Sympathy for the Harpy
A/N: Petunia is one of the least sympathetic characters in the whole HP world. It says a lot about her that her and Vernon rank lower than the story's plethora of genocidal sadists on the 'people I like when reading the books' scale. Seriously, when people like Voldemort, Bellatrix and Lucius more than they like you, then something is going badly WRONG.
So one of the biggest challenges in the whole 'take one thing and fix it' genre of fanfiction would be making her a decent person with a single change. And what if that change was Vernon? Below is a little something I wrote around that idea.
Disclaimer: I got the idea from HPMOR and because Petunia's almost always portrayed as a jealous bitch who can't let go of her past. I got sick of it. Take what's written and use it as you please, since neither of us own or want to claim money for it. At least, I don't. Don't own it, don't want it, that's me. And if you do, well then you can afford proper writers, so why are you even bothering with this stuff?
Petunia Evans had come to really hate England. Growing up in the suburbs hadn't been so bad, what with the total isolation she and her peers enjoyed from the problems that seemed to plague Britain and the West. Then came Lily's letter, leaving Petunia alone to face her parents, her peers and life in general without her best friend. The seventies were a bad time for her. Lily got all the attention when it was Petunia that needed it the most. Didn't her sister have magic? Wasn't that enough? Did she really need all those fancy clothes, rare books and expensive jewellery as well? Whenever she brought it up with her mum Rose, the best she got out of her was some vague assurance that she would get the house when her parents conked it. Being a teenage female in seventies Britain was not fun, especially when you never had enough money to do anything.
She finally graduated from St. Trinian's and went to the University of Birmingham to get a business degree and make a life for herself far away from overbearing parents, sneering girls calling her a blonde ostrich and Lily's so-called 'magic'. But just as she'd finished her degree and was ready to move away from all that fuss, that utter pig Vernon got her pregnant! She never even had the time to tell her parents, what with their car going kaboom and turning her mother and father into a fine pink mist. Yes, she got the house, but it wasn't even half paid off and she wasn't getting any job offers outside of those in the exciting world of hospitality, so she would be lucky to keep it for five years at the most.
So she turned to Lily who, it turned out, couldn't help her either on account of fighting a war against magical neo-nazis and being married to the man Petunia distinctly remembered as being called an arsehole by her usually polite baby sister during that whole Hogwarts episode. Not that that stopped Lily from handing over a bar of pure gold to Petunia as a 'sorry sis, but I have more important things on my mind right now.' get-out-of-guilt-free card. Fencing the stuff had been a breeze to her, what with some of her uni acquaintances dabbling in the shadier side of things, so she now had enough money to last for the year or two she needed and could politely tell the Dursley bastard to fuck off and keep his bigoted arse away from her.
And then Dudley was born in June 1980. Petunia took a long, hard look at her life. She had no career, little left in the way of spending money, a small house in Surrey, an estranged sister fighting for her life and one Vernon Dursley starting to breathe down her neck again. Still, she would give it two years to see if life would get better.
It didn't.
The final straw for Petunia came on Halloween night of 1981. She went out to stuff some garbage in the bin only to trip and fall over a basket containing her nephew. Now she had two extra mouths to feed, her sister was dead, killed at the hands of one of the magical neo-nazis and the wizards have apparently washed their hands of the poor child. If Vernon had been there, Harry's future would have been bleak indeed. Without him to turn everyone against the child, though she resented the situation she was being forced into, Petunia still had the common sense not to take it out on a toddler.
She picked up her wailing nephew, laid him down in the cot next to her precious Duddikins and started packing. She still had some family left, though she'd sworn never to do more than visit them, she was willing to break that promise if it meant having people to talk to again. She could not handle two kids and a job alone. Besides, England was finally getting to her. Time to leave.
The house was sold and the three people gone by mid-November. Nobody in the wizarding world took notice.
A/N: Next in the random craziness file; Career Tribute and all-round Terrible Person Rose Potter-Snow goes to the Yule Ball. Oh dear.