Halloween was the worst time of year.
If the hooliganism wasn't bad enough, then the begging was. It was not a date that sat comfortably with any self-respecting person of considerable worth. A title which Petunia felt herself and her family were most certainly afforded for they were, in her mind, a good sort of people; they paid their taxes, her husband had a respectable job and they lived in wealthy suburbia. Not the mention that they had rather charitably taken in her orphaned nephew as a baby.
Harry.
The young thing was looking more and more like his father with each day that past.
When it had had started, Harry's growing up that is, Petunia had started to wonder if he'd been given to her as a punishment. It had been a moment of weak, self-loathing when she had thought it but the idea resurfaced more often than not around this time of year. Nine years they'd had him. Nine years she'd been faced with the gleeful expression of the man who had taken her baby sister from her and dragged her into this mess.
She remembered vividly the letter Lily had sent her before they'd gone into hiding. Delivered by one of those ridiculous birds, Petunia had been more than ready to burn it and get along with her own life; Lily and she barely spoke and it was that alone - the curiosity - that made the elder sister break the seal and read what was inside. She didn't understand most of it of course. A lot of unbelievable rubbish about some radical political movement which Petunia had merely rolled her eyes at, believing they were probably just right-wing. Lily had never understood politics properly in Petunia's opinion; she was the sort to vote Callaghan in the last election instead of Thatcher. And so once the letter was done, Petunia merely tucked it away in her bedside draw and thought nothing of replying to it until November when, of course, there was no one left to reply to.
There was this child though.
She sat watching now as her son and nephew played in the garden; Dudley dictating that he would be the goody and Harry the baddy. Petunia could not help but smile at the sight: her son was so very perfect. She could see his life lined out now; he'd go to a prestigious school like Smeltings, get a job in the city and grow up to have his own brood of equally perfect children. His future was all so easy to imagine for it was the same future of most people in their position in society.
Harry however was not of their calibre. His future was more desolate. Surely she and Vernon couldn't be expected to fund him for the rest of his life! They were responsible for him until he was eighteen and then that was it; he would have to make his own way in the world. And before then, well, who knew?
The letter would surely arrive soon. Petunia remembered when it came for her sister; the beaming glow of Lily's young face as she boasted continuously of how she would be going to a special school, how she was a witch. A wave of bitterness gusted over the blonde haired woman at the very memory of it. She focused her eyes back on the magazine before her, ignoring as Dudley slammed Harry to the floor and maliciously played the part of the 'goody'.
A part of her, a large part, wanted to be rid of Harry. Let him go off to that school for freaks and give her a break from having to play parent to him. But letting him flounce off there would only bring more freaks into their lives. And look how involvement in freaks had ended for Lily.
No, she would have to sacrifice her own happiness for her family and let him stay with them. She sighed, walking inside to cook dinner then with an overwhelming thought that she was a miraculously good person.