| abstract | - St Brutus' Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys is an institution for "mentally subnormal" and violent adolescent males. This was the centre that Vernon Dursley told his sister Marge he was sending Harry Potter to school. Saint Brutus is the patron saint for this school. Whether it exists in the Harry Potter scenario, or was simply dreamed up by Uncle Vernon to hide Harry's true nature is unclear, although as there is no Saint Brutus, it is probably imaginary. He described it as a "first-rate institution for hopeless cases." In his third year Harry was forced to pretend he was being sent to St Brutus' in exchange for Vernon's signature on his Hogsmeade permission form, because Vernon was so worried Marge would find out about Harry's true identity. As part of that ruse, he asserted that students there were customarily disciplined with a cane and got beaten a lot. However, as Harry unintentionally inflated Marge, he did not receive Uncle Vernon's signature. By the summer of 1995, even the neighbourhood children in Little Whinging had been told that Harry supposedly attended this institution. Despite this, they were in general still more scared of Dudley Dursley, who had a fearsome reputation for hitting people, whereas Harry left the neighbourhood children alone.
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