Chapter Two: The First Seven Years: Part 2
New Years came and went, and it was 1983.
March twenty-third came and went, and Dudley turned four. That birthday was even bigger than his third, with even more presents and an even bigger cake. Rose and Harry spent the party up in their room as well, coloring with the remains of Rose's crayons (which, in spite of how much he'd grown up, she still had to keep Harry from chewing on).
May the tenth came and went, meaning Rose turned six. There was still no cake, and since she'd grown, Aunt Petunia gave her another set of clothes. It was just a weird orange skirt, a pair of leggings that were too long, and an itchy, patched-up sweater, but none of this was surprising to Rose, just disappointing. The real shock came with Aunt Petunia's announcement after she folded the clothes away.
"What do you mean, I have to go school in September?"
"You're six years old," Aunt Petunia snapped, as she slammed the saucepan down on the stovetop. "You have to go, Monday through Friday. It's the law, so don't whine at me."
"But- but Harry will be all on his own!"
Aunt Petunia looked down at her stonily. "I'm not a monster, girl. I'll make sure he's fed and stays out of trouble. And speaking of trouble," the stony look turned into an outright snarl, "You're not to cause any while you're away from this house. And that means keeping your stupid little mouth shut, as well as behaving. Understood?"
Rose nodded mutely, though protest surged in her newly six-year-old chest. She'd promised the nice old man she'd behave – even if Rose thought he was stupid to leave them, she'd promised, and Mummy and Daddy had told her to always, always keep a promise. She had no idea why Aunt Petunia always seemed to expect her to misbehave and be a brat; she'd only ever thrown a tantrum on purpose once.
"The primary school is five blocks down the lane," Aunt Petunia continued, going back to the saucepan and pouring in milk. "You see it every day. You'll walk there weekdays at eight, and walk back when it's done for the day. It's so simple, an idiot could do it."
Rose had doubts. Mummy had said that she would love school when she was old enough to go – but Mummy was talking about magic school, and this was not going to be a magic school.
Then again, however bad it was, it was probably still better than this house.
July thirty-first came and went, and Harry turned three. Rose was still not quite tall enough to reach the stove, but she was getting there. She couldn't use Daddy's measuring tape to see how tall she was anymore, so that was how she could tell she was growing. She liked to imagine Mummy and Daddy being proud that she'd gotten to be so tall.
Up in their room that night, with what little remained of her crayons (just a few stubs of white, yellow and orange left), she drew Harry a birthday cake and had him try to blow the candles out – even if she couldn't be magic anymore, maybe he still could.
It didn't work, but he was still very small – he might be able to do magic when he got to be Rose's age. At least, she hoped so, very much. There was a small, squirming fear in the back of her mind somewhere, but Rose wasn't very sure what it meant.
~RP~
September the fifth came – the first Monday of that term, and Rose Potter's very first day as a student at any kind of school.
When Aunt Petunia woke her up that morning, she'd tossed a flimsy, patched-up backpack at Rose. "For your books and homework," she said tersely, and spooned a single egg onto a slice of toast for Rose's breakfast.
Rose was shoved out the door the moment she was finished, and she was barely able to give a hasty goodbye to Harry, who looked up at her in confusion and alarm as the front door shut in her face.
Rose was scared as she turned to look down the street at the school. It looked very far away, much further than Aunt Petunia had made it out to be. It was certainly further than Rose had ever been on her own – if Mummy and Daddy had been alive, and saying goodbye with Harry, and watching her go off to school, she might've felt brave enough to do it.
But Rose was, as always, alone.
She gulped, and took the first step down the pavement.
~RP~
When she reached the first crossing, Rose found herself frozen in place, knees quaking. She'd never crossed the street alone before. Aunt Petunia would always refuse to hold her hand, but she hadn't ever had to cross by herself.
The road stretched out before her, vast and implacable.
Rose gulped.
If she didn't cross, she'd never get to school. If she waited too long to cross, she would be late.
If either of those things happened, she'd be locked in the cupboard overnight for sure, at the very least.
Harry would have to go to bed on his own. Harry didn't know how to go to bed on his own.
With every scary thought that tumbled into Rose's head, the crossing seemed to get longer and longer, the school further and further away, and Rose herself felt smaller and smaller. She could hear nothing but the pounding in her ears and her own halting, panicked breaths -
A loud horn sounded from her right, and Rose jumped.
She was too short to see the driver, but the left turn light was blinking, did that mean they were waiting for her to cross? Rose gulped.
Mummy and Daddy had always told her that she had to be brave if she had to do something scary. If she was brave enough to live with Aunt Petunia, she had to be brave enough to cross the street.
She screwed up her face, closed her eyes, took a few steps back, and ran as fast as she could.
Before Rose even knew it, she was tripping over the curb onto the pavement on the other side. "OW!" She'd hit the ground chin-first, and as she scrambled up onto her feet, she felt the stinging scrape she'd gotten, Rose was glad to find there wasn't any blood.
There was a quick "BEEP BEEP" from the car as it turned, Rose was now far enough away to see that it was the old lady who lived next door, and she waved goodbye as she rushed down the path to school, getting a little wave in return as Mrs. Figg went on down the lane.
~RP~
She got through the next few crossings in much the same way, though she thankfully learned to put her hands out in front so she didn't land on her face. Rose was aware she probably looked very odd as she got closer to the school, drawing some stares from parents and kids, but she was almost there! It didn't really matter, so long as it got her across.
(Later in the week, the mum of one of her classmates kindly showed her how one 'properly' crossed the street, carefully looking both ways and all that. Rose still thought her own way was less scary, but she could see why it was better.)
After she got to the school, Rose wasn't sure what to do or where she was supposed to go. All the parents seemed to be kissing their kids goodbye, and all the kids seemed to be begging them not to leave them alone.
Tears pricked at the edges of Rose's eyes, and her face felt hot.
"Well hello there, little miss! What class are you in?"
Leaning over her, with her hands on her knees, was a tall, skinny lady with a broad, friendly smile and a halo of frizzy black hair, much curlier than Rose's own. Rose quickly rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. "Erm, I don't know."
"Well, where are your mum and dad? Maybe they can tell me?"
Rose shook her head very fast, and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "They're dead."
"Oh," The lady's smile softened and shrank a little as she knelt down. "Well, is there anyone else?"
"There's my Aunt Petunia, but she didn't come with me. I walked here," Rose added proudly, feeling a little braver at the thought of this accomplishment.
"My goodness! You must be very smart to be able to make your way on your own like that." The lady stood up and brushed off her trousers as Rose beamed under the praise, picking up a clipboard that was on the ground beside her. "What's your name then, sweetheart? Maybe I can find you on the roster."
"I'm Rose Potter!" Rose answered with a smug satisfaction. She felt very clever right now, for knowing her own name, although she wouldn't have been able to say exactly why.
The lady flipped through the papers on the clipboard with a smile. "Pleased to meet you, Rose! Potter, Rose – ah! There you are. You're in Reception, Class R-C, which is my class!" The lady held out a hand to Rose. "That means I'm your teacher. I'm Miss Holstein!"
Rose eagerly shook Miss Holstein's offered hand. "Pleased to meet you!"
"Now Rose, class is about to start. I'll show you to the room where I'll be teaching you, and then I'm going to go round up everyone else as well. Is that alright?"
Rose nodded. Miss Holstein took her by the hand, and they went together.
~RP~
The classroom was a bright yellow, with red and green paper caterpillars pinned to the walls. Miss Holstein showed her a desk in the front with a piece of paper taped to it, and told her that by the end of today, Rose was going to be able to write her name on it, so the six-year-old was bouncing with excitement by the time the door opened again to let in the rest of the class.
Miss Holstein started by telling them all to introduce themselves to the kids next to them. There was a blonde boy sitting to Rose's right, whose name was Laurie, and he was five; there was also another six-year-old, a brown-haired girl with pigtails and freckles on Rose's left, and her name was Patty.
Laurie was very quiet, and Patty, who lived across the street from him, told Rose very confidently that he was just shy, but he would be friends with her anyway, and Laurie said nothing to the contrary. Rose watched in bewilderment as behind her, Patty introduced her brother Paul, who looked just exactly like her, but without pigtails.
Not even Harry looked that much like his sister, and she told them so. Paul giggled, but Patty was miffed, and proceeded to detail every little tiny difference between herself and her brother, but then Miss Holstein rang a little bell on her desk, and Patty whispered, "You'll come play with us at break!" and before Rose could ask about what she meant by being so bossy, Miss Holstein started telling them about letters.
~RP~
The first half of class passed quickly. Rose was still singing the Alphabet Song as she went out to the lunch tables with Patty and Paul, until Patty asked, "Where's your lunch, Rose?"
Rose, seeing the red and blue lunchboxes Patty and Paul had with them, skipped back into the classroom to retrieve her backpack from the cubbyhole and check to see if Aunt Petunia had given her anything. There was nothing in it but a notebook, two pencils, and a few pence in a little bag. Reporting this back to Patty, her new friend decided that this meant Rose was supposed to buy lunch at the cafeteria.
Rose didn't really know any other kids her age, but she had already decided that Patty was the smartest person she knew, aside from Miss Holstein.
After Paul asked directions from an older student, they found the school cafeteria. As they got in line, Rose saw that she was the only kid in reception year who didn't have a homemade lunch. She figured that this probably meant she was the only one who didn't have a mum and dad, but when she saw the cafeteria had jam roly-poly, Rose was too happy to care very much.
School, she decided, was the best. Mummy had been so right!
She sat down with Patty and Paul, and Laurie came sidling up to them quietly with his tuna sandwiches, softly asking if any of them wanted to trade. Rose was perfectly happy with her lunch of only sweets, but Patty and Paul were trading with Laurie, and it seemed like she ought to, just to be nice. Paul confided to her that Laurie's mum was strict about what he ate, and never let him have sweets. Rose got the feeling that it was different from Aunt Petunia not letting her have sweets, but she sympathized anyway, and traded him a chocolate bar for half a sandwich.
And after they finished eating lunch, Patty told Rose it was time to play! Rose hadn't gotten to play outside in ages and ages, so she eagerly followed the others into the yard.
In between playing Hide-and-Seek and going down the slide over and over again, Rose asked Patty how she knew so much about school.
Patty had blinked. "Didn't you go to nursery school?"
"Er... No." Rose felt a little alarmed – Dudley had been going to nursery school this whole time – was she supposed to have been in nursery school? Had she missed anything?
Surprisingly enough, it was Laurie who answered, coming up behind them with his book in his hands (He'd already learned to read before coming, and Rose was very envious). "It's okay, Rose. I didn't go to nursery school either. Lots of kids don't."
Rose didn't really find this as comforting as she might have (Laurie was afraid of Hide-and-Seek), but she supposed at least she hadn't missed anything.
~RP~
Break was over too soon, and Patty, Paul and Laurie trudged disappointedly back into the classroom with the rest of the class. Rose, on the other hand, bounced eagerly back in, and spent the rest of the afternoon diligently drawing letters on paper with crayon.
School was also over too soon. At the end of the day, on the piece of paper taped to her desk, true to her teacher's promise, Rose had carefully drawn a scraggly R – O – S – E – P in bright red. (Miss Holstein had told her to add the P, so if there were any other Roses at school, no one would get confused.)
They all filed out the door with their backpacks on (after Rose had snuck a few crayons from the classroom into hers) and the four of them parted with the promise to play together again tomorrow. Her new friends skipped off to their parents' cars, and Rose faced the walk leading to Privet Drive, once again alone.
Rose found herself dreading getting home. The only good thing waiting for her there was Harry, and while she felt a spike of guilt at not wanting to go home to him, the thought of going back to Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and Dudley, after having experienced the paradise of learning how to read and write, just made her miserable.
Rose scuffed her shoe against the pavement, biting her lip.
She'd made new friends today, learned how to spell and write her name. At school, she'd been happier than she'd been in a long, long time.
And she would be going back tomorrow morning!
It was this thought that heartened her and set her on the path home to Harry. If she could go back to school tomorrow, she could put up with her horrible family for a while. The whole way home, Rose sang the Alphabet Song and spelled her name quietly to herself, thinking about what she and Harry could do with the new crayons in her backpack.
~RP~
Everything was normal again when she got home. She cleaned up trash, helped Aunt Petunia with the washing, was forced to listen to and repeat every little step to making pork pie, and was only finally released when Rose told Aunt Petunia she had homework. (She didn't – Miss Holstein said she was going to wait to assign homework until tomorrow, but she was anxious to get away. Rose tried to bat away her guilt at having lied by telling herself that Aunt Petunia was mean and awful and absolutely deserved to be lied to. It seemed to work, for the most part.)
Rose was relieved to find Harry in one piece up in their room. "Rosie!" Harry bounced down to throw his arms around her middle. "Where'd you go?"
"I went to school! I'm gonna have to go every day, but don't worry! When you're a big kid like me, you'll get to go too!"
"I wanna go now!" Harry cried, "Don't leave again, Rosie, please please please!"
Rose hugged her little brother back. "I'm sorry, Harry, but I've gotta. I can't stay all the time."
"Why?"
"Well – I – because! Aunt Petunia says so, and there's other people who told her so."
"Why?"
Rose didn't know the answer this time, and felt a little desperate. "Well, um – do you wanna draw, Harry? I got us new colors!"
"Blue?" Harry asked hopefully, peering up at her. He was always trying to draw the sky, and he hadn't had any blue for a while. Rose had thought of this while stealing crayons, and with a grin, she produced a whole handful of blue crayons.
The two siblings gleefully set to work drawing pictures on the paper from Rose's notebooks. It had lines, so it wasn't very good, but Harry didn't seem to mind. But as she sat down with her own notebook and her new purple crayon, Rose couldn't think about anything but letters. She thought of the labeled toy boxes in Dudley's room, of the labeled desks in her classroom, of her own name on the roster that she'd never even seen. And Rose had an idea.
She drew carefully, trying to make the letters nice and big, when she was done writing, she put little purple flowers in the corners, too. Rose took the piece of paper, and left the room to find tape. When she got back, Rose stood on the tips of her toes, and taped the piece of paper up as high as she could reach. She stepped back, pleased with herself, and went back inside to keep drawing and practicing writing with Harry.
On the outside of the door, was now a piece of lined paper, torn out of a notebook and unevenly taped to the door by the top corners, which read: ROSE AND HARRYS ROOM.
~RP~
Rose quickly settled into the routine of going to school.
Mornings began with a hasty breakfast, a kiss goodbye to her little brother, and a mad dash to class. She would sit and learn about reading and writing, and if Miss Holstein asked them to get into groups for something fun, Rose would always pick Patty, Paul and Laurie.
At lunch, she would use the few pence Aunt Petunia begrudgingly gave her to buy sweets, which she would trade with Laurie for his lovingly-made (if a bit soggy) sandwiches. At break, they would all play, and sometimes just talk-pretend, so Laurie could still have fun. Rose would read books, too (Miss Holstein said that if she ever wanted to learn more than she learned in class, she could go to the school library and read whatever she wanted!) and she was getting better at reading every day. After break, they'd return to class, and they'd either learn maths, or they'd have arts and crafts and play with clay (which was Paul's favorite).
And after the school day was over, Patty and Paul would go home with their mum and dad, and Laurie would go home with his mum, and Rose would walk home on her own. When she got home, she'd get accosted by Aunt Petunia to do a bucketload of chores, then go upstairs to do her homework while Harry played with clay and paper toys she'd made in arts and crafts, and after she was done she'd join him.
Then they would go downstairs, have their little portion of dinner (even between the two of them, it was always, always smaller than Dudley's, and Rose would scrape some of her food onto Harry's plate whenever she could) and they would go to bed, and then the next morning Rose would wake up and do it all again.
This had made Rose's life much less miserable by far, and she hadn't been so happy since before her Mum and Dad had died. The less time she had to spend being ordered around by Aunt Petunia, the better.
Though, she probably was the only kid who didn't look forward to the weekends. Aunt Petunia worked her to the bone when she was at home (a phrase she had learned reading books in the library at school!) and she didn't get to have any fun like her friends did out of school.
Patty had demanded to know why she couldn't come and visit them on the weekend. Rose had wanted to tell her that she had asked Aunt Petunia, and Aunt Petunia had said she wasn't allowed to leave the house for anything except school, but -
Keep your stupid little mouth shut. Understood?
So Rose just told Patty that her Aunt Petunia was old and needed lots of help (it wasn't a lie, really) but Patty wanted to come over with Paul – she said maybe they could help Rose help her aunt, and so Rose found herself in a bit of a bind, because she was pretty sure Aunt Petunia wouldn't want them at the house, either. So she told Patty that her Aunt Petunia was also grouchy and hated kids. It was true (she at least hated her and Harry, and they were kids) and also probably not something Aunt Petunia really wanted her to say, but -
Keep your stupid little mouth shut.
So Rose had to avoid explaining at every turn. Even if she could explain, Rose had no idea how she would.
~RP~
October arrived. The days got shorter. The nights got colder.
Rose's nightmares returned.
On the day of the thirty-first, Miss Holstein had a lesson about Halloween. She asked every kid to draw what they were going to dress up as, and one by one, they would come up to the front and say why they were dressing up that way. Everyone else seemed so excited, Patty and Paul quickly getting out the crayons to draw their twin costumes as Moomins and Laurie started grumpily drawing what looked like a carrot.
Rose had no idea what to do. Even if she had thought of a costume, Aunt Petunia would never let her go out to trick-or-treat, not to mention that Harry was too young to go out, and she couldn't just leave him. (It wasn't Safe)
Laurie noticed her sitting there, staring at the blank piece of paper. "Why aren't you drawing?" he asked her quietly.
Rose bit her lip. Laurie was always quiet – she'd never seen him speak to anyone besides their friends and the teacher. Surely he could keep a secret? "I'll tell you why I can't," she whispered back, leaning closer, "but you've got to promise to keep it a secret."
Laurie nodded. "Promise."
"I haven't got a costume, I'm not going trick-or-treating."
His eyes widened. "Why?"
"My Aunt Petunia won't let my brother Harry and me go. Also," her throat felt a little dry, "my mum and dad d - died on Halloween. So I'm too scared to go, even if Aunt Petunia would let me."
Rose had never seen anyone's eyes get as big as Laurie's had. As she started to worry that she'd scared him, he gulped, and whispered, "M - Maybe you should tell Miss Holstein that that's what happened. That way you won't have to – have to draw a costume, if you're not going."
She hadn't even thought of that! As she slipped out of her chair with relief and turned to thank him, Laurie blurted out: "My dad – he's, er, he's dead, too. I don't remember him, but I miss him." And he sat there, awkwardly squirming into himself as if he wished he could shrink away and disappear.
Rose didn't know what she could say, but she knew what she had always wished someone else had done for her when she had first come to live with Aunt Petunia. She wrapped her arms around Laurie in a hug, and quickly dashed off to talk to Miss Holstein when he froze. As she looked back, she saw that his face was red all over. For some reason, that made Rose feel really warm, like her chest was full of sunlight.
~RP~
Nightfall came, and Rose drew the curtains again. She felt a little braver than she had last year, so she turned out the lights so they could go to bed like normal. Harry's grass-green eyes peered up at her as she sat crosslegged on the bed (she had no intention of sleeping). "Rosie, why'd Auntie and Dudley go?"
Rose bit her lip and hugged Harry close. "They're going trick-or-treating, Harry. Today's Halloween – lots of kids go out in costumes tonight."
"Can we go?" Harry looked up at her so hopefully, and Rose felt a rising sense of dread.
"No, Harry!" He looked startled, scared, and as he began to screw up his face to cry, Rose hastened to make him feel better. "N – Not tonight. Just not tonight. One day, when we're bigger and stronger, we can go." Rose had to gulp back tears, as she remembered, feeling sick, that being bigger and stronger hadn't helped Mum and Dad.
Harry sniffled a bit and wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve. "Promise?"
She felt a pang. "I promise." She would just have to hope that when they finally did, it wouldn't still be dangerous.
~RP~
November arrived. The nightmares faded.
December arrived. Rose started preparing for another miserable Christmas, and trying to figure out how to get Harry a proper Christmas present.
"You could make him something, like those toys you make in arts and crafts," Patty suggested, packing more snow against her side of the snowman. Today had been a half day because of the weather, and Aunt Petunia hadn't known, so Rose had gleefully taken the opportunity to go with Patty and Paul to visit. She had gotten to ride there in the car with her friends, and their mum (who was so nice! Rose wished she was her aunt) had said she would drive her home when they were done for the day. Aunt Petunia wouldn't be happy, but hopefully Rose could just tell her that they drove her home because of the snow. So they were playing in Patty and Paul's front garden.
"I make those for him all the time, though – I want it to be special." It would be the only Christmas present he got, after all, besides Aunt Petunia's, and she was sure that could barely be called a present. "It'd be great if I could get him a real toy, like the ones we used to have."
Patty gave her an odd look, as she did sometimes, and turned back to the drifts in the front yard to start on making the snowman's chest. Rose joined her, stumbling as her foot came halfway out of her boot. (Aunt Petunia had shoved a jacket, scarf and mittens into Rose's arms when it first started snowing in October, all old and ill-fitting) "What about your pocket money?" Patty asked.
Assuming she meant the money Rose got for lunch, she answered, "I've been saving up a few pence from lunch every day since Halloween, but I don't think it's ever going to be enough. I've got three pounds so far, and all the good ones in the store are at least twenty."
Patty's packing and rolling motions slowed. Rose looked up at her questioningly, blinking quickly to try and get the snowflakes out of her eyelashes. Patty was staring at her, and Rose wasn't sure why, but it made her nervous.
"I'll ask my mum if we can go to the toy store. I'll chip in with my pocket money."
"What? No no, you shouldn't -"
"Too bad, I'm doing it," Patty said, turning back to the snow. "It'll be my Christmas present to you."
Rose's eyes felt a little hot, and she found herself blinking back tears.
"Hey!" Paul called out from the other side of the garden. They both turned to look at him, and Patty got a snowball to the face for the trouble.
"PAUL, YOU BLOODY ARSEHOLE!" Rose's eyes widened to the size of saucers at hearing hearing her best friend say such a bad word, as Patty jumped up from where she'd fallen in the snow to chase after her cackling brother.
Their mum shoved open the kitchen window, poking her head out. "Patricia Angeline McReedy, you do not get to use such language! You're getting no dessert for the next week!" she scolded.
"LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO! I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS!" Patty proceeded to tackle him, grabbing him by the ankles and dragging him to the ground with an oof.
Rose didn't know whether it was Patty saying a bad word, the twins wrangling with each other, or her friend getting so angry over such a small punishment, but she couldn't stop herself from busting out in laughter. "Oh, come on!" Patty protested, "there's nothing funny about this!" and that only made Rose laugh even more, collapsing back into the cold snow, clutching her sides as she giggled. "You're the worst, Rosie!"
"I thought I was the worst," said Paul, and this got him pelted with another snowball from Patty.
The three of them went inside when Mrs. McReedy called, and Rose delightedly discovered that she had made them lunch, and Rose's share was a whole sandwich! With crisps and broccoli! She felt a twinge of guilt thinking of Harry at home, while she was here experiencing the luxury that Dudley got to have every day, so she stuffed some of the crisps in her pockets while no one was looking.
Mrs. McReedy readily agreed to take them to the toy store, prompting a cascade of gratitude from Rose, which seemed to bemuse her. She drove them to a store Aunt Petunia had never taken Rose to before, and as Rose peered at the price tags for blocky plastic robots and knitted cloth dolls, she was gleefully surprised to find that these toys were much cheaper than the ones she'd seen before.
Paul, the resident boy and therefore expert on boys' tastes, was asked all kinds of questions by Patty and Rose, about the merits of cowboys and astronauts versus dinosaurs and so on, and he was greatly annoyed at most of these pesterings, saying he'd rather have a video game, like the older boys at school always talked about.
"But Harry's three!" Rose pressed. "Don't you remember the kinds of toys you wanted when you were three?"
"Do you?" he threw back, and Rose realized that in fact, she didn't.
They decided to get Harry a Mr. Potato Head, which cost five pounds, but Rose ended up gazing longingly at a knitted doll with braids and a purple dress, which Paul then stressed was a girl's toy, but:
"I know that..." she said. "It'd be for me. I haven't got one, and the paper ones I make always get crumpled up, and they don't look nice."
But this lovely knitted doll cost seven pounds, and Patty, who only had six to contribute to this endeavor, pointed out they wouldn't be able to get it and Harry's present. So with a sigh, Rose turned away.
There was fortunately free giftwrapping available today, and Mrs. McReedy cooed when Rose told the clerk it was for her little brother. The Mr. Potato Head was all wrapped up in a red box, with a nice green bow, and after a hug and a barrage of thanks that made Patty gruff and annoyed, Rose rode home in the car with it in her lap and a smile on her face.
~RP~
She smuggled the present into her room in her backpack. There was no knowing if it was even allowed, after all. She managed to hide it in a part of the wardrobe Harry couldn't reach yet, and then she waited.
Winter break arrived, and with it, more misery for Rose. Harry was very happy that she could stay home with him now, and she was too, but Aunt Petunia's presence only meant more work and dark glares for seemingly nothing. She was never sure if she thought it was worth it to be home with Harry...
Christmas arrived again, and she and Harry received a pair of overalls and a comb respectively. Aunt Petunia made Rose promise to use it on him, and told her that she'd be cutting his hair soon. This had scared Harry, and after hastily taking him up to their room so he wouldn't get in trouble, Rose assured him that a haircut didn't hurt at all, and distracted him with his present from her.
"Wow!" Harry exclaimed, struggling to pull Mr. Potato Head out of the box.
"Yeah, you can put the eyes and ears in, and all kinds of different arms too! Just make sure you only play with this here, got it?"
Harry nodded. "Like the others!"
"Exactly." Rose gave him a hug with one arm as he pushed an eye into a leg hole experimentally. "Happy Christmas, Harry."
"The best Christmas!"
"No, 'cause you guess what? One day there's gonna be an even better Christmas!"
Harry's little eyes widened – he truly couldn't imagine. "How?"
"Well," and Rose bit her tongue thoughtfully. "All my friends will be there! And your friends too, 'cause by then you'll have friends of your own. We'll be far, far away from Auntie Petunia."
"But we won't get our present!"
"We don't need presents from her, silly! We'll get much, much better presents, from way better people – and there'll be enough Christmas pudding for us to have as much as we want! We'll spend it with – with," and she struggled to remember a name, any name - "Uncle Peter, and - and Auntie Alice, and a whole bunch of other family! You don't remember, 'cause you were just a baby, but they used to visit all the time!"
"Why don't they visit now?"
"I don't know. I think it's because we live with Aunt Petunia – they probably don't wanna visit her."
"Oh." And Harry seemed to think about this a moment. "Who did we live with before Auntie?"
Rose started blinking back tears. "Y'know how – y'know how Dudley calls Auntie and Uncle Mummy and Daddy? We used to – used to have – we used to have a mummy and a daddy too. We lived with them, and they loved us, they loved us very, very, very much."
"Where'd they go?"
How was she even going to start?
"Um, well – there's a thing, that, um, happens sometimes, to grown-ups – it's, uh, it's called dying, and it means they have to go somewhere where they can't ever, ever come back."
"Not even to visit?"
"No, Harry."
"Can't we visit them?"
"No, no we can't, Harry."
"Oh." And Harry sat and thought some more.
Relieved that he seemed to have stopped, Rose stood up to go to the bathroom.
"Why'd they do that?"
She flinched.
"They died – they – they died because – they died because a bad – a bad man came to the house. He made them die. They tried not to, but he made them die."
"Why?"
"Because he was bad, Harry!" Rose had no idea why, had never even thought about why a terrible, scary man had come to their home and killed Mum and Dad, and she didn't want to think about it, it hurt. "He was horrible, that's why! He didn't need any other reason!"
Harry recoiled, clutching Mr. Potato Head, and shrank away from Rose, who immediately felt guilty for yelling and dropped back to her knees. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry Harry! I'm not angry at you, I'm just sad, I promise! Please don't cry..."
Harry sniffled, but didn't cry, and Rose put her arms around him again and held him tight. "I loved Mummy and Daddy so very much, and I really, really miss them," she said softly into his hair – just exactly the same shade of black as Dad's. "They were so special and amazing, Harry. They were the best Mum and Dad ever. And they were magical. Don't tell Aunt Petunia I said that," she added a little hastily, "she hates hearing about it, but they really were magic."
"What's magic mean?" her little brother asked, his voice muffled in her sweater.
Rose grinned, and released her grip on him to tell him an even better story than that of the best ever Christmas yet to come.