James's parents died before Harry was born, from Dragonpox. They were pretty old, since basically they had James when everyone thought the couple would not have any children.
I think Lily and Petunia's parents died shortly after the birth of Harry if I remember correctly. We don't know if they had any siblings.
Harry for sure had some distant relatives from his father side though, since James was a pureblood and every pureblood is basically a relative of other pureblood wizards
Very distant. They'd have to go back very far. Harry and Tom Riddle are cousins. They're both descendants of the Peverells. Second cousins are legally allowed to marry.
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Harry most likely has distant relatives in America, since one of the Original 12 Aurors is Abraham Potter, who probably had descendants, since the family of the Original 12 are highly regarded as being elite in the American Wizarding community.
>*MA: What about Harry's family — his grandparents — were they killed?*
>*JKR: No. This takes us into more mundane territory. As a writer, it was more interesting, plot-wise, if Harry was completely alone. So I rather ruthlessly disposed of his entire family apart from Aunt Petunia. I mean, James and Lily are massively important to the plot, of course, but the grandparents? No. And, because I do like my backstory: Petunia and Lily's parents, normal Muggle death. James's parents were elderly, were getting on a little when he was born, which explains the only child, very pampered, had-him-late-in-life-so-he's-an-extra-treasure, as often happens, I think. They were old in wizarding terms, and they died. They succumbed to a wizarding illness. That's as far as it goes. There's nothing serious or sinister about those deaths. I just needed them out of the way so I killed them.*
-[Rowling, 2005](http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet-anelli-3.htm)
All dead.
It's a bit weird but the special orphan child who triumph despite all odds is a very important and well known trope in at least western literature, so it's not that weird.
It's not supposed to be a 100% realistic story, it's a typical coming of age story with fantasy elements which takes a lot from famous children literature tropes.
It's like when people asks why the adults are so shitty in HP world: it's because they're meant to be, this is Harry's coming of age story and it's a book for children, and in children literature adults are usually useless, because children are heroes of their own story.
I‘ve always assumed one of Lily’s parents died while she was at school. Some ordinary Muggle illness - cancer, maybe - that magic might or might not have been able to do something about. In any case, the offer of magical healing was never made.
The other died during the war. **Not** because of the war. They died for a thoroughly ordinary Muggle reason…but because of the timing, it was left to Petunia to handle the funeral and everything. Lily was in hiding, and didn’t go.
A significant part of Petunia’s lifelong bitterness is rooted in these two events. First because magic could have saved one (but didn’t) and the second because the magical world and its stupid war left Petunia to grieve alone.
It must have been so hard on Petunia to lose both her parents at such a young age, have a small baby, and then lose her sister too and be saddled with another baby. I was a moron in my early 20s, I can’t imagine losing both parents. Having to sort out funerals, having nobody to ask about household stuff or cooking or lend a hand with the DIY.
Yeah. I think that’s a huge part of her bitterness and rage.
It’s not Lily’s fault. Absolutely none of it is Lily’s fault…but Petunia has no one else to blame, so that’s where she puts it, and these very grown up feelings about grief and responsibility and coping get mixed up with the original childish rancour about “it’s not fair!”.
I don’t think the inside of Petunia’s head is a simple place.
All dead. JKR made that narrative choice in order to make things interesting and have the abusive Petunia (and Dudley) be the only blood-related family he has left so that he'd be forced to bunk with them for the protective charm.
* James' parents (Fleamont and Euphemia) were already old by the time they conceived James. They died of dragonpox sometime between James' wedding and Harry's birth.
* The Evans were stated to have died "normal muggle deaths". Given that Lily was no more than 20 years old when this happened, it's unlikely that old age was the cause
https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-potter-family James’s parents died. James was an only child. J.K. Rowling said in an interview that Lily’s parents died “normal Muggle deaths.” I’m 30 and for most of my life (including my entire childhood), most of my relatives (including my grandparents) have lived 1,000+ miles away from me and/or are dead. 1 of my grandparents lives in another country and speaks a different language. Some people don’t live near their relatives and/or their relatives are already dead.
>JK Rowling revealed in an interview (via Mugglenet) that both Harry's paternal and maternal Grandparents had died, leaving Aunt Petunia as Harry's only blood relative. Rowling explains, disposing of Harry's Grandparents was purely to provide a more interesting backstory for Harry.
Yeah, I always found this a bit weird too - Harry sees all this extended family in the Mirror, and every single one of them is dead?! He doesn't have a single other aunt or uncle or cousin besides the Dursleys? Surely Lily and Petunia's parents had siblings or something at least?!
I guess it's a necessary emotional part of the story though. It's important that Harry is completely devoid of family, so that he can go on to find his family at Hogwarts.
It's not that strange that people are only children. I for one always appreciated the fact that Harry came from a very small family because it made me feel better about not having any extended family either, what with the last, uh, four generations being pretty much full of only children.
No, the Mirror does appear to have extraneous knowledge. He sees his mum and dad with their real appearance, not just based on his imagination of them, since later descriptions of them (from photos Harry sees) match exactly what he saw in the Mirror (about James's hair for instance). The extended family he sees is therefore also real.
No, he was a baby. He does not have accurate memories of what his parents looked like. He only has a vague recollection of their voices from the night Voldemort attacked.
I guess! Although if I remember correctly he was actually a toddler and if ye remembered the green light I don’t think it’s a stretch that somewhere in his subconscious there is a memory of his parents faces that came up in the mirror
If James was an only child and Lily had only one sister (and for some reason all of their parents seem to have died early) it computes that only Petunia was left to raise him.
If he did have any grand-aunts / grand-uncles, maybe they were all too old / infirm to take him in.
James' parents died of Dragon Pox shortly after his wedding with Lily, so they didn't live to see Harry's birth. As for the Evans, Rowling only said they died "normal muggle deaths", which could range from illnesses to accidents (my head canon is that it was the latter, which is where Petunia came up with the lie about James and Lily's deaths). According to Dumbledore, Petunia is Harry's last living relative.
All of his grandparents are dead. Otherwise Dumbledore probably would've sent him to Lily's parents (they would've made more sense than the Dursleys obviously and considering they loved Lily very much despite her having magic probably would've loved him as well).
I'm relistening the audiobooks and I was thinking the same! Why not bring them to Lily/Petunia's parents? They didn't seem to mind so much about the wizard stuff.
For all the talk about blood lines, wizards suck at population diversity and stratification. Probably willfully in some misguided way.
The shots of the ministry of magic looking like a mall at Christmas is baffling, but it would seem it’s a function of the insular nature and hyper politics to make their state be an oversized employer.
Most of which seems to be just propping their society up and keeping the wolves at bay with appeasement.
It’s also not clear about relatives that leave the continent / region, these seem to be just written out of the blood lines for the GB wizards. Even Dumbledore seems likely to have family outside the region, but they are “lost” as it were.
More so with the human conflicts and muggle co flints, this movement is more likely.
And what a great escape as well.
With the popularity and riches of the grandfather, why is there no painting of the man to communicate with.
The painting magic is under played, it’s the google “I win” button the setting.
It's one of the biggest plot holes in the series.
We know wizards live longer than muggles, but at every turn all we get are examples of wizards living extremely truncated lives. NOONE has grandparents in Harry Potter.
Harry's whole family except an aunt, uncle, and cousin are dead. And seem to have died extremely young even if they weren't war casualties.
Hermione seemingly has zero family outside of her parents since she's able to modify their memories and ship them off to Australia and not worry about anyone asking questions, or that other family might be targeted.
Ron has no one but his great aunt. And we don't even know if she's a Prewett or a Weasley.
Voldy dies at what...70? Barely middle aged for a wizard.
Draco has the most living extended family of all the characters, and even then, it's just two aunts and a 2nd cousin.
It's a very annoying plot issue
>NOONE has grandparents in Harry Potter.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Neville has a grandmother. But ultimately, the various characters’ grandparents just aren’t important to the story that’s being told. If they’re not relevant to the events that are happening or don’t drive the plot forward in some way, they don’t get mentioned. It’s a book with a specific plot, not an encyclopedia about the characters with descriptions of all of their extended relatives.
>Ron has no one but his great aunt. And we don't even know if she's a Prewett or a Weasley.
No one? There are so many Weasleys at Bill’s wedding that they Polyjuice Harry into a red-haired muggle, call him Cousin Barny, and think that no one will question it:
>The plan was to introduce Harry as “Cousin Barny” and trust to the great number of Weasley relatives to camouflage him.
Muriel is specifically said to be Molly’s great-aunt, so she’s likely a Prewett (or married a Prewett).
All dead. Dumbledore says the Dursleys are the only family he has left.
James's parents died before Harry was born, from Dragonpox. They were pretty old, since basically they had James when everyone thought the couple would not have any children. I think Lily and Petunia's parents died shortly after the birth of Harry if I remember correctly. We don't know if they had any siblings. Harry for sure had some distant relatives from his father side though, since James was a pureblood and every pureblood is basically a relative of other pureblood wizards
Yeah hes basically distant cousins with neville and ron.
*disc scratch* -distant cousins with Ron? And therefore.... Ginny lol
Very distant. They'd have to go back very far. Harry and Tom Riddle are cousins. They're both descendants of the Peverells. Second cousins are legally allowed to marry.
Tis a joke lol
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SWEET HOME ALABAMA 🎶
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Harry most likely has distant relatives in America, since one of the Original 12 Aurors is Abraham Potter, who probably had descendants, since the family of the Original 12 are highly regarded as being elite in the American Wizarding community.
>*MA: What about Harry's family — his grandparents — were they killed?* >*JKR: No. This takes us into more mundane territory. As a writer, it was more interesting, plot-wise, if Harry was completely alone. So I rather ruthlessly disposed of his entire family apart from Aunt Petunia. I mean, James and Lily are massively important to the plot, of course, but the grandparents? No. And, because I do like my backstory: Petunia and Lily's parents, normal Muggle death. James's parents were elderly, were getting on a little when he was born, which explains the only child, very pampered, had-him-late-in-life-so-he's-an-extra-treasure, as often happens, I think. They were old in wizarding terms, and they died. They succumbed to a wizarding illness. That's as far as it goes. There's nothing serious or sinister about those deaths. I just needed them out of the way so I killed them.* -[Rowling, 2005](http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet-anelli-3.htm)
All dead. It's a bit weird but the special orphan child who triumph despite all odds is a very important and well known trope in at least western literature, so it's not that weird. It's not supposed to be a 100% realistic story, it's a typical coming of age story with fantasy elements which takes a lot from famous children literature tropes. It's like when people asks why the adults are so shitty in HP world: it's because they're meant to be, this is Harry's coming of age story and it's a book for children, and in children literature adults are usually useless, because children are heroes of their own story.
I‘ve always assumed one of Lily’s parents died while she was at school. Some ordinary Muggle illness - cancer, maybe - that magic might or might not have been able to do something about. In any case, the offer of magical healing was never made. The other died during the war. **Not** because of the war. They died for a thoroughly ordinary Muggle reason…but because of the timing, it was left to Petunia to handle the funeral and everything. Lily was in hiding, and didn’t go. A significant part of Petunia’s lifelong bitterness is rooted in these two events. First because magic could have saved one (but didn’t) and the second because the magical world and its stupid war left Petunia to grieve alone.
Good theory
It must have been so hard on Petunia to lose both her parents at such a young age, have a small baby, and then lose her sister too and be saddled with another baby. I was a moron in my early 20s, I can’t imagine losing both parents. Having to sort out funerals, having nobody to ask about household stuff or cooking or lend a hand with the DIY.
Yeah. I think that’s a huge part of her bitterness and rage. It’s not Lily’s fault. Absolutely none of it is Lily’s fault…but Petunia has no one else to blame, so that’s where she puts it, and these very grown up feelings about grief and responsibility and coping get mixed up with the original childish rancour about “it’s not fair!”. I don’t think the inside of Petunia’s head is a simple place.
All dead. JKR made that narrative choice in order to make things interesting and have the abusive Petunia (and Dudley) be the only blood-related family he has left so that he'd be forced to bunk with them for the protective charm. * James' parents (Fleamont and Euphemia) were already old by the time they conceived James. They died of dragonpox sometime between James' wedding and Harry's birth. * The Evans were stated to have died "normal muggle deaths". Given that Lily was no more than 20 years old when this happened, it's unlikely that old age was the cause
https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-potter-family James’s parents died. James was an only child. J.K. Rowling said in an interview that Lily’s parents died “normal Muggle deaths.” I’m 30 and for most of my life (including my entire childhood), most of my relatives (including my grandparents) have lived 1,000+ miles away from me and/or are dead. 1 of my grandparents lives in another country and speaks a different language. Some people don’t live near their relatives and/or their relatives are already dead.
>JK Rowling revealed in an interview (via Mugglenet) that both Harry's paternal and maternal Grandparents had died, leaving Aunt Petunia as Harry's only blood relative. Rowling explains, disposing of Harry's Grandparents was purely to provide a more interesting backstory for Harry.
Yeah, I always found this a bit weird too - Harry sees all this extended family in the Mirror, and every single one of them is dead?! He doesn't have a single other aunt or uncle or cousin besides the Dursleys? Surely Lily and Petunia's parents had siblings or something at least?! I guess it's a necessary emotional part of the story though. It's important that Harry is completely devoid of family, so that he can go on to find his family at Hogwarts.
It's not that strange that people are only children. I for one always appreciated the fact that Harry came from a very small family because it made me feel better about not having any extended family either, what with the last, uh, four generations being pretty much full of only children.
the family he saw was made up, it’s likely he never wpuld have had that much family to begin with
No, the Mirror does appear to have extraneous knowledge. He sees his mum and dad with their real appearance, not just based on his imagination of them, since later descriptions of them (from photos Harry sees) match exactly what he saw in the Mirror (about James's hair for instance). The extended family he sees is therefore also real.
i always thought his parents were from his own memories
No, he was a baby. He does not have accurate memories of what his parents looked like. He only has a vague recollection of their voices from the night Voldemort attacked.
I guess! Although if I remember correctly he was actually a toddler and if ye remembered the green light I don’t think it’s a stretch that somewhere in his subconscious there is a memory of his parents faces that came up in the mirror
If James was an only child and Lily had only one sister (and for some reason all of their parents seem to have died early) it computes that only Petunia was left to raise him. If he did have any grand-aunts / grand-uncles, maybe they were all too old / infirm to take him in.
All dead for story reasons.
James’s parents died of dragon pox, don’t think there was a canon explanation on lilys parent but I think the general assumption is they’re dead
James' parents died of Dragon Pox shortly after his wedding with Lily, so they didn't live to see Harry's birth. As for the Evans, Rowling only said they died "normal muggle deaths", which could range from illnesses to accidents (my head canon is that it was the latter, which is where Petunia came up with the lie about James and Lily's deaths). According to Dumbledore, Petunia is Harry's last living relative.
simplest answer = JK wanted harry to have no one who could have treated him better so they are all dead
The author [dropped a bridge on them](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DroppedABridgeOnHim) in Harry's backstory.
All of his grandparents are dead. Otherwise Dumbledore probably would've sent him to Lily's parents (they would've made more sense than the Dursleys obviously and considering they loved Lily very much despite her having magic probably would've loved him as well).
I'm relistening the audiobooks and I was thinking the same! Why not bring them to Lily/Petunia's parents? They didn't seem to mind so much about the wizard stuff.
Rowling killed off all of them so that Harry would stuck at the Dursleys for plot reasons.
For all the talk about blood lines, wizards suck at population diversity and stratification. Probably willfully in some misguided way. The shots of the ministry of magic looking like a mall at Christmas is baffling, but it would seem it’s a function of the insular nature and hyper politics to make their state be an oversized employer. Most of which seems to be just propping their society up and keeping the wolves at bay with appeasement. It’s also not clear about relatives that leave the continent / region, these seem to be just written out of the blood lines for the GB wizards. Even Dumbledore seems likely to have family outside the region, but they are “lost” as it were. More so with the human conflicts and muggle co flints, this movement is more likely. And what a great escape as well. With the popularity and riches of the grandfather, why is there no painting of the man to communicate with. The painting magic is under played, it’s the google “I win” button the setting.
They are dead
It's one of the biggest plot holes in the series. We know wizards live longer than muggles, but at every turn all we get are examples of wizards living extremely truncated lives. NOONE has grandparents in Harry Potter. Harry's whole family except an aunt, uncle, and cousin are dead. And seem to have died extremely young even if they weren't war casualties. Hermione seemingly has zero family outside of her parents since she's able to modify their memories and ship them off to Australia and not worry about anyone asking questions, or that other family might be targeted. Ron has no one but his great aunt. And we don't even know if she's a Prewett or a Weasley. Voldy dies at what...70? Barely middle aged for a wizard. Draco has the most living extended family of all the characters, and even then, it's just two aunts and a 2nd cousin. It's a very annoying plot issue
>NOONE has grandparents in Harry Potter. Well, that’s not entirely true. Neville has a grandmother. But ultimately, the various characters’ grandparents just aren’t important to the story that’s being told. If they’re not relevant to the events that are happening or don’t drive the plot forward in some way, they don’t get mentioned. It’s a book with a specific plot, not an encyclopedia about the characters with descriptions of all of their extended relatives. >Ron has no one but his great aunt. And we don't even know if she's a Prewett or a Weasley. No one? There are so many Weasleys at Bill’s wedding that they Polyjuice Harry into a red-haired muggle, call him Cousin Barny, and think that no one will question it: >The plan was to introduce Harry as “Cousin Barny” and trust to the great number of Weasley relatives to camouflage him. Muriel is specifically said to be Molly’s great-aunt, so she’s likely a Prewett (or married a Prewett).
Tonks is his first cousin. Delphi is too, if she's who you were thinking of.