Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me. All rights go to JK Rowling/Warner Bros. I do not profit in any way.
A/N: This is a sequel to my one-shot 'Remember My Last'. I suggest you read that first, because there are references from it in here. It was requested by Dragonclaw289, so I hope they like it! Even if it did take me two months to actually start writing ;)
Enjoy!
Leaving Harry
It was time.
Petunia had been preparing for this day all summer. It was finally time to leave the boy with the untidy black hair and the green eyes behind.
It was time to leave her nephew.
Petunia woke early that morning, just like the day that Harry first came into her life. She sat up and looked round at her husband. His right eyebrow was twitching slightly in his sleep. She smiled, lifted her legs off the mattress, and slid her feet into the white slippers sitting on the floor. Petunia crept towards the door, slipping on her white dressing gown as she closed it quietly behind her, careful not to wake Vernon.
Petunia walked quietly down the landing, and opened the next door along. Dudley was sleeping like a log. She smiled proudly - he looked so much like his father. Dudley's sullen teenage expression was lost when he slept – he looked content. Far more content than he had been even as a child.
She looked round at the expensive objects that surrounded her sleeping son, and sighed. Had they done right by spoiling him as they had? Petunia didn't know. She had just wanted her baby boy to be happy, like she had been once.
She withdrew her head, and made her way to the stairs, purposely bypassing the last door on the right.
Petunia walked down the stairs slowly, a vivid memory of how she had bounced down them sixteen years before playing in her mind. It was different now. She gripped the handrail tightly, not wanting to fall.
Enthusiasm had given way to cynicism.
Petunia stepped over the creaky step carefully, lowering herself onto the one below.
She sat at the kitchen table, looking round at the spotless room, saying a silent goodbye. She had no idea if she would come back here. She dreaded the concept, but knew that these precautions were necessary.
She had spent most of the summer convincing Vernon that they had to go. She knew that world far better than her husband did. It was the one that killed her.
She would not let those freaks hurt her again. She had vowed to that years before.
As she brewed a mug of black coffee, Petunia subconsciously allowed herself to think of her nephew. Harry. He was still so young, not even seventeen yet. But from what she could gather, he was in danger. It was like history was repeating itself; like mother, like son. She immediately tried to banish this thought.
'Stop it, Petunia,' she scolded herself internally, 'you don't care about the boy, he'll be fine. As long as Vernon and Dudley are safe, that's all that matters.'
She shook her head and tried to think of something else.
Harry stayed up in his room at breakfast, Petunia noticed; as she served up bacon for her husband and son – who, of course, had their eyes stuck to the plasma screen.
"Thanks, Mum," said Dudley when she brought his plate over. Maybe the school was finally working; her son seemed to have gained a lot more manners over the last couple of years.
"You're welcome, Dudders," she smiled at him.
Vernon didn't acknowledge his breakfast, nor thank his wife. Petunia knew he was grateful though, even if he didn't say it very often.
She opened the fridge, and grabbed a melon quarter for herself.
Petunia stood at the doorway, eyes transfixed on Harry.
She was beginning to question herself. It was clear to her now she was leaving, that she did care about the boy with the lightning scar. Of course she did.
Petunia heard her husband rev the engine impatiently, and her stomach tightened. She wasn't ready yet.
Dudley was talking to Harry. Petunia's jaw dropped. It seemed that she wasn't the only one in this family who cared for Harry.
The two boys exchanged a few more words, and then Dudley moved past her to join his father in the car.
And then it was just Harry and Petunia. Petunia and Harry.
Aunt and nephew.
Lily's only living relatives.
She looked into Harry's eyes... Lily's eyes. The very same ones she had been avoiding for sixteen years. And suddenly there was so much Petunia wanted to say, so much that she had held back over the years.
She wanted to wish him luck, to tell him to be safe, be careful. She wanted to gather him in her arms and tell him she was sorry. She wanted to sit him down and tell him about Lily, exactly as she remembered her. The way she laughed, the way she smiled... and the way she cried. How she hated discrimination in any form, and always fought for what she believed in.
But she didn't do any of that.
She didn't do anything.
Petunia stood like a statue, looking at her nephew. And then she turned, and stepped onto the very same doorstep she found him on so many years before.
As she got into the passenger seat beside her husband, Vernon turned the radio up. Petunia stared into the wing mirror longingly as they swung round the corner, and watched until the house was out of sight. She blinked rapidly to stop the tears that threatened to fall.
She cared about Harry, she knew that now.
Loved him, in fact.
But some habits were hard to break.
A/N: So there it is. I hope you liked it!
Please review! :)
Love,
Untiltheveryend7 xx