Harry awoke at the sound of his Aunt softly walking down the stairs. He stayed quiet in the cupboard waiting to see which Aunt came downstairs. When the door opened softly and his Aunt crouched down outside, her one-word question told him everything he needed to know.
"Why?"
Crawling out of the cupboard and reaching up to touch her eye, he answered "Because I heal faster than you do."
Holding her arms out in a silent invitation, he crawled into her lap and she hugged him. "Oh, you stupid boy. I'm supposed to protect you even when it hurts, not the other way around." Rubbing his back, she catches his flinch as her hand touches the wound where the buckle caught him.
"Go up and get washed and bring the TCP and some cotton buds back down with you."
Letting him go she softly shoos him upstairs. "I'm sorry I didn't remember sooner Lily, but now I do I'm doing my best."
Once he was washed up he came downstairs with the TCP and cotton pads. Taking him into the kitchen Petunia lifted up his t-shirt and looked at the scabbed over wound. It looked like it had been done a week ago, not last night, and the bruises were a faded yellow rather than the vivid black that she was expecting. The wound looked an angry red that indicated that it was infected, and she saw similar marks on his back from previous times Vernon lost his temper with her nephew.
"It looks infected so I'm going to have to take the scab off and clean it properly."
Harry just nodded at her statement.
"This will hurt." She said just as she used the edge of a spoon to pull most of the scab off in one clean pull. Harry didn't even make a sound as she did this and the wound started to bleed with yellowish red blood indicating that it was indeed infected. Carefully removing the rest of the scab, she pressed the rest of the wound until only red blood came out. She then wiped it off with TCP and marvelled as it started scabbing over almost immediately.
Once she heard Vernon get out of bed Petunia left Harry making breakfast and phoned the Polkiss', a brief conversation and she'd arranged for Dudley to be dropped off at around 10 so that she could go shopping knowing that there was an adult looking out for him.
When Vernon came down for breakfast Harry almost goggled at the happy and relaxed expression on his face. He fair floated over to his Aunt and gave her a chaste kiss with the greeting of "Hello poppet, sorry about last night yesterday was a hard day."
Breakfast went more smoothly than he ever remembered, his Aunt wasn't waspish and his Uncle was happy. The only upset came when Aunt Petunia broached the subject of what they were doing today.
"Dudley, I need to get some new clothes today as well as the food for the weekend, so I've arranged with Mrs Polkiss that I'll drop you off there before I take the boy with me to help carry the bags."
"But Mum, I wanted to play Sonic." Dudley whined back.
"You can still play Sonic until we leave."
"But I wanted to finish the game today." Dudley looked to be winding himself up into an epic tantrum.
Cutting it off before it got going Vernon interjected "Dudley, listen to your mother. You've got all weekend to do that, and you can play with Piers at his house."
The thought of being able to play two-player changed Dudley's feelings about the situation completely and suddenly he was looking forward to going out.
"While we're out I was also going to get the boys things for Stonewall. Would you be able to take Dudley out tomorrow to get his uniform for Smeltings, and maybe you could explain what each bit is for while you're doing it."
"Anything for you Pet." Vernon smiled at his Aunt.
Even the post arriving and Vernon burning another two letters did little to dampen his mood.
A very confused Harry cleared up the table after breakfast.
Soon enough they were all leaving to drop Dudley off and go shopping. Once they were alone and out of sight Petunia stopped and looked at Harry.
"Do you want a hug?"
He stepped in and hugged her, then in a small voice he asked, "What happened this morning?"
"Can we get a cup of tea on the high street first and I'll try to explain."
Harry just nodded into her chest.
A short while later they were sitting in the corner of a small café, when Petunia started.
"It's because of last night. He's always been like this except when I was pregnant with Dudley. He comes home and drinks, then he'll take out his aggression. If I'm lucky he'll do it while we're still downstairs, otherwise it happens in the bedroom. The next morning he's always sunshine and light, and oh so apologetic. He'll probably bring me flowers tonight too."
"But why weren't you in a bad mood?"
"You set him off early, so he took it out on you instead of me. You shouldn't have done that, as it's my job to protect you, not the other way around. I know I've not done a very good job of it so far, but I have tried to protect both you and Dudley."
"I don't understand."
"That's ok you're only 11, you're not supposed to understand everything yet. Hey, I brought something I wanted to show you." With that, she reached into her handbag and pulled out a large envelope and reached into it.
"This is your first report card, I was so proud of you when we received it in the post, I even made your favourite dinner." She swallows hard before she gets to the next bit. "Then you came in with Dudley and I remember pulling out his report card to tell him how disappointed I was with him, but instead I got so angry with you. I don't know why, but suddenly the fact that you'd scored higher was an affront to me… I thought it was insulting. I'm sorry for taking it out on you, I don't know why I did it, just that something broke in me yesterday when I saw you in the cupboard, and I remembered.
"What I'm trying to say is that when you go to Hogwarts, that's the name of the school that Lily went to, I want you to do your best. Not for me, it's not worth doing it for me, but for your Mother, for Lily."
Shaking her head to bring her focus back to the present she continued "I know that you're not going to go to stonewall, but still need to buy you clothes, so we're going to buy you some new clothes to wear to school, but you have to promise that you won't try them on until you've left for school."
"I promise Aunty"
Petunia melts a little inside when he calls her Aunty rather than Aunt Petunia.
"We'll then grab some lunch and do the food shopping after lunch, does fish and chips sound alright?" She almost burst out laughing at the gobsmacked expression on Harry's face, and she couldn't help smiling. When was the last time her emotions felt so free?
"Is there anything else you'd like to do while we're out?"
She couldn't help it, she burst out laughing at that final question as his entire body language said that he felt like he was Alice waking up in Wonderland.
Harry couldn't believe what was happening, Aunt Petunia was laughing, and not the barking laugh he'd heard before, but instead a laugh full of some emotion he wasn't sure he could identify, but it was positive. When he'd been dragged out to carry the shopping before it was nothing like this. He'd been half-hoping that it would be better after yesterday and this morning, but he was sure that she was going to go back to normal once they got out. The way she behaved on the way to Piers house cemented in his mind that things were back to normal as she berated him for walking too close, too slow, getting in Dudley's way, and kept up the near-constant stream of vitriol that he was used to. Then she flipped again once they were away from Piers house, and she offered him a hug, then the café and now this.
Pulling his wits together he managed to squeak out a response "Could we go to the library?"
"Sure, we'll do that straight after lunch, though we won't be back in time to cook dinner so I'll need to go out to eat with Vernon and Dudley."
"What's going on? Why are you so different?" spilled out of his mouth before he could pull it back in.
Snapping out of her good mood she looked at him seriously. "I don't know. I know that doesn't help you much, but we don't always know everything. As I told you before, when you handed me the letter from your mum it was like something snapped in me and I felt freer than I've felt in years.
"I've not been a good parent to you for years and, whatever the reason, that's something that I'm going to need to live with for the rest of my life. But now that I'm free I'm going to do my best to do right by you for as long as it lasts. I can't promise it will last, but while it does will you promise to do your best as well?"
"Could it have been depression? It was in a book that I read yesterday about families that fight, and it said that people that are abused often suffer from it. It also said that they can have P… T… something."
"I don't know, it could be. Your mother would have probably known, as she was always the reader in the family. Do you like reading, is that why you wanted to go to the library?"
"I don't know.
"I went to the library to learn about meditation cause I don't want to disappear, and the Librarian was nice and helped me with the complicated bits, so I went back again yesterday and then she gave me a book about families that fight and leaflets for Childline."
"What do you like?"
"I, don't know, cooking maybe?"
She sighed at that last response as she realised just how bad they'd been at raising Harry.
"Come on, let's get you some new clothes."
With that they both got up and went shopping for clothes. Just as they were going to pay in BHS she saw a stuffed fox in the children's section. Leading Harry over she took the fox off the shelf crouched down and handed it to him.
"I just saw this and it reminded me of your mother. It was the last time she came home to Mum and Dad before she got married, and she was so excited that she'd finally learnt this new skill. She was fair to bursting, I don't know how she held it in together before we got up to our room. She closed the door and wedged the chair under the handle smiled at me and promptly turned into a fox with the greenest eyes you've ever seen. Her fur was a slightly darker red than this, but she was a fox. I screamed when she changed, and she collapsed on the floor laughing, I didn't even know foxes could roll on the floor laughing. Would you like it?"
His mother could turn into a fox! Mutely he clutched the fox to his chest and nodded his head.
"You'll need to give it back to me so that we can pay for it, then it will need to stay in the bag until you leave as we don't want Dudley or your Uncle to find it. Can you do that?"
Slowly holding out the fox he met her eyes and nodded his head seriously, before dashing tears away from his eyes with his sleeve.
His aunt bought a few things for herself as well and paid for the stuff with a debit card, waiting while they phoned the bank for authorisation. Then she took him to lunch and allowed him to choose what he wanted from the children's menu, while she ordered a rock and a large chips to split between both of them. He was also allowed to have a coke float, it was glorious.
After lunch it was off to the Library.