There are ghosts everywhere in your house- ghosts of possibilities and futures and realities. They creep on you, reaching a translucent hand towards you, into you, making you wonder what would have happened were you the iridescent redhead with a magic stick and a blinding smile.
And then you have to shake your head and remind yourself that the magic comes- came- from Lily, not the stick and definitely not from you.
:::
There is a boy in your house with her eyes and her smile and her sarcasm and- your cautious bitterness?
It is almost enough to make you love him like you love Vernon and Dudley but he also has her magic and that will not do.
(See, this is the thing about magic people from magic schools- after a while, they start believing that anything is possible once they put their mind to it.
And it isn't, goddammit. It isn't.)
:::
The worst things, however, are the ghosts of the past. They slither into your heart, sobbing with each mournful beat, reminding you of every mistake you ever made- and the number of them is so high you do not have the strength to count them, so you just call them Petunia.
Not one thousand or two million or three billion. Just Petunia.
(The thing about these ghosts is that you can't just toss them away and tell yourself that the words they whisper are not true because they are.)
:::
You remember a skinny boy from Spinner's End whom you hated and loathed and kissed one day when you were sixteen and he was fifteen and heartbroken over your sister.
And maybe you still love him a little but now you have Vernon and he has nobody. You wonder whether he goes to sleep with green eyes in his mind and a name on his lips because you do too, still.
You will, always. Always, always, always.
But the word doesn't mean quite as much when it is whispered over creaky staircases that your nephew stormed down hours ago with his suitcase in his hand and scorn in his eyes.
It doesn't mean quite as much when it is muttered bitterly to a memorial that you can't even see.
It doesn't really matter, you see, when the person who says it is just another piece in the puzzle- a repulsive, irrelevant Muggle.
(It always boils down to this, doesn't it?)
:::
Sometimes, when the children are asleep, you crawl up to your husband and the both of you drink and drink and do drugs that smell like cat urine.
And you know it's wrong and bad but it feels like you're spiralling through whirlwinds of colours- aquamarine, violet and scarlet- and you can forget that sickening emerald green.
You are in Vernon's arms and he's a little too, well, fat for your liking and you're a little too obsessive for his but you are Petunia and he is Vernon and nobody in this world gives a rat's arse what you like.
You are Petunia and he is Vernon and nothing's alright anymore but it doesn't matter, not when he's holding you like this.