He is so tiny. My Dudders is well fed, I admit, but he towered over this child.
Tiny.
He wails pitifully, my shriek must have startled him. I'm about to comfort the boy, if only to stop him waking the neighbours, when he unscrews his face, and opens his eyes.
Green. Bright, vivid, lost, and hateful eyes. Her eyes.
I'm almost afraid to touch him, but I pick him up by the blanket, and set him on the kitchen table. I examine him carefully, making sure he at least looks normal.
His hair is frighteningly messy, I try to smooth it out for him, and I brace myself for the shrieks and cries that my Duddy gives when I try to groom him.
A hiccup.
So this is my nephew. My tiny, quiet, and left on my doorstep nephew. Lily must have grown tired of child-rearing, typical. So lazy and selfish and-
"Mamma?"
It was a pitiful cry, a lost voice, a single word which said all that needed to be said:
Where are you? When are you coming back? Why did you go?
Foolish boy. Your mother is a good-for-nothing layabout, always leaving me to pick up the pieces of everything. Always-
A letter. So, perhaps this particular incident could be explained away by sister dearest?
…
No. Nonononono.
Dead.
My sister. My hateful, beautiful, freakish, loving, stupid, sister is dead. Killed by magic. Killed by the very freakish world that she had tried so hard to embrace. And the boy…
The boy would no doubt be abnormal as well. He would put the whole family in danger, I had to send him away, no matter what that Dumble-whatever said I couldn't-
"Petunia?"
"What, Lily? You haven't spoken to me since me wedding."
"You're an auntie now Petty."
" I- I-"
"I just wanted to ask, would you be the godmother?
I couldn't keep a magical child in the house, but I could keep a normal one. I could take his magic, and shove it into a little box, far away in his mind. I could protect him from the world that took his mother. I had afterall agreed to being godmother, and I believed in duty.
I didn't have to like the boy, I just had to care for him. It wasn't like he reminded me of anyone…looking so much like that father of his, with that hair, that nose, and those-
Eyes.
What do I see when I look at him?
I could say what I plan to say to Vernon. I could say I saw a abnormal little leech the my ungrateful sister had left us.
Or I could say what I didn't want to ever admit.
I could say that when I look at him, I see her eyes.I could say I saw someone who was the last living reminder of the person whom I have both cherished and despised all my life.
Or I could tell the truth.
I could say that he was just a little boy.
Just a tiny little boy.
A/N: This is the beginning to the Petunia Trilogy. Her character fascinates me. I just wanted to look deeper into it. She seems to be torn between loving and hating her sister, and I find that an intriguing conflict.