For anyone who enjoys and knows a lot about Harry Potter, it’s probably common knowledge that Dumbledore has a say in where Harry lives.
He required Hagrid to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle after Sirius requested to take him in back in 1981. He demands that Harry live there and calls it home until he’s 17 in order for the protection charm to keep him safe from Voldemort and his followers. That only works if he lives with a blood relative of his mother, Lily, who used a powerful spell to protect Harry, and let Voldemort kill her.
Other things that Dumbledore has done was block Harry from joining the Weasleys for something and possibly attending Lupin and Tonks’ wedding. Harry has even written to him numerous times about how horribly the Dursleys treated him. But he did nothing until The Half-Blood Prince.
Some say that Dumbledore had a say in where Harry lived for the following reasons:
- He was a chief warlock whom many respected (although he rejected opportunities to work for the ministry of magic)
- He possessed lots of power
- The wizarding world isn’t exactly the most organized
So, if this was the case, then Dumbledore should have responded to Harry right away as soon as he wrote his first letter to him about how terribly his relatives treated him. This should have prompted him to intervene and come up with a creative, but effective, way to force the Dursleys to treat Harry better.
But overall, I find it bizarre, illogical, and honestly, unbelievable that a boarding school headmaster would have a legal say in where a student resides. It would have been more credible if merely the ministry had a say in where Harry lived and Dumbledore couldn’t have been a part of it. Just having him dropped off at the Dursleys as an infant would have been enough.