Ephebe: a young man.
April 5, 1999
He appeared on the sidewalk like a ghost, so suddenly she dropped the teacup she'd been holding. It had to be him, she knew it at once. No one else had that messy hair… those bright green eyes. It had been nearly a year since it had all ended, nearly two since last she'd seen him. And for a moment she thought it might just be a ghost, for what other reason would he have for walking up this street than to haunt her?
As the boy reached her driveway, a strange and unwelcome panic began in her stomach. She suddenly remembered the last moments they had spent in each other's presence, all those things she could have said but hadn't – again.
At the walk, he paused, turned to look at the house, and she reflexively pulled the curtain in front of her, hoping he hadn't seen. Hoping the boy who had already infringed on her happiness for seventeen years would go and finally leave her in peace.
She peeked out form around the fabric – and to her astonishment, he was gone. She pushed herself up against the glass, staring up and down the street, half-convinced that he was indeed an apparition. She had always known the boy would find himself a sticky end mixed up in that lot. But then she caught sight of him heading round the corner at the other end of the street, as if he were heading to old Mrs. Figg's house. Strange.
Feeling oddly faint, she sank down onto the edge of the sofa and stared at the empty street outside her window. In her mind's eye, a scruffy boy chased after a bus, a petulant teenager eavesdropped in the garden… and now a young man barely spared a glance.
A young man…. Perhaps that was the most unsettling of all. Somehow, when she'd been busy being angry and bitter and resentful, the boy had turned into a young man. And that possibility that had been bobbing in the back of her head since the first time she'd seen those green eyes shattered. There was no more time left to make it right.
A/N: This moment only lasted as long as a soap bubble, just so you know. I mean, Petunia Dursley caries with her a lot of lasting regrets that she hides from the world, but she is the queen at pushing down all that guilt and remorse. It will take something a little bigger than simply an unexpected glance at her nephew to drive home what she messed up. If you're interested, that something bigger is chapter… seven I believe in my story called 'Snapshots'. But I like this little soap-bubble moment, too. And Harry was going to visit Mrs. Figg, you know, thank her and offer her some social contact. A bit late, but I figure it took him awhile to pull himself together, and who says this is his first or only visit anyway? Right then, off to reviewing…