It was really all Lily's fault, she tried to argue to herself. If her sister wasn't a freak, then none of this would've happened.
Yes, but if you were just a bit more nicer…
She couldn't have been nicer to that…thing if she tried!
Yes, you could've. But you didn't want to.
But she looked so much like Lily! Except for the hair colour, but still!
Alyssa wasn't Lily, and she never was.
Goddamn that voice in her head. But she didn't want to admit that it was right.
Because if she did, then she would have to admit that everything that happened was her fault.
She would have to take blame for her sister's estrangement, her niece's madness, and absolutely everything her niece did.
You ruined her. You took away her childhood.
She, Vernon, and Dudley all mistreated Alyssa so horribly for ten years straight. They made her their servant and had her sleep in a broom cupboard. She and Vernon took a blind eye to Dudley's bullying. They all verbally abused her. Called her names. Never said a kind word.
And when a child grows up unloved and bullied for all her life…
…she turns out in one of the worst ways possible.
They wound up creating a monster.
Frankenstein.
Petunia and her family were the scientists, and Alyssa was the result of their experiments.
By the time Alyssa was ready to go to Hogwarts, she was completely unrecognisable.
So unrecognisable that giant man gave them all a brutal word they would never forget.
Lily had been a happy and bubbly little girl who explored her abilities with a passion. She was so sweet and innocent.
But Alyssa was far from that.
Alyssa was cold and dark and angry.
Petunia saw it as a painful thing to watch Alyssa grow up because her niece looked too much like Lily.
But suddenly Alyssa looked nothing like her mother.
In looks, perhaps.
But the hatred that filled her up deeply showed itself well.
Not even that bastard Potter showed so much anger. He was too carefree and immature.
Alyssa was mature, yes.
But the wrong kind of mature.
Back when Alyssa was seven years old, she was already making meals for them. One night, she "accidentally" slipped something in Petunia's soup. Something that shouldn't have been consumed.
Petunia had to spend nearly a week in the hospital to recover from food poisoning. No one would believe her when she told them her seven-year-old niece did it on purpose. Why would they?
That was the thing that made Petunia feel something she never thought she'd feel: fear for her own niece.
But yet she couldn't stop the hate and bullying.
So the nearly abusive treatment continued.
(It was, in reality, abuse that they did to her, but they could never admit that they committed something so horrible and cruel.)
The summers between Alyssa's school years were the absolute worst. Veiled threats of controlled and accidental magic were made so they couldn't control her as much as they wanted to (apparently, she wouldn't be punished if they angered her enough for magic to spin out of control). Of course, that car with those redheaded friends of hers just had to come for her in the middle of the night. It ended with Alyssa escaping with the last thing being a flip of the middle finger from her. Of course, the pranks that were unleashed in the kitchen did nothing to help matters. It was actually the first time Petunia saw happiness in her niece.
Unfortunately for her sister-in-law Marge, the fat woman wasn't around enough in the house to know the true extent of Alyssa's wrath. Not only did Alyssa actually sock her in the face but blew her up. Petunia actually sworn that her niece wanted Marge to actually completely explode.
Petunia could've gone on with the terror that Alyssa unleashed in the household, but there was the one shocking thing that she never would've expected: Alyssa saved Dudley from wayward dementors and got herself expelled because of it. Alyssa hated all of them. She wouldn't risk anything to save them, right?
Wrong.
She waited for her husband and son to leave the house before looking back at the black-haired girl before her. "Why? Why would you save him?"
Alyssa didn't look at her as her furious expression softened just the slightest bit. "Not even he deserves to have his soul sucked out."
"Not even he." It showed that Alyssa held Petunia and her family on some sort of standard. It honestly made Petunia feel a little bit better. Just a bit. But then next year she learned that her niece actually killed someone.
"Your niece, Alyssa Potter, has been arrested and charged with Unforgivable Curse usage. She was claimed to have tortured someone with the Cruciatus Curse before killing her. Right in the Ministry."
If poisoning Petunia at age seven wasn't enough, killing someone else was the final straw. They couldn't have her in the house anymore, blood wards be damned. Alyssa was a danger to everyone. They couldn't live in the same house with her anymore. It was done. Over. Dumbledore agreed. No more contact with her.
The year spent in hiding from Voldemort and his followers was terrifying, but at least they didn't see the freak. But then…
A Ministry official came to their door in early May and,after informing them of the end of the war, told them the one thing that was the very last thing they expected.
"I regret to inform you of the death of Alyssa Lily Potter. She was discovered dead in her bed at the Weasley home near Ottery St. Catchpole by her best friends Olivia Lucretia Weasley and Ginevra Molly Weasley. Her death has been ruled a suicide, and we are by law required to inform you of the funeral that will be taking place two days later."
Dudley, in his first act of defiance, said that he was going no matter what his parents said. Vernon immediately objected and said that the freak deserved to die and that no one was going near her anymore, dead or alive. But Dudley went anyways.
It took everything for Petunia to hold it together. She couldn't break down, not now.
But when Vernon returned to work for the first time, she went back to bed and collapsed onto the mattress sobbing heavily like never before.
She never felt like this before.
Not when her father died.
Not when her mother died.
Not when Lily died.
Because it wasn't just grief and sorrow she was feeling. It was the overwhelming guilt steaming from every horrible thing she had done to her own niece.
She cried for the niece she hated.
She cried for the niece she feared.
She cried for the niece she longed to just lock up and imprison forever.
She even cried for the niece that she could've had but didn't because of her own actions.
But most of all.
She cried for the niece she missed so much.
AN: Reviews are greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance to those of you who do!