Chapter Text
There is a find balance to be struck between contrition and belligerence. Some people never find it. Tuney Dursley did. She brought the baby inside, and found in his fragility an exact counterpoint to the bubbling fury that rose in her as she saw Dumbledore's letter. Its contents, too, exerted a balancing influence. Her sister was dead. The laughing child on the swing was gone, but even in her death there was something glamorous, something inaccessible. Lily's manner of dying was so alien, so fantastical, as to give it an unreal quality. The baby slept peacefully, and even that was oddly annoying. She saw in Lily's calm child a criticism of her own parenting, of her son, who had never slept a night through yet.
When she finally woke Vernon, Tuney noticed that he looked to her, not to the child. A glance was enough. He understood where she was placing the line. The child would be kept, but it must not be loved.
She watched her husband's hands tighten on the edge of the table, and then he moved abruptly.
"You'll have to find somewhere else to store the hoover," he said.