The Dursley Horcrux Theory

owlpostagain:

There’s this theory floating around that the Dursleys disliked Harry because he was a horcrux.

It’s a nice idea and it conveniently ret-cons the Dursleys into far more sympathetic characters. But no.

There are several major problems.

1. It doesn’t match how other characters behave toward Harry.

The people that dislike Harry generally have a proper reason. For
example, Snape dislikes him because of Lily, Umbridge dislikes him
because he’s sullying the Ministry’s image, etc.

Harry tends to be very well-liked by people that have the chance
to get to know him. The Weasleys, his Quidditch teammates, his dormitory mates, his housemates, etc.

Obviously politics interferes. There are multiple points in the books where Harry-hate becomes
rather trendy- after Norbert in first year, when people think he’s the
heir of Slytherin, when people think he put his name in the goblet, and
when people think he’s lying about Voldemort.

But for the most part the more time people spend with Harry, the more they like him as a person (and the more they’re willing to trust him).
Harry’s not exactly sunshine and happiness, but he’s actually a fairly
likeable guy. He’s polite, kind, humble, and has a knack for saving
people. No one in the series hates Harry because he just gives of a weird vibe.

2. If the horcrux had been powerful enough to turn the Dursleys
against primary school-age Harry, it would have had 10x that effect on
Harry’s personal relationships when Voldemort actually did come back.

The horcruxes radiate more “bad energy” as Voldemort himself grows
stronger. The locket is a good example of this, but so is Harry himself.

Harry’s scar didn’t start to hurt until Pettigrew returned to Voldemort and
Voldemort started gaining strength. Voldemort was extremely weak when
Harry was living with the Dursleys full-time. The horcrux would
have been laying dormant for his entire childhood.

If the horcrux was capable of putting off the Dursleys when Harry was a baby, imagine how powerful it would be after Voldemort returned. We would have seen a major change in how characters treated him, if he hadn’t just lost his friends completely.

3. The Dursleys hated Harry/Lily/James before they met him

In the very first chapter, we see that Petunia loathes her sister and pretends as though she doesn’t have one. Her hatred is so overt that Vernon is afraid to even bring the subject up. Vernon doesn’t even know Harry’s name, and has probably never met him. So while Vernon/Petunia’s treatment of Harry is appalling, it’s not entirely unexpected. The Dursleys’ motivations are perfectly clear in canon, we don’t need to insert magical trickery to explain their abuse. An estimated 40 million children are subject to abuse each year, and their abusers weren’t effected by horcruxes either. Abuse is something that happens, and we don’t need an magical explanation to explain why it happened to Harry.

TL;DR: When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras.