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Petunia Dursley, once Evans, once ambitious and loving, was a foolish woman.
She was brittle, muted with age, shadowed by grief, chased by actions long made and consequences followed. She lay in bed, tossing and turning and mentally cursing the man beside her, thinking of bright green eyes living in darkness. There was flaming red hair, curly brown locks, a round face versus starving lips, sharp cheeks, and protruding ribs.
She thought of a girl named Lily. Lily who was once her sister. Lily who was now dead.
She thought of a boy named Harry. Harry who was Lily’s son. Harry who was twelve and starving.
Petunia Dursley, now bitter and glaring and two-faced, sat up in her bed and, for the first time in a decade, she felt regret. It bit at her mind and soul, taking chunks and devouring them, pulling them from her thin body, piercing her skin and bleeding her dry.
She looked at her husband, Vernon, but he slept on peacefully. His large body rose and fell with every breath, blissfully unaffected by the downfall of his wife. She wondered if he dreamed, before remembering who exactly her partner was.
(She was nineteen and content, rocking a bald, red-faced, sleeping baby in her arms. Vernon stood behind the chair, large hands on her shoulders.
The baby was cooing in his sleep, gentle noises exhaled with every breath. Petunia remembers the first time she ever felt that indescribable unconditional adoration, the feeling of having a heart so large that it might explode, and the first time wasn’t for Dudley. Instead, a baby with red curls and emerald eyes. But at this moment, hours after bringing her baby home from the hospital, a week after birthing him, she recognised this emotion again.
“I wonder if he’s dreaming,” She murmured, brushing a hand over his head. “I wonder if he dreams at all.”
Vernon snorted, patting his right hand heavily against her should. “Don’t be silly, Pet, men don’t dream an’ our boy is gonna be a man, a proper one.”
Petunia wanted to sigh and say ‘he isn’t a man yet, Vernon, he’s a baby’. She did not say this. She merely ran her fingers over Dudley’s face, tracing his button nose with her fingertip and smoothing his cheek with a knuckle.
But Vernon continued, “Dreams are stupid things, Pet. We shouldn’t dream… in fact, I forbid it. There will be no dreaming in this house.” His voice was gruff and harsh and again he patted his hand against her shoulder.
Petunia’s wedding ring had yet to feel heavy on her hand. She had yet to entirely fall flat at her husband’s feet.)
The curtains were pulled shut in the bedroom, but she wished they were open, along with the window. She wished she could see the stillness of the inky night sky, rather than the floral wallpaper and bedspread, the swirled ceiling and the family photos lining the walls. There was no family of four. No Harry.
It was suffocating. All too much all of a sudden.
She leapt from the bed towards the window, forgoing the slippers that she passed. With a shaking hand - Petunia did not know when the tremor in her veins started, perhaps this morning when Snape arrived, perhaps eleven years ago when her nephew was left on her doorstep, perhaps even seventeen years ago when the youngest of the Evans household become a witch - she pulled back the curtain.
Fumbling with the lock, she pushed open the window. For the first time all night, she breathed deeply.
The fresh air was calming, cool against her face, but not cold as it was the start of summer and Britain was warm. Her hair, beige and greying, fell ungracefully around her neck and down her back; her nightdress was lopsided and bunched against the left of her hip. But her eyes were open more than ever. For that, she was grateful.
“Petunia?” There was a grunt from behind her. Vernon had rolled over and was blinking blearily at her, disturbed. “What in the bleedin’ hell are you doing? Come back to bed, woman, and shut that window.”
It took all she had to force herself to smile at him. “It’s okay, dear, go back to sleep. I’m just going to get a glass of water.”
She succeeded in soothing him. As she closed the window and pulled the curtain, he fell asleep.
She left the bedroom and stepped into the hallway. The carpet was plush beneath her feet and with a stuttering heart, she realised this was because of Harry. He had spent his time hoovering and cleaning. She had watched but never thought and never noticed the wrongness of it all.
There were two doors on the opposing wall. First, Petunia entered the left.
Dudley’s bedroom was bright. Blue and white striped wallpaper on the walls, colourful toys littered the floor and built lego adorned the shelves. The electronics sat in a corner. Petunia could count three screens. The boy himself lay in bed, oblivious to his mother’s mistakes and inadequate parenting.
Petunia remained at the door for god knows how long. She watched his breaths, She listened to the silence. He no longer made noises in his sleep. He no longer dreamed.
After a while, she entered the next door, the last bedroom in Number 4 Privet Drive. This bedroom was full of broken things.
Broken toys. Broken furniture. Broken people.
An exhausted, traumatised boy. Starved, neglected and worked.
In this room, Petunia felt no peace.
She moved forwards and sat at the edge of the bed. Harry did not wake as the thin mattress dipped. He did not move as she pulled the worn blanket further around his shoulders.
Petunia watched him and wondered if he dreamed. She wondered if his heart was made of gold like Lily’s had been, if he saw the world in glistening colours and lived in the light rather than the shadows.
But then, she realised. Harry had lived in the shadows his whole life. She had forced him into that cupboard and in doing so, she condemned him to darkness.
Maybe he was like her with a stone heart. Her blood ran cold and her body was frozen in the past, meddled by time and grief and sorrow. Maybe his was too. Or maybe he was something else entirely.
Petunia was ordinary. She was plain and boring, there was no speck of abnormality or creativity in her slender body. Petunia had no magic in her and had no way to know the depths of another’s soul and heart.
Sbe watched Harry sleep, the only thought in her head being apologies.
Last summer, he had returned from that foul school, grinning but worn and flinching. He gave her a handwritten letter detailing the unfortunate events of his school year. The letter was written in a dramatic, cursive script she hadn’t seen in years. Albus Dumbledore.
How she cursed that man.
This year, she had been visited in person by none other than Severus Snape, the plague of her childhood, the start of her misery.
It was disconcerting seeing Snape in her living room. His face had aged dramatically in the years since Petunia had last seen him. Although he had gained wrinkles and lost his youth, his eyes had not changed. Black. Piercing. Imposing. Threatening.
Petunia does not know what Lily had ever seen in Snape, even as a boy she remembers him to be hard and calloused. Safe to say, Snape had not softened with age.
He sat on her sofa, back straight, wearing black head to toe. Even his boots remained. He was a sore thumb amongst her obnoxious decor. Black shoes - white carpet. Solid robes - patterned wallpaper. Greasy hair - auburn tresses.
“What are you doing here?” Petunia asked sharply, glaring from across the room. She would not sit next to him. She would not smile at him. She would not honour him and his darkness.
Snape sneered back. “I apologise for imposing, Mrs Dursley. I merely have a few things to speak of about your nephew, Mr Potter’s, school year.”
Petunia cut in sharply, her fingers clenched against the fabric of her sleeves, “I don’t care for the freak school, Snape. What happens during Harry’s school year is not under my watch and therefore not my problem!”
But Snape did falter. “I will put this in simple terms for you. The school was endangered this year, attacked by a force capable of grave casualty and Harry Potter was critical to its downfall-”
“That world does not concern me!”
“-during this incident, Mr Potter was injured and as one of his professors, as the Principle of Health in Education, it is my responsibility to check Mr Potter’s welfare.”
Petunia drew in a deep breath before sighing, “You aren’t going near Harry and you’re not waving that horrid thing in my home.”
Snape nodded once and Petunia thought he had resigned.
“If that’s what you wish.” He bowed his head and stood from the sofa. Like this, he was a head taller than Petunia.
She stepped to the side as he strode towards the door.
A foot away, he paused.
“I wonder what Lily would think of the blatant neglect towards her child’s health, Tuney, the mistreatment of her son’s body and mind,” As usual, this was accompanied by a sneer and a withering glare… yet, this time, Petunia saw something else shine in Snape’s dark eyes. Sinister but longing and, if she was correct, empathy.
“The boy is in the garden, tending to my roses. Be quick. No magic.”
He strode past, the noise of his heeled shoes against the carpet muted but terrifying, a wicked, winning smirk on his face. He had persuaded her with Lily and false feelings.
Petunia sunk onto the couch, head in her hands and counted the seconds until she heard the front door open and slam shot.
In the hallway, Harry stood, holding a colourful, steaming vile in each hand. When he saw Petunia, he froze.
“Erm - Aunt Petunia, I didn’t-” his eyes were wide with what Petunia realised was fright.
She closed her eyes briefly. “Pour them down the drain,” she ordered. When Harry didn’t move, she repeated her words. “Pour them down the drain, boy.”
The bright colourful liquid was created by death and caused by death and death wouldn’t touch her family. She won't allow it.
Harry poured the potions down the sink before washing the basin thoroughly. The potions and the professor were not mentioned again.
(“What were they for?”
“Huh?”
“The things from that wretched man!”
“Oh.. er, one was to cure headaches and one was muscle pain relief.”
Petunia left and returned half an hour later with a new pack of ibuprofen and a pot of tiger balm.)
Petunia Dursley, longing to return to Petunia Evans, sat on the end of Harry Potter’s bed and cried. Silently, tears dripped down her cheeks and she did not dare to wipe them. Her thumb smoothed over the blanket. Her wedding ring felt immensely heavy on her hand.
She sat there for a long time, thinking of red hair and death and the misfortune that seems to curse her family. She thinks of scalding skin beneath an eleven-year-old palm, she thinks of green light and a fallen mother, she thinks of grief.
“Harry,” she says quietly but firmly after wiping her face. The skyline was turning orange as the sun began to rise.
“Harry,” she shakes his shoulder, “wake up. It’s time to leave.”