His Mother's Eyes
Summary: A short one-shot of Harry's childhood from his Aunt Petunia's pov. Words: 811. Rated: K. Warnings: Mild child abuse.
Petunia Dursley could never say that she loved her nephew. She didn't. But she couldn't say that she hated him either.
Magic was what she hated. Magic was what had stolen her sister from her, what made Petunia herself always second best….what had, in the end, killed her sister. She hated magic, and it scared her - it was just so unnatural. And Lily was always right in the thick of it all. Lily, in whose hands dead flowers would blossom to life; Lily, who would practically glide through the air when they raced; Lily, who's scrapes and scratches would heal mere seconds after attaining them. But despite her fear of magic she had still loved her sister when they children, when she had been blissfully ignorant of the world that was fated to steal her beloved sister away from her. The world that had become the catalyst of her jealously.
Six years after that fateful night, when Lily's son had been so unceremoniously dumped on her doorstep, Petunia still struggled. Her own son, Dudley, meant the world to her, and was the reason she couldn't quite seem to decide how she felt about her nephew. Dudley, she had vowed, would not grow up feeling as she had felt - always second best, outshined by her magical sibling. She knew that if she took the boy in, he and Dudley would grow up side by side - like brothers - and the last thing she wanted was for Dudley to experience the jealously, and the betrayal of having a brother whisked off to a school of magic (as she knew was bound to be the boy's fate), while he was left behind. No. Dudley could not and would not be second best. And she did everything she could to make that clear to him. While Dudley owned two bedrooms of his own, Harry slept in a cupboard; while Dudley had more clothes than any six-year-old could wear, Harry wore ill-fitting cast-offs; while Dudley ate second helpings at every meal, Harry went without supper. The list went on and on. But despite the illusion she had crafted for herself that everything was as it should be, Petunia couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt every time she looked at her little nephew close enough to see the hurt in his brilliant green eyes...Lily's eyes.
It was a Saturday morning, and Petunia was in the kitchen about to start breakfast for her family. Her husband, Vernon, was sleeping in as he didn't have to go to work on a Saturday, and Dudley had the day off from kindergarten as well. She plopped the frying pan on the stove and started it heating up before fetching the bacon from the refrigerator. She had just gone over to the cupboard over the sink to retrieve three glass cups for the orange juice, when she heard a soft shuffling behind her. She turned around, only to see her little nephew standing uncomfortably in the doorway of the kitchen. She hadn't expected him to be up this early - it wasn't even 7:30 yet. But there he was. Behind him, in the hall, she could see the door to the cupboard under the stairs standing slightly ajar. "What do you want?" Petunia snapped. Harry's brow creased when she snapped at him, giving him a worried look. His eyes darted around, looking everywhere but at her.
"Aunt Tuna…? Can I...can I have something to eat please?" Petunia was just about to tell him that he could absolutely NOT have something to eat, and to send him right back to his cupboard, when his eyes finally met hers. She could see the pleading in those bright green eyes, and somehow it brought it to her remembrance that Harry hadn't eaten anything for the last two days - a punishment for playing with one of Dudley's toys outside in the garden. He was supposed to have been weeding the flower beds anyway. He knew that his punishment was only supposed to last two days, and obviously he had decided that the earlier he woke up, the earlier he could get some food for his aching stomach.
Normally she wouldn't have given in; normally she would have told him that he would just have to wait until the rest of the family woke up for breakfast: but normally he didn't look at her so intently with those bright, emerald green eyes. So, she relented. And it was worth it, to see the gratitude and relief that flooded the child's face when she handed him a strip of bacon and a slice of toast. Worth it to relieve that tiny nagging voice of guilt in her mind for just a minute (one that she normally tried to ignore), knowing that her sister's son, at the moment at least, wasn't suffering at her hand.