Ah, for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;
Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd,—
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;
Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd,—
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Locksley Hall"
Ser Godfry Farring: If the nephew dies in chains, these uncles can claim his lands and lordship for themselves.
Jon Snow: The Greatjon has sons and daughters both. In the north the children of a man’s body still come before his uncles, ser.
Ser Godry: Unless they die. Dead children come last everywhere.
Jon Snow: The Greatjon has sons and daughters both. In the north the children of a man’s body still come before his uncles, ser.
Ser Godry: Unless they die. Dead children come last everywhere.
Vernon: Boy! I'm trying to come up with some new ways that I could make your life even more miserable than it already is, but I'm having a hard time with it. What do you think?
Harry: I don't know, Uncle Vernon. I mean, you're already allowing me only the barest minimal necessities for keeping me alive. You're also beating me on a four times a day basis, five times on Saturday since it's your day off, plus the beatings that Dudley and his friends give me whenever they feel like it. Also, I've never been allowed to properly tend to any of the wounds I've received from those beatings, so my body's probably heavily infected in multiple places right now. You killed my owl and then forced me to cook her for your supper, and then beat me because she was too salty. I could honestly die any day now of starvation, dehydration, overexertion, or a combination of all three. The jury's still out on whether or not I've contracted cancer from that toxic waste you dumped on me the other day, and let's not forget that I'm also mentally scarred, not just from all the verbal abuse I take from you three, but also from seeing my godfather, the last remaining family I have that cared about me even the slightest bit, killed right in front of me not so long ago. I can honestly say that my life sucks about as hard as is metaphorically possible already and, off the top of my head, can't think of a single way that you could make it worse short of murdering the rest of my friends in front of me.
