Title: Dreams at Midnight

Author: pkabyssinian

Disclaimer: I am not the woman who owns these characters, I just want to play with them.

Notes: First Harry Potter story, just my musings on Petunia. No smut, maybe a little swearing.

Petunia gave the slight grimace that she allowed herself as a smile as she realized that the boy was gone again until next summer. Vernon was still blustering about the boy but by now she had learned to tune both her husband and son out. Two of a kind, she mused morosely, feeling the twinge of guilt that always accompanied the thought. For a moment the sour look on her face softened somewhat and she felt a sharp, fleeting pride in how the boy was coming along. Although it appeared to be the opposite, she put more time into raising her sister's son than she did her own.

The boy, Harry, knew his place in the world. Knew that he was unwanted and that no one, not even family, would help him. The boy was self-sufficient, able to fight his own battles; he didn't look to anyone for comfort or compassion. Which was important to Petunia who knew that life, like family, did nothing but disappoint. The boy was the wizarding world's great hope, and at this thought the sneer returned, but they did nothing but coddle the boy which Petunia felt would ultimately hinder him.

Her treatment of Harry was calculated and well thought out, as well as the petty and minor abuses she allowed both herself and her husband to perform on the boy. Her own child simply took his cues from his parents and Petunia liked to believe that she would be able to stop Dudley if he ever tried to seriously hurt Harry. Although, a small part of her chimed in, it could only help the boy if Dudley did do him harm. Learn to work through the pain, learn to keep going against such odds. Not unlike what Dumbledore had planned for Harry, but at least Petunia was a realist and didn't pretend that the boy would prevail against the Dark Lord.

Oh yes, how horrified her husband would be if he knew just how closely tied the wizarding world Petunia was. She knew all about Voldemort and Hogwarts, about witches and wizards, and that she was actually well-versed in magical world. Not that she had any magic of her own, mind you, not really. All the talent, as well as beauty, went to Lily. What good had that done her? Lily had died young while Petunia was left behind to raise her sister's progeny. She could remember how proud her own parents had been when Lily had turned eleven and received her acceptance letter into Hogwarts. Two other wizard schools had also accepted her, but Lily had gone to Hogwarts and her doom.

At this thought Petunia gave a dignified sniff, repressing the memory of how for a year after that Petunia had awaited her own letter from the school. Longing through the months while she read and re-read each letter Lily had sent home, determined that when her time came she would know all that she could about Hogwarts. But the summer of her eleventh year came and went without a single owl. Lily's green eyes, full of sorrow and pity, had followed Petunia through the long months, somehow knowing Petunia's dark secret. A hardness had grown in Petunia then, a rockiness that had taken hold and spread over the years.

In Lily's fifth year of schooling she had confided her own secrets to her sister, burdening Petunia beyond their young years. Lily was a sibyl. Not a particularly good one, nor a powerful one, nor was she a frequent one. But darling Lily would catch glimpses of the future as it related to her and her sister. Lily's largest secret was that she was in love; hopelessly, madly, passionately in love. But she would be marrying someone else, and that her time was short. Lily had known that she was going to die young, but her limited divination skills didn't bother to tell her why or how to prevent it. So Lily had accepted her fate with a calmness and a determination that Petunia couldn't understand. In fact, Petunia would have been shocked to know that she had taken on the care and raising of Harry with same equanimity that Lily had gone to her death with.

Petunia began to hate Lily's calm acceptance of things. Petunia, no matter what face she showed the world, still doted on Lily and feared loosing her only sister, knowing that there would be nothing left of Lily in the world. How wrong she had been, how foolish to believe that Lily would die and leave her in peace. No, Lily's spawn skulked around Petunia's home glaring at her with Lily's eyes. And the boy was just like his mother; he sent the same frisson across her skin that Lily had, Petunia was cursed with the ability to feel magic in others but carried none of her own. So she knew that it would only be a matter of time (ten years, to be exact) before the owls would arrive for the boy. Harry, it seemed, was more powerful than his mother for his 'accidents' with stray magic were more frequent and less benign than Lily's had been. Harry, it seemed, also had all the talent; for her own Dudley seemed to have no talent for anything but eating and being a bully. Another pale hope squashed.

She would never admit this to her husband, or to her family, but Petunia had married Vernon for one reason only. He had, she could feel it, a slight bit of magic of his own. She had hoped that together they would produce an offspring that would fulfill Petunia's dashed dream of attending Hogwarts. Who knew that the Dursley genetics would breed so strongly and she would be stuck with two of them.

Bitterness and resentment would well within Petunia whenever she thought about what her life would be like if she had been as blessed as Lily had been. If she had been beautiful and a witch, she certainly wouldn't have gone so tamely to her fate. She wouldn't have married that thrice damned Potter and she never would have ended up where she was now -–trapped and growing older. The closest thing she had to love was the care she put into the boy's upbringing, making sure that he would be ready when Dumbledore, professional nutcase and all around sadistic bastard, threw Harry to the wolves. Petunia hated the brand of treachery that Dumbledore practiced, cultivating the wise and benevolent persona when in reality she could see how skillfully and thoroughly he manipulated and toyed with all those around him. The old bastard didn't have a shred of guilt to risk the lives and souls of those who gathered to him and in that she envied him.

But for now peace had returned to her little kingdom. She didn't control factions of people like Dumbledore, but she had a firm hand in how her own home was run. All she had to do was occasionally give in to Vernon's will and continue her pampering of her offspring. All of it paled in comparison to her stray memories of when Lily was alive. Her sister used to tease her that she had met Petunia's male counterpart at the hated Hogwarts. A thin, sallow boy who hated the world with as much passion as Petunia did. Lily would giggle and poke fun at her only sister, saying the two would be perfect for each other. Petunia would quickly become enraged at the joke, covering up any other emotions that she might have with her quick temper. Lily eventually apologized, making the situation worse by softly telling Petunia that the studious boy from Slytherin would be important to Lily's son, not Lily's sister.

It was at times like that Petunia would know the wish of her heart – that she would have the ability to hate Lily cleanly. That she wouldn't find her hatred blunted by the love she bore for her sister and the pain that she carried knowing that Lily would leave her eventually. Lily was her tenuous link to the world of magic, where dreams could be realized. Her own pale eyes would meet Lily's vivid green ones, a clear deep green that would cloud over and become murky and dark like a pond choked to death by weeds and scum when she looked at her sister. In those moments Petunia wanted to shake her sister and demand to know what Lily saw, what would make her look so vulnerable and sad.

Late at night, now that the boy was gone, Petunia would sneak downstairs and stare out the kitchen window allowing her traitorous mind to remember Lily and their childhood. Some nights silent tears would track down her cheeks unheeded as she silently raged about the injustice of the world. At least she knew she was doing her best, and as Lily had once told her not all love was shown with kindness. Sometimes love was sharp and it would tear at its recipients with a vengeance. That was the kind of love Petunia understood, the kind she doled out upon her nephew.

Petunia hardened her heart against everyone and everything. There were times when she thought perhaps she never should have married, instead she should have been an old maid who would be able to raise Harry without any interference. With the inheritance from Lily and James she would have been able to restart her life and the compensation she received from Dumbledore and his Order she would have been comfortable her whole life. But no, she chose her path before Lily died and she was tenacious enough that she wouldn't leave it now, certainly not just to make her own life easier.

It was always better when the boy left these days. It stopped her from having to bite her tongue and asking him questions. His almond shaped eyes would track her movements some mornings and she could see some of the same knowing that Lily had lurking in him. Really, she just wanted to discern if he knew anyone that might match the description Lily had given her a lifetime ago. But it was better is she didn't know, if she gave the impression of not caring. Indeed, it had almost become second nature to thoughtlessly use verbal abuse against the boy. It gave her a deep satisfaction when he would hunch up his shoulders and drop his head, as if he were trying to make a smaller target. That told her that they boy at least had some survival instincts. Instincts that Lily seemed to have lacked.

Occasionally, a harsh dry sound would escape Petunia, her version of a laugh. Perhaps Lily had known all along how bitter and hopeless her sister would turn out and had chosen to go to her death instead of watching Petunia grown older and nastier. Fate wasn't just for the vibrant and pretty, even the ugly and discontent would be tapped by destiny and forced to complete their roles before released.

Weariness finally overwhelmed her. It warmed her to remember how coldly the boy had stared at her before he left. It meant that she was doing her job, Lily would be proud. How sad, her whole life she had tried to get away from being defined by her sister and yet everything she did was to validate Lily's presence. With the only blood relative she had left she was driving an insurmountable wedge between them, perhaps it would hurt less when Voldemort killed Harry the way he had Lily. Petunia yawned and headed for her bed, which would be warmed by Vernon's bulk.

Unknown to the world, and to Petunia as well, when she settled in to sleep her face relaxed and lost it's nervous tension and the similarity between her and Lily was more pronounced. You could see the same sharp beauty that Lily had etched in the bones of Petunia's face. But Petunia had grown up all angles and sharp lines that hid the grace that Lily had worn so blithely. At times Petunia was struck by the fact that Harry's body looked like her own when she was growing up; too thin, too angular, and with knees and elbows getting in the way. But she never saw the link between her and Lily, never knew that she carried a bit of her sister in her own lanky frame.
Petunia slipped between the sheets and allowed herself the comfort of dreams. She never made the mistake of expecting their ephemeral nature to alter the course of the waking world, but at times they could bring her a measure of peace. Sometimes it was the best dream, where Lily married the man she had loved and Petunia made an equitable agreement with the boy from Slytherin and they all lived. There was no Harry, or Voldemort, or Dumbledore, or Vernon. There was no death, no slow decline into bitterness and hatred. Just a state of being where life continued… Petunia could wish for that, couldn't she? In her sleep a sad, small smile hovered briefly on her lips before the dream, like real life, turned dark and desolate. Caught between sleeping and waking, Petunia knew her whole life would be like that before she settled down and forgot it all in dreamless sleep.