It Wouldn't Hurt
The blonde woman strode past the calendar hanging on the kitchen wall, sparing only a small glance for the petite squares with tiny, black numerals in them. After all, she had to finish her weekly cleaning of the kitchen. But she stopped short as she took notice of the small number circled in black marker, signifying the current date. November 1st. Petunia took a deep, shuddering breath and shook her head angrily, shuttering away old feelings of love, jealousy, longing and loss; she hurried into the kitchen.
It was not until later in the day, around mid afternoon, when she was sitting down for a cup of tea, that her thoughts returned once again to the small black circle on the calendar and what it meant. Her son, Dudley, was at a friend's house, her husband at his place of work, and her nephew in his bedroom… Well, cupboard. She was all alone.
Petunia Dursley, nee Evans, winced at the thought of what Lily – her perfect sister Lily – would have thought of the idea of her only son being locked in a cupboard for the most of the day. The redhead had always had a short temper and though Petunia had never been on the receiving end of one of her rages, she had seen all too well what would happen when it got too much.
Petunia thought back to when a boy in her sister's class at primary school had been making fun of the red hair she wore proudly, calling her 'Tomato' and 'Fire Engine'. The boy had pushed a little too far and found himself falling off the slide, causing him to be transported to the emergency room at the hospital.
But that hadn't been the only occurrence. Not at all. Petunia thought back to when she'd been eight and coerced into babysitting her six-year-old sister at the park down the road from their house. When it had all began.
"Tuney! Come and see what I can do!"
A small red-haired girl with sparkling emerald eyes raced over to where her elder sister sat on a bench, engrossed in a book.
"Yeah Lil? What's up?" Petunia asked distractedly, tilting her head in her sister's direction.
"Look at it Tuney!"
Petunia looked. And gasped aloud, her book falling to the ground as her eyes followed the small, pale blue, origami crane through the air around Lily's head.
Lily just grinned happily at her sister, proud that she had gotten her attention so effectively.
"Isn't it wonderful, Tuney? Isn't it just marvelous?"
Petunia blinked twice and mouthed silently, lost for words.
"H-how did you do that?" she croaked, finding her voice at last.
Lily scrunched up her face in an effort to remember. "There were some gooses-"
"Geese," Petunia corrected automatically.
"Yeah that's it! Geese! So there were some geese flying around and I was thinking about how amazing it would be to fly, and then how neat it would be to fly on Prince-"
"Who's Prince?"
"This bird, silly!" Lily laughed, gesturing to the folded paper floating around her head."Anyway, I wished that Prince would be able to fly just like those goo-geese, and then he did!" She looked admiringly at the small figure of the bird. "Isn't it wonderful?" She repeated, looking to her sister for support.
Petunia opened her mouth to speak, having no idea what she would say, when their mother's voice called out through the crisp air, yelling that it was time for dinner.
"Don't tell Mum." Petunia said simply, grabbing her book and standing up abruptly. Then, noticing the confused look on her sister's face, added "It'll be our special secret."
Petunia started as something wet fell onto her clasped hands around the now cold tea. She looked upward for a moment, for a sign that the roof was leaking, then realized that there were tears in her eyes. No! She thought angrily, setting her teacup on the table and wiping the wetness away sharply as if it was a disease. I will not cry over her!
She had spent the last decade – more – trying to ignore her only sister. She would not go back to the jealous wreck she had been in childhood. Those feelings would only weaken her, the longing for what she could never have. What her small nephew, Harry, had obviously inherited from Lily and her husband. Magic.
Just thinking the 'forbidden' word gave her chills. Petunia and her husband had a mutual agreement to not speak of any 'abnormalness' in their house, a truly splendid way of silencing any remaining memories or remnants of wanting to be special in her own way.
And yet, as she sat alone in the house, her mind was overcome with wave after wave of memories of green eyes, paired with both red and black hair, with excitement, joy, love… and sadness.
As if she had no control over her body, Petunia got to her feet and walked out into the main hallway, toward the locked cupboard under the stairs, where she knew a small five-year-old Harry lay, probably sleeping.
A trembling hand took the ever-present key to the short door out of her apron pocket, blindly sliding the key into the lock and twisting it so the barrier to her nephew slid wide open on well-oiled hinges.
Her blue eyes fell on the shock of black hair sticking out from the rattiest blanket she had ever seen. Did she really give him that blanket? It was filthy!
She shook herself out of her thoughts, noticing that the boy was shivering. Frowning, she felt the air in the cramped space. It was relatively warm, so why did the boy look like he was freezing? After a split-second of hesitation, she placed the back of her hand against the boy's forehead, checking his temperature.
He didn't feel warm. She found herself stroking his forehead, right over the "ugly" scar, brushing his black hair off of his forehead.
Suddenly, Harry started to thrash, tossing and turning back and forth, his small mouth open in a silent scream. Petunia pulled her hand back quickly, worried in spite of herself. Abruptly, he stopped moving around, but immediately yelled something that chilled Petunia to the bone.
"Mummy! No! Mummy!" He cried, yelling in a voice much younger than that of the average five-year-old. "Mummy! Come back! Ge' up! Pwease!" The little boy collapsed into sobs, torrents of tears leaking from his eyes.
Petunia felt a wrenching in her heart, suddenly remembering words written in long, slanting script.
Your sister, Lily Evans Potter, and her husband, James Potter, were murdered late yesterday evening by one Lord Voldemort. Their son, Harry, survived due to unknown circumstances, and has (we believe) witnessed at the very least the death of his mother. Please bring him into your home, caring for him as if he were your own… I wish you the best of luck with this endeavor and pray that he will grow up knowing love such as that he will need in the future.
But she hadn't. She hadn't treated him as a son, hadn't loved or cherished him. She had despised the boy, rather unfairly, because of his shocking resemblance to her now dead sister, killed by all her wonderful magic.
And guilt overcame her. Has witnessed at the very least the death of his mother. He had seen Lily killed by that monster. Looking down at the still-sobbing child on the floor of the cupboard a wave of foreign sympathy came over her and she scooped the young one into her arms, cradling him gently against her chest, supporting his head with one hand and rubbing his back with the other. She briefly thought of the last time she had held Dudley in such a way. It hadn't been for quite some time, as Dudley believed he no longer needed affection. He had begun to push her away at the tender age of four, sucked in by his father's stories of being a man and not needing anyone else.
Petunia sighed gratefully as the boy's shudders in her arms turned into deep, calm breathing. But she couldn't bring herself to let go. Making a split second decision, she leaned back against the wall of the cupboard, making herself comfortable. She was determined to make it up to her sister and didn't – well, hardly did – care about what her husband or son would think of her for holding the frea-no, Harry.
Besides, what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them.
~Fin~
A/N: This one has been bugging me for a while, and I finally put it down on paper… at least, digital paper. ;) So yeah, sorry about my lack of updates, but with two AP classes, dance for twelve hours a week, and countless other things, I haven't really had much time to write. :( I promise I will try to get a new chapter up for each of my stories as soon as possible! Thank you all so much for reading this one shot! I really hope that you all enjoyed it, as I enjoyed writing it! Spent the whole time rocking out to Wicked show tunes (by far my favorite musical of all time‼! :D ).
By the way, Happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans out there! And Happy November 22, to all you other readers! :D
And once again, thanks so much for reading‼!
~Megan 3