Petunia Dursley was cleaning Dudley's bedroom when she found a pack of cigarettes.
It was half-smoked, the foil crinkled and folded, and hidden under a pile of receipts and clothes on his desktop.
Instead of tossing it and blaming it on a friend of his (she always, after all, had suspected Mrs. Polkiss to be the sort of woman who would be at the root of such a thing), or on youthful experimentation, she stuck the pack in the pocket of her cotton trousers.
That same night, after clearing supper from the table and wiping the kitchen to its normal condition, Petunia prepared a lukewarm bath spiced with a lavender scent she'd ordered from a catalogue. Such an event was a more regular occurrence this summer, as it was the only respite from the August heat; Vernon wouldn't think it odd. As a precaution, however, she placed a towel securely at the space under the door. It wouldn't do for the smell to get in her paint, after all.
The first drag tore a cough out of her throat, and she tried to muffle the sound by placing a hand over her lips. When a sip of her dry, sweet white wine calmed her throat, she took another drag. For five seconds she held the smoke in her lungs, then let it slip out of her mouth; the curls were slow and a nearly opaque gray.
She slipped further into the tub, the water lapping at her skin and the fragrance of lavender stirring.
Petunia hadn't smoked in upwards of twenty years (twenty-two, to be precise; her last cigarette was on the patio outside of her dormitory building at university, and she'd been interrupted by Marion Green who the week before had met two men at the pub who'd taken her to their flat and who knows what happened then.)
(Petunia knew. She had heard Marion telling her friend the whole story in a public toilet.)
(She'd been interrupted by Ms Green to be told—)
Petunia took another drag, inching her long toes up the clean white ceramic on the opposite side of the tub, until they were just visible above the water's edge. Little bits of fluffy foam clung to the edge of her nails.
Carefully, she flicked the ash into the little dish she was using as an ashtray perched on the edge of the bath. Using her thumb to rotate the lipstick-stained cigarette between her first and middle finger, she brought it back to her mouth.
Sitting alone in the tub, Petunia allowed herself to think. About how she was offered a glimpse of the world against which she had tried very hard to alienate herself.
And, sitting alone in the tub, Petunia allowed herself to think a little about her sister.