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Today is going to be a good day.
Harry knows this because his uncle Vernon won't be home; he left before the sun came up for a fishing trip, taking along a very excited Dudley in a very stupid hat. Them not being home usually means Harry will have a peaceful day, without too much noise or Dudley picking on him. Sure, Aunt Petunia is home, but she's... It's not that she's nice, exactly. But she's usually not as angry as Uncle Vernon, and sometimes she'll make breakfast and it's a lot better than when Harry makes it himself.
But when Harry comes out of the cupboard to find Aunt Petunia in the kitchen, she's acting... Weird.
She's doing all the things she normally does - unloading the dishwasher, spraying cleaner on the countertops, heating up a kettle for tea - but it just doesn't look right. It's something about the look on her face, or how she's going about it slower than usual.
Is she mad? It's Harry's first concern, but no, she doesn't look mad. She looks sad. Maybe it's because of the fight she and Uncle Vernon had last night, the one where they yelled at each other a lot and Harry sat in the cupboard pretending he didn't hear a thing.
He just woke up, so it can't have been anything he did. Besides, he doesn't make Aunt Petunia sad. He makes her angry, disappointed, all kinds of other nasty things, but not sad. So it must have been the fight, or she just misses Dudley and Uncle Vernon. Either way, Harry is going to behave extra well today, just in case. Forget Aunt Petunia's eggs, he's going to pull his weight and make breakfast himself.
Breakfast for Harry is cereal with milk, which he pours just a little more than usual because Dudley isn't around to chug half the carton. Breakfast for Aunt Petunia is pancakes, one of the few things Harry knows how to make without messing it up; he makes a few and then stacks them on a plate for her. Hopefully that will cheer her up. It always cheers Harry up when he can have pancakes.
But when Harry sets his cereal down on one side of the table and Aunt Petunia's pancakes on the other, she looks at the plate and makes a face of disgust.
"I'm just gonna have tea today." She says quietly, too quietly. It doesn't quite sound like Aunt Petunia. "You can have those yourself."
Well. Harry isn't about to ask. Sure, Aunt Petunia turned down the breakfast that he made with love, but he gets to have breakfast twice and he's not going to wait until she changes her mind about it.
(She gives him a look from above her cup of tea. Harry has no idea what the look means, but he scarfs down his pancakes a little quicker.)
Saturday means Harry can play when he finishes his chores, so he's excited. Chores are easier when it's just him and Aunt Petunia; he just has to take the trash out, toss some clothes in the washer, and take care of a few more odds and ends around the house before lunchtime. Aunt Petunia is doing her own chores, too, and it's kind of nice. Almost like they're doing it together.
Lunch is leftover pasta from last night's dinner. Harry can't help but notice that even though she didn't have breakfast, Aunt Petunia puts even less on her plate than she does on Harry's, and eats without any enthusiasm. She usually doesn't eat half as much as Uncle Vernon or Dudley, but doesn't tend to skip meals, either, so this is just another way that she's acting weird today.
Harry knows exactly what he's going to do about it.
As soon as he's done washing the lunch dishes, he rushes into the cupboard, digs into the bin where he keeps his precious few toys, and digs out a green crayon and some printer paper. He's going to play Blue's Clues and solve this mystery.
The first clue is Aunt Petunia not wanting to eat. He draws her looking at a stack of pancakes with a frown on her face.
The second clue is the fight she had with Uncle Vernon last night. He draws Uncle Vernon shouting with his arms raised and Aunt Petunia crying, because he could tell from her voice - and because his uncle at one point said 'oh, for fuck's sake, you don't have to cry about it'. Harry has no idea what the fight was about, but he knows Aunt Petunia messed up and Uncle Vernon got angry.
He needs a third clue. On Blue's Clues, there are always three, so Harry puts his head to work so he can find the missing clue and solve the mystery.
It's not that Aunt Petunia looks sick. Harry remembers having a stomach bug, and he threw up a lot; she's not throwing up. But she's wincing every now and then, and... Harry's going to pay more attention. He can figure this out. Where is Aunt Petunia, anyway?
He probably shouldn't go look for her. She's minding her own business. Harry should be minding his own business as well. So he keeps busy and draws a few more pictures with his crayon; one of Dudley in his stupid hat, and one of Mrs Figg's cat, Parker.
(Mrs Figg has a lot of cats, but Parker is his favorite. He has yellow eyes and a black nose and likes to take naps next to Harry, purring while Harry pets his soft fur. And Harry loves petting him - loves touching anything soft, really. If something has a pleasant texture, you can gurantee Harry will try to play with it at some point.)
He's almost done with Parker's whiskers when Aunt Petunia turns up again, this time to fill a small pot with water and heat it up on the stove.
(It's not time for tea yet. And if she were making dinner ahead of time, she'd have gotten a bigger pot. But is this a clue? Probably not.)
Except...
She's clutching her tummy.
That's clue number three - her tummy hurts, but she doesn't seem to be sick. Harry drops the cat drawing to focus instead on the paper he'd set aside for the third clue, and immediately sets to drawing Aunt Petunia with a hand over her tummy.
He lines up all three clues and stares at them thoughtfully. The fight seems to be the most important one - Uncle Vernon yells often, but usually not at Aunt Petunia, so she must've really messed up this time. But what does that have to do with her not eating? And with her tummy hurting?
Harry doesn't like where his head is going. When he messes up, Uncle Vernon screams at him too, just like he did at Aunt Petunia last night. He tells him to stop crying too. Sometimes - not often, just when Harry messes up really bad - he'll hit him and shove him around and tell him to stay in the cupboard for the whole day without lunch or dinner. Granted, Aunt Petunia goes right along with it and sometimes she's even the one to lock him up, but she's always the one who lets him out, and that's got to count for something, right?
She's not locked up in a cupboard, of course. That's just for nasty kids. But maybe she's not allowed to eat, either? Maybe the reason her tummy hurts is - but wait, she's a grownup. Grownups don't get hit. Do they?
Maybe they do. Crap. She must have messed up super bad, too; when Uncle Vernon hits him, it's on the butt or the leg (and once it was on the face, but Harry likes to pretend that didn't happen). Tummies are soft, so it must have hurt more. He wonders what she did to make Uncle Vernon this angry.
"Aunt Petunia? Can I ask you something?" He asks quietly. It's always good to ask permission. When he looks up from his clues, she's pouring the hot water into what looks like a floppy bottle.
"I suppose."
"Are grownups allowed to punish other grownups?"
She stops, and furrows her brow, and looks at Harry in that way that makes him want to hide. Crap. He can’t take it back now.
"Sometimes." She answers. Not angrily. Just... Suspiciously. "When they're police officers or lawyers."
Uncle Vernon isn't a police officer or a lawyer. Harry isn't sure what exactly he does, but he knows it's not that. So he wasn't supposed to have punished Aunt Petunia.
Harry doesn't quite know what to do with this knowledge, so he just nods.
"Why do you ask?"
"No reason. Just curious." He's quick to respond.
She doesn't look very convinced, but leaves Harry alone in the living room and goes back inside with the floppy bottle.
Harry wants to do something. He likes to help, and it looks like Aunt Petunia needs it, but what can he do? He's five. He wonders what Dudley, who is also five, would do, but he probably wouldn't do anything, because he's too dumb to notice his mum is hurting. He's never once played Blue's Clues with Harry.
When Dudley gets hurt for some reason, Aunt Petunia brings him a glass of water and snuggles him until he's feeling better. (Harry isn't bitter about it, nope, not at all.) Maybe he could bring her a glass of water, too. He gathers his clues - because if by any chance Uncle Vernon comes home early and finds out that Harry solved the mystery, Harry is toast - and fills a glass with water, then stops at the bedroom door to peek inside.
Aunt Petunia is curled up on her bed, on top of the blankets, watching TV with the floppy bottle pressed close to her tummy. She doesn't look too good. Harry wonders if he should just come in - his hands are full, one holding the glass and the other holding the papers, so he can't knock - but she looks at the door and sees him before he can make up his mind.
"What?" She asks.
"I brought you some water."
"Oh. Come in."
Harry does, and sets the glass down on the nightstand; Aunt Petunia's eyes go straight to the papers in his hand.
"What's that?"
"Oh, nothing." Harry shakes his head, but she's already sitting up.
"Let me see."
"It's just -"
"Let me see."
He hands her the clues and is very aware that his hand is shaking. Forget Uncle Vernon getting home early, he's already toast. He's frozen in place while Aunt Petunia looks at each clue and stops at the picture of her and Uncle Vernon fighting.
Harry wants to disappear.
Aunt Petunia's mouth is a tight line across her face when she looks back at him, her eyes narrow.
"Why'd you draw this?"
Harry swallows. "They're clues. It's nothing, it's not important."
"Clues?"
"Yeah, I - I was playing Blue's Clues."
"Blue's Clues?"
Of course she's not familiar with the show. Dudley doesn't like it, says it's boring.
"It's a show about a boy that solves mysteries with his dog. And he draws the clues."
"And what mystery were you solving?"
Harry's heart is about to jump out of his throat.
"I wanted to know what was wrong with you. I mean - how you got hurt." He gestures to her tummy, and she looks down at it, then right back up to Harry.
There's something weirdly soft in her eyes now. A lot softer than Harry had been expecting, anyway. It doesn't make him stop shaking.
"I didn't get hurt."
Oh. So that's what they're doing. Harry can play along.
"It's okay, I won't tell anyone."
"Kid, what do you think happened?"
That's it, he's going to die. He's going to die here. It's a real wonder he can still find his voice.
"I- you and Uncle Vernon had a fight last night. I heard it. And - and your tummy hurts and you're not sick. And you weren't allowed to eat breakfast."
Whatever expression Aunt Petunia is wearing on her face - Harry still has no idea what it is - softens more, and this time he allows himself a little sigh of relief, because she gives him back the clues and shakes her head.
"Harry, your uncle didn't hit me. I just have cramps."
He can’t hold back the argument, because, really, Aunt Petunia doesn’t have to lie to him. "Cramps are when you run too much in Phys Ed. You're a grownup, you don't have Phys Ed."
"It's not just from exercise. Here, look." She lifts up her shirt to show him her tummy, and sure enough, there aren't any bruises there. Just pale skin. Harry would be glad if he weren't so nervous. "You were worried about me?"
He nods, and Aunt Petunia is quiet for a few seconds, as if she's thinking really hard about this information. Finally, just as Harry is about to turn around and leave, she speaks.
"Throw those away and get back here."
He does. The clues aren't really useful now that he got the mystery completely wrong. Once he comes back to stand beside the bed, Aunt Petunia has moved a little to the side and is lying back down; her face still looks different. She's not looking at him the same way she looks at Dudley, not by a long shot, but there's something almost sweet in her eyes that Harry has never seen directed at him before.
"Come sit." She says, quietly, and pats the spot next to her on the bed. "Take your shoes off first."
Harry doesn't understand why he's being allowed to sit on Aunt Petunia's bed and watch TV with her, but he's not going to say no. He sets his sneakers carefully next to the bed, then hops on, heart still thumping.
Maybe it's because he worried about her, or because he tried to help her like she helps Dudley when he's not feeling well. With that in mind, he thinks briefly of how else Aunt Petunia makes his cousin feel better, and ends up reaching a very hesitant hand to touch her hair.
(It's soft. Almost as soft as Parker's fur. Harry really, really wants to keep touching, and she's not complaining, so he does.)
This is new. This is very new and feels very nice. Harry keeps his eyes on the TV, but doesn't pay much attention to the movie that's playing; instead, his focus is on the soft hair between his fingers and the soft bed he's lying on. It's a nice kind of feeling that wraps around him like a blanket, or perhaps like a hug.
He doesn't remember falling asleep, but when he wakes up, the same movie is still playing; it looks like Aunt Petunia was napping as well but woke up from Harry jolting awake. He worries, but then her hand is resting on his little shoulder; just resting, as if she likes him.
"You can stay, 's alright." She mutters. "Just for today."
Just for today. Harry is okay with that. Just for today is better than not at all, and the hand on his shoulder is calming, and he's still touching Aunt Petunia's hair, because it feels good and she's letting him.
With a happy little sigh, he lets himself drift off again. Today is a good day indeed.