Petunia Dursley sat as still as a statue. Her now empty glass of wine dangled dangerously in her right hand. Her eyes stared without seeing at the television, which was not turned on. The switch in her head had been turned off completely, which was quite a relief to her. If it had been in motion, the tears would have never stopped. Petunia Dursley had not been in this state 24 hours ago. But that was before. Before she had become an only child- an orphaned, only child.
"I don't see why that good-for-nothing sister of yours had to INVITE herself over!" Vernon Dursley roared in anger. I couldn't seriously blame my husband for his response.
You see, my sister and I did not have a good relationship, and that was putting it quite lightly. Vernon and I wanted nothing to do with them, and we made that point very clear to them; Vernon nearly set fire to an owl they had sent us. We did not show up at the wedding. I ignored her birthday. Vernon had me burn the picture I had of their son.
"I will not have a pair of those people showing up on my doorstep Petunia! Do you hear me? I certainly will not!"
"Yes, yes dear, I hear you," I mumbled softly.
"Then why the ruddy hell did you say yes? Why did you even bother responding to them?" Vernon's face was turning purpler as the seconds passed. I, fearing his cholesterol, went to fetch him a brandy before answering his inquiries.
"Oh Verny, I couldn't ignore her! She had me cornered, that woman did!" It was technically the truth. I had been at the station, just getting back from visiting my sickly god-mother. I had just walked onto the platform when she walked up to me. Personally.
I hadn't seen my sister in many years. How many was it now?
"It's been, what, nearly four years now?" Lily murmured, reaching for my hand. I pulled away sharply, and thought I saw hurt register in her eyes. I blinked, and the look had been replaced by genuine happiness. "Oh Tuney, I've missed you."
There was that nickname again. Tuney. Had it been anyone else calling me that name, I would have crossly told them that my name is Petunia Dursley, thank-you very much and I never want to hear you say that name again. It was my sister though, and the words seemed right at home coming from her mouth.
"Yes," I found myself saying, "I've missed you too." I hadn't realized how true the words were neither before that moment, nor at that moment either really. Not until I had gotten home, had the truth really sunk in: I miss my baby sister.
"I have been thinking, hoping really, that maybe I could come visit you?" Lily looked like my baby sister again, asking to borrow one of my dollies.
"Aren't we visiting right now?" I asked, my voice sounding much harder than I had wanted. She looked a little... crestfallen.
"Well, yes, I guess you could say we are. I just wanted to know whether it would be alright with Vernon if I could come over." She posed the words as a question, and paused meekly before continuing on. "Not today, heavens no, I know how you get whenever you have visitors, but maybe... Maybe we could do something in the next few months?"
She looked so excited that I couldn't possibly tell her 'no' right then and there. I knew immediately that Vernon would not have liked to see Lily at all, but there was a yearning inside of me that threw caution to the wind.
"I would love to Lily. I'm sure that my Duddykins would love to meet his Aunty Lily." Lily beamed when I said this. I half wished I hadn't mentioned Dudley; what if her abnormalities washed off onto him? Oh what rubbish Petunia, I thought to myself. That isn't possible. You sound like Vernon, muttering on about nonsense when he gets angered.
"Oh I would really love to meet him!" I had become quite alarmed when Lily's eyes filled with tears; crying was not something that my fiery-tempered sister was known for. "Oh hell, children make you so weepy sometimes! Half of these nights I don't know whether I'm shedding tears of happiness or sadness!"
I laughed at that, knowing the same exact feeling, and before I knew it, I was starting to cry too.
The tears stopped after some time, and I found myself walking down the BUSY London street with my sister. "So, when are you free?"
I sighed. "I don't know Lily. Aunt Josephine isn't doing well. They say she has only a few months left, and are predicting she will die sometime July. I'm going to be going back and forth for a while. Not to mention that Vernon isn't in a very good mood, as he's been trying to get this promotion at work which is making him rather grumpy, and Dudley hasn't been feeling well. I think we should see what's going on in a few months." I felt very much like I was blowing Lily off, but she seemed very sympathetic.
"Oh yes of course! I'm very sorry about Aunt Jo, Petunia; it must be so hard on you. Why not say we get together some time in October? Like Halloween, when we have had a few months to prepare." She smiled and gave a little chuckle. I nodded and we walked the rest of the way in silence. We walked until we came upon a little coffee shop, and we decided to go in.
"Well, what have you been up to?" Lily asked, after ordering a cappuccino for herself and I. "We haven't received any owls back from you, so decided not to send anymore. We sort of forget sometimes, how much of an embarrassment it must have been for you."
We took a seat at one of the tables. I felt ashamed, looking at Lily's downcast gaze. So she knew. She knew about how we hated the owls, she knew how we hated the fact that they were... Well, that they were not normal.
"Oh Lily, don't mind that! Vernon just hasn't... gotten used to how you people send your mail. Plus, I would have written back, really I would have, if I had known where you were staying..." Lily chanced a peek in my direction.
"Here, why don't I write my address? We can receive mail the same way you do, so if you ever want to talk you can just mail me a letter." She wrote down an address on a napkin and handed it to me before looking back down at her cup again.
"Tell me, Lily, how has your family been doing?" This was a path I had feared going down, but I knew it should perk my sister up again. I did not want to know about her kind of family, it was too different and weird, but I wanted my sister back again, so I had to take the chance.
"Oh! Well, we are doing great! Actually, great wouldn't really be the best word for it. Petunia, I really don't want to have to bring you down, talking about my life. The dangers of my life are certainly not important enough to push them onto you."
To say the least, she had my attention. "Danger? Lily, you are in danger? I thought you people could protect yourselves!"
"Well Tuney, you people have ways of protecting yourselves too, do you not? That doesn't stop violence though. It's just that there is this bad man. This really, really bad man who likes to cause havoc."
"Don't you all have police? Some sort of Government to stop this man? One man couldn't be causing so much chaos, could he?" I was now seriously pulled into her wacky world. What kind of people are they, if they can't protect themselves from one man?
"Well, of course we do, but they aren't very much help. Plus, it isn't just this man. He has followers. They do bad things to good people, to innocent people."
Her grave face and her serious manner of speaking threw me off slightly. "Lily," I asked tentatively, "What kind of things do they do?"
"They kill people Petunia. In the worst manner I've seen. They torture people who haven't done anything. Petunia, I've seen two men terrorize a whole village of Mu- of your people. It's dark times, in my world."
Two men, terrorize a whole village!
"That's only half of what they do. They kill people like me. They don't exactly think I belong in their world, because I came from a Muggle family. They want me dead."
"Lily!" My mother instinct was activating. "I don't want you anywhere near those kinds of people! They are no good, and I don't want to see you get hurt!"
"Oh Petunia, don't you see? I can't just walk away from it. You know me, I can't walk away from a good fight," I did know Lily. When someone had a problem with her, her temper would flair up and she would face them directly, no matter how much older they were than her.
I looked at my little sister, and wished for what I knew wasn't the first time that she was a little less head-strong and a little more careful. But that's Lily for you.
"Oh! Before I forget," Lily said suddenly, some cheerfulness in her voice again. "I brought you something!"
"Oh Lily, you shouldn't do that." I tried to insist. I was half filled with curiosity about what she could possible have for me, and half concerned about the almost frightening thought about how Lily knew she would see me today.
"Really, it's nothing at all," she said with a smile, and began digging into a little purse she was carrying. She produced a picture out of it, and handed it to me. There was a small boy in the picture, looking up at the camera in wonder. His beautiful eyes were wide with curiosity and the exact same as his mother's. He looked to be almost a year, maybe younger, but already had a head full of hair, some of it sticking up in the back. He was beautiful, and he was my nephew.
"Harry." Lily pronounced the name with such passion hidden underneath her voice. "I had a feeling you didn't have the last picture we sent you, and he's grown a lot since anyways. James wanted to take a 'proper' picture, with Harry waving at you, but I opted for a regular one, that didn't move."
Pictures. That. Moved. What would Vernon have said? I was very thankful for both the picture, and the state of it, but knew that if Vernon saw this one, he'd ask for it burned as well. It didn't slip my notice either, that Lily seemed to have figured out I didn't have the last one of Harry.
"He's beautiful." I stated. It aggravated me slightly, to see the state of his hair, but I didn't mention it; I had only once seen that husband of Lily's, and it was in a picture. His hair was embarrassingly messy, even if the picture had been one from their wedding. "I wish I had brought one of Dudley, but I had no idea I would be seeing you..." My voice trailed off, and again I considered inquiring about how Lily knew I'd be there.
Lily beamed, and then looked at her watch. "Oh dear, I should probably be getting home. James will be worried sick, I said I'd be back a half hour ago. I love him to death, but James can be so overprotective!" Her sigh sounded more like a chuckle.
"Yes, I wouldn't want to keep Vernon waiting either. Dinner needs to be made, and made before the six o'clock news comes on or else I'll never get him to eat it before its cold." My sigh sounded heavy and filled with none of the love Lily's had.
"Petunia, are you happy? I mean truly happy?" Lily's gaze was searching and filled with concern, but Lily wasn't the only one with a temper.
"Of course I am happy! How dare you jump to the conclusion that I was unhappy with my life! I have the most beautiful baby at home and a loving husband, and I will not stand here and be insulted by," The past had rushed back to me in a fleeting moment, and I spat out the last words with such anger. "By nothing less than a freak!"
"No, apparently you will not stand to be embarrassed by your own family." Lily's voice did not falter, but instead her face and voice hardened. "And neither will I. It seems that I have wasted my day here, when I could be home with my real family."
She turned her back and began making her way out of the café. I was filled with remorse at having once again turned away my sister, and made a decision I would later contemplate.
"Lily!" She stopped outside the door on the sidewalk of a busy London street. There were people pushing past her, but she managed not to get swept up in the crowd and waited for me to catch up.
"What do you want Petunia? You have made your opinion of me very clear." Lily sounded agitated and weary.
"The invitation is still open." My gaze searched hers ardently, hoping to find some of the sister I had just spent the last two hours with. "Come visit Dudley. Let me meet that nephew of mine. Please."
Lily looked at me for a long time before cracking a smile. "There's my Tuney." She turned away again, and took a few steps away from me. I was about to turn my back and walk to the bus stop at the next corner, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lily stop again.
I turned, thinking she was stopping to say something to me. She didn't turn round to see me. Instead, a man with black messy hair and brilliant hazel eyes behind his askew glasses ran up and wrapped his arms around her.
"Merlin, Lily!" I heard his slightly raised voice and slowly began inching towards the couple. He was out of breath and took a second to go on. "You had me in a right fright, you did! You know what kind of times we are living in!" His voice sounded angered and full of concern.
"James, I'm not that late! It's only been a half hour," her voice faltered when she looked at him. It wasn't that his face showed anger, but something about it could have silenced even me.
"A half hour could make all the difference Lily. It takes less than a second for one of them to kill someone." He paused and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "Do you have any idea what I would do if you were hurt while I was at home messing around with Sirius? I just- I can't live without you Lily Potter." At the end of his sentence, Lily wrapped her arms around the man and kissed him with such passion, I felt hot with embarrassment, like I was intruding on a privet moment between the two.
I turned my back on them and began walking to the corner. I had to hurry to catch the bus. The whole ride home, I replayed my whole day. I had spent an emotionally draining morning with my dyeing God mother, then ran into my sister whom I haven't seen in four years, then watched her husband kiss her like it was their first. Would Vernon have kissed me like that? Would Vernon even kiss me at all, if I had been home late? Would Vernon even bother to look for me if I was gone for longer than I said? I wished I could chase the thoughts out of my head, but Lily's words kept swimming back to me.
'Petunia, are you happy?'
"Are you happy now?" Vernon was yelling. "Happy that a bunch of freaks are going to appear on our doorstep for our neighbours to see? Petunia, are you listening to me?" I was pulled out of my memory by his yelling.
"I'm sorry Vernon, but it's a little too late to uninvite them! They are coming tomorrow." I reminded him, and his face darkened.
"Not if I had anything to say about the matter." With that statement, he seemed to think that the argument had ended.
I never liked it when Vernon yelled at me. Not that it happened often, but he did find things to be angry at. Whenever my sister was involved, he seemed to think I had meant to cause so much harm, and when I cause harm, I need to be set straight. Normally, I just let him let off steam, and then fetched him his brandy, but not this time.
"So what do you expect me to do?" I asked him, pursing my lips slightly. He turned his head to me and studied my face. I kept my expression hard, and slowly he answered.
"Call her, mail a letter to her, I don't ruddy know, but tell them they are not welcome in this house. I don't want Dudley mixing with that kind of family! If you want to see them so badly, pack a bag and move in with them." He snickered at that point, knowing he had me. I loved my sister, yes, but what would the neighbours say?
I turned my back to him and walked up the stairs to check on my Duddykins. I passed by my room, where I knew I had hidden the Potter's address. I snuck in there and scribbled a quick message down
Lily,
Terribly sorry about the short notice, but Dudley has suddenly come down with a flu! He is feeling very ill, and the doctors say that he shouldn't be around any unusual people- not that you are unusual, its just he doesn't know you yet. I don't want poor Harry getting sick either, so maybe we can reschedule?
Petunia
I took a look at the letter before sealing it, and then peeked my head into Dudley's room.