Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Harry Potter. This is an amateur, non-profit work. I write for my own enjoyment.
Chapter 13: Petunia's Regret
It was uncanny, thought Voldemort, how alike his and the boy's childhood were. They were both raised around muggles who hated them. They were both orphans, never knowing the truth about their parents until after finding out about magic. They were isolated, treated with fear and contempt by those surrounding them, due to the fear of the strange and the unknown, of magic. All they ever wanted was for a place to be called home, a place where they'll be accepted for who they are. And then he, Voldemort, had used his special abilities to retaliate, forever punish the kids who had taunted him and causing him grief. And now the boy had decided to use it on his tormentors...
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Vernon was a disgruntled man. He had a tiring day; he had to work later than usual as he had so much to do before he can transfer to the branch in Paris. He came home late that evening and found a very strange sight.
In the dining room, his wife Petunia was laughing (and that itself was a strange sight), and sitting across her was the freak, animatedly telling her a story. Dudley was sitting beside Petunia listening to Harry, apparently transfixed with the tale. Occasionally he too laughed out loud upon hearing the strange and funny things that happened to the young sorcerer in Harry's story.
Vernon could feel his body started to twitch uncontrollably. He was reminded of the day of the incident and felt his heart clenched with fear.
What did the freak do? What had he done to Petunia? And Dudley?
And then the freak saw him and smiled...
"Vernon!" Petunia exclaimed, seeing her husband standing immobile at the doorway.
"Harry here has been telling us the stories he read. There was this... Vernon, are you okay? Vernon!" Vernon heard Petunia screamed as he was engulfed in the darkness.
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Hours ago, that very morning...
After a long night, Harry had confronted Petunia again. He found her in her bedroom, packing clothes into trunks in preparation for the holiday trip. She was startled to see Harry.
"What do you want?" Her voice was cutting. Harry was the cause of everything that had went wrong in her life after all.
Harry looked at her. Really looked at her.
"Was it so hard to forget? To forgive?"
"What are you talking about?" She was getting nervous with the look Harry was giving her.
"Calm down, Aunt Petunia." He walked over to her.
"Take slow, calming breath..." There was power in his words as he had laced them with his magic, just like what Voldemort had taught him the night before. Voldemort had impressed upon him the power of spoken words and their inflection, otherwise why would people use incantations for charms and rituals?
Petunia's breathing seemed to slow down. Her posture relaxed.
"Your eyes are getting heavier... Sleep... Somnus." As Harry stressed the last word, Petunia's eyes closed and she slumped to the floor.
And then Harry delved into her mind, intentionally this time. Delving into the far back of her mind, Harry found more happy memories of little Lily and Petunia, laughing, playing, and holding hands together that made Harry smile. The rare memories of Petunia's parents praising her, saying she was special, beautiful and clever in her own way. He put them all at the forefront of her mind.
Harry found other memories of Lily that Petunia had tried hard to forget. Lily's letters from Hogwarts: how terribly scared but excited Lily was, how the boy Sev were still friends with her even though they had different dorms, how exciting to learn new things, make new friends, how different but amazing everything, magic, was. And how Petunia tried to make it look like she didn't care at all, but deep inside, she was terribly jealous of Lily, of her strange but exciting world.
Harry buried those bitter memories in the back of her mind... But found that there was not much else that he could do to make the decades of bitterness go away.
Harry found the memory of Dumbledore's threats... He locked them inside a safe box.
He found the memories of Vernon beating him to near death, Petunia shouting at him to please stop. Memories of him torturing Vernon, of her crying, pleading to spare Dudley from his rage. He put them all in the safe and locked it away.
Will these be enough? Would these change the way Petunia look at him?
{I already told you Harry; there is an easier way to do this...} Voldemort said.
{You could just- tell them to treat you like their own son... to love you and be like a family to you... And with magic, they will simply obey you...} He added delicately after Harry didn't say anything.
"...Would they still remember that they hated me?"
{You can make them forget that as well... And they cannot do anything anyway, their will is yours. They will do everything you wanted them to...}
But then, thought Harry, deep in their heart, they still hated him, right? They still thought him as a freak, right?
He wanted them to accept him for who he is.
Aunt Petunia hated him because of his mother, who had everything she didn't have. But then, didn't she feel sad at all over her death?
Harry searched her memories. He found Aunt Petunia saying Lily deserved it; the one thing, magic, that drove her away, that make her special had killed her after all. Harry had heard it all before but it still hurt.
But surely, surely there was at least some love left?
Not love, Harry found, but regret. There was the tiniest regret that Aunt Petunia had pushed away. The things that she said right before Lily went to board the train to Hogwarts for the first time. Hurtful things that Petunia wanted to take back, but then too angry, too prideful to do so. To apologize.
The thought that Lily was dead and she would never make peace with Lily and herself, for those hurtful remarks that made the rift between them irreparable. Harry almost wept with it. He brought out this feeling, regret, to the front. Amplified it tenfold.
Nearly ten years of Harry, Lily's son treated like a servant, beaten, hated. Cupboard under the stairs. Regret.
Memories of Dudley, being praised for doing little things... Dudley, loved for all that he was. And Harry, hated for all that he was. That all Harry ever wanted was for someone to accept him, to love him. Just like her.
Regret.
It had taken him hours.
Aunt Petunia woke up on her bed, feeling disoriented. She saw Harry standing next to her bed, a damp cloth on his hand.
"What happened?"
"You fainted. Are you okay now?" Harry looked genuinely concerned.
"Yes- yes I think." There was a dull throbbing inside her head. "Too tired I guess. I need to-" What does she need to do now? What was she doing before?
She looked up at Harry. And stared into Lily's eyes. All the memories rushed forward and slammed into the front of her mind.
And then, without warning, she started to cry, "I'm so sorry Harry. So sorry..."
She wept, apologizing for all the things that she had said about him, about his mother, his father, all that she had done, had let happen, and all the things that she could have done...
She wept for the cupboard under the stairs, for the contempt, for all the cruel words, and most terrible of all, for how she had looked the other way whenever Vernon beat him...
She regretted everything.
How could she, a mother, do the things she did to her sister's son, who had done nothing to receive such treatments? It wasn't his fault he was born with magic, nor was it Lily's fault. And for ten years she had let her resentment and bitterness towards Lily affected her treatments of Harry. And he was just a boy. A sweet boy, just like Dudley.
Harry stiffened as Aunt Petunia suddenly hugged him, all the while crying, asking him to forgive her. It was the first time Harry was hugged by anyone, and he was so shocked he simply didn't know how to react.
And then as suddenly, Harry's stomach gave a low growl and Petunia wiped her tears and chuckled, "You were hungry, weren't you? I'll go and prepare some food."
And Harry watched simply flabbergasted as Aunt Petunia got up and started to make her way to the kitchen.
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It was easier with Dudley; he didn't have decades of Petunia's bitterness.
Harry simply made Dudley forget the torture incident by locking it away.
But what about the bullying? The beatings, 'Harry Hunting', and the isolation as other students simply avoid Harry to avoid the wrath of Dudley and his gang?
Harry went back over the years of memories.
Little Dudley at first was simply trying to gain approval of his father, making him proud. Vernon, who had praised Dudley whenever he managed to hit or get one over Harry, saying he was his father's son; tough and bow to no one. Over the years, the bullying reached the stage where Dudley was enjoying the feeling of being the one in power, in control, as he and his gang watched Harry suffer.
And Harry had never fight back. He knew the punishments from Vernon were more than Dudley can ever give. And Aunt Petunia simply praised her precious Diddykins no matter what he'd done. And no one had done anything to help Harry.
No more, thought Harry.
Dudley had to understand fear. Had to understand repercussion for his actions.
Harry made Dudley know there was someone out there that was much, much stronger than him; one that can make him piss in his pants. He put the feeling of terror in Dudley's mind; the fear that there was alwayssomeone watching him, waiting to strike him whenever he toed out of line. Harry thought that was a fitting punishment to the one who had subjected him to the same things for years.
These were enough, for now.
The next one will be Vernon.
A/N:
Well... Part obliviation, part memory modifications, part... compulsions?
Last chapter, Petunia & Lily is one of my favourite chapters... you can find more interactions between young Petunia & Lily in 'TheThief of Time', by Tink Wolfe (my favourite HP fic ever!) where I got the idea.
-Update: This is where I'm stuck, I've rewritten the next chapter at least five times and well, until I can say I make a progress with 3 new chapters, please consider the story on hiatus. I'm really terribly sorry. Thank you for reading.