He has never realized how beautiful she was, may be because it was the first time to see her that close. Her fiery red hair fell graciously beyond her shoulders; her bright green eyes danced with mirth, and a calm smile rested on her lips. His mother knelt beside him gently brushing the hair from his forehead.
"You have grown up," she whispered, planting a kiss on his temple.
Her expression changed however, as she glanced the wound on the side of his head, her eyes welled up with tears as she traced the wound with the tips of her fingers.
He shuddered a bit but didn't move "Mom.." he whispered "it hurt, everything hurts"
His mother wrapped her arms around him tightly, rocking slightly backward and forward, he was starting to feel uncomfortable as the rocking became quicker, and her hold became tighter- almost suffocating, he didn't say anything however. Her breathing quickened, and the rocking accelerated violently, she frantically murmured in his ears "I love you Harry, Harry we love you, you are so loved honey," then she screamed, a high pitched sound that cut through his heart "NO!-Not Harry, please Not Harry!"
He wanted to do anything, he wanted to move, he wanted to scream, he wanted to do anything, but he couldn't and sick realization has dawned upon him-he was bound from his shoulders to his ankles with something thick and leathery and slimy, a snake, Nagini.
Harry woke up with a start, sweat tricking from his hair to his forehead, his legs and arms tangled in the sheets, and his heart thumping madly in his chest.
Experience has taught him to calm his breath first before moving. He tried to breathe steadily shaking the reminder of the horrid dream from his mind, and untangling himself slowly from the sheets.
He sat on his bed for a minute, his head in his palms, trying to absorb it all. He knew that it wasn't a vision, but he couldn't just shake it off. He reached for the glass of water he usually kept on his desk, but found it almost empty. With a frustrated groan, he slumped back on the bed.
He knew that he won't be sleeping anymore, somehow the room was too stuffy and he felt the walls physically narrowing on him. Maybe on another day, he would stand it, but it seemed that the thirst, the frustration, and the stuffiness of the room had teamed up on him, causing him to throw any shred of self-preservation he had left out of the window.
Without bothering to change, Harry padded down the stairs and in to the kitchen to get himself a drink of water.
"You have grown up, Harry,"
He jumped at the voice and turned around to see a scene that was even too surreal to be a part of one his own disturbing dreams.
His aunt was sitting at the kitchen table in her night gown, in her hand was a mug, filled to the brim with an amber liquid that certainly came from the slim bottle that stood innocently in the middle of the table. He couldn't see her features clearly in the darkness of the kitchen, but although he hadn't ever seen her drunk, he could say that his aunt was anything but sober.
He slowly moved to the light switch and turned on the light, they both grimaced as the light attacked their night adjusted irises but neither complained. He was too shocked and she was too drunk anyway.
He opted not to say anything, get his glass of water, and leave without any harm done. So, he tore his eyes away from her and moved to the cupboards to get an empty glass, but as he opened the top cupboard she spoke again.
"When you were a kid, you would stand on a chair to reach the top cupboard- you have grown up, grown up a lot indeed" she gulped a mouthful of her drink, and chuckled lightly "Lily's son has grown up and now he brings girls to his room".
Harry was transfixed in his place, the cupboard left open as well as his mouth. How could she know? Did she actually know or was she just rumbling in her drunk state?
She laughed at his shock, and took another gulp "Ahh- I saw Harry" she giggled covering her mouth like a school girl "I saw her clothes on the floor".
Realization washed upon him immediately, Nada had her sweatshirt tied around her waist when she entered his room, and at some point during the day she disposed of it on the floor. His aunt must have seen it when she entered the room that afternoon. But if she did, why didn't she say anything?
"I don't know- it is not-" he started to stutter not really knowing what to say, or if she will even remember it latter anyway.
She poured herself another drink, and looked at him with what he thought was meant to be mischief "I saw what seemed to be an outer garment, did you manage to take off anything more.. inner?" She giggled again.
Harry would never admit that the heat he felt creeping to his cheeks and neck was because he was embarrassed. He turned from her abruptly and with shaking hands, got himself a glass from the cupboard, and filled it with water from the tape.
As he drank the water, she started raising the mug in an attempt of making a toast, the mug slipped from her shaky hands however, landing on the shiny white floor with a loud crash.
"Oops" she giggled again, and bent over to pick the broken pieces.
Harry started to panic when the mug made contact with the floor, but he was distracted almost immediately when he saw the dark red that smeared his aunt's fingers. She was bleeding.
He moved to her side quickly. "wait- leave this" he said, picking carefully the chunk of broken china from her hand. He disposed of it in the kitchen bin, then picked a kitchen towel to collect the rest of the shards. He had to literally slap his aunt's hand away as she tried to pick the broken pieces again.
When he cleaned the mess the best he could, thankfully without hurting himself, he moved his attention to his aunt.
"I don't know what's wrong with you, drunk and all- but please keep it down" he hissed at her, truly not fancying his uncle to barge in- in this too weird scene. He didn't even imagine the assumptions that he'd draw, but he knew that he will be in knee deep trouble.
His aunt merely grunted, and grabbed the bottle to drink straight from it. He noticed however, that the blood that smeared her fingers came from a very nasty gash across her palm which was bleeding rather profusely.
He turned and climbed the stairs as quietly as possible, made his way to the bathroom and back in an impressively short time with the first-aid kit in his hand.
Harry sat himself on the chair opposite to her, and held her hand gently turning her palm up. Then he started cleaning the wound, keeping his eye only on her hand and the first aid kit. He forced his mind not to wonder to a very similar situation where the roles were switched and a similar kit was snapped closed before his wounds were treated.
She, however, didn't move her eyes off him.
When he held her hand, she felt an ice cold water bucket being dumped on her head. For a moment she felt sober, not normal but sober. Her normal self would have wrenched her hand immediately from the boy in disgust, scolded him, and blamed him for the accident. But she wasn't her normal self, that saw him through eyes that were blinded by loath and envy. She was sober from her normal state, the real drunken state.
Somehow she saw him too vividly, that her eyes hurt. She saw the slightest blemishes in his pale skin, the bone structure of his face, every lock of jet black messy hair, every fleck on his iris. Then the more disturbing things, the scar on his forehead that she spent too much time trying to hide, standing out defiantly against his complexion, looking stronger as if it drew its strength from other scars that marred the boy's body through the years, the dark circles under his eyes that confirmed her doubts about the boy's nightmares. She saw how old he looked, not just older as her Dudley looked with facial hair and rougher voice, but old old; like a man beaten and battered by life.
She was disturbed but she could still see the way he frowns in concentration, like her Lily; the way he sighs in frustration when he is trying to focus, the way he looked just normal, just plainly human. The discovery, that the freak she kept hidden under her stairs, is plainly human was like a strong kick in the gut. A human, who had grown up to be a young man with soft features and a heart big enough to hold her hand with such tenderness, as if it is not a hand that was ever laid on him.
Harry noticed that her eyes glazed and her expression changed, she didn't look drunk anymore, but she looked nothing like his aunt either.
"I remember the first time I laid my eyes on you," she said looking in to the distance. "You were so small, and so calm- I knew that you were like her," she gulped "you had that-that aura she had, and I understood- at that moment I understood why they loved her that much, why everything revolved around her, it was the gravity -this aura, and-" she rubbed furiously at her now teary eyes "and I was caught in it".
Harry stopped in the middle of wrapping her hand with bandage.
"The first few days," she said more sternly composing herself "I was caught in it, I never left your side, I'd watch you sleep, and play and laugh- I'd watch you summon toys and levitate them, and I knew how it felt to have a magical child, I knew how my parents felt," she drank deeply from the bottle, "but I knew how I felt too," her expression became harsher "and I have sworn, I have sworn that I won't let my own son feel what I felt, live through what I lived through- that evil thing that you and your likes enchant people with, I have sworn that I wouldn't let it affect me".
She went silent for a moment, then her shoulders moved with a quite sob "But sometimes I c-can't, sometimes I see her in you, sometimes I'd watch you when you think I am not looking, hoping that you'd smile because you both have the same smile—the same laugh too".
Harry didn't realize that the lump in his throat was becoming less painful as it released itself in tears that blurred his vision but never had the courage to fall.
"What was she like?" He asked with a barely audible voice, startling his aunt as if she had totally forgotten that he was there.
She smiled however, gulping more of the amber liquid "She was beautiful, she had the perfect skin, the perfect hair, the perfect body, she was ridiculously beautiful". She sighed and then continued her expression soft, and her eyes seeing another time and place "She would make a friend from the first conversation, I reckon it was because she could talk easily about anything and with anyone" she took a gulp from the bottle and continued, "I tried to be like her sometimes but I always ended up saying the wrong thing and making a laugh of myself- but she'd never mind, she would reprimand them and protect me" her eyes shone with tears but she didn't seem to mind "we'd spend nights staying up, talking and laughing, I'd read her stories and she'd invent different endings for them, We were happy, so happy- until they took her away from me".
Without realizing he was doing it, Harry reached slowly across the table and held her hand, she didn't slap it away, she didn't even flinch, and she just let out another quiet sob "they took my lily away," she murmured, "they killed my beautiful lily".
"I am Sorry" he barely whispered "I never wanted any of this to happen—I reckon she didn't to," he took a deep breath and continued "I am sorry that you had to put up with all of this, I really am," he meant it genuinely "and I am really grateful, that you held on for so long although you hat—didn't like me that much"
Her eyes dropped but he continued anyway "I never really hated you, and—and sometimes I wish that you had found it in yourself to—to love me" his voice broke but he defiantly stressed "I wish you gave me a chance, I wish you saw me- saw who I am not what I can do, things would have been easier to bear".
He felt pathetic, but after the tears had freed themselves he couldn't find it in himself to stop, he went on; the words freeing themselves as his tears did "Because I am dying aunt petunia, there's very little hope for me—and I am scared," he let out a stifled sob "everybody looks at me as the hero, the savior, but I am so damn scared—I am scared of what is coming, of losing more people, of failure," he fell silent for a fraction of a moment and went on with a small voice "I am afraid that it would be painful, death I mean—what if it hurts? You know.. the thing about pain, you never get used to it- and I have had enough pain aunt petunia, enough pain that I am not sure that I can take anymore" he smiled bitterly " I don't have a choice anyway, do I?"
He took a shuddering breath and wiped with his free hand his tears "It is just would have been easier, if I could tell you all about this—when you are not asleep of course that is" he smiled at his own joke, then whispered more to himself "If you loved me".
He pried his hand gently out of hers. He weighted helping her up to her room, but decided against it. He just thought that if she woke up in the same position, she'd think that she was dreaming which suited him just fine.
When he stepped out of the Dursleys back door in to their backyard, the sky was already dyed with a soft rose color. He knew exactly where he needed to be at this very moment, so he took off immediately, missing the commotion that took place in the house as his cousin, pale in shock, helped his aunt to her bedroom.