How to bring the sass like Harry

3 times Potter owned Dudley Dursley

Contains spoilers, please avoid until you've completed the books.

It wasn’t bad either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head and looking remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn’t blond.
The Vanishing Glass, the Philosopher's Stone

Take a primitive behaviour, draw a parallel with an animal, append some minor cosmetic feature that is different, toss and run...

‘Oy Dud, this Gorilla could be your twin, if it were blond’
  Skinny Harry Potter serves the fat Dursleys lunch

Take passive aggression to the mat

‘They stuff people’s heads down the toilet first day at Stonewall,’ he told Harry. ‘Want to come upstairs and practise?’ ‘No thanks,’ said Harry. ‘The poor toilet’s never had anything as horrible as your head down it – it might be sick.’ Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he’d said.
The letters from No One, the Philosopher's Stone

Harry turns the tables, colourfully stating the threatened action is what’s going to befall the poor aggressor. Let's break it down:

How to bring the sass like Harry

  1. Receive implicit threat, ‘this is what they do to people like you’.
  2. Make polite response e.g. ‘no thanks’.
  3. Continue with, ‘The poor..’, if act of violence is an object. If it involves a body part attacking you start ‘Your poor...’.
  4. Think through what the act of violence involves, and state them going through it ‘anything as horrible as your head down it’
  5. Harry suggests that the act might be poison, ‘it might be sick’. What possible bad reaction could it have if it were alive? Get specific.
  6. Exit at speed, or motion a joke exit at speed. You don’t stand around for a grenade to explode.

You deserve a good kicking!
No thanks.
Your poor leg's got it bad enough keeping you upright, it’d need months and months of physio.

Maybe I should leave these things to Rowling. Wait!

You deserve a good kicking!
No thanks.
Your poor leg's got it bad enough keeping you upright, it’d probably walk off! Or hop, you know, because it's only one.

These bullies are going to have to hang around while I get my wit together.

Fat Vernon Dursley points a finger at tall Petunia Dursley, who is licking her fingers while enourmous Dudley Dusley scoffs cake

Caution: use at your own peril

‘So who’ve you been beating up tonight?’ Harry asked, his grin fading. ‘Another ten-year-old? I know you did Mark Evans two nights ago –’ ‘He was asking for it,’ snarled Dudley. ‘Oh yeah?’ ‘He cheeked me.’ ‘Yeah? Did he say you look like a pig that’s been taught to walk on its hind legs? ’Cause that’s not cheek, Dud, that’s true.’ A muscle was twitching in Dudley’s jaw. It gave Harry enormous satisfaction
Dudley Demented, Order of the Phoenix

What is done to others, what is tolerated for others, can be done to us.

Mr/Ms X attacking someone then claiming they deserved it?

Woah, that was brutal, what did they say?
Did he say you look like a pig that’s been taught to walk on its hind legs?
Cause that’s not cheek, X, that’s true.

Accio Bullies!

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Art Credits
The Dursleys by liliribs
Harry serving the Dursleys by Bev Johnson

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