"I'm thinking of leaving Vernon," Petunia said quietly. Harry's cup of tea stopped halfway to his mouth as he stared at her. Petunia wove her fingers through the hair of little Lily's bright red hair. It wasn't the auburn shade that her sister's had been, but she could imagine. The girl was sound asleep with her head in Petunia's lap. Some might have said she was too big to be napping in the middle of the day, but Petunia loved everything about the little Lily Potter.
"Where is this coming from?" Harry asked, clearing his throat.
"I've been thinking about it for a while," she admitted after a beat of silence. "I'm getting old, and I'm getting very tired. And Vernon is just…" she shrugged, "not someone I want to be with anymore. If I ever did."
"So what's stopping you?" Harry asked her. The distant sounds of boys' laughter came floating in from the backyard.
"Harry, I haven't worked a day since I married Vernon," Petunia answered with a rueful smile. "I have no money to support myself, and I wouldn't want to impose on Dudley and his family. He's got his own life to live… I don't know what I'm going to do but I don't want to waste what's left of my life tied to a man full of hate."
Harry said nothing in response and the two fell silent. He chewed on his bottom lip in thought, occasionally scrunching his eyebrows before his face would clear a second later. Petunia was too busy gazing at her sleeping grandniece. She hoped every day that Lily would grow to be the woman that Lily was.
She had to leave eventually though and sooner than she wished, Petunia found herself at the front door hugging her nephews and niece goodbye. The Weasley cousins watched on from the kitchen, their heads sticking around the doorframe.
"Buy Petunia," Hugo yelled, waving at her. Petunia waved back before heading out the door. She was almost at the sidewalk when Harry came running after her.
"Petunia! Wait" he called to her, and she stopped and turned to watch him.
"Yes, dear?" sometimes the endearment still felt strange on her tongue, but every time it got easier and more natural.
Harry sighed, hands on his hips and ruffled his hair as he looked down the street and then back at her. "If you go through with divorcing Uncle Vernon… you're welcome to stay with Ginny and I. However long you want."
She was stunned at the invitation, blinking quickly to hold back the tears.
"I couldn't possibly, this is your home, your family, I couldn't intrude," she stuttered although in her heart she desperately wanted to accept.
"You wouldn't be intruding, the kids would love having you around," Harry insisted.
"After all those years with me, I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable, and even if you were okay with it, I wouldn't want to put any strain on Ginny," Petunia went on. Harry put both hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes.
"It will be okay," he told her slowly. "You and I, we had a rocky start, and Ginny is definitely still angry about that. But we're not the same people we used to be, and you've shown me that. And so has Dudley. If I hadn't forgiven you, and if I didn't think you were a good person, you wouldn't be allowed to see my children. So if, and when, you leave Uncle Vernon, my door is open to you."
"Thank you," she whispered, her heart full. And maybe if she were anyone else, Petunia would've hugged her nephew. Instead, she cleared her throat, wiped at the corners of her eye, and straightened her shoulders.
"I'll give you a call if anything happens," she said, and with a nod of her head she got into her car and Harry watched her drive away.
"I want a divorce," Petunia mumbled one morning, a few days after she'd spoken to Harry. Vernon seemed to not have heard her and kept on eating his breakfast as he read the morning paper.
"I want a divorce," she repeated louder this time, startling Vernon out of his concentration. He stared at her blankly for a few seconds as the words processed. His cheeks and neck had sagged from the years. The bags under his eyes had become more pronounced and his hair was grey and beginning to thin a little. Looking at him now, Petunia couldn't remember the young man she had fallen in love with. She couldn't remember if Vernon used to be handsome or why she would have ever mistaken him for it.
All she could see was the lines that his hatefulness had etched onto his face. The perpetual downturn of his mouth from frowning in disapproval. The lines in between his eyebrows from when his face would scrunch when he was angry and yelling.
"Don't be ridiculous Petunia, now eat your breakfast," Vernon said nodding towards her untouched plate of eggs.
"I'm being serious, Vernon," she said.
"What for? Where is this coming from?" Vernon asked her.
"I've been thinking about it for a while," she said. "I think it's time to say goodbye to that chapter in our lives."
"Is this some nonsense that Potter has been feeding you when you've been over at his house?" Vernon barked at her, chewing his food more aggressively. "Divorce indeed, as if we're some sort of hippies!"
"No, it isn't Harry who's put this idea into my head," Petunia said with a sigh. Already she could feel her patience wearing thin. "He didn't even know I was thinking about this until I mentioned it to him a few days ago."
"But I just don't understand, we've been fine all these years together," Vernon sputtered at her, his paper forgotten on the table. Petunia watched the grease soak through the page and smudge the letters printed.
"For you," Petunia said, raising her voice. Vernon went quiet. "You've been fine all these years. A wife who makes your food, cleans your house, takes care of your child without complaint, that is your idea of getting along fine, not mine."
"Don't you ever think maybe we shouldn't have lasted as long as we did?" Petunia said in a resigned tone, looking into Vernon's eyes questioningly, searching for some understanding. But she could already see that he didn't understand what she was saying. He really had passed their whole marriage thinking everything was as it should be. Had he never asked himself if they were doing the right thing? If they were compatible? Had Vernon never seen that there was always something about them that was just a little… off? Didn't he notice the lengths Petunia went to chip away at herself to fit him?
"Of course not, I've always been secure that you were the one for me," Vernon said. Petunia sighed, but she couldn't find it in herself to be too angry that he hadn't seen past the performance she felt like she was putting on every day. He tried reaching for her hand, but she moved it out of his reach and shifted away from him. Vernon's hand dropped onto the tabletop with a thud.
"I haven't changed Petunia, I'm still the same as I always was," Vernon said.
"I think that's the problem, dear," she said. "I don't want to grow old with someone who's just going to get more bitter and resentful of the world with old age. I want to enjoy the elderly years of my life in peace, not listening to you be a judgemental prick day in and day out."
"But we've never disagreed, never fought," Vernon went on.
"Didn't it ever bother you that I never questioned you, never challenged you on anything, never expected you to be better than you were?" Petunia asked. "Didn't it bother you that I spoiled Dudley into being a bully as a child?"
"Nonsense, you were a doting mother as you should've been and a supportive wife," Vernon scoffed.
"We taught him to be cruel and ungrateful, Vernon," she whispered. "And I think that's my biggest regret from this marriage."
"I was never cruel to you Petunia, I never hurt you," Vernon said in outrage.
"No, but you taught me to be the worst version of myself. You encouraged my hatred of my sister, convinced me she deserved to be cut out of my life, that she was abnormal when she needed me more than ever. What you should've done was scold me for the way I behaved towards her, knocked some sense into me. My sister who died thinking I never cared for her, when she shouldn't have," it was as if a dam had been broken and all the words were flowing out of her. Petunia didn't think she could stop talking if she tried.
"My own nephew, you taught me to resent and hate him, normalized my abusive behaviour towards him. Vernon, when I think about what we put that child through, my heart aches and my chest tightens and still, it doesn't compare to the way we made him feel growing up." Petunia could feel her eyes burning with tears, her throat tightening as she spoke. She took a moment to take in a deep breath before she kept going.
"I can't change what happened in the past, but I can choose how I want my relationship with Harry to be moving forward. And I want to be present. And to love my grandnieces and nephews and spoil them rotten. And I don't want to be shackled to you," she said.
"I won't sign the papers you know," Vernon said just as Petunia knew he would. Still, the declaration made her shoulders sag in exhaustion.
"Please don't make this more difficult than it has to be Vernon, I will leave you, that I can promise. Papers or not, it will happen, but I wanted to do this the right way to honor the time we've spent together," she said, exhaustion heavy in her voice.
"What will people say? What will they think?" he demanded.
"I don't care what anyone has to say. None of these people have been keeping our lights on so I don't know why you concern yourself about it so much," she countered.
"What about my family?"
"Your family are the single biggest, most insufferable group of bigots to ever walk this earth. I never liked your sister, Marjorie. And they never liked me, at best they tolerated me much like you'd tolerate having an ugly nose you couldn't change. They'll be happy for you if anything."
The scrape of Petunia's chair as she got up seemed too loud for the kitchen.
"You should want to be with someone who wants to be with you Vernon, don't hang onto me out of anger," Petunia said, a hand on his broad shoulder. "I'll have the papers delivered to you in the next few weeks and we can start the process."
When Harry Potter opened his door a few days later, he wasn't prepared for what he saw before him. His aunt Petunia stood on his doorstep, suitcase beside her, shifting from foot to foot nervously.
"Is your invitation still open?" she asked him by way of greeting.
"Of course, I meant every word," Harry replied immediately. A relieved smile spread across Petunia's face as she hesitantly stepped across the threshold. Harry pulled her into his arms and held onto her tightly. "Has he signed the divorce papers?"
"Not yet," she spoke into his shoulder. "But he'll sign them eventually, he just needs time to let the sting pass."
There was a clattering of footsteps and raised voices as Harry's children came running in from their backyard, broomsticks slung over their shoulders. As soon as they spotted Petunia, they dropped the brooms and swarmed her, tugging at her hands and arms.
"What are you doing back so soon?"
"Are you staying with us for a long time?"
"What's with the suitcase?"
"Auntie do you wanna ride brooms with us?"
Harry watched them drag her deeper into the house, took hold of Petunia's forgotten suitcase and trailed after them.