if hideously awkward experience.
Dudley: I don't think you're a waste of space.
Harry: Thanks. See ya, Big D.
Ungrateful Bastard: Subverted. A shaken Dudley accuses Harry of attacking him after the Dementor attack (which is justified on Dudley's end as he couldn't see the Dementors). The experience with the Dementor attack does, however, make him realize that he's been nothing but a cruel bully, and thus changes his ways, demonstrated for the first time when he and Harry depart on good terms before the Dursleys permanently depart from Privet Drive.
Villainous Glutton: An ungrateful brute of a bully with a momentous appetite. He's so food-driven that he won't think twice about swiping it away from someone else.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Ever since Hagrid gave him a pig's tail, Dudley is afraid of all wizards. Except, after Order of the Phoenix, Harry.
Would Hurt a Child: He enjoys bullying and beating up the neighborhood children. In the Order of the Phoenix film, Harry quips, "Hey, Big D. Beat up another 10-year-old?"

Marjorie "Marge" Dursley

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/marge_dursley.png

Portrayed by: Pam Ferris

Voiced by: Angélica Aragón (Latin American Spanish)

Appears in: Philosopher’s Stone^note | Prisoner of Azkaban | Order of the Phoenix^note

"You mustn't blame yourself about how this one turned out, Vernon. It's all to do with blood. Bad blood will out. [...] You see it all the time with dogs: if there's something wrong with the bitch, then there's something wrong with the pup."

Vernon's sister, who visits the rest of the family occasionally. Marge lives out in the country, where she is a professional bulldog breeder. She does not know about the magical world, but nevertheless follows the Dursley "party line" of considering Harry and his parents to be freaks. She is not shy about expressing this viewpoint, although she has apparently never met Harry's parents first hand.

Marge only appears in Prisoner of Azkaban, although she is mentioned a few times in the first book and once in the fifth book. It is during her visit in Azkaban that Harry gets so angry at her for insulting his parents that he causes her to blow up like a balloon.

Abhorrent Admirer: According to Pottermore, she is in love with her neighbour Coloner Fubster, who looks after her dogs when she is away. He understandably can't stand her.
The Alcoholic: Marge runs on brandy. Ironically, she accuses Harry's parents of being drunks.
Balloon Belly: Harry unintentionally inflicts this on her. Although she's already pretty overweight to begin with.
The Bully: She takes delight into making the lives people she dislikes miserable, constantly bellittleing and badmouthing them, and makes a point of wanting to keep Harry under her watch just so she can belittle and trash-talk him.
Bully Bulldog: She breeds them for a living. Her favourite dog is a particularly vicious one named Ripper.
Chekhov's Gunman: Marge is first mentioned in the first book. She's established as disliking Harry and Petunia cites this as a reason to not send Harry to her for Dudley's birthday.
Deliberately Bad Example: Is this to the rest of the Dursleys. As the narration notes, while they prefer to neglect Harry and leave him to his own devices, Marge insists on having him in her presence at all times so she can actively bully him.
Evil Redhead: A vicious woman who regularly abuses Harry because she sees him as a mongrel and not worth the crud on her boots.
Evil Aunt:
- To Dudley. Despicable as he is, even him and Petunia find Marge too mean-spirited and obnoxious to bear.
- Despite not being related at all, Harry is also forced to call her "Aunt Marge", and the less said about their relationship, the better.
Fat Bitch: Someone may think when they first see that she couldn't have either a more inflated figure or a sense of entitlement if she had air pumped directly into her head. They would be wrong on both accounts.
The Friend Nobody Likes: Harry obviously despises her, Petunia is screaming internally when her dog tears up the carpet and even Dudley has to be bribed in order to tolerate her presence. Even Vernon doesn't really care for Marge as much as he lets on, as he's clearly fearful of what would happen if Marge know about Harry's 'abnormality' (which Harry attempts to use to his advantage). Also, he gets a postcard claiming Marge is ill, and he shows absolutely no concern. To Vernon's credit, when Marge inflates into a balloon, he is angry and demands that she be changed back, which Harry refuses and threatens Vernon to back off. But it's telling that Petunia and Dudley do not care about what happened to Marge, with Dudley focusing on his eating his dessert and Petunia making no attempt to get Harry to help Marge.
Funny Background Event: In the film, she can be seen floating away in the distance as Harry stalks down the road.
Girls with Moustaches: Aunt Marge, in addition to being "large, beefy and purple-faced", has a small mustache.
A Glass in the Hand: She justifies it by having a firm grip and that she's apparently done it before. Vernon knows it was not that.
Harmful Healing: Cornelius Fudge tells Harry that Marge was "punctured" to get her back to normal...not exactly pleasant-sounding...
Hate Sink: Has no problem talking smack about Harry's parents to the point that she makes Vernon look like a saint by comparison.
Honorary Uncle: Harry is forced to call her "Aunt Marge", even though Harry isn't related to her.
Hypocrite: She guzzles brandy as if it were going out of business, but has no problem in accusing Harry's parents of being alcoholics.
I'm Standing Right Here: Marge talks disparagingly about Harry and his parents as though he weren't there even though he's sitting at the same table. The other Dursleys sometimes do this too, but Marge is particularly bad about it. What makes her even worse is that fact that she openly insulted Harry's blood, with special emphasis on his mother, while said mother's own sister was in the room. She may have said this had nothing to do with Petunia, but it's still a low thing to do. In the film version, Petunia looks very distraught when Marge says this, juxtaposed by Dudley laughing and smiling.
Insistent Terminology: Harry is forced to call her "Aunt Marge" even though she isn't a blood relative of his.
It Runs in the Family: A firm believer in this line of thinking.
- Naturally, this also applies to her. Just like Vernon and Dudley, she's a fat, cruel human being, probably the worst of them all, in fact.
Jabba Table Manners: She has very poor table manners, eating and drinking profusely, letting out a loud burp without any apology, and giving food and drinks to Ripper while sitting at the table much to Petunia's dismay.
Jerkass Has a Point: As hypocritical and inconsiderate she is, Marge isn't wrong at all that James Potter was unemployed, though Harry's father didn't work because he didn't need to, as he was independently wealthy.
Kick the Dog:
- A literal example; on one occasion, she casually mentions drowning one of the puppies she bred for being born too small.
- She once whacked Harry, who was four at the time, around the shins with her walking stick just because he was beating Dudley at musical statues. Five years later she let Ripper chase Harry out into the garden and up a tree, after he had accidentally stepped on Ripper's paw, and refused to call her dog off until past midnight.
- She also has no problem casually talking smack about Harry's parents in his presence. This turns out to be a big mistake for her, however, as a pissed off Harry snaps and involuntarily causes her to inflate like a balloon and float away from the Dursleys'.
Lack of Empathy: It takes genuine black-heartedness to torment someone much younger than her (a mid-teen boy) and make appalling insults about his “status” for no objective reason other than being born to, what she assumes) are “lesser” people that she never even met before. She doesn’t even consider that Petunia may still care about her dead sister before making a vile insult about her.
Laser-Guided Karma: Harry accidentally inflates her, which sounds very unpleasant, but given that she was insulting his dead parents to his face, it's impossible to feel any sympathy for her..
Magic Pants: Although they get stretched out, her clothes do a really good job of staying together when she's blown up.
Mugging the Monster: A verbal mugging at that. She regularly bashes Harry every other sentence, but she has no idea that he's a rather powerful wizard.
Non-Human Sidekick: She leaves most of her dogs in the care of a neighbor while she's away, but she always brings along Ripper, who is her favourite.
Obnoxious In-Laws: She seems oblivious to it, but Petunia can barely stand her insulting Lily. As Marge floats away, Petunia can be seen waving her goodbye with a kerchief.
Put on a Bus: She never comes to visit again after she floats away from the Dursleys' thanks to Harry's magic accidentally going out of control.
Satellite Family Member: Exaggerated. She's a satellite to the Dursleys, who themselves are satellites to Harry. Marge exist solely to show that even worse people than the Dursleys exist. Vernon at least has some sympathetic traits (he's a Happily Married and a Doting Parent to Dudley) and a Freudian Excuse for why he hates magic and Harry (James constantly teased him about his wealth) while Marge's only traits are that she's Super Gullible, Locked Out of the Loop, even more cruel and jerkish (to the level of Card-Carrying Jerkass) than Vernon, and Hates Everyone Equally (it's implied that she hates even Vernon and Dudley, her only blood relatives).
Speak Ill of the Dead: She tends to spend the majority of her time at Privet Drive insulting Harry's late parents to his face.
Strong Family Resemblance: Basically, she's a female Vernon. In the book's description, she even has a mustache, "though not as bushy as his."
Would Hurt a Child: She had no issue hitting Harry with her walking cane when he was four, just to stop him from beating Dudley at a game.

Others

Tom Riddle, Sr.

Appears in: Goblet of Fire ^note | Half-Blood Prince

Voldemort's father and second murder victim. He was a wealthy neighbor to the Gaunts, Tom disliked Morfin and Marvolo Gaunt for their poverty, insanity, and hostility. However, this and Tom already having a girlfriend didn't stop Merope Gaunt from becoming a Stalker with a Crush on him. When Marvolo and Morfin Gaunt were imprisoned in Azkaban for crimes against Muggles, Merope took that opportunity to either brew a Love Potion and drug him with it or cast the Imperius Curse on him, using the infatuation it induced in him for her to trick him into marrying and conceiving a child with her.

Once she was pregnant with his child, she stopped giving him the Love Potion (or the Imperius Curse) and came clean about her being a witch, hoping that he had fallen in love with her for real and that he would stay for the child's sake if he hadn't. However, Tom, horrified by what happened and perhaps in disbelief, returned to Little Hangleton, "talking of being 'hoodwinked' and 'taken in'"... Unsurprisingly Tom Riddle avoided Merope from then on, never seeing her again; it's unclear if Riddle knew the baby was his. Merope went to an orphanage to die after giving birth to their child, who she named Tom after him before she died. Tom Riddle, Jr. was then raised in said orphanage, without the benefit of any form of parental love. Once Tom Riddle, Jr. finds out the details of his origins, he goes to the Riddle House in Little Hangleton and proceeds to kill his father and paternal grandparents.

Asshole Victim: The inhabitants of Little Hangleton certainly saw him as this - he was considered to be even worse than his "rich, snobbish and rude" parents in their eyes, and none of the locals were very sorry for them when they were found dead. Downplayed elsewhere in the books, where he is largely discussed as a victim who did nothing to deserve what happened to him, regardless of how elitist and unlikable he may have been in person.
Broken Pedestal: Voldemort initially believed that Lineage Comes from the Father and that his father was magical, not his mother, leading to a violent reaction on learning the "awful truth".
Beauty Is Bad: Described as being practically identical to his son, the exceptionally handsome Tom Riddle, and was apparently a pretty rude, snobbish person to boot though nowhere near as bad as his son.
Brainwashed Bride: Merope Gaunt either drugged him with a love potion or cast a Mind Control spell on him and made him marry her, then, while pregnant with his child, lifted the mind control in the vain hope he might have fallen in love with her for real. He instead promptly dumped her and went back to his parents.
Butt-Monkey: Played for Drama. He gets hexed by Morfin Gaunt simply because the latter's sister likes looking at him; then said sister drugs him with a Love Potion, forces him to marry her, and rapes him God-knows-how-many-times before she stops drugging him, at which point he rightly hightails it back home and tries to forget all about her; he fails to rekindle his relationship with his previous girlfriend and has to endure endless gossip about his "relationship" with his rapist, unable to explain what really happened for fear of being deemed insane; and he is ultimately murdered, alongside both of his parents, by his son-by-rape out of spite. Even beyond the grave, he doesn't get a break: nobody attended his funeral, and his son and murderer steals some of his remains for a ritual, declaring it to be the first time his father was ever useful to him. Tom may have been a rich snob (and from what we saw, he wasn't that big of a snob), but he did not deserve any of the suffering he went through.
Deliberate Values Dissonance: Riddle views Morfin as "dangerous" for his cruelty and bizarre lifestyle, in addition to laughing at Bob Ogden for wearing a fancy coat over a one piece swimsuit. Whilst nowadays, people like that, would be viewed as in need of psychological help for their strange behavior (in muggle eyes), Riddle lived in the 1920s where there was much less mental health awareness.
Disappeared Dad: Voldemort seems to believe that he ran off because he didn't like magic. The truth is more complicated, as Riddle only married Merope due to her most likely using a love potion on him and when she stopped using it, Riddle naturally ran away from her.
Does Not Like Magic: Justified, considering that his experience with magic involved being roofied and fathering a child un-consensually.
Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Averted; the narrative, Dumbledore, and Harry never directly condemn him for abandoning his rapist and rape-child (contrast Harry being angered that Merope chose Death by Despair over staying in the future Voldemort's life), and in general it's shown that what Merope did to him was seriously messed up and that he didn't deserve it regardless of his snobbery and elitism.
Due to the Dead: Averted. Decades after his death, his son returns to Little Hangleton and takes over his family home as a base of operations solely because he needs some of his father's bones in a dark ritual, with Voldemort noting that his Muggle father was of use after all.
Elopement: After Merope bewitched him, the two of them ran off together and got married. According to Dumbledore it created quite a stir in Little Hangleton, unsurprisingly given Merope's pariah status, the class difference, and Riddle already having a girlfriend that he loved.
Everyone Has Standards:
- Riddle shows horror at the dead snake nailed to the Gaunt family door and comforts his girlfriend, Cecilia, over the sight. He also says the Gaunt's home is a "cottage" after Cecilia calls it a "shack".
- For all Riddle's trash talking about Morfin, he is never shown insulting Morfin's sister, Merope, given that she never antagonized him or anyone else in town.
Informed Flaw: Riddle is described as so unpleasant that not so much as one person in Little Hangleton mourned him, but he only seems mildly snobbish in the only flashback he appears in. However, it’s possible that Riddle Took a Level in Jerkass after being bewitched and basically raped by Merope. This is justified by the fact that Harry only witnesses a very brief snippet of his life from the perspective of a neutral outsider and most of his role in the story revolves around how he was magically roofied and forced to conceive the Big Bad.
Jerkass Has a Point:
- Riddle describes Morfin as "mad" and "not right in the head", but Morfin was openly an animal abuser as well as social pariah, that, due to his father's influence, was openly hostile to the entire town.
- Can you really blame him for running out on his wife and unborn child given that the only reason he married and conceived a child with her was that she brainwashed him with a Love Potion? Harry and Dumbledore never deny that he had every reason to want to get the hell away from a rapist once he was out of the Love Potion's influence.
Lonely Funeral: The narration said in Goblet of Fire that exactly zero people in Little Hangleton mourned Tom Riddle Senior when he died.
A Match Made in Stockholm: Subverted. He was trapped in a love potion/Imperius Curse-induced relationship with Merope, which led to her becoming pregnant with their child. Dumbledore theorizes that she stopped giving him love potions/Imperius Curse in hope that he would love her or at least stay with her because of their baby. Instead, he ran back home because it doesn't change the fact that she had drugged/cursed and raped him.
Offstage Villainy: Apparently sometime before his death, Riddle Sr. was so unpleasant that he had zero mourners in the entire town of Little Hangleton after his murder. The only time the audience sees Riddle, he doesn't appear to be anywhere bad enough to warrant such hatred. The trauma of having been bewitched into marrying Merope and basically raped by her might be responsible for his becoming so unpleasant, especially since he couldn’t explain what had happened due to the likelihood that he’d have been viewed as insane and few would have believed that a man could be raped.
Parental Abandonment: He runs away from Merope and her Child by Rape once the Love Potion runs out. Given that he was brainwashed for the entirety of their "relationship," one can hardly blame him.
Patricide: He is murdered by his Child by Rape, Tom Riddle, Jr., under the mistaken belief he had abandoned his mother just because his mother was a witch, as well as just for being a Muggle and messing up Tom Jr.'s perceptions of his blood status.
Pay Evil unto Evil: He ran out on his wife the second she released him from her control. Normally, he'd have been considered a jerk for abandoning his pregnant wife, but it's really hard to blame him for doing so since Merope brainwashed him and raped him.
Poke the Poodle: He and his girlfriend laugh at Ogden when he runs into Tom's horse, but even Harry notes Ogden's attempt at Muggle get-up is ridiculous.
Poor Communication Kills: His Child by Rape, Tom Riddle Jr., seemed to believe that his father had abandoned his mother due to being a witch, when in fact Sr. had only been with her in the first place due to her slipping him love potion/casting the Imperius Curse on him, so his reaction was less about her being a witch and more about what she had used her magic to do to him. Then again, Jr. probably would have still killed him just for the revelation that Sr. and not Merope was the Muggle parent, and with Voldemort's general sociopathy and his smug superiority in magic, it's very unlikely Voldemort would have even cared about the fact that his mother drugged and raped his father with a Love Potion.
Rich Bitch: He was shown to be snobbish in his only speaking appearance, describing Marvolo Gaunt as a tramp and saying that his son was “quite mad” (the latter of which was certainly true). Also, the locals from the village were known to have low opinions of him and his parents for their general snobby and elitist attitudes, though this behavior is never shown on page.
Slipping a Mickey: He was the victim of this by way of a Love Potion by Merope Gaunt.
Strong Family Resemblance: Described as being virtually identical to his son, before his son's more unfortunate changes in appearance.
Upper-Class Equestrian: As a young man Tom enjoyed horseback riding. He'd often ride in the countryside near his family's estate on his own or occasionally with his girlfriend, Cecilia. Dumbledore speculates that it was on one of his solo outings that Merope bewitched him into marrying her.

Cecilia

Appears in: Half-Blood Prince

"My God, what an eyesore! Couldn't your father have that hovel cleared away, Tom?"

A pretty young woman who was the girlfriend of Tom Riddle Sr.

Beauty Is Bad: She's described as beautiful, but was also quite stuck-up.
Love Triangle: She and Tom were a couple, but Merope also had an eye on Tom and used magic to get him.
No Full Name Given: We only know her by her first name, Cecilia, and her last name is never revealed.
The One That Got Away: She was Tom Riddle Sr.'s girlfriend at the time of the Gaunts' arrest, and he lost her when Merope bewitched him into marrying her instead.
Rich Bitch: While it's not explicitly stated if she's rich, she's implied to be at least upper-class, given that she was being courted by the wealthy Tom Riddle Sr.
Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: She was a pretty, (implied) upper-class Muggle woman, while Merope was a poor, ugly witch who Tom Riddle Sr. didn't even know existed (to be more accurate, he didn’t know that Merope was a witch). But Merope had magic on her side, which she used to bewitch Tom Riddle Sr. into loving her.
Romantic Runner-Up: Tom is courting her at first, but after he's been bewitched he rejects her and runs off with Merope.
Upper-Class Equestrian: In her only appearance, she and her rich boyfriend are riding their horses in the countryside.
What Happened to the Mouse?: It is not known what happened to her after Tom Riddle Sr. ran off with Merope, or if he tried to take Cecilia back after Merope stopped brainwashing him and he ran off.

Mr. and Mrs. Granger

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Granger_9315.png

Portrayed by: Tom Knight/Ian Kelly and Heather Bleasdale/Michelle Fairley

Voiced by: Diana Pérez (Latin American Spanish, Mrs. Granger)

Appear in: Philosopher’s Stone^note | Chamber of Secrets | Prisoner of Azkaban^note | Order of the Phoenix | Deathly Hallows^note

A pair of Muggle dentists and Hermione's parents. Throughout the series, they are almost entirely Out of Focus as Rowling believes they would be boring characters. Unlike the Dursleys, they are apparently accepting of Hermione being a witch.

Mr. and Mrs. Granger are best known for the instance in Deathly Hallows when Hermione gives them Fake Memories so that they will forget she exists and move to Australia, where they will be safe from Voldemort's reign of terror. This is only mentioned in dialogue in the book, but is actually portrayed onscreen in the movie version. Rowling states that Hermione returned her parents to normal after Voldemort was defeated.

Depraved Dentist: Averted soundly. The worst thing they do is forbid their daughter to fix her buck teeth with magic.
Fake Memories: Hermione gave them these so Voldemort wouldn't try to find them and interrogate them about her whereabouts, as well as to keep them safe and away from the events of the seventh book. Rowling states that she later fixed their memories.
Good Parents: They're accepting when they find out Hermione is a witch. And the fact that Hermione was willing to go so far as to install Fake Memories and send them to Australia for their own safety proves that they were great parents to her.
Happily Married: Presumably. We're really grasping at straws to fill this section.
Invisible Parents: Only briefly seen in a few scenes but little is really known about them.
Satellite Family Member: Nothing is said of Hermione's parents apart from the fact they are muggle dentists and accept her being a witch. At the beginning of the seventh book, Hermione erases their memories of her and sends them to Australia to keep them safe, demonstrating how dire the situation has become and how desperate she is to protect them.
Unnamed Parent: In a franchise that almost always averts Nominal Importance, they stand out as never have been given names. Hermione calls them Wendell and Monica Wilkins when she changes their memories but those presumably aren’t their real first names.

Frank Bryce

Portrayed by: Eric Sykes

Voiced by: Carlos Águila (Latin American Spanish)

Appears in: Goblet of Fire

"Bloody kids."

The old gardener of the Riddle mansion, where Lord Voldemort's Muggle father and paternal grandparents lived. He becomes a prime suspect in their murder by Voldemort, but is cleared of all charges due to the police being unable to determine their cause of death. He is murdered by Voldemort himself years later. He is mostly notable for being one of the few point-of-view characters in the series other than Harry, though his point-of-view is limited to just one chapter.

Adaptational Wimp: Perhaps not strictly a wimp, but his role in the fourth film amounts to him investigating the intrusion in the Riddle house, eavesdropping on Voldemort's plans, and then being killed without a word spoken. Any mentions of his past, his status as a veteran, or even his backtalking the Dark Lord are omitted entirely, though he does still help Harry escape from Voldemort later on.
Backup Bluff: He tries this on Voldemort and Wormtail, claiming that his wife knows where he is and will call the police if he doesn't return. Unfortunately, the man he's trying to bluff is a Living Lie Detector.
Badass Normal: Possibly the most badass Muggle in the series. He mouths off to Voldemort! (Not that he knows it's Voldemort or how powerful he is.) When his "echo" appears later via temporary pseudo-resurrection he is surprisingly accepting of the fact he is dead and that wizards exist, and gives Harry support despite having only heard of him once before, just before he was killed.
Big Damn Heroes: During the fight between Harry and Voldemort in the graveyard, an echo of him comes back and helps Harry in order to avenge his own death.
Cassandra Truth: After he was accused of murdering the Riddles, he pointed out that he had seen young Tom Riddle (the true killer) near the mansion on the day of the murder but no one remembered him and no one other than the wizards would be able to identify him anyway.
Convicted by Public Opinion: The people of his town believe him to be the murderer regardless of there being no apparent cause of death and the police deciding not to charge him.
Crusty Caretaker: He remained at the Riddle House long after their murders, and developed a reputation for being grumpy.
Didn't See That Coming: A tough war veteran and caretaker, he was prepared for burglars and squatters but never expected that the infiltrators were actual sorcerers, making it a Hopeless Boss Fight for him.
Dull Surprise: His sole reaction in the book after his echo returns, when he sees all the Death Eaters and the restored Voldemort and the ritual paraphernalia (not to mention the golden web of magic between Harry and Voldemort) is basically, "Huh. So he really was a wizard, then. You fight him, boy." Granted he's aware that he's been dead for a while by then, so there's not really anything that should faze him at that point.
Dying Alone: He has no wife, no loved ones and no friends in Little Hangleton. As such, tragically, no one will mourn his death or know what truly happened.
Entertainingly Wrong: While eavesdropping on Voldemort and Pettigrew, he assumes the use of words like "wizard" is them speaking in code and that "Quidditch" is the result of him mishearing something. For a muggle who has no knowledge of wizarding civilization, they're reasonable assumptions to make.
Everyone Has Standards: He immediately decides to call the cops on Voldemort on hearing that he killed a woman and is so casual about it, as well as that a boy named Harry Potter is in danger. Frank may not trust the police, but they know how to handle real killers and kidnappers (well, Muggle killers and kidnappers — Voldemort is a dark wizard but Frank had no way of knowing that).
Evil Cripple: After the Riddles' murders, the villagers of Little Hangleton view him as a murderer who couldn't be convicted and who suffered a bad leg injury in the war.
Face Death with Dignity: Frank doesn't know how he's about to die, but he can sense it from the foreboding aura in the room. So he faces the strange creature in the chair and sasses him. While he goes out screaming in terror, it was still mostly dignified.
"Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: "Is that right? Lord, is it? Well, I don't think much of your manners, My Lord. Turn round and face me like a man, why don't you?!"
Fallguy: He ends up taking the blame for Tom Riddle's actions in the Muggle world, though Tom didn't even bother to frame Frank since he knew there was no way the Muggle police would be able to find and arrest him or even prove a murder happened at all.
The Greatest Story Never Told: An especially cruel version. Frank Bryce will die without his name cleared in the Muggle world, and with no one knowing how brave and heroic he was in facing Voldemort and no one to mourn him after his death. Harry and Dumbledore do know he was innocent and that Voldemort killed him, but it's not mentioned that they cleared his name in the Muggle world.
Intro-Only Point of View: For the first chapter of the Goblet of Fire.
Mugging the Monster: He thought Voldemort was a common vandal or criminal. He was in way over his head, though he didn't let it get to him.
Not Proven: He is cleared of the Riddles' murder because the police can't determine their cause of death (Avada Kedavra leaving no traces on the victim's body). True to the negative consequences of the verdict, though, he becomes a pariah because Little Hangleton believes him guilty.
Papa Wolf: He's never met Harry Potter, but hears that two men are planning to kidnap him. Frank immediately decides to call the cops so that Harry can be protected. When appearing as an echo, he is quite pleased to meet the boy in person and shields him from the Dark Lord in the graveyard.
Retired Badass: He fought in World War II, and still during his old age found it worth the risk to personally confront anyone who came squatting or trespassing.
Sacrificial Lamb: He is the first in-series on-page death that isn't a flashback, and he gets just enough characterization to make him very sympathetic and likable first.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: Implied to have been this, as he's described as having a great dislike of crowds and loud noises in the book.
Skeptic No Longer: His echo has accepted that Voldemort was indeed a wizard all along, and lends his support to Harry as best as he can.
"He was a real wizard, then? Killed me, that one did....You fight him, boy."

Tobias Snape

Appears in: Order of the Phoenix (memory)

Severus Snape's father.

Abusive Parents: Tobias was implied to have been quite abusive towards his son and his wife as well.
Like Father, Like Son: His son became a Death Eater that had a serious case of Fantastic Racism. And decided to take out the frustrations of his life with mostly defenceless children.
Muggle–Mage Romance: Except for the romance, Tobias was a Muggle who married a witch, Eileen Prince.
One-Shot Character: Tobias is only seen via a memory of Snape's in which he yells at his wife while his son cries in the corner.

The Prime Minister

Appears in: Prisoner of Azkaban^note | Order of the Phoenix^note | Half-Blood Prince | Deathly Hallows^note

The Prime Minister of the Muggle Community of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is more or less the Muggle counterpart to the Minister for Magic, and is one of the few Muggles in the series who knows about the wizarding world without being related to a wizard, because the Minister for Magic is required by law to discuss any situation that might affect Muggle society with him. This does, however, mostly seem to translate to the Minister for Magic showing up and giving some minute details without bothering to explain further, and then telling the Prime Minister not to worry his pretty little head about it.

Notable, again, for being one of the few people in the series other than Harry to serve as viewpoint character — though like Frank Bryce, he's only viewpoint character for one chapter and then more or less vanishes from the story.

Adapted Out: His segment in Half Blood Prince isn't used for the film version.
Cassandra Truth: Avoids the trope because he knows that this is exactly what would happen if he tried to tell anyone about his meetings with the Minister for Magic.
Condescending Compassion: On the receiving end of this from Cornelius Fudge, though definitely heavier on the "condescending" than the "compassion." He is understandably annoyed by it.
Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Any references to his name are carefully avoided.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: He remains unnamed. If you go by the internal chronology of the books, it should be John Major, although the caricature of the sitting PM reads more like a spoof of Tony Blair. Worth noting is the fact that Rowling was writing the book a decade after the time in which it was set, and thus probably had Blair on her mind. The PM is also waiting for a phone call from an unnamed president, whose description as a "wretched man" brings George W. Bush to mind — although if it is Major, he might well have described his opposite number Bill Clinton as such, as the two men couldn't stand each other. However, Fudge refers to the Prime Minister's predecessor as a "he", while Major's predecessor was a woman, Margaret Thatcher.
No Name Given: He joins Hermione's parents as one of the very few characters in this franchise who has never been given a name. He's always just referred to as the Prime Minister.
No Party Given: It’s never stated or even implied (since he and Fudge only talk about the Wizarding community) if he’s a Labour or Tory PM.
Reasonable Authority Figure: He seems like he would be one if given a chance, and from what little we see of him, he does pretty well on this when it comes to matters that don't involve magic. Unfortunately, both Fudge and Scrimgeour make it very plain that even if he's supposed to be an authority figure and they're equal in theory, they consider him to be beneath them and not worth listening to. In addition, a whole lot of the later problems he faces are caused by literal magic and completely out of his control, but for obvious reasons he can't go public with that fact. Presumably, Shacklebolt's tenure as Minister fostered much warmer relations with the Prime Minister than Fudge or Scrimgeour.
Sympathy for the Devil: Though he really dislikes the dismissive and patronizing Cornelius Fudge, and has good reason to do so, he nevertheless finds himself feeling sorry for the man after Fudge reveals that he lost his job as Minister for Magic and is facing an inquiry over the death of Sirius Black (revealed to be innocent) on Ministry of Magic premises.
The Watson: He serves as one during his chapter in order to allow Fudge and Scrimgeour to recap the series so far, and to provide a glimpse into how the events of the series have been affecting the Muggle population thus far.

Mrs. Cole

Portrayed by: Amelda Brown

Voiced by: Yolanda Vidal (Latin American Spanish)

Appears in: Half-Blood Prince

The matron of the orphanage where Merope gives birth, Mrs. Cole is the one who helps Merope with her birth of her son, whom she names "Tom Marvolo Riddle" as Merope suggested. Dumbledore meets her when he goes there to inform Tom Riddle of his acceptance into Hogwarts, before meeting Riddle himself. Dumbledore eventually shows the memory of his visit to Harry in a Pensieve Flashback.

Accidental Misnaming: She introduces Dumbledore to the young Riddle first as "Dumberton" and then "Dunderbore" (she is by this point more than a little inebriated, having knocked back several gin shots while talking to Dumbledore in her office).
Age Lift: She is depicted to be around thirty in the novel, but in the film adaptation, her age can be estimated to be around fifty or sixty.
The Alcoholic: She is one, as evidenced by her meeting with Dumbledore, where she consumes nearly two thirds of the bottle of gin all by herself, and is surprisingly steady on her feet afterwards. It's not surprising, given the stress of running such an establishment — for over at least the last eleven years — and that Dumbledore's visit coincided with the threat of war with Nazi Germany.
Reasonable Authority Figure: From what we see of her in Dumbledore's memory; she (rightly) suspects that Tom is behind several incidents involving other children, such as killing another boy's pet, but acknowledges that there is no proof that he did anything wrong and despite Tom's opinion of her, does not appear to treat him any differently to the other children in her care.
Small Role, Big Impact: She appears only in one chapter, but her help in Merope giving birth to her son and subsequent years of raising him have a large effect in the story.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Her fate after Dumbledore's visit to the orphanage is not revealed. It's notable that, of all the characters that Harry sees in the memories Dumbledore shows him but never meets in person, she's the only one who's not explicitly stated to have died by the time the main story takes place.

Piers Polkiss

Portrayed by: Jason Boyd

Appears in: Philosopher's Stone (book only) | Order of the Phoenix

Dudley's best friend.

Adapted Out: Downplayed; Piers is absent from the first film, though he appears in the fifth.
Alliterative Name: Piers Polkiss.
Animal Motif: Described as having a face like a rat.
The Bully: A secondary one in Dudley's gang; he's described as holding people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hits them.
Fat and Skinny: The skinny to Dudley's fat.
Lean and Mean: A scrawny bully... maybe.
Schrödinger's Canon: His entire physical appearance; he is first described as being scrawny with a rat-like face, but the next chapter he's described as being big and stupid like Dudley. This could mean that he gained a lot of weight after Dudley's birthday or he was only skinny compared to the rest of Dudley's gang.
Smarter Than You Look: Despite being described as stupid, Piers cottons on that Harry is somewhat responsible for the boa constrictor's peculiar behaviour.
"Harry was talking to it, weren't you Harry?"

Characters / Harry Potter – Muggles

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