Work Text:
We Fall in Familiar Places
By: Aviantei
[Twelve Shots of Summer: Another D8 6-I/12]
[Parameters: “White Lies”]
The letter arrives, and Petunia knows what it is without even having to see it. Why would she have to look whenever she’s been dreaming about it for ages, this little letter with such big possibility inside its contents, and it’s going to open up a whole new world.
Except she’s no longer Petunia Evans, but Petunia Dursley, and so the letter is not for her, but for her sister’s son, and Petunia’s almost ashamed of how much she wants it to be her name on that envelope, though the time for such things has long passed.
Vernon’s feelings on the matter are much clearer. They always have been. Whenever Harry was dropped on their doorstep eleven years ago, and Petunia had to explain the world of magic that loomed in her past, he had been the one that said that they were going to lock all that away and never let it into their lives, and Petunia had agreed, because that was so much easier than admitting she would have welcomed the opportunity to get a little bit closer to the magic that had slipped through her fingers.
Petunia Dursley on her own had thought she was happy to think of herself as normal, but this little letter (that Vernon’s rushing the boys out of the kitchen over and giving her concerned looks about) has upended all of that for just a moment. Vernon will not be conflicted; Vernon will say that Harry never gets to see his letter; Vernon will keep Harry from Hogwarts, because they can’t have such nonsense in their lives whatsoever.
There’s a lot of conversation, hushed and quiet, mostly Vernon talking, and it ends with him shredding the letter to pieces and scattering it into the rubbish bin before working on moving Harry from the cupboard under the stairs to the upstairs bedroom, while both of the children make a racket for different reasons, and Petunia focuses on cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast in hopes that it will push down these long-buried feelings rising up for the first time in decades.
(That night, Petunia dreams—
Dear Ms. Petunia Evans
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at—)
She wakes in the morning, feeling the most rested she has in recent memory, and she finds herself humming as she cooks before Vernon wanders into the room, still in a rotten mood from the day before, and that happiness evaporates as she remembers who is she now, Harry a reminder of who she’ll never be able to become, and—
Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, was proud to say that she was perfectly normal, thank you very much.