Mrs. Dursley and Those Damned Wizards: Harry Potter Looks Very Different From Petunia's POV
The Dursleys are usually either hated or made fun of by both the Harry Potter fan community and its characters. It's completely understandable: by no means were they good people, at least towards Harry.
But there's something that helps understand them and their behavior a bit better, too.
You see, from the Dursleys' point of view, Harry Potter is a story of a simple Muggle family trying to live their lives while getting terrorized by wizards for well over 17 years.
How come, you may think?
To answer this question, let's take a look at how the events unfold from Petunia Dursley's perspective. One day, Petunia's sister gets an invitation to some special school. Apparently, magic is real which is really exciting…
Except when Petunia writes to said school to come along with her sister, the Headmaster tells her there's nothing special about her.
After that, her sister disappears for years, doing something exciting that Petunia can't, and when she occasionally comes back home, she does weird creepy stuff.
That makes their parents very proud of her and she's their center of attention. Petunia is once again nothing special.
Petunia's life ambition is now being as "normal" as it gets, so she marries a "normal" man. Then she watches as her sister marries some snobby trust fund wizard who indirectly mocks her husband and shows off his riches.
A few years later, Petunia learns that her sister was murdered. The same Headmaster kindly informs her that she has no other choice but to take her sister's son in even though he was hunted by a magical dark lord who hates non-special people like Petunia and her family.
Growing up, Petunia's nephew starts doing weird and creepy things just like her sister did. Petunia tries to make him "normal," but it doesn't help, and eventually, the same school that got her sister killed comes for him.
Petunia's resistance is useless: the magical school spies on her family, terrorizes them with dozens of letters and owls, and sends a giant that harasses them, gives her son a pigtail, and takes her nephew away.
In the upcoming years, she lets Harry come back to maintain his magical protection.
In return, he screws over her husband's business deal, blows up his sister, deals damage to her house, and has her son attacked by the creepiest things imaginable.
Also, the same Headmaster keeps spying on her, sending her vaguely threatening letters, and establishing his dominance as he visits.
Then, it turns out the magical dark lord is back and knows where her family lives, so they have to stay under surveillance 24/7 and eventually leave their home for good.
By no means does this story justify how the Dursleys treated and abused Harry… But it shows exactly why they thought they were right about the wizards and everything related to them. In their eyes, they were the victims.