system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Harry Potter] Why do the Dursleys resist sending Harry to Hogwarts?

Okay, I get that they don't want any interaction with magic at all, and refusing for awhile I can understand-but by the point they were moving to a shack on a small island in the middle of nowhere, surely it would have just been easier to send him and, as a bonus, have him out of their hair for entire years at a time? Why were they so desperate to hang on to him?
gpt
**Wall Of Text Incoming**

Petunia explains the Dursleys' motivations really well in both the movies and the books.

When she was a small child, her sister Lily discovered that she was magical, and shortly thereafter was accepted to Hogwarts. Petunia wrote a letter to Dumbledore begging to be accepted as well, but was turned down because she couldn't do magic. 

Every school break afterwards, Petunia had to watch as Lily came home from Hogwarts with stories of these fantastic powers she was developing and amazing experiences she'd had, seeing and learning and doing things which Petunia could only imagine in her own wildest fantasies, stuck in the Muggle world. 

What was even worse for her was that her parents absolutely doted on Lily and gave her endless attention and support, while Petunia was left so far in her sister's shadow she thought she'd never see daylight again. As a consequence of all this, Petunia developed a deep and bitter hatred for Lily. 

She married Vernon precisely because he was the exact opposite of Lily: a very ordinary, very boring man with no special powers or aspirations. She cut off contact with her sister and tried her best to pretend she didn't care about her wonderful magical life. 

Things became complex when Voldemort was defeated. Dumbledore  more-or-less coerced her and Vernon into taking Harry in, both for his own safety and for the future of the Wizarding World. 

From Petunia's perspective she'd spent her whole life running away from magic and magical people, trying to be her own person instead of standing outside in the cold, tearfully pressing her face against the window of a wonderland she would never be allowed to enter. 

Now all of a sudden here comes the man who denied her the opportunity to enter that world all those decades ago, who has now dropped a child off on her doorstep with a note saying that he's her nephew, her sister is dead, and now she has to accept him into her home or there will be *consequences*.

She can't say no, can't protest. These people have powers beyond her comprehension and could do serious harm to her and her family. So she talks to Vernon and they take Harry in. 

They don't treat him particularly well because they never wanted him in the first place. Petunia sees so much of her hated sister in him, and Vernon resents being compelled by a stranger to take care of a child that isn't his own. 

It's a shitty justification for mistreating Harry, since aside from being a child who doesn't deserve to be abused (no child does), he also had no choice in the matter and didn't become part of their family through his own volition. But that family history is there, and it runs deep.  

But in all of this, there's still one hope Petunia clings to. That it's possible that Harry is like herself, a non-magical child born into a family with magical members. That, despite the fact that he has her sister's eyes, he didn't automatically inherit her ticket into that wonderland that she was denied. 

On his 11th birthday, that hope is finally taken from her. Everything after that is her (and Vernon's) last desperate attempt to pretend that it isn't true, that the magical world will finally leave her alone and stop tormenting her with visions of a life she'll never get to lead. 

By the time they've moved to the island, it's just pure spite. Fuck the world, fuck magic, fuck Lily, fuck Harry. 

If that world wants him but not her, then they'll have to at least do her the honor of showing up in person to spit in her face.