Vernon Dursley

"*I’m warning you, I'm warning you now, boy — any funny business, anything at all — and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas.*"
— Vernon's strong hatred of magic and his adopted nephew Harry Potter

## Relationship information

### Family members

* Petunia Dursley (née Evans) (wife)
* Dudley Dursley (son)
* Marjorie Dursley (sister-in-law)
* Howard Evans (father-in-law)
* Rose Evans (mother-in-law)
* Liliana Potter I (née Selwyn-Evans) (adopted sister-in-law) †
* James Potter I (adopted brother-in-law) †
* Harry Potter (adopted nephew by marriage)
* Ginevra Potter (née Weasley) (adopted niece-in-law)
* James Potter II (adopted great-nephew)
* Severus Potter (adopted great-nephew)
* Liliana Potter II (adopted great-niece)
* Skye Potter (adopted great-niece)

### Romances

Petunia Evans (wife)

**Vernon Dursley** was an English Muggle, husband of Petunia Evans, father of Dudley and adopted uncle by marriage of Harry Potter. He lived at 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, along with his wife and son for twenty years until they were forced into hiding during the escalation of the Second Wizarding War. After Petunia's adopted sister Liliana and brother-in-law, James Potter, were killed by Voldemort in their own home, Petunia remained the sole surviving relative of Harry's. Both Wizard and Muggle law demanded that Petunia and Vernon be the new legal guardians of Harry Potter, which they accepted (albeit reluctantly). However, they disliked Harry and treated him badly, while spoiling and pampering Dudley.

When Harry was sent a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Vernon got very angry, as he detested anything to do with magic. He was a former student of Smeltings Academy and a director of the Grunnings drill manufacturing company. In 1997, Vernon, Petunia and Dudley left their house in order to be hidden from Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters (by the Order of the Phoenix.)

After the Second Wizarding War, Vernon had at least two grandchildren through Dudley and his wife. Through the union of Harry Potter and Ginevra Weasley, Vernon had two great-nephews, James Potter II and Severus Potter, as well as two great-nieces, Skye Potter and Liliana Potter II.

## Biography

### Early life

Little is known about Vernon's childhood life. He was born into the Muggle Dursley family and attended Smeltings Academy as a secondary school. Vernon had an older sister named Marjorie (Marge to family members and friends) who made a living breeding bulldogs.

Vernon started working for Grunnings in 1975 or earlier, and eventually received an award trophy from the firm for having worked there for twenty-seven years.

Vernon met Petunia Evans at an office job in London where he was a junior executive. He later married Petunia and settled with her at 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey in 1977.[11] Before their wedding, Vernon had taken Petunia on a series of dull dates during which he talked mainly about himself and his predictable ideas on the world. After some time Vernon proposed marriage to Petunia, very correctly on one knee in his mother's sitting room. His fiancée accepted at once. He wasn't aware of the fact that Petunia's sister Lily was a witch, who was then attending her seventh year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Petunia eventually revealed to him that her sister was a witch after they stopped for a snack of battered sausage at a chip shop.

### Marriage and family life

"*Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.*"
— Description of the Dursleys
Vernon, along with his wife, always liked to be normal and never tolerated anything that they considered out of the ordinary. He knew that Petunia's adopted sister was a witch, but kept it quiet. They had a baby boy on 23 June, 1980. This boy, Dudley Dursley, was highly spoiled by his parents.

#### Giving a home to Harry Potter

It was after Voldemort's first downfall and the Potters' murder that Vernon first saw signs of wizards. Albus Dumbledore brought Vernon's nephew Harry to Little Whinging. Although reluctantly, Vernon and Petunia allowed him into their home.

During Harry's early life, Vernon treated him with indifference and cruelty. He forced Harry to live in the Cupboard Under the Stairs and generally mistreated and neglected him while spoiling his own son Dudley. Vernon tried his hardest to stop Harry knowing about the wizarding world and his true magical heritage and also ignorantly believing along with his wife that their harsh mistreatment of him would prevent his magic from surfacing. Before 1991, Vernon told Harry his parents died in a car crash. On Dudley's birthday that year, Vernon drove the family to the local zoo for the day, ranting as usual about the various and innumerable things that annoyed him, motorbikes being the chosen topic. When Harry remarked that he'd had a dream about a flying motorbike, Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front of them before bellowing at his nephew for saying such a ridiculous thing. He yelled at him some more and told him there was no such thing as magic, after Harry unknowingly used underage magic in the Zoo's reptile house.

#### Harry's letter from Hogwarts

**Vernon Dursley**: "*Haven't I told you he's not going? He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish — spell books and wands and —*"
**Rubeus Hagrid**: "*If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him. Stop Liliana an' James Potter's son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he won't know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbled —*"
**Vernon Dursley**: "*I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!*"
**Rubeus Hagrid**: "*NEVER — INSULT — ALBUS — DUMBLEDORE — IN — FRONT — OF — ME!*"
— Vernon Dursley arguing with Rubeus Hagrid over Harry's Hogwarts acceptance
When Harry got his first letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Vernon tried everything to stop him getting it as more and more letters arrived via Owl post, resorting to increasingly desperate measures as the letters entered the house in variously creative ways and becoming more and more unstable. He finally cracked one Sunday when a veritable flood of letters came pouring down the chimney, and had the entire family leave the house to try and prevent contact from Hogwarts. However, his erratic attempts failed after driving the family several miles away from home, and upon staying in a gloomy Hotel, he was shocked to see letters turn up there even. Eventually, he took his whole family to a hut on a small rock on the sea, in a final drastic attempt to prevent contact and even bought what was most likely an illegal firearm as a final defence. But even this did not work, because it was found by Rubeus Hagrid, who personally gave Harry the letter, despite Vernon's stubborn protests and threatening him with the gun, which Hagrid contemptuously bent into a knot.

When Hagrid told Harry about how his parents really died, Vernon cynically responded by telling Harry that whatever happened to Harry's mother and father they probably deserved it, as well as that they were (in Vernon's opinion) freaks anyway and that the world was better off without them (also in Vernon's opinion). Hagrid threatened Vernon with his umbrella in response. The exchanges became more and more heated until Vernon angrily insulted Albus Dumbledore by calling him a "crackpot old fool". This would be a great mistake to Vernon: a livid Hagrid responded to Vernon's outburst by giving a pig tail to Vernon's son, much to the Dursley's horror.

After this incident, Vernon avoided Harry even more so than usual. Vernon reluctantly agreed to take Harry to King's Cross Station to board the Hogwarts Express, but only because it was on the way to the private hospital in London to remove Dudley's tail before he started attending Smeltings.

From then on Vernon only saw Harry in the summer holidays and even then treated him badly, although he reluctantly gave Harry Dudley's spare room.

#### Dinner party, Marge's visit, and Dudley's diet

**Harry Potter**: "*I need you to sign the permission form.*"
**Vernon Dursley**: "*And why should I do that?*"
**Harry Potter**: "*Well it'll be hard work, pretending to Aunt Marge I go to that St. Whatsits...*"
**Vernon Dursley**: "*St Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys!*"
**Harry Potter**: "*Exactly. It's a lot to remember. I'll have to make it sound convincing, won't I? What if I accidentally let something slip?*"
**Vernon Dursley**: "*You'll get the stuffing knocked out of you, won't you?*"
**Harry Potter**: "*Knocking the stuffing out of me won't make Aunt Marge forget what I could tell her. But if you sign my permission form I swear I'll remember where I'm supposed to go to school, and I'll act like a Mug — like I'm normal and everything.*"
**Vernon Dursley**: "*Right. I shall monitor your behaviour carefully during Marge's visit. If, at the end of it, you've toed the line and kept to the story, I'll sign your ruddy form.*"
— Harry convincing Vernon to sign his permission form
Almost everything seemed to go wrong every time Vernon had guests over when Harry was present. In 1992, he invited Mr Mason and his wife over for dinner to try and secure a deal with Mr Mason about a stock of drills. He also forced Harry to stay in his room and pretend he did not exist. Harry was willing to comply with this, arguably because he did not want to create unneeded problems for his uncle (and get himself in further dislike). Due to the appearance of Dobby, the deal was utterly ruined when Dobby destroyed Petunia's prized pudding and the frightening away of Mrs Mason by a Ministry of Magic Owl, due to her ornithophobia. The Ministry of Magic accused Harry of doing Dobby's levitation of the pudding, and threatened expulsion from Hogwarts for violation of the Underage Magic Act, but elected to let Harry off with a warning. Furious for his business deal failing and learning that Harry was forbidden to use magic outside of Hogwarts, Vernon had Harry locked in his room and even had bars fitted on his window to punish him, believing that Harry would be unable to escape without using magic. However, Harry was rescued by Fred, George and Ron Weasley using their father's Flying Ford Anglia, and when Vernon, Petunia and Dudley tried to stop Harry escaping by pulling him back into his room, they were all left dangling out of his window when the Weasleys drove off with Harry. Then, in 1993, Vernon's equally mean-spirited sister Marge visited, much to Harry's discomfort. When Marge insulted Harry's parents, Harry used magic to blow her up like a balloon. Vernon insisted Harry return her to how she was, but was refused. The Accidental Magic Reversal Squad later fixed her and modified her memory of having witnessed magic. Harry afterwards left Privet Drive, and as a result he did not sign Harry's Hogsmeade permission form, which he had beforehand actually agreed to sign, should Harry behave during Marge's visit.

**Vernon Dursley**: "*Look at this.*"
**Harry Potter**: "*She did put enough stamps on, then.*"
**Vernon Dursley**: "*The postman noticed. Very interested to know where this letter came from, he was. That's why he rang the doorbell. Seemed to think it was funny.*"
— Vernon's horrified reaction to Molly Weasley's letter
In 1994, Vernon, along with Petunia, decided to put Dudley on a diet, following his dismal report from Smeltings and upon learning that his son was too overweight to fit into the school's uniform. When it was not going so well, he threatened Dudley that he would cut his pocket money if he did not stop sneaking in sweets, which made Dudley furious and caused him to throw his PlayStation out of a window. When Molly Weasley sent an invitation to the family inviting Harry to attend the 1994 Quidditch World Cup with them, Vernon angrily asked his nephew about the letter, as the Molly's letter was covered in stamps which the postman found amusing. After Harry explained, he yelled at him initially but eventually decided that his nephew could go. He and Petunia were very displeased and discomforted with the idea that wizards would soon be visiting their home. When the Weasleys came to pick up Harry by the Floo Network and accidentally destroyed their living room due to them trying to travel into their electric fireplace, Vernon became very intimidated in the presence of actual wizards, including when Arthur Weasley mentioned that he liked to collect batteries. When the Weasleys were leaving, Dudley ate a Ton-Tongue Toffee deliberately left by Fred and George Weasley, causing his tongue to swell. This sent Vernon into a rage which had him throw several china ornaments at Mr Weasley, all the time bellowing like an injured hippopotamus while Arthur was trying to fix Dudley's swollen tongue; it ended up being four feet long before Vernon and Petunia let Arthur shrink it.