Piers Polkiss
| Character | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Piers Polkiss |
| Occupation: | student, ? |
| Relationships: | Dudley Dursley (best friend) |
| Fandom: | Harry Potter |
| Other: | born c. 1980 |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Piers Polkiss is a minor Harry Potter character. He is the Muggle best friend of Dudley Dursley, Harry's cousin.
Canon
Piers is introduced at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as Dudley Dursley's best friend. Mr and Mrs Dursley take Piers, Dudley, and (grudgingly) Harry to the zoo for Dudley's birthday, where Harry performs his biggest instance of pre-Hogwarts accidental magic and sets loose a boa constrictor. Piers witnesses Harry "talking" to the snake just before the glass of its enclosure disappears. He tells the Dursleys this, causing Uncle Vernon to give Harry a long punishment.
Piers is described upon his introduction as "a scrawny boy with a face like a rat," who "was usually the one who held people’s arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them."[1] Hitting Harry was one of Piers and Dudley's favourite hobbies, and Piers would engage in "Harry Hunting" with the rest of Dudley's gang of bullies. The members of Dudley's gang are described as "big and stupid"—despite the description of Piers as "scrawny" just a chapter previously. Some fans consider this an error in the canon, while others suggest that the descriptions are relative and not necessarily contradictory. Piers attends the public school Smeltings with Dudley starting when they are eleven.
The only other mention of Piers in the rest of the series is in Order of the Phoenix, when he is shown to still be part of Dudley's gang, who have taken to vandalising the neighbourhood and beating up younger kids.
Piers does not appear in the Philosopher's Stone film. He is played by Jason Boyd in the Order of the Phoenix film.
Fan Response & Speculation
This article or section needs expansion. |
- Awareness of magic?
- Magical abilities of his own? e.g., did he understand Harry speaking Parseltongue at the zoo?
- Similarities to Peter Pettigrew
- In fanworks (esp. fanfiction and roleplay), Piers is occassionally given an OC sibling who is a witch or wizard
Shipping
Piers is primarily shipped with Dudley Dursley. Dudley/Piers is the only Piers pairing with its own SCUSA or ...cruisin'... threads at FictionAlley Park. See Dudley/Piers.
A handful of fanworks exist that pair Piers with Harry. See Harry/Piers.
Rare examples of works with other Piers pairings include Orphan by barbie_manish, which contains a Piers/Harry/Severus Snape threesome (2006, contains noncon and vampirism), and two stories feautring Piers/Theodore Nott by dracogotgame—first as a side pairing in the Harry/Draco Harry Potter Totally Sucks Verse (2013), and later featuring in The Housewarming Party (2014). Sharp is the Knife by WeatherWatch (2011) is Piers/Hermione Granger, and El Boxeador by Cris Snape (2012-2013) is a Spanish-language Piers/Parvati Patil fic. AO3 also has a Piers/Lee Jordan tag, but it doesn't appear that any Piers/Lee works were ever posted.[2]
Example Fanworks
Fanart
- A Quick Sketch of Piers Polkiss by annezca (2012) — Portrait sketch of a young, rat-like Piers.
- PS - Chapter 2 by HogwartsHorror (2013) — Piers, Dudley, Harry, and the Brazilian boa constrictor; illustration of a scene from Philosopher's Stone.
- Crack Pairing by Wasserspiegel (2011) — Harry/Piers sketch.
- Hunting for luck by scarletscarlet (2011) — Dudley/Piers, illustration of the fic The Glorious 10th of May.
- HP - Don't Say That (2011) by airagorncharda — Dudley/Piers, illustration of the fic Paninaro '95; the artist envision Piers as from Spanish descent, with a darker skin tone and dark hair.
Fanfiction
- Poor Dudley by srichard (2004) — Harry/Piers with side Dudley/Piers, set at the Dursleys during the summer holidays. Piers uses his Smeltings stick as a sex toy. Rated NC-17.
- Brave New World by excentrykemuse (2009[3]) — Harry/Piers canon divergence AU in which the Dursleys left Harry at an orphanage and he and Piers meet on Harry's eleventh birthday and agree to get married when they grow up.
- The Glorious 10th of May by vissy (2011) — Piers's reaction to Dudley's disappearance to go into hiding during Deathly Hallows and his return after Voldemort's defeat. Dudley/Piers, written for hp_beholder.
- The Housewarming Party by dracogotgame (2014) — Piers/Theodore Nott. Piers and Theo both attend Harry and Draco's housewarming party.
- Wonder by Someone_aka_Me (2014) — one-sided Dudley/Piers from Piers's second-person POV. In which Dudley is gay, Piers can tell, and Piers is just generally a nice guy.
Links & Resources
- Piers Polkiss tag at Archive of Our Own
- Piers Polkiss filter at FanFiction.Net
- Piers Polkiss tag at Tumblr
- Polkiss, Piers at the Harry Potter Lexicon
- Piers Polkiss at the Harry Potter Wiki
- Piers Polkiss at the Pottermore Wiki
References
- ^ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling, Chapter 2: "The Vanishing Glass", published 26 June 1997.
- ^ The tag was used on "Polyamorous Army" by HarricIsLife, published 02 April 2016 and since (as of 16 July 2016). The work contained only 11 words and was tagged with a total of 93 different relationships. Works by HarricIsLife at Archive of Our Own, accessed via Google cache copy saved 31 May 2016. Work summary: "It all started because Cedric kissed Harry in front of Cho, and the entire DA."
- ^ Mentioned as inspiration in the author's notes of Admired From Afar by Violet44, published 13 December 2009. According to excentrykemuse's FanFiction.Net profile, she started publishing fics in 2009: "I thank all of my fans who have read my fics since 2009." (Profile updated 10 December 2014; accessed 16 July 2016.)