Bitter
Summary: Petunia Dursley hadn't always been this way. it was a result of a chain of events that happened in her life; all of which involved magic.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you may recognise. It all belongs to JKR.
AN: I'm currently suffering from writers block on my other stories so I thought that maybe I'd write some short fics about some of the characters that aren't written about so much. This is the first of, what I hope to be, many.
I look at my nephew, staring up at me with those big, almond shaped, emerald eyes. Lily's eyes. I look at him and I feel almost ashamed at the feelings I have, not hate - but close enough. He's a reminder of everything bad that has ever happened to me and my family and for that reason, I know I can never love him the way I should.
It's so cruel that a boy so young has already gone through so much, things that no one should ever go through. When I found him on my doorstep a month ago I was half tempted just to leave him there to freeze to death. After all he was nothing to do with me, was he? It was then that he decided to open his eyes and then my heart stopped. Something must have happened to Lily if he was there. She'd never willingly dump him, especially with me. We hadn't spoken face to face since she married that freak just out of school and only a few letters since, one congratulating me on the birth of Dudley and the other announcing the birth of her baby.
I read the letter that had arrived with him and with no self control I promptly burst into earth shattering sobs. My little sister was dead.
I hadn't always hated her. No. When we were younger we'd quite happily play together in the garden and help our mother tend to the flowerbeds. Our mother was a keen gardener (which is why she decided to name her children after flowers) and was ready to do anything to make sure that we would learn to love flowers too. It rubbed off on me, I am quite proud to say that I have award winning roses in my garden, but it failed to rub off on Lily.
When we were little I didn't mind the odd little outbursts Lily would have. Like that time that the boy from next door stole her favourite doll, Marigold, and his hair turned bright pink. I used to find them hilarious and would roll in the grass, my ribs hurting from laughing so much. I even stood up for her when she first started school and people teased her when she did something she shouldn't have. Then when I was about 8 and Lily 6 I began to realise that these things were abnormal.
I loved my sister though and so I decided to force these thoughts back into the back of my head where they could not be reached. After all you are supposed to love your family no matter what. We had been taught that ever since we were able to understand and it was forever drilled into us.
Then came that dreadful day back in May 1970 on Lily's eleventh birthday. I still remember it so clearly, as though it were only yesterday. An owl came tapping at the window at breakfast, scaring me half to death, with a letter attached to it's leg. Of course Lily, being the animal lover that she was, went and opened the window and took the letter off its leg before squealing in such a child like manner that the letter was for her. If she hadn't have let that stupid creature in then she wouldn't have gone to that - school - and I use that term loosely. I remember her jumping up and down excitedly, yelling that she was a witch and going to go to Hogwarts in September.
Hoping that it was some sort of practical joke on my parents part, as a gift to Lily on her birthday I joined in with a "that's great Lily, you'll have so much fun" but then when I glanced at my parents, who were wearing a look of wonder, the reality began to sunk in. My parents weren't that good actors and then I realised that this wasn't a joke as in the ha ha kind.
From that day on I began to avoid her. I couldn't stand to be in the same room with her and I'd taken to sleeping over my friends houses just to get away. I couldn't believe it. My sister was a freak. The same sister that I'd spent all my life having fun with; the same sister that I always stood up for when she was being teased. I shouldn't have bothered. Those people were right. She was weird and a freak.
What made matters worse was that my parents decided that having a witch in the family was some sort of gift and were absolutely fascinated with everything to do with magic. She'd come home during the holidays with tales of all the things that she had done and I had to put up with hearing about absolutely everything that happened there. My parents seemed to forget about me. Nothing I could have done would be enough to compete with her. I was normal. I worked hard at normal lessons such as Maths and English and often got good marks but that wasn't enough for my parents. Maybe they thought that as they only saw Lily once, maybe twice a year, they should try and make up for it in every way they possibly could. They should have still paid attention to me during term time, which they didn't. It was like I didn't matter anymore and I found myself wishing that she had never been born. If she hadn't life would have been so much easier and I wouldn't have had to deal with all this that I've been through.
I should have known it would have been trouble when I kept hearing the name James Potter come up. Even though she insisted that he was a prat and that she hated him I still knew deep down that something would happen, and sure enough it did. She started going out with him in her last year and then married him straight out of school. She even brought him home once to meet our parents. When he arrived I went straight up to my room and refused to come out. Being in the presence of one of them was bad enough but two under the same roof was just too much to cope with.
When I heard them go up to Lily's bedroom I found the chance to get him kicked out of the house, forbidden to ever see her again, and the chance for her to have been punished severely - hopefully by being banned from ever going back to school (even though she only had a few months left before finishing). I crept up to the door to listen so that I would have evidence of what they were getting up to.
"These dementors, they're horrible Lily. You don't understand, you haven't learnt about these sorts of things yet because Dumbledore wants to stop unnecessary panic, although he realises that soon enough people will have to know. They guard the Wizard prison Azkaban, that's part of the reason why everyone dreads going there. Dementors suck the happy memories out of you and feed on it and that's not the worst thing that they can do, their final punishment is…"
That was enough, I didn't want here anything else about these creatures of that prison. It was all stuff for freaks and I didn't need to listen to things that didn't concern me. Of course I like to know all the latest gossip about people so I can spread it. Who doesn't? That didn't mean that I needed to know everything going on in that world.
I decided to make my presence known at dinner, which I wish I hadn't have. I knew something was going on when Lily came home all smiles just before Christmas and she hadn't said anything until now. That was when all hope was lost.
"James and I are getting married in the summer." She had beamed.
My sister was marrying a freak. I'd have thought that she would have at least married someone normal. Someone who didn't carry a stick in their pockets. My parents were delighted and insisted on asking all sorts of questions about what Wizard weddings were like and so I managed to slip away quietly. No one even questioning my disappearance.
He wasn't the only boy she brought home over the years. She always insisted that the only boys she brought home were just friends and nothing more and at first I had never believed her. That was until I saw how she acted around him, that Potter. I knew that I had lost my sister forever, I knew because she acted like a girl in love who would do anything for them. One time she brought home a sickly looking boy who was pale and wore well worn clothes, that's if you could even call them clothes. He had introduced himself as Remus Lupin and they had moved into the living room to do some research for some summer holiday homework.
After I had stopped the tears upon news of my sisters death I began to curse magic. Magic was the source of all my pain, the source of everything bad that had ever happened in my life. Magic was the reason my parents were dead (they died in a car crash but I know it was that Lord I heard Lily mention once - in fact it was her fault because if she wasn't a freak then he wouldn't have targeted my parents); magic was the reason my sister was dead; magic was what killed me half inside; magic was the reason why another freak was living in my house.
If my parents had just paid a little more attention to me instead of overlooking me because I couldn't turn teacups into rats or silly, useless little things like that, maybe I wouldn't have hated Lily so much and if I hadn't have hated Lily so much maybe I could learn to love little Harry, as if he were my own.
If I squash the magic out of him I'll do the world a favour and maybe if that works he'll turn out to be normal and then I can treat him as part of the family. After all, he is the only part of Lily I have left, and even though I try and try to deny it, I still love my sister just a little bit.
AN: Remember I love reviews, especially ones with constructive critisism so that I can improve next time.
