Chapter 9 - Parents
They next day Harry pulled a blank canvas off the wall. He took it to a corner of the room, away from the Dursley's view and hearing.
"You are in for it now, scum" Ginny spat at Vernon and Petunia. "Harry just woke up his mum and dad, and is filling them in on everything that has happened since they died. They don't look real happy with you." The young red-haired beauty was grinning with anticipation.
"L-l-lily?" Petunia stuttered. Funny how all the years that they had Harry she never wondered how her sister would have felt about her treatment of their freak son. She has assumed with her sister being a witch they would not end up in the same place after death. Petunia wasn't even sure if there was an afterlife for 'those' kind of people. She hadn't known there were alternatives to death, like this painting.
Hours passed. The Dursleys could occasionally make out sobbing coming from Harry's corner, or catch glimpses of him if he leaned back. Vernon wasn't particularly worried. They could yell all they wanted – he knew he was right to try and improve their freak of a boy. And Vernon was safe in the small cupboard.
Harry finally stood up, limped over and roughly grabbed his Aunt and Uncle's portrait from the wall. He carried it over and propped it up against a conjured easel where it faced the Potters, who were glaring with parental rage and fury. Petunia clung to her husband, begging by gesture for some comfort. She got none, as he was too wrapped up in his own fears.
"Petunia! How could you!" Lily Potter spoke in a chilling, controlled voice. "My son – my poor baby! All you were asked to do was raise one little baby!"
"I never wanted him!" Petunia was shaking and trying to move away from the green accusing eyes of her sister. "We woke up one morning and there he was next to the milk and paper! We didn't want him!"
"And so you felt it was proper to starve and beat our son and force him to live in a cupboard?" James Potter shouted his rage at the pair. The people in the other paintings all rushed forward to watch and listen in. Harry brought his chair over so he could drink and watch in comfort.
Lily was sobbing, crying, weeping for her boy. Mourning for the child robbed of his youth at the age of one and a half. "Why did you not get in touch with Dumbledore and give him back? Do you really think I would have treated Dudley poorly if you had died?"
Petunia and Vernon both looked away. Although they didn't know the Potters well, they knew them enough to know they would have raised Dudley truly as their own, freaks or not.
"Never any toys? Clothes of his own? Proper meals? A bed to sleep in?" Potter shouted in fury at the dumb looking pair. "A dog is treated better than that!"
"I-I-I we let him have toys and clothes. He wasn't naked! And those things are expensive – we aren't rich like you were!" Petunia reverted to spitting hysterically, driven partially mad with guilt.
"I saw your home, Petunia! You had four bedrooms, and you put him in a cupboard? He told me his toys were all broken things from your fat, spoiled brat of a son! And only the hand-me-down clothing of a whale?" Lily clung to her husband, whom Petunia noted with jealously held her back and caressed her hair in a comforting manner.
"We can't help it if freaks have little runts for babies, and our boy is big boned" Vernon growled, offended.
"My son wouldn't have been a runt if you had fed him more than scraps once a day when he was lucky! What is up with making him cook all your meals, and not feeding him, you lazy useless cow?" James' fingers were twitching, just begging to be wrapped around his wand and hexing his in-laws.
Harry leaned back in his chair, enjoying the fireworks. They hadn't even started in on his missing arm, ruined leg, ruined face. He sipped the port he had conjured for the evening, feeling his muscles relax and his mind fuzz out, accepting his parents stanch support of himself. It had taken him years to understand that what the Dursleys had done to him was not his fault. It was good to finally hear the voices and affirmations he had fantasized about for so many lonely years.
The yelling went long into the night, or at least the time period that Harry used as night. When he had felt satiated with the righteous fury of his parents, he hung the portraits back up, and fell asleep to the warm sight of Remus and Sirius once more greetingand pounding Prongs on the back, welcoming him back to the Marauders with a butterbeer.