Dead. She is dead. The word kept on echoing in her mind but she could not believe it. She did not want to believe it. It could not be true. She kept on telling herself that sentence, so she could finally admit the horrible truth. She should have been with her. She should have been by her side, just like she vowed it. She should have been there for Harry's birth. She should have been there for her wedding. All those moments she had wasted because of her jealousy... She never told her how much she loved her.
With Harry in one of her arm, Petunia read once again the letter Albus Dumbledore wrote to her in which he explained the previous night's event. Every word was like a dagger piercing her heart. But she needed to know what happened.
She heard footsteps down the stairs, her husband's heavy steps, heading to the living room. She quickly, yet neatly, folded the letter then tried to look more annoyed then broken.
"Good morning darl- Petunia! Who's that?" asked Vernon pointing at Harry.
"It's Harry, our nephew" she answered with her usual stiff manner, only to hide her grief. Vernon quickly stood up straight, closed as tight as possible his dressing gown, and looked around.
"How do they dare come here this early? This is disrespectful. I will not tolerate that. Not in my house!
"Calm down. They are not here."
"Oh, so they decided that we'd babysit their son? No, I won't. I have a son to look after. I'll tell them my way of thinking as soon as they come here. I won't let them-"
"They won't come. They…They're dead."
"What?"
He looked at her, surprised and confused. Petunia slowly stood up with Harry sleeping in her arms, walked to Dudley's playpen and put Harry in it. Standing with her back to her husband, she started, in a strangled voice, to tell what she should have said years ago.
"There's something you ignore about my sister, her husband…and the world around us. But before that, I ask you to listen to me, without interruption. Well…Lily is. No, was. She was a witch. I always knew that she was different, that strange things happened when we were just the two of us. When she was eleven, she went to a school for witches and wizards, Hogwarts, that's its name. There she met that Potter.
Apparently, in their world, there is a dark wizard, and my sister, her husband, and many others tried to stop him. He found them last night and murdered them. My sister, Lily died whilst trying to protect her son. He has no other family than us, Vernon. We have to take care of him, so my sister did not die in vain."
Vernon looked at his wife, who had turned around to plead. He was utterly shocked. He thought that she was joking – a sick kind of humour, by the way – but when he met her tearful eyes, he started to doubt. Maybe she was mad. Maybe she could not stand her sister's death so she made up a story where her sister was powerful and special and that she died a hero. Who could have wanted to kill a young couple of twenty-something with a baby?
He slowly came to her and tried to smile at her to calm her down, but his smile looked like a grim.
"You don't believe me, don't you?" she said as she pushed him away. "Well, look! It's the letter that was with him"
Vernon tried to deny but she did not listen to him and palmed the letter off on him. His eyes jumped between the lines across the piece of paper. For a few seconds, he stared at the letter, trying to retain all the new events. Finally, with a big effort, he understood the situation.
"Petunia, you said that the evil wizard wanted to kill them all, don't you think he'd want to kill him now that his parents are dead? That he'd want to finish the work?"
"You read the letter too. Dumbledore said that he died last night as well."
"Oh, and I should trust every word this old crazy one says?"
"Lily used to say that he was the greatest wizard."
"And what if he wasn't dead? Petunia, that child is dangerous. And", with a look of horror for the playpen, "he is one of them."
"And so was my sister. And since there was a witch in my family, there might be more in the future. It's in the genes, you know, like a disease. Dudley might be one of them."
"Don't say that!"
Vernon's face became red as he shouted and Petunia jumped. Upstairs, Dudley started to cry. The couple kept on staring at each other, angry, for a few seconds before Vernon finally left the room. Angry footsteps on the stairs, then upstairs, in their son's bedroom.
Petunia slowly came closer to the playpen to watch her nephew sleeping. Harry was peacefully lying, his green eyes wide open. Petunia let out a sobbing. These eyes…He had Lily's eyes. She fell on her knees, her hand holding the bars and her head against the pen. She cried, cried until she had no more tears to shed, cried until she could hardly breath, cried until she became exhausted. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Lily, I miss you. Lily, I love you, she kept on saying, like a prayer, hoping that her sister would hear her, gazing at Harry's green eyes.