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When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

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She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

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The complaint was the answer. C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

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It started with that blizzard of owls. Like when that, that school was harassing us about the boy. Except these were worse, even; these were all carrying those red exploding letters.

Language I'd never been subjected to in my life. Language I'd never heard in my life!

Muggle b-tch was the least of it.

They all seemed to think that Vernon and I had abused the boy.

We never hit him! Not once!

(Though that one time I raised a frying pan to him, I do admit. But I stopped myself with just a swing, though the boy had asked for worse. And Vernon never did that much, just yelled and pushed. Where's his credit for his restraint, eh, when the boy might have been the better for a good beating? Certainly we thought so at the time. But there were things we couldn't bring ourselves to do. Or let ourselves do. Even when we thought maybe we should.)

And those dratted owls bit, and left feathers and droppings. I suppose you freaks think that sort of thing is funny to do to a respectable woman.

After three days of being subjected to almost non-stop screaming and owl pellets, I awoke to blessed silence. Then a single bird came, and its letter read,

Dear Mrs. Dursley:

Your nephew, Mr. Potter, has requested that the Ministry of Magic intercept all Wizarding mail addressed to you. Please send by return owl a list of correspondents whose letters you wish forwarded to you. (Should there be none, no reply is necessary.)

Sincerely,
Richendis Malaprop
Department of Magical Communications

Well, of course there were none. What kind of fool would think otherwise?

That should have been the end of it. But the whole thing made me burn. It shouldn't have; I shouldn't care what you freaks think. But if there's one thing I've always hated, it's injustice. People should get what they deserve. I think that way; I can't help it. Vernon used to tease me for it, call me his little dreamer. No need to tell me the world doesn't really work that way; I'm not a fool. But I have my feelings.

Not that I had ever expected to be thanked or anything, oh no. And good thing I didn't! But instead, for there to be some book out there, spouting lies about Vernon and me.... Even though only you freaks will ever read the lies, I want to set the record straight.

So I'm writing this. Even though I can never show it to anyone normal. And no one in your world, the freak one, will ever care what a Muggle says, no matter that it's the truth. Least of all because it's the truth!

But at least someone, sometime, will have dared to tell the truth to you lot. However little you listened.

Dumbledore the great. That's how everyone there, in your world, talks about him. My sister did too, you know;I heard all about her headmaster, how kind he was, how wise, what a genius.

And I knew that she and that wastrel husband of hers were following him, in some sort of in-fight among you freaks. Do your freak history books mention that that's what killed my parents? They were only Muggles, so probably not. They were targeted as her parents, my sister's, that's all I know for sure. Best not to say the rest of what I think, even now.

And following Dumbledore killed her. He told me so outright. He told me that she and her husband were killed by the other side, and their baby attacked to boot. But my sister sacrificed herself to save the baby, and for some freakish reason, some magical reason, that made it so those other freaks couldn't touch the baby just then. But they'd try again. And Dumbledore the Great decided he couldn't be bothered to protect his followers' baby himself, oh no. Instead, he put a spell on the boy that so long as he lived with his mother's blood kin, the other side couldn't touch him.

That meant me and Dudley.

The boy had to live with us, or die.

That's what Dumbledore told me. Except he didn't have the face actually to tell me that he'd got my last kin killed, was dumping an orphan on me, and had set it up so the orphan would be murdered if I wouldn't raise it with my own son.

He left a letter. In the middle of the night. With the baby. That's what I found, a letter and a baby, on my doorstep when I went out with the bottles. On my doorstep. In November.

And the baby none the worse for it, mind. Any normal child would have caught its death or wandered off or something, but this one, you'd have thought being left about like a parcel on a cold night was what it liked. It only started screaming when I brought it indoors and tried to clean it up.

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Well, I kept it, of course. I'm a Christian woman, a decent woman, not like you lot; I'm not going to turn a child out to die. That's what that Dumbledore wrote: I am sure that I may depend on you to do the right thing.

As I'm not one of you lot, he could.

For a day or two I even hoped that the boy might be normal. Despite his parentage, despite that letter. He was puny and peevish, to be sure, a ratty little thing, not at all like Dudley; but what made me finally lose all hope was that hair. Dudley's was just like a little angel's, you know; you slicked it down and there it was. The boy's, though, was absolutely uncontrollable. And worse, after just a few days I could see it was unnatural, how fast it grew. It scared me.

I'd figured that part out, you see; that you can tell by the hair, even more than the clothes. Vernon never did figure that; he just looked at how you lot dressed. But I spotted it: the ones who have the freakishness in them the worst, you all have hair that's unnatural some way. His father's was just like the boy's, all over the place, and that Snape boy's was awful in a different way. His mother's the same.

That Dumbledore, when I finally saw him: no normal, decent man could grow hair that long. And that group of freaks who threatened us at King's Cross that time;all of their hair, unkempt, and one of them, it was pink. And you needn't trouble to lie to me that it was dyed.

So I knew for sure he was unnatural, almost right away. But that's the other thing. How sickly he was when he came to us. From those exploding letters, anyone would think that I'd starved the boy, that that's why he was runty. But he was wizened and pale when he first came to us;and whose fault was that, pray tell? I took him to Dudley's own pediatrician first thing, you know, before I was sure what he was. Only a month younger than Dudley, and he weighed five kilos less!

Tell me whose fault that was. Tell me that! If I starved him, his own mother did too!

No, I gave him food, but the boy never had what I'd call a healthy appetite, not at all like Dudley. He only ate what he chose, and little enough of that.

We did have to send him to bed without supper, sometimes, to punish him. Or if he mouthed off at the table; he always was a cheeky one. But any time he went hungry was his own fault; he knew what to do to avoid it.

If he told people I didn't feed him, he's a liar. But then, he is; always has been, from the time he could talk.

Oh, the lies that boy told. First he'd go on about freaky things, babbling about flying motorcycles and brooms and colored lights and what not as though they were right there before his eyes.

I'm not saying he didn't see all manner of queer things back there in his own world, but he was fifteen months old when he came to us!

Dudley's blue blanket with the duckies that he carried everywhere till he was four, his favorite bear he had until five; by the time he was seven he didn't remember a thing of either, doesn't recognize them now when I show him them in his baby pictures. Don't you tell me that a baby who couldn't even talk when we got him could remember anything from before!

That's another thing.  That boy was so slow at first, I worried he was retarded too. When he came to us Mama and dada were the only words I could make out, and I couldn't help him with that. He couldn't even ask for food! When he cried, and he was the peevish one, I couldn't find out if he was wet or hungry or what he wanted.

My Dudley, now, could say no and more and cookie and won't and I don't know what else by then, clear as day. Dudley told you what he wanted. And what he didn't want! No problems there. His baby book, I listed every word as he learned them, until I couldn't keep up. Not that other one.

But then later, when we'd finally taught him to talk properly, the boy made up all these stories about strange things, just as though he'd really seen them. When he couldn't possibly have remembered any such things. But when it came to strange things he was actually doing, oh, no, I dunno what happened. Anything to get out of being punished. Not that it saved him. I knew whenever anything strange happened it was him doing it.

And he wouldn't stop. No matter what we did to punish him, he wouldn't stop. Malicious, he was; he liked upsetting decent folk too much to stop his fun.

Just like, as a baby, he wouldn't stop his howling at night, waking up Dudley, waking up Vernon, no matter what I did. I did try, at first, even after I knew what he was, but nothing I did made any difference. That's how he ended up in that famous cupboard. I had him in with me in the spare room at first (I would never have risked putting him in with Dudley, and Vernon needed his rest, so he couldn't come in with us).

But oh no. He'd wake and start screaming; he wasn't wet, he wouldn't eat, he didn't have fever, he'd shake his head and scream harder when I asked if his tummy hurt. The more I tried to soothe him, the worse he got.

Putting him that far away, finally, with extra insulation in the ceiling, was the only way for the family to get any rest. You try weeks of listening to screaming every night. And before you try telling me he was just crying for his parents, poor little boy, oh, no. You weren't there; I was. He wasn't sad; he was angry. I can tell the difference. Mad that I wouldn't wave a wand to entertain him, no doubt, or take him flying away on a broomstick.

He was always the most spiteful little thing. And I can see that that hasn't changed a bit, else you lot wouldn't have been told those lies. Do you know, the first time he ever hurt himself, skinned his knee it was, when I put iodine on it, he kicked me in the face and blacked my eye? And then he screamed and screamed as though I'd hurt him. I had the neighbors knocking to see what was wrong: me, a respectable woman! And then the next time he was hurt, he fought like a mad thing to keep me from helping him. That's the kind he was. After that I knew to hold him down.

The same thing about baths; he'd scream when I tried to scrub him, scream when the suds got in his eyes, try to eat the bubbles and then scream at the taste. He'd flail about so, it took Vernon holding him down and me scrubbing to get him clean. Left to himself he'd have been coated in mud like a pig and happy with it, the dirty little thing. Now Dudley liked baths, he loved playing in the water; he looked so sweet in the tub, too, little angel. I was sad when he got too old for me to bathe him.

But that Snape boy, he had been the same way, parading his filthy hair and clothes in front of decent people. That's why it's unfair to criticize us about the cupboard. So it had spiders, so what? You lot like dirt and vermin; rats, toads, those disgusting owls. My sister, even, was brought up decently, but she changed after she started associating with you lot. I know what you're like!

You think the boy should have had a window, is that what it is? You saw what he did when he had one, even with bars on! Whatever he tells you, it was like a little bedroom. He had a proper crib in there at first, and later, a proper bed. And I kept it clean, probably cleaner than he liked, the ungrateful little thing.

And his clothes. I couldn't believe it at first; I simply could not credit it, that any of YOU LOT would have the nerve to criticize ME about how I dressed the boy. He was ALWAYS dressed decently in boy's clothes. ALWAYS.

They were clean and they were whole, or decently mended, and they were appropriate boys' wear, the same as Dudley's. Is that what was wrong with them? Should I have been sending him out in my old blouses instead, or rags and tatters, like that Snape woman did? They weren't colorful enough, eccentric enough, for you weirdos' taste?

So they were Dudley's old clothes, so what? If the boy would have eaten more, they'd have fit him just fine. I was supposed to spend Vernon's good money on new, and pander to a freak's tastes? Yes, I can see that! Maybe a crimson and gold nightgown for the boy to wear to school, like his father wore to my wedding? Or a black cloak like a vampire, like that Snape boy flaunted when he started buying his own?

And then come to find out the boy had property, was rich even, all that time. Never thought to offer us a stipend to cover the boy's expenses, did Dumbledore? Mind, you lot still would have complained about how I dressed the boy; I never would have bought him the outrageous getups you wear. But I would have bought him new, if it hadn't been snatching bread from Dudley's mouth. If only to do ourselves credit in the neighborhood. Why'd the great Dumbledore let us think the boy was a pauper, and spend OUR hard-earned money on him, if he didn't want the boy treated like one? Tell me that!

And then you lot to be complaining about how DUDLEY treated HIM? Dudley never did a thing to him, not like the freaky things the boy's friends did to Dudley! Sure, Dudley roughhoused with him all the time. But the boy roughhoused back; boys will be boys. The boy was normal enough that way, if no other. It's not Dudley's fault he's bigger! And it's not Dudley's fault he's a natural leader, like his dad! Blood will tell, you know. Sure, Dudley and his friends chased the boy. But the boy provoked them with his weirdness; kids don't like anyone too strange, you know that. Or probably you don't, being what you are. So trust me on this: normal kids usually do turn on one who's strange.

But the truth is, Dudley didn't actually treat his cousin any differently than he did other boys. He was a leader in his group, in our neighborhood, in his school, and he and his little friends did usually keep the boys who weren't in their group in their place. They never hit girls, though, they were gentlemen. What's wrong with that? That's how the world works. It's good training for later life, like the Smeltings handbook says. Keeps the boys from growing up wimps. Other boys had to learn to either join Dudley or fight him.

And the boy fought back. We didn't make him sit there and accept it, just because Dudley was our son. We could have, after all, but that would have been wrong. The boy was allowed to fight back, and he did, all the time. It's not Dudley's fault he was bigger and a better fighter, and so he usually won. It was all perfectly natural and normal; why is the boy whining about how the world works? Am I responsible for the fact that the boy gets wet when it rains, too?

And as I said, we never hit him ourselves. Never once. I was afraid to, to be perfectly frank. We talked about it, you know, Vernon and I, about using corporal punishment, as it became clearer and clearer that the boy was incorrigible. Grounding him, yelling at him, sending him to bed without supper, just had no effect at all. He just shrugged our punishments off, with that defiant little glare. Or mouthed back at us.

So we talked about it. But the experts at places like St. Brutus say, use it as correction only. Stay in control. Don't ever hit the child in anger.

But we would have. We would have. The mouth on that boy, and the way that he lied, and those freakish, abnormal things he insisted on doing. Looking up at us after he'd done them, like he was scared of how we'd punish him, but doing them all the same. Like how he looked at me the morning the Masons were to come. I knew he hadn't DONE anything freaky that time; I could hear the boys through the kitchen window, after all. But still, saying things like that, and in public, where the neighbors could hear! And then to threaten Dudley like that for no reason--the look on poor terrified Dudley's face, when he came to get me!

The boy only said those things to torment us. He only did those things to torment us. And he didn't care how he was punished, if only he could hurt us. Like that same night, breaking the Wizard law, risking expulsion and a wand-breaking (oh yes, I knew what he risked), to try to ruin Vernon's career and get me back for the punishment he'd practically begged for.

Oh, the malice in that boy!

If we'd let ourselves hit the boy, if we'd ever let ourselves go, we might have killed him. We really might have. We might not have been able to stop ourselves, when he did things like that. So we were careful never to touch him. We were careful!

If he had stopped it. Just that one thing. That one thing! We never punished him for mouthing off; we never punished him for disobeying or defying us, with anything except a lecture. Anytime he did something wrong that a normal boy might have done, he never got worse than a scolding. We never punished him at all for fighting with Dudley, even when he started it; fighting is natural, after all. It was the other. The abnormal things. That he did and that he said. He knew that. If there's any truth in him at all, he'll admit it.

Ask him! He was only ever really punished for doing unnatural things.

If he had just stopped. But he refused to. He gloried in his freakishness. He liked it. Like that awful goblin-boy. Like his father. Like my sister.

It's just too bad it didn't kill him like it did them.

He'd have deserved it.

And that's God's own truth.

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