The natural world is filled with natural and unatural things. Beautiful flowers that are eye blindingly bright, irridescent, multicolored, or carnivorous. Animals that seem to be bits and pieces of other animals. Trees that grow tall enough to touch the sky and small enough to graze the shoulders of foxes. Liquid earth and solid clouds and gaseous plasma. Stars that moved entirely too fast to be as far away as they were in the sky. Sicknesses that brought one to the brink of death and then disappeared without a trace. Children who died, saw everlasting life, and then came back to this wretched plane, with knowledge they couldn't and shouldn't know. Devices that could wipe out millions and devices that could save billions being one and the same. The world was full of amazing, awesome things, both natural and unatural. Sometimes they were one and the same, impossible to destinguish from each other.
The Dursleys were of the mind that there was good and evil in natural and unatural, respectively. Natural was a man having a job, going to work in the morning. Natural was his woman staying at home, taking care of their son who was growing into a fine, respectable young man. Natural was a clean car, a tended garden, tea parties with the neightbors. Life was almost natural for the Dursleys. The Dursleys were normal.
Petunia Dursley's nephew, Harry Potter, was decidedly not natural.
Petunia bounced her bulbous baby boy Dudley, trying to calm his wailing enough that he could finally suckle at his bottle. He had been cranky nonstop for a few weeks, nearly a month. Could Petunia blame him? When Lily's child had been dropped off at her door step, they had moved furnature around to give space to the quiet child. He was room-mate to her Diddykins, and Dudley had been throwing a fuss ever since.
"Hush, widdle Diddykins," Petunia murmured to her baby as he continued to holler. "Mummy will make sure that your cousin is never favored over you." Her assurances didn't calm him down, but she didn't really expect him to understand her. He was only a year old, and since he didn't understand her, one year olds weren't ment to. She chose to ignore all the times when she had snapped at Harry and he had obeyed, however belatedly. Even now, the child was sitting in his corner, his fingers curled around his blanket that he had been delivered in, staying silent and watching them with those bright green eyes. It was almost like he hung on her every word, begging for attention. She felt her lip curl and turned away before that bright boy could see it.
It took more than a few minutes for her rocking and cooing could get Dudley to eat, but he did. She spent another few minutes rocking and cooing at him in congradulations for being a good little boy, before she was interupted at what sounded like a little 'humph' coming from the corner of the room. She bristled and turned, ready to scold the little boy harshly for daring to 'hurumph' at her and Dudley, but her emotions had such a 360 turn that she was left stunned, clutching her baby boy more securely to her bussom and stepping back in fear.
In place of her dearest nephew was a mongerel. About seven inches long from hind to shoulders, it had short, messy black fur and paws far too big for its body. It had a short tail that was moving slowly back and forth. It was thin, as if it wasn't fed much, and it's head was laying on it's crossed paws as if it was far too heavy to hold up. It's large ears were triangular and folded down like a Labrador. However, she could not scream for Vernon because of it's eyes. Those large, intellegent, luminescent green eyes were holding her in their grip as if she was paralyzed.
"Harry?" She whispered hesitently, hoping against hope that this dog just appeared out of no where instead of what she was thinking. But no, the beast's ears perked, and lifted it's head slightly. She had to try again. "Harry, if that's you, nod." The beast blinked slowly, and Petunia started to believe that this was just some dog in her house on her nephews blanket in the corner of her son's room. The beast slowly nodded it's big, dumb head, and Petunia's knees buckled. Any hope that was in her died, and any scream was silenced in her throat. Vernon was at work, and would not be home for hours yet.
The beast must have seen her fallen form as an invitation, because it struggled to it's feet and started plodding towards her, head down and staring up at her with those great eyes. She stood, stuggling about as much as the beast had. "Back," she said forcefully. "Don't you step closer!" The creature stopped still, as if turned to stone, and then layed back down again, waiting for a command. She had no idea if it had understood her or if it was merely reacting to her voice. "Go back to your corner," she commanded of it. She nodded towards the corner of the room. "Over there. Stay with your blanket." Instead of standing up, the creature started belly crawling backwards until it reached it's blanket, then nudged itself so that its front paw was under the blanket. It continued staring at Petunia the whole time, and was now giving her the puppy eyes, awaiting positive response.
She turned to her baby boy, who was getting to the end of his bottle despite the exchange having only occured over maybe 3 minutes. He hadn't raised a fuss at all, thank goodness. She had to get them out of this room, away from the mangy mutt. Would it follow her? She glared at it and walked to the door, nose up in the air. "Stay," she said, maybe a bit too forcefully. She opened the door, crossed the threshold, and shut the door. Listening carefully, she could not hear the beast's claws on the door, so she walked to the livingroom and sat down. Only then did she let her fear overcome her.
Her pounding heart blocked her hearing, and Petunia was sure that her Duddykins could hear it from where she was cradeling him against her breast securely. Her skin felt cold, and she broke out in shivers and goosebumps, and it felt like acid was running through her arms and feet. She tried to control her ragged breaths, and her eyes fluttered to contain her tears. She had married Vernon to get away from all that nonsense of her sister's world. She had moved far away to isolate herself from pointed hats and toads and flying broomsticks. She had tried everything in her nature to run away from all that... abnormality! Yet it continued to pester her, once with her perfect sister, and now again with her beast of a son! Petunia doubted it was even her son, at least biologically. What human could birth a being that could turn into a mutt? No, it must be something that Lily had created, along with her freakshow of a husband, that she had just adopted like a son. Much like a crazy cat lady. Yes.
Petunia felt herself calming down at the reassuring thought. She wasn't related to that thing, it was just a pet that Lily had adopted. That was something that those freaks would do. She kissed the top of Dudley's head. The beast was not human, and so would not sleep in her baby's room. She didn't want it in the kitchen, nor where it would shed it's fur and urinate everywhere. Her eyes drifted... Yes. The cupboard was perfect. Put some newspapers and a bowl of water in there, and they wouldn't have to look at it or smell it, or even know it was there. It was intellegent enough to throw the newspaper away and get Vernon's day old newspaper on it's own, so she didn't need to do that. She would have to regulate it's water, since she didn't want it running up the bill or peeing too much. Food would depend on how well it acted. Her eyes narrowed. As it grew older, it would be allowed to do tricks, like mowing the yard, weeding the garden, painting the fence. How much food would depend on how well he did.
She would talk to her husband when he returned home in a few hours. She would have to keep him from throwing the bastard thing out, since the freaks thought that she and the blasted mutt were related and Dursleys couldn't contact them. She knew they were watching, though. They always knew. Petunia stood up, rocking Dudley slightly, a determined look on her face. She would not allow this mongerel to dirty up her home. It was up to her, as the woman of the house, to keep everything in order and normal, and by Jove she would do it.
No matter how unnatural her "nephew" was.
