Author: Mothermindgames
Warning: Possible Slash, Child Abuse, and abandonment
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and everything in the book belongs to its brilliant author. If you saw it there and it isn't a folk legend then its hers
Summary: Another "what if the Dursley's ditched Harry" with my own little spin on it.
Chapter 2
It had been six months since her nephew had been dumped on her doorstep like yesterday's news. Six months of having to go five towns over to buy extra diapers, six months of having to turn down invitations because she couldn't risk leaving Harry with a babysitter. Petunia Dursley knew that if she wanted to get rid of her pustule of a nephew no one could know that he had ever entered the Dursley residence. If anyone saw him, even once, there would be awkward questions later and that was something Petunia was not going to let happen. She put that grubby little freak in the cupboard and there he would stay.
She changed his diapers just enough times a day that it wouldn't stink up the house. She threw in a bottle filled with thin cold formula in the mornings and after drawing the curtains she stuffed one jar of baby food, the kind her Dudley didn't like, in him at night. Dudley, her poor smart Dudderkins, knew something was going on. Petunia made sure he'd never seen the freak but she knew that every moment she spent with that grub in the cupboard was snatching precious time and attention away from Dudley. If it was possible, she would have resented Harry more for it.
As far as Petunia Dursley could tell the only piece of luck her dead sister had left her was the time of her demise. That no good witch had managed to croak right before winter. Petunia had managed to excuse her absence among the mom and baby community circle as a series of colds both she and Dudley contracted.
After one or two 'colds' everyone seemed to come to the conclusion that it would be better to avoid the Dursley sick house for the rest of the season. This reaction both pleased and greatly annoyed Petunia. Even if it was what she had been shooting for. After all, you'd think Pearla Polkiss might offer to drop off some soup or such, it would have been neighborly.
Because of there 'delicate' health Petunia and Dudley didn't stray further than their own backyard, something Dudley loudly objected to.
Petunia's second bit of luck had come not from her sister but from her self imposed isolation. There was only so much house work to be done at number 4 Privet Drive and though Dudley was a demanding child even he took naps, some of the time. Around the end of December Petunia convinced Vernon, who had been spending most of his time avoiding the house with the freak in it, to buy and install a top of the line entertainment system, complete with one of those new DVD players.
Now the bit of luck happened around January. Vernon had taken to buying piles of VHSs and DVDs to entertain Petunia. At first he had chosen one or two carefully thought out selections but Petunia soon demanded more. In order the stave off his wife's whining he had taken to buying ten or more at once, chosen by their shiny and attractive covers. In one of his quick buying runs he purchased a foreign film from Asia.
When Petunia discovered this she had disdainfully placed it on the highest shelf in a shadowed corner. Eventually boredom and nosy curiosity caused her to pick it out again. She fiddled with the remote until she hit upon the English subtitles. Then with disdain and condescension she huffed and puffed at the foreign barbarians until she gotten through two thirds of the movie. The ruling dynasty had been disposed in a coup. The young king and his first wife had been killed in the assault on the palace along with the two of the king's three sons. The third had been saved thanks to his nurses quick thinking. Petunia watched, riveted as the nurse was slain right after hiding her charge in a large trunk. Several hours past and the young boy emerged from the trunk only to be seized by the reigning conquerors.
Petunia watched as a general lifted his weapon to kill the boy only to be stopped by the new king. She sneered as the king declared his Buddhist faith and abhorrence of murder. As the next scene started Petunia was thoroughly confused, "Why are they all outside?" She watched as the last prince was enveloped in a large red sack while the court looked on as a mostly nude man commenced a graceful dance toward the red sack, club in hand.
Petunia screamed, the dancer had brought his heavy club down onto the sack over and over killing the child within. Petunia's cries of injustice were almost a mirror of the words in the subtitles.
"Murders, vicious murders. How could you?" The kings response was scrolled along the screen,
"Woman I have done nothing wrong. Merely have I observed this man beating the dust from one of my favorite red silk bags. I have murdered nothing, it is only a red bag."
"What is that heathen talking about there was a boy…in…there" Petunia yelled but half way through she began thinking. It took her awhile to understand one of the most unique ways mankind had come up with to circumvent a "thou shall not kill" commandment but half way through dinner with her family, the freak still in the cupboard she understood. If one conveniently forgot the contents of the sack then what the king had ordered wasn't and execution, merely an elaborate and eccentric cleaning ceremony.
So all she had to do was get rid of the child in a way that could be misunderstood and then no matter what the freaks did she'd be able to truthfully say she hadn't done anything to the child. It was perfect, not even that truth-poison Lily used to threaten her with would work. She couldn't wait to tell Vernon.