Same disclaimers as before

Chapter 8: What Petunia Wrote

Evey didn't know how long the black bag had been over her head. She didn't recognize any of the sounds around her and the movements forced upon her were erratic and made it impossible to tell where she was. Not that she was really busy trying to find out her whereabouts. She was to focused on being scared out of her wits.

Her heart skipped a beat whenever she was touched or pushed. As this happened often, she felt like she was going to die of fear rather than anything else. She shook like a portkey, her body completely unable to stay still. She was too scared to even apparate. Her wand, her only real means of defense had been taken from her before she could fight back. Now, all there was to do now was wait.

Needless to say, the suspense was killing her. Or perhaps that would come later.

Finally, after a long period of moving, sitting still, moving again, marching, shoving, and moving once more, she was finally forced into an uncomfortable metal chair and the black bag was ripped abruptly off her head.

Evey sobbed and winced at the sudden bright light that shone upon her. The light refracted in the tears that poured out of her eyes, making it all the more painful. Evey appeared to be in a tight, steel room. She was sitting at a metal desk where a large, white lamp shone directly into her face. Behind the desk, a figure was silhouetted against yet more lights. She couldn't make out any discernable features.

"Do you know why you are here, Evey Hammond?" the voice was cold and even.

Evey shook violently, her shoulders rising and falling like pistons. "Please," she whispered, desperate for the slightest compassion, "Please."

"You have been formally charged with multiple counts of murder, attempted murder, the bombing of government buildings, terrorism, attempted terrorism, stealing magic, treason, sedition, and attempted revelation of our world to muggles," the figure leaned forwards, "The penalty for which is death by killing curse." Evey's eyes felt like jelly, they were so wet with tears. Her face was scrunched up in fear. "You have one chance, and only one chance, to save your life," continued the man slowly, "You must tell us the identity or whereabouts of Codename V." He paused to let that sink in. Evey clenched and unclenched her fists in terror. She had never been privy to either of those things. She had been blindfolded when V took her to Lilliman and he always wore his mask. "If your information leads to his capture, you will be released from custody immediately. Do you understand what I'm telling you? You can return to your life, Ms. Hammond. All you have to do is cooperate." Evey could practically hear the smirk in his voice. She would have been angry if she wasn't so scared. She breathed hard and tried to plead her case, but no words escaped her terrified lips. After a few seconds, the figure waved his hand. "Process her."

Evey was grabbed roughly by the arm and yanked to her feet. She was forcibly spun around and shoved towards a door. On the other side was a dirty, mangy, white-tiled room with a simple stool in the middle with a simple grey and black stripped robe lying on it. "Change," she was ordered as her captor left the room before she could get a glimpse of him. With shaking hands, she undressed and slipped into the prison suit. It was thin and uncomfortable. It made her feel both naked and overdressed at the same time. The door swung open with a crash and she spun. A man in a white coat with a black mask over his face pointed to the stool and she quickly sat down. The man walked up behind her and she heard a distinct buzzing noise. Evey wept and shook as she realized what it was. The man put the electric razor to work, sheering off her hair like sheep wool. She stayed perfectly still, or as still as she could be under the circumstances. The man was unnecessarily rough, dragging the razor across her head and manhandling her skull like a bowling ball.

Finally, after what felt like eternity, he was done. Evey had never felt so vulnerable and humiliated in her life. As she was forced to her feet, she looked down on her proud brown hair, fallen and motionless upon the floor. She felt like they were snakes about to bite her for giving them up so easily. The man in the coat marched her back into the other room and through a second door. This one led to a dark, metal hallway with several doors. At the far end, a guard stood watch, a wand in his hand. The man in the coat opened one of the doors and shoved Evey into a small, tight cell, adorned only with a filthy, unclean toilet.

For a moment, Evey just stood in the center of her cell, still trying to process all that had happened. She prayed that Ted was alright, but knew that there was no way he would escape unharmed. As she looked around the cell, she swore she could hear the screams and wails of its previous occupants. Was this Azkaban? She had heard that the dementors had left their post, but that didn't make this place any less soul-crushing. Slowly, Evey huddled into a corner and wrapped her knees close to her chest, sobbing and weeping uncontrollably.

After another eternity, the door to her cell opened and she was roughly pulled up. She kept her head down as she was forced into a new room. She closed her eyes in apprehension as she was stripped. She began to cry and scream when her arms were forced up and shackled to a pipe. She shivered in fear of what was about to happen. Some older girls she had known had been through rough experiences like this, and the stories they told had made her stay up at night.

Fortunately, nobody touched her. Unfortunately, she was blasted by a hard, frigid sensation to her back. She screamed in pain as her nerves were overloaded with the cold. Was this the Cruciatus Curse? She had never experienced it, but it certainly lived up to its reputation. A fine mist began to envelope her and something splashed around her feet. She looked down and gasped. Water? This wasn't the torture spell? It was water? She almost laughed in relief, but that was quickly put to rest as the water intensified. She felt her vertebras crack from the water pressure and cried out in pain.

After a while, the water turned off. In a daze, she was dressed and brought back to her cell where she crumpled in an exhausted heap on the floor. A few hours later, a slot in her door opened and a plate of unappealing food was tossed into her cell. Before she could even react, a large rat shot out from a hole in the wall of her cell and dove into the food. It looked up at her, as if daring her to challenge it. Evey just curled into a ball.

Ages passed and more food was delivered. The rat ran out again, but this time sniffed the food and ran back to its hole, uninterested in the spoiled meat and rotting fruit. Evey shivered and waited. Still more time passed in silence. Evey wasn't crying anymore. She hadn't accepted her fate, but her fear had moved beyond tears.

She heard a scratching sound from the far wall. Slowly, Evey lifted her head and stared at the cement. She crawled towards the rat hole and carefully peered inside. She couldn't see anything. Flexing her fingers, she plunged her hand within the hole, grabbed something, and pulled it out. She breathed hard in relief that the rat hadn't bitten her. She looked at her closed fist and stared at the small, rolled up paper that she had found. Slowly, she unfurled it and began to read.

. . .

I know there's no way I can convince you that this isn't one of their tricks, but I don't care. I am me. My name is Petunia. I don't think I'll live much longer and I wanted to tell someone about my life. This is the only autobiography that I will ever write. Dear God, I'm writing it on toilet paper.

My life was relatively normal, when I was young. I had loving parents, a younger sister who I doted on. We had no connections to anything magical or such. That all changed on my sister's seventh birthday when she nearly burned out house down when she blew out the candles on her cake. After that, our family was never the same. Lily began to show more and more power as the years went on. She stopped being the little sister I could guide and protect to being the little sister who could guide and protect me. It's far too late for me to apologize now for how I felt, but I wish I could go back and tell her.

I was jealous. She was something I could never hope to be, though God knows I tried. She would show me how her powers had grown and I would tell her how unnatural it was. In my defense, I thought it was weird, exciting, but weird. It wasn't until we met a boy with powers like Lily's that we realized that she wasn't alone in all this. We discovered the whole wizard culture and I loved all of it. It was so wonderful and exciting to watch Lily fly through the air, or grow roses out of her hands. But could never stop thinking how unfair it was. How come Lily had all this wonderful power and I didn't? What made her more special than me?

When Lily was eleven, she got her Hogwarts letter. God she was so excited. Our parents fawned over her. I hated her. She was going to be completely immersed in everything I wanted, and I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, going to school like every other English child. I wrote a letter to the headmaster, hoping that a non-magical person like me could find some way, some loophole, to get in. He was very nice and replied right away, but his reply was still no.

When I saw Lily off at King's Cross for her first year, we got into a row. She had read my letter and wanted to comfort me, but I didn't want her pity. When she left, I cried myself to sleep on the way home.

Lily would come back during holidays and summers, but I made a point to avoid her. Once during her third year, she tried to show me some of her tricks, but I got angry and nearly snapped her wand. She left me alone after that. Whenever I saw her at meals and whatnot, I felt a bile grow in me, like a wave of bitterness. When she went back to school, I would go back to mine. I didn't have many friends, but I didn't need many.

After she finished with school, Lily got married to her boyfriend and I went off to college where I met my husband. I never kept close contact with my sister, but from what I understand she was something of a freedom fighter in those days, although what she was fighting against I haven't the slightest.

I married Vernon after a few years of dating. He was perfect. He loved me and shared my hatred for anything abnormal and inhuman. He was wonderful and made me feel like a princess, even if it meant he had to put others down to raise me up. We moved into a nice little house in Little Whinging and had a son, Dudley. For a while, everything was wonderful. Lily and I talked a bit every now and then. We weren't friends, but we were still sisters and we wrote letters occasionally. Nothing strange was happening to my family, we all loved each other and, while things weren't perfect, they were pretty damn close.

Then everything changed. My sister and her husband died and left us as the guardians of their son. I knew the moment I looked at him that he shared their powers. Every fiber of my being wanted to throw him into an orphanage. I couldn't do it, not again. I couldn't watch as someone be special and better than me just because they were born.

Vernon shared my views and we were going to dispose of him, but the Headmaster of Hogwarts himself came to us and told us that if we got rid of him, it would put our family in danger. I wasn't going to let my prejudice endanger my loved ones, so I kept to boy.

For years, I did my best to ignore him. Dudley and Vernon tormented him and I played my part in their little games, trying to make sure the boy never discovered what he was and why he was so much better than us. I don't even think Dudley knew why we hated him, he just wanted to be like his parents.

Every time I looked at him, I thought about Lily and how things had been between us. I tried not to feel too much regret, but I couldn't control my heart, just my actions.

Eventually, Harry did find out and the cycle began all over again. He went off to have fun and adventures at Hogwarts while we withered in our normality. After he left, we would start to feel happy again, like we were just as good as anyone else. But as soon as he returned, we would realize just how powerless and insignificant we were compared to him.

Interesting things happened to my nephew. He apparently had a serial killer for a godfather, likely my brother-in-law's choice, and he turned my sister-in-law into a blimp. To be fair, I didn't like her much myself and was rather satisfied to see her in such a predicament, but I digress. He even saved Dudley from some magical creatures that attacked them.

I guess I just tried to ignore the elephant in the room that emerged as time went by; that as Harry grew older, the dangers in his life, and by proxy ours, grew stronger. By the time he was seventeen, we had to leave Privet Drive. The last time I saw Harry, I felt the same regret I did every time I saw him. I wanted so bad to tell him how I felt, to apologize for everything. Maybe that would have given me closure, maybe that would have made me as good and as special as Lily. But I was too damn proud.

We had a security escort that was going to take us to a safe house, but we were attacked along the way. As a mother, there's nothing that has ever made me more afraid than seeing a black bag over my baby's head. They took us to wherever we are now and tossed us in separate cells. Every now and then, they remember to bring me food. A few days ago, they took me into a laboratory and injected me with stuff before casting spells on me. I'm not sure what they wanted from me, but it hurt. My insides still feel like they're burning.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll live. I can hear my family crying out from their cells, their screams mixed with other prisoners. I don't cry anymore.

Something is wrong. When Lily and I first learned about the wizarding world, it was never like this. For what crime am I locked in here for? For not being special? Is that my fault? I don't understand why they hate us so much.

It's getting harder to think. Maybe what they injected into me messed with my head. All I want to think about is my family. Vernon, Dudley, even Harry and Lily. I loved all of them, even if I didn't show it. I hope that I meet Lily someday so I can apologize.

It seems strange that my life should end in such a terrible place, but for decades I had a family, and I'm not sorry for that.

I'm going to die here, every centimeter of me. A centimeter. It is a small thing, fragile and weak, but it is the only thing worth having and we must never give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

I hope you escape this place, whoever you are. I hope that the world turns and things get better. But most of all, I hope you understand that even though I don't know you, I love you. With the same love I feel for my husband, and my son, and my nephew, and my sister, I love you.

-Petunia

. . .

Days passed in the cell. Evey would be fed, taken for torture and interrogation, say in a consistent monotone. "I don't know," to every question, and then return to her cell to re-read Petunia's letter. She didn't know how often she had read it over the course of her imprisonment, but she could now quote it word for word and ran it through her head during her tortures. Someone loved her. Even if that someone didn't know her, even if that someone wasn't real, someone loved her. Petunia had led a life of happiness and regrets, a life she hoped would inspire others to follow a different path, a path of love rather than jealousy.

Evey would often close her eyes and open them in a different room, blacking out while she was carted to various torture rooms. This time, she opened her eyes to face the bright lights of the room she had been brought to when she was first captured. The figure was still sitting across the desk from her. He was twirling a wand in his hand, her wand.

"I'm instructed to inform you that you have been found guilty by special tribunal and unless you are willing to offer your cooperation, you are to be executed. Do you understand?"

Evey glared at him. "Yes."

"Are you ready to cooperate?"

"No."

"Very well," the figure stood with a grunt. He took her wand in both hands and snapped it. The sound reverberated around the room and Evey felt her heart get caught in her throat. She wanted to throw up, but forced it down. "Take her out behind the chemical shed and kill her." He said as he left the room, dropping her wand halves on the floor. Evey closed her eyes and she was brought back to her cell. She grabbed Petunia's letter from the floor and held it in her hands.

The door opened and a masked man walked in. "It's time," he said lazily.

"I'm ready," said Evey. She stood up, the letter encased in her fist.

"Look," said the man with a sigh, "All they want is one little piece of information. Just give them something, anything really, and I don't have to kill you."

Evey glared at him. "Thank you, but I'd rather die behind the chemical shed."

"Then you have no fear anymore." Evey blinked in confusion as the man walked out of her cell, leaving the door wide open. Cautiously, she poked her head out into the hallway. She expected the ever-present guard to react, but he made no move to stop her as she walked slowly out of her cage. She slowly drew closer to him and her hand flew to her mouth. He was a lifeless mannequin and his wand a whittled twig. Evey stared at him and walked quickly passed him.

At the end of the hall was a door. Evey approached it and gently turned the handle. Immediately, she heard the strains of light, classical piano playing. She froze for a moment, her blood rushing from her face. After a moment, she walked through the door.

Beyond it was the familiar beige walls covered with art and artifacts of the Shadow Gallery. Evey stood in shook as she looked around her in wild fear.

V walked out from behind a pillar, pulling his gloves tighter. "Hello, Evey," he said conversationally.

. . .

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