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The day Lily Evans was born, she was placed into the arms of One Petunia Evans (later Dursley) with only a brief introduction and a given instruction. Petunia Evans (later Dursley) was very young and very impressionable at the time, and she had always been the type to take serious things to heart. So when Mr. Evans said “Petunia, this is your little sister Lily, take good care of her,” young Petunia folded up that memory and hid it in the deepest darkest part of herself, to be remembered fondly until more important things happened and it was all but forgotten.
Such an unfortunate divide sprouted between these Evans sisters. The feelings of festering resentment and pain had made kindling of the pride and love that Petunia held dearly. Their relationship was a wasteland. A warzone. Mere ash left-over.
But, the impression from that initial instruction was so hidden, so repressed, folded so tightly within herself, that it managed to escape the same destructive fate. Those words were alive within her, just buried deep, deep in the recesses of Petunia's soul.
Petunia thought her sister a great many things. The majority of these things were so unpleasant she’d be hard pressed to even utter them among the least polite of the company she kept at that time. Still, when she went to bed on October 31st, 1981, Petunia resolutely believed her sister to be gallivanting off somewhere with that horrid wizard of hers and—most importantly—alive.
So, when Petunia wakes on a day like any other and the bundle containing her nephew and a note is sat upon her doorstep, she is equally surprised and horrified. Even worse is the discovery that her sister is not off gallivanting with that horrid wizard of hers, and in fact will never be gallivanting with anyone ever again.
In an alternate universe, the slow accumulation of all the woman’s grievances and regrets would slam into her in that moment and irrevocably attach itself to that detestable brown-haired child on her doorstep. In this universe however, as she’s bundling the babe into her arms, the child has not only piercing green eyes, but a familiar shade of flaming red hair. Her rage is blindsided by the sudden unfolding memory of that agreement—not a promise but a commitment nonetheless— that she had made so long ago.
Instead, in this universe, Petunia Dursley stands on her doorstep in her nightgown and swears profusely at anyone who so happens to be listening. It’s quite a shock to the nosey woman of Number 7, who is trimming her new hyacinths at the time. (None of the PTA board or the homeowners association would ever believe her!). In this universe too, Petunia Dursley is informed quite suddenly, and in the most unpleasant way, that she is, in fact, an aunt to a now-orphaned child.
This is not to say that in this universe Petunia is suddenly good at being an aunt, or that she avoids the resentment entirely on one change alone. Just as she hadn’t been a very good sister under the circumstances given, the disallowances she has towards the boy are inevitable and asynchronous with such a change. She had probably, maybe, hated Lily when she died, and it isn’t fair to expect her to just forget that.
Rather, there is something decidedly less about it, in the way that somewhere along the line the wires must have gotten crossed and Harry Potter— for he is not quite an Evans and certainly not a Dursley—brought with him the additional heavy sentimentality of raw grief. On that note, Petunia Dursley is not particularly good at grieving either.
—
She starts teaching Harry how to cook when he can stand on the stepstool and see up onto the countertop.
At first it is all pursed lips and bandaging of burned fingers, telling him to pay attention so he can do it himself next time. He needs to know these things. The wizards will come some day and they will eat him up and spit him back out like so many bones and never stop to teach him the little things—these important things— in life. Important things include cleaning the porch steps and folding the washing and definitely cooking. These things that must be important, because she’s done them every week of her life for the last fifteen years and well…
Sometimes she wishes he were more like James. That wizard probably never did a day of washing in his life.
(And it has become James now, who she directs these thoughts at. She can’t…. she’s seen Lily do laundry before, taught her how to fold the pant legs so the pockets don’t crinkle up, watched the awe in her little sister’s- … in-...)
The last time Petunia saw her sister, clothes had been flying through the air and into suitcases, meticulously folded and without a finger raised.
Harry folds the pant legs with his pinkies curled up, jabbing the pockets in with grubby hands like some strange mockery of her own actions.
Petunia doesn’t say a word.
—
She smothers Dudley she knows, but she doesn’t want him to turn out like her. Petunia wants him to be happy and healthy and to never feel less because he doesn’t get a special letter when he turns 11. She doesn’t know what she wants Harry to be. (She wants him to be alive).
She started dating Vernon because he was a straightforward type who took things at face value, and Petunia could appreciate that. At the time, She was a fairly straightforward type who took things at face value as well. Now it feels like everything in her head keeps getting more and more complicated as Vernie gets less and less so.
Somewhere along the line she starts hoping Dudley doesn’t grow up like Vernon either. not that she doesn’t love her darling husband, but the way they work together isn’t quite what she wants for her beautiful baby boy. Harry will grow up however he sees fit, however the wizards raise him, there's no point in Petunia getting attached anyways.
—
Petunia Dursley purses her lips in the window, bony arms crossed and hip resting against the countertop. Somewhere, some withered part of her has remembered that it still has roots.It refuses to become unrooted. Harry plucks dandelions from the garden. She cannot pluck this feeling from her chest.
For all that she looks the other direction, she never does end up telling Vernon about the whole magic thing.