Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me. All rights go to JK Rowling/Warner Bros. I do not profit in any way.
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Remember My Last
Petunia Dursley bounced down the stairs, with enthusiasm that belonged to a still-young woman. Her short blonde hair swung around her out-of-proportion neck as she jumped the creaky step (not wanting to wake her husband and young son), and pushed the shiny handle down on the kitchen door. Humming a popular muggle tune softly, she grabbed the two empty milk bottles from the kitchen counter, and began to wash them out carefully. Petunia thought that it was despicable when people left their milk bottles out for the milkman dirty.
She opened the front door quietly, and set the milk bottles down. As she straightened up, she gasped in shock.
A small baby – far smaller than Dudley – was lying abandoned on her doorstep, both of his tiny fists clutching a letter addressed... to her...
Petunia grabbed the doorframe for support, but nevertheless slid down the wall until she was sat on the hallway carpet, still staring dumbfounded at the bundle with the shock of jet black hair, and the letter...
Petunia Dursley
The Front Doorstep
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
With shaking hands, Petunia gently uncurled the sleeping toddler's fist and picked up the letter.
What Petunia Dursley read on that strange yet familiar yellowing parchment changed her life forever.
Petunia sat still as a statue; still staring at the letter she had finished reading. She couldn't comprehend... she couldn't make sense of what she had just read. Her sister couldn't be dead. It was impossible. Lily.
Large teardrops fell onto the parchment, blurring the ink into pools of deep blue; the ink swirling in the saltwater like a whirlpool.
Petunia looked around at her nephew, still laid on the front doorstep. She was responsible for him now. And it scared her to death. Slowly, she got on her hands and knees, and picked up the bundle gingerly. She hadn't realised how cold it was. Of course; it was November 1st, and Harry's cheeks were like ice. Petunia closed the door gently, and took him into the living room, laying him down on the sofa whilst she got down on her knees beside him.
Petunia studied the baby carefully. She couldn't see any of Lily at all in his sleeping form. Maybe this was all an elaborate practical joke? She pounced on this thought, and she looked down at the baby in contempt, rubbing her tears away angrily. What was she supposed to do with it? Her sister obviously wasn't dead. This was all just a cruel joke. She was sure of it.
Just as Petunia was planning to take the baby to the police station, Harry opened his eyes. And Petunia was slapped around the face with sudden realization – an unwelcome clarity. He had her eyes. This meant that this boy was indeed her nephew. Which, in turn meant that the letter had been telling the truth; Lily was dead.
Petunia's grief snatched her from where she sobbed on the floor, and into a sea of memories.
All she could hear was Lily's voice.
Her first word: Tuney.
The crinkle of her eyes as Petunia tickled her as a toddler.
Her carefree laugh as they played as children.
The red hair that Petunia had always been jealous of rippling in the summer breeze.
The sparkle in her deep green eyes when she had her elder sister's approval.
The pleading with Petunia not to hate her for being magical.
The flash in those distinctive eyes when she hadn't replied.
She started crying even more heavily, her stomach hurting and her nose streaming.
"I'm - so - sorry – Lily..." she whimpered; thinking of the way she had treated her baby sister. Her only sister. And it was all out of jealousy. Petunia felt physically sick. 'Freak' was the last word she had uttered to Lily...
Harry Potter was still gazing up at his aunt, with inquiring eyes. He didn't cry; he just stared with his familiar green eyes. Petunia tried to quiet her grief, and looked back at him. She noticed something that she hadn't before. A strange cut, on his forehead, Petunia ran her finger over it gently. A lightning bolt. Odd.
Finally, she brought herself to look into Harry's eyes again. Lily's eyes. Here was the only thing that Lily had left behind; her only child. She couldn't let anything happen to him.
She wondered absently whether Harry would be like his mother. Magical.
That was when the shutters came down. Petunia decided that she could not love the boy. Not if he was like her. He would be magical too, and he would get hurt. Just like Lily did. She would not become attached – and she couldn't get hurt.
As his aunt came to this resolution, Harry began to cry.
Over the years, Petunia continued to believe that she did not care for the boy. She was strict and unforgiving to Harry – so unlike the way she treated her own son – to prove it to herself. Yes, Petunia was determined not to become attached. She often avoided looking into Harry's eyes, for when she did, she saw the sister that she had lost at such a young age. And loved so much.
But of course, despite Petunia's resolution, she loved Harry Potter. How could she not, Harry being so similar to her baby sister?
And although Petunia denied that she cared for her nephew; when Harry split from the family sixteen years later, she worried as only a mother could.