Written for the Missing Moments Competition, for Petunia and the letters from no one.
When Petunia was a teenager, she told herself that magic had stolen her sister. The little girl with her heart on her sleeve and wide eyes in wonder was gone; the girl she has shared everything with, down to the joint Christmas presents from their least favourite Aunt was no longer there. In her place stood a strange girl, a foreigner, who spoke in a strange tongue and smiled when she said, "You just don't understand."
But as a teenager, all magic had stolen was her friend. It was to be years later when magic stole her sister, when they'd gotten used to the estrangement. They hadn't spoken for years now, hadn't even exchanged Christmas cards. Petunia had her life and Lily had hers, and that was that. It was early one morning when Petunia found out Lily didn't have her life anymore. Petunia was left with both her life, and what was left of Lily's. The boy.
Petunia didn't feel much grief, she'd gotten that out of the way a long time ago. She felt only an emptiness, a regret for a life not lived to its potential. Then came the anger. A sickening anger that the one thing Lily had cherished above all else, above even her own flesh and blood could take so easily. Whether it was a dark and evil man that had killed her or not, the route cause was magic.
She sat with her husband that night, after their own son and that boy had been put to bed, as she nursed a glass of sweet wine and he drank a tumbler of whiskey. They made a promise to each other that day; they swore that they would stamp all signs of magic out of that boy as soon as it tried to take route. Magic was unnatural, unwelcome, and it brought nothing but tears.
There were signs, of course, that he took after his godforsaken parents. The teacher's wig that turned blue; the shrunken jumper: there were signs that he was not as normal as the Dursleys. But the boy didn't seem to understand, he didn't believe he was the cause, and that was the most important thing. If the boy didn't believe in magic, then there wouldn't be any. Not on Petunia's watch.
It was a normal morning, a breakfast like any other, when Harry was sent for the post. He came back holding an envelope that looked so horribly familiar to Petunia her stomach dropped. She found herself without an appetite all of a sudden, despite her knowledge that breakfast was the most important meal of the day.
No one wrote to Harry Potter. No one knew where he lived, except… someone did. Someone, the man who left the letter with the baby on their doorstep, knew their address. The same man who'd written to Lily so many years before. He knew, and he was back to haunt her life once more. Vernon handed the letter to Petunia and she read it with the taste of bile in the back of her throat. It was all so horribly familiar. The handwriting, the words: they'd torn her life to shreds once before, and they were back.
"What do you think about that letter, then?" Vernon asked that evening, once the children were asleep.
"It's a bad sign," Petunia replied, to which her beloved nodded. "It was addressed to his room, the cupboard. That means they know, they've been watching us. What kind of people are they?"
Petunia bit her lip in worry, refraining from her nervous habit of biting her nails. She'd just had them done at the salon, after all.
"We need to ignore them. That's what we need to do. They're like salesmen. If you ignore them enough times, they get the hint and leave you be," Vernon reasoned, and it made sense to Petunia. He was only one boy, at the end of the day, and a scrawny one at that. They wouldn't want him that much, and they were only trying to do what was best for him.
When more letters arrived, Petunia's worry intensified. Why weren't they leaving the Dursleys alone? What did they want so desperately? What made Harry Potter so special? It struck Petunia that they may need to take drastic action. Anything that would keep this boy from that world would suffice for Petunia. Magic bred misery, and as much as it pained Petunia to say, the boy deserved a normal life away from all of that.
Petunia and Vernon made a plan. They would go away. They didn't care where, so long as it was somewhere magic wouldn't find them, somewhere letters didn't get to. Somewhere remote and safe from all of that.
When they began to drive, Petunia began to worry about her husband. He seemed to be taking it a little too far. It was an obsession that took hold of him, but she knew better than to question him. It was in all their best interests. On the rowing boat to the little hut on the rocky island, Petunia began to fear for their safety, but she was able to reason it. Whatever may befall them here would be a fate better than anything magic could offer them.
It was late in the evening when there was a booming knock at the door. When the whale of a man stepped over the threshold, talking to Harry like he was worth more than the three Dursleys put together, Petunia felt a wave of understanding wash over her. She knew, very suddenly, that what she wanted didn't matter. That Harry belonged in the magical world, no matter what she thought. She knew that Harry would go with the giant, and she was powerless to stop it. She cast all notions of a life without magic aside that evening, and knew the only thing left for her to do was say goodbye to Harry as she had to her sister, so long ago.