Monachopsis
the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place
Privet Drive was a peculiar neighborhood in its sheer uniformity. Every house was carefully painted with complementary shades to match the entire community. Residents were permitted to choose from select shades in which they could paint their picket fences and different mail box designs they could install. Lawns were expected to be mowed at least biweekly and inspected regularly by the Neighborhood Association to confirm that lawns were no shorter than five centimeters and no taller than nine centimeters. Gardens were confined to complimentary flora of the season unless a resident submitted an appeal through the proper channels with a firm reason.
It was exactly because Privet Drive was such stifling neighborhood and its strict regulations and harsh fines made it the perfect community for the upper-middle-class families—too wealthy to be considered part of the "regular" middle class, but also not wealthy enough to be part of the upper-class. Lower-class families couldn't afford to live in nicer neighborhoods and upper-class families had enough wealth to throw around left and right for rules and regulations to no longer apply to them in certain aspects. People were always willing to look the other way on the "small" things so long as it didn't hurt them in any way and ignoring community violations easily went under the radar.
With a nice and well-kept playground, only a block away from the neighborhood, Privet Drive attracted middle-class families like flies to honey. It was perfect for newly wedded couples who looked to settle down and start a family and retirees who wanted their occasional peace and excitement. As it was, it was the ultimate irony that Privet Drive also attracted some of the nastiest people—those who were more than capable of pulling wool over others' eyes, masquerading as the friendly neighbor, disciplined employee, or genuine friend that others truly believed them to be—who immediately gathered to form vicious social circles.
The Pit, as Harry liked to call it in the privacy of his mind, was a prison that drained the very life out of him. It was soul-sucking; The Pit swallowed him entirely and spat him out like a flavorless wad of gum. It left him less than whole—as though iron chains were burning into his skin, the searing heat burning through to his very soul. Occasionally, Harry felt like the weight of the world had suddenly decided to deposit itself unto his shoulders, as if Zeus decided to give Atlas a reprieve and make Harry hold the burden of the world. On such days, he felt like he was trying to run in a swimming pool or that someone had thought it would be funny to watch him function throughout the day with invisible weights attached to him.
As surprising as it might have seemed, Petunia was the one who held all the power in the house. Much like the power dynamics of hyenas, Vernon and Dudley unconsciously submitted to her will. For all that Petunia appeared to be the most unassuming member of the family, she was, in fact, the most dangerous member of the three. She manipulated Vernon into thinking that he was the man of the house, that she was the submissive and subservient wife that the eighties popularized. She trained Dudley to break his temper tantrums when she used a particular tone with him or gave him a warning glance. Petunia had a silver tongue and knew how to use it well.
Petunia had a seat on every social circle in the neighborhood and controlled things from the shadows. She had a role to play and Petunia played it well; no one would suspect the sweet and genuine Petunia—so true to her namesake—to be the one who was airing everyone's dirty laundry with the perfect timing and delivery. She knew how to plant suggestions into people's heads, make them believe that they were the ones who thought of it, and that they were so smart for realizing that! In no time at all, Petunia had the entire community eating out of her head as she fed them crumbs of this and that. Harry went from the pitiful orphan boy to the ignorant, delinquent brat so quickly that one might has well assumed that his reputation immediately plummeted overnight.
Vernon worked a steady job at Grunnings Drills as a sales manager and the pay was cushy enough to support three people plus one with significantly reduced expenses—not that it mattered that they spent far less money on Harry than they did themselves, especially when he actually saved them money since he essentially their all-purpose maid, butler, housekeeper, and gardener.
Vernon was the only one who worked in the family, but he was never good with numbers so the only logical choice would be to hand it to Petunia to deal with. Petunia chose what to stock the house with—groceries, toiletries, necessities, and so forth were all strictly chosen based on quality, quantity, and price. Ironically, Petunia ruled the Dursley household with an iron fist, reminiscent of how the Vikings functioned. While men did all the fighting and drinking, women controlled the household and made sure it was still standing—truly brain over brawn at its fittest.
All Harry received every month was a small tube of toothpaste, single roll of toilet paper, and small travel-size bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. Petunia would've saddled him with lye soap but then people would start asking questions she didn't want to answer. Petunia knew far better than to give the vultures an open opportunity to scrutinize her every move, finally give them a chance to determine if the Petunia Dursley was truly as genuine as she appeared to others. For all that people could act like such mindless sheep simply following whoever was in front of them, essentially creating a never-ending circle, quite literally, people were also like vultures, waiting for that one moment of weakness.
Petunia loved to step back and distance herself from the violence whenever Vernon and Dudley, newly dubbed Scum and Trash respectively, got into one of their moods. Whether she was outside for the neighborhood and inside the house, there was always a role for Petunia to fall back on. In the neighborhood, Petunia played as the respectable wife, the nurturing mother, the kind aunt. Inside the house, Petunia acted as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders from having to fit into the role she had assumed for herself, which made Scum and especially Trash none the wiser for thinking she was without a mask in the privacy of their home. But even at the house, Petunia was the submissive wife, indulgent mother, and indifferent aunt.
Even as she stepped aside when Harry was getting beaten within an inch from his life, giving Scum and Trash the impression that she simply couldn't stomach the sight, Harry knew better. Petunia was far rottener than Scum and Trash combined could ever hope to be. Petunia liked to step back and indulge at the sight of Harry, bloodied and bruised and imagine it was Lily in his place. As the saying went, eyes were the windows to the soul and for all that Petunia had muddy blue eyes that just barely missed brown, they were like chips of ice from how frigid her gaze could be. It was only when Petunia got her hands on a juicy, dark secret that could absolutely ruin someone's life within the social circles inside and outside the neighborhood or when Harry looked like today would finally be the day that he kicked the bucket did she show something other than her usual frigid gaze, which the sheeple bafflingly perceived as kind and warm—ecstasy.
For all that Petunia liked to preach that Harry would never belong anywhere no matter where he went, if he was even able to get that far in his life. In her words, Harry was a loner, an outcast, born without a soul, incapable of empathy or sympathy, and truly a pitiful being who lived without truly living—truly, he merely existed as simply as one breathed. Before, Harry would have accepted her words as the truth, nodded his head along if he had the strength to, and wept softly to himself in his cupboard. But that was Before. Now, Harry just wanted to laugh whenever he heard Petunia give him the same old spiel, always reworded and revised, slightly improved here and there, but always conveying the same message she always spat out since the first time she gave him her gospel.
Petunia was so very hypocritical. For all that she loved to share her gospel with Harry at what she perceived as his greatest moments of weakness—and she was rather excellent at spotting those out Before—her words could be applied to her as well, just as much as they did on Harry. Petunia was cut from a different cloth from everyone in Privet Drive and even outside of the small, uniform neighborhood community. No one else could witness the bloody thrashings of a child with such a blank pace like Petunia did; some would be terrified, others horrified, and few would smile sadistically from it, but rare was it that people would look entirely indifferent and desensitized to the scene yet derive such ecstatic pleasure from the sight. Even experienced manipulators wouldn't be able to emulate the skillfulness which Petunia exhibited, weaving her spider web to trap those who flew too close and making it seem like they were caught willingly.
Harry may be an outsider, but so was Petunia.
And that was why Harry granted her a modicum of respect by referring to her by her name. In a twisted turn of events, Harry could call Petunia his role model, if such a term could be applied to what she was to him. Harry learned everything he could from watching her. He observed and learned as she applied her silver tongue, weaved sweet lies that entered people's ears as the truth, and made people act the way she intended for them without them even realizing that they were being played like a fiddle. He watched whenever Petunia switched masks so skillfully, discarding her "Outside" persona for her "Inside" persona so smoothly and seamlessly it truly appeared like her Outside persona was the real Petunia.
Once Harry realized that Before, Scum and Trash were useful for building up his tolerance for pain, he figured that now they could be used to give him practice on how to deal with annoyances. He wanted to see how well he could use what he learned from Petunia's unintended lessons from merely observations and how far he could go on his own merit when it came to dealing with garbage. Garbage was a universal issue around the world and no one would notice if a person or two went missing. Petunia, Harry reckoned that she could be left alone as thanks for "teaching" him so much, if only because he also knew she would come to know better than to tempt Harry.
*For the people who noticed the little reference to Xanxus from Katekyo Hitman Reborn (KHR), what do you think?
1. Harry will eventually become Xanxus when he gets older.
2. Xanxus gets his habit of calling people "Trash" from Harry.
3. Harry later travels back in time and finds himself as Xanxus.
4. Harry later travels back in time and becomes Xanxus.
(#3 means that Harry is Xanus while #4 means that Harry assumes the identity of Xanxus)
P.S. You're not going to get confirmation for this because this will be a future chapter in the far future, as in chapter-wise. I will neither confirm nor deny whether I will spirit away again.