Disclaimer: What's the point? If you think I own any of this, go ahead and think so...if your so stupid you actually think that, then you're probably to stupid to be able to sue me.
"Explain," his voice is icy and cold and I cower under his gaze, wondering how that gaze had ever made me feel loving towards him and then realizing that I never had loved him, that he was a pitiful excuse for the man I really loved. "Explain why that -- that thing's DNA is in Dudley."
I tremble but force myself to speak. Vernon will not walk over me, I won't let him; my mother once told me that I am like grass, born to be walked all over, but that is not true and I will not let him and suddenly the flow of words start before I can control them and think what I will say. "I loved him from the minute my sister introduced him to me and I saw his messy black hair and his dark mischievous eyes and..." suddenly I realize I sound like the lovesick girl that I am and I stop myself. No,I tell myself,I hate him and James is going to know that I no longer love him. I slowly regain my speech, hoping the pause was not too long.
"Then I loved him. It was really more a school-girl crush then, but I thought it was more. I told him and he said that he loved me even in spite of my too-long neck and everything else and I was glad and we dated through the summer, he took me to the beach and to Diagon Alley and I took him to muggle things like the movies and everything and we were happy, Vernon, we were happy.
"But then his school started and once more we were separated. He would owl me and I would owl him and we could hardly wait until the next summer. And next summer we saw each other again and were in love again and we loved each other that summer and the next and the next after that and even after that we dated for more summers." Vernon grunts impatiently as though these were worthless details but I see him growing more and more angry and I force myself to ignore my scared instincts, force myself to stay sitting upright and not cower under his ugly terrifying gaze. Born to be walked all over, my mother's voice repeats itself in my head, echoing, an ugly reminder.
"One summer we were both sixteen," I resume and suddenly my throat closes up and I am terrified. How can I say this? How can I tell this part? It was terrifying before, but this...I can't, I tell myself, but the words echo again within my mind: born to be walked all over, and somehow feeling that talking gives me more power, that I gain power by not giving in to the terror which surrounds me, reaching out to grasp me. "We -- one night, we -- we let our passions get the better of us," and then I break down, unable to hold back terrified and angry and hurt emotions that are flooding me all at once.
Vernon's angry face does not change and I know he waits to hear more so I force myself to continue. "We didn't mean for it to happen. I got pregnant. I was terrified at first because I remembered how I looked at the teenage pregnant girls at my school with their babies talking about maybe I should get an abortion or should I just give it up for adoption and I was so sure I would never be one of those screwed up girls, that I would amount to much more, I was superior and now look where I was. I wanted to hide it and abort the baby and pretend nothing happened but somehow I couldn't so I was stuck with it all and terrified." A voice inside my asks me, "What the hell are you doing? Telling him this? This is not to be told, keep it inside, don't tell," but I know that he would know anyway and I keep on talking, finding it almost a relief to let go. "I did the only thing I could do. I asked for him to marry me. But he told me, still looking at me like he loved me, that his parents drew the line at muggle-borns and he couldn't marry a muggle, didn't I know? And he was very sorry I became pregnant, but really, if he married me he would be disowned and besides, he was already engaged to Lily. "To Lily, Vernon, my own goddamn sister," suddenly emotion seizes me and I feel my own speech leaving my control altogether. James is good enough to...to sleep with a Muggle but too good to marry her, is he? Good enough to make me have Dudley but not to make Dudley his own son by marrying me." And finally, exhausted, I finish and am silent, terrified of Vernon's reaction but not letting it show.
The house is silent but for the sound of the crack of a leather belt on human skin and my own muffled scream.
I was born to be walked all over.
A.N.2: Short, I know, but there wasn't a lot to say...I got the idea and had to write it. It's silly to get this far and then not review, don't you think? Even if it's a flame...