July 1973
Petunia leaned into the masher, observing as the cooked potatoes squeezed into strings of pulped white and yellow under her ministrations. It felt strangely satisfying, watching them squish and change form beneath her strength - and it worked as a distraction from the other occupant of the kitchen.
Lily was back. She was leaning on the counter, leisurely stirring a pot of not-yet boiling water for no apparent reason and prattling on.
She claimed she had 'missed Petunia'.
Petunia thought Lily simply missed bragging about her stupid school. But her words didn't have their usual impact. Whenever Lily complained about having Astronomy lessons at midnight or almost being strangled by some magical plant, Petunia simply thought of the suitcase. Newton Scamander's suitcase. A magical suitcase, containing a whole other world, with exotic forests and floating planets and magical creatures straight out of her book.
Her strength on the masher eased but Petunia's eyes stayed downcast. The potatoes had lost their form, their only remnant a chunky, unappetizing paste.
The downside to thinking about the suitcase was that Petunia automatically also thought about Ivy. And then she felt a dull ache somewhere in her tummy, as if she had a bruise on the inside, hidden and invisible.
Only Petunia knew what she had lost.
Whenever you want to see your Occamy, just do it.
Petunia wanted to. But she wasn't quite sure if she dared.
"Oh, and Sev found a friend, I think. Whenever I ask him he denies it and calls him 'an annoyance' but they follow each other around."
"Hmm." Petunia scraped the mash free and put the pot aside to start on the green beans. Sadly they wouldnt prove as therapeutic, she thought, while she washed them under the sink, the cool water a relief on her heated hands. She must have clenched the masher too hard.
"What are you doing now?" Lily leaned on the counter, watching Petunia.
"Can't you see?"
"I want to learn cooking as well," Lily declared, not reacting to Petunia's scathing tone. "It makes you look really grown up. Did you know that most witches use magic in the kitchen? They don't teach it at school, because it's considered something you learn from your parents, but maybe I should talk to Professor McGonagall to make it an after-lesson elective? It would surely come in handy, and I can't be the only muggleborn who would like to know how to do it. Once I'm seventeen, you won't have to cook ever again, Tuney! I'll make a feast in just a few seconds whenever we want …"
Petunia fought against a surge of annoyance with gritted teeth, but her voice still held a certain bite when she interrupted her sister. Something she worked hard on, something she was constantly trying to improve and spend hours on would take Lily only 'a few seconds' to complete. It was almost like she was mocking Petunia for her efforts.
So Petunia wasn't surprised when the next words out of her mouth were intended to sting. "When you're seventeen, we won't be living together anymore."
Lily blinked her emerald eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I'm moving out once I've finished school."
Petunia faltered for a second, surprised at the conviction echoing in her own words. Moving out was something she had never really decided on, the idea had just been ghosting through her mind whenever she felt especially uncomfortable in her own home. But now that she had voiced it, the words tasted true.
She would move out, together with Aspen, somewhere where she wouldn't have to be blinded by Lily's brilliant light so often, where she could escape her mother's nagging and wouldn't feel so invisible. Somewhere they could be safe, somewhere she could be herself and not 'Lily's inferior, muggle sister'.
Somewhere she could live her own life.
"But … Tuney, why would you move out?"
Because of you. But no matter the ire of her thoughts, in the end Petunia didn't speak those words. Seeing Lily's crumbling face might have given her a moment of spiteful satisfaction, but she knew it would only come back to haunt her.
"I want to live my own life."
"But that's too soon! You'll finish in two years and by then I'll still be at Hogwarts …"
Petunia didn't know what to say to that. So she simply ignored it and lined the beans up in front of her in an orderly row to cut off the small piece at the ends. The only sound in the kitchen was the quiet thunk of her knife hitting the wooden cutting board in a steady rhythm. She focussed all her attention on the thin green stalks despite feeling Lily's gaze bore into the side of her head.
"Tuney … do you hate me?"
Her knife paused. Petunia looked up and for the first time since she had entered the kitchen, really faced Lily.
With a strange kind of detachment she discovered a few small changes that had slipped her notice before. Her little sister's cheeks were a bit slimmer, her lips wider, her eyebrows darker. Her hair wasn't as free-flying as before, but held a shine and smooth wave that spoke of care-products and a brush.
And her green eyes … they weren't swimming in childish tears or red with accusation. They were steady and gleaming with some deep emotion Petunia couldn't decipher.
Her little sister had grown since Petunia last saw her.
"You're my sister," Petunia answered and she knew it said it all. That she might sometimes wish to hate Lily, but would never be able to actually do it, because what connected them was too deep to simply sever like an old, frayed string.
For a second it looked like Lily wanted to question her response, her lips already parting, but then she pressed them together into a tight line and nodded.
Petunia didn't want to talk about any of this. It was too heavy. It pressed all the air out of the kitchen until Petunia was quietly suffocating. She quickly faced her beans again, her mind sorting through possible topics to deflect Lily's attention until she stumbled onto something useful. "You said Severus made a friend?"
"What?"
Silence hovered above Petunia's head for a few seconds before Lily continued: "Oh … yes, a Slytherin in the year below us. I always see them dancing around each other like a pair of hopping crows, but I think he likes him, in a strange way."
Petunia made a non-committal sound to get Lily to continue talking. When she started chopping again the knife was lighter in her hands.
"It's funny. I always wanted Sev to make more friends because he looked so lost in his House. But now that he did, I feel kind of strange. Is that a horrible thing to say? It's just … before it was always us. But now the one hanging out with him is so different from me and well, anyone I know. He's mean and conceited and I'm just not sure if he's a good influence …"
Mean and conceited sounds like a perfect fit, Petunia thought.
"Maybe I'm just overthinking it. But there are his beliefs and I've heard some really nasty things about him from my friends. I'm just a bit worried that, I don't know, Sev might get pulled into something … bad."
"Beliefs?"
Lily looked uncomfortable. "It's stupid. Blood-prejudice, really old-fashioned."
Petunia faintly recalled a few insults she'd overheard directed at Severus. What had they called him again? Half-Blood, echoed a young boy's voice in her memories, a hazy image of uncombed dark hair accompanying it.
Another realisation followed swiftly. If Severus, who had a witch for a mother, was insulted as a Half-Blood, then what about Lily, who had no 'special' parent?
Petunia directed a sharp glare at her sister, who was poking at the potato mash. "Are you being bullied?"
Lily looked up and blinked. "What? No! No, of course not! It's not a Gryffindor thing, this purity stuff."
Petunia took in Lily's scrunched brows and lifted chin before turning back to the string beans.
"It's not that bad," Lily muttered. "I'm just worrying uselessly."
Something told Petunia that the person Lily wanted to convince wasn't Petunia, but herself. But Petunia simply stayed quiet and continued preparing the family dinner.
If Lily was looking for reassurance about the wretched boy, she wouldn't find any from her.
Petunia quietly watched as Lily was engulfed by poison-green flames, her long hair floating and her face looking eerie for just a second before she was gone. Off to visit one of her Hogwarts friends, Petunia hadn't paid attention to which one.
Tearing her eyes from the now empty fireplace, Petunia glanced at the floral vase next to it. The address on the thin scrap of paper seemed to be burning the inside of her mind, etched in white-hot letters. The fireplace was beckoning her, its blackened bricks like a dark promise whispered in her ears.
You can see Ivy again, you can play with her and hear her call you, if you just take a step, it seemed to say.
But Petunia hesitated to take that step. Not because it was the house of an unknown wizard or because she was apprehensive of learning that Ivy might be thriving, even without her.
No, Petunia was hesitating because it was Summer Break. And if Lily and the wretched boy were home from Hogwarts, then surely he would be as well.
The fire Lily had painstakingly coaxed to life was still merrily burning, small bright sparks crackling in the still air like taunting snickers, but the colour was slowly bleeding back to orange, gold and flickering red. Petunia stared at it and suddenly felt her resolve strengthen as if to spite the mocking flames.
So what if Eugene was actually there? She would just ignore him, or treat him with schooled politeness if he tried to talk to her. Petunia had long ago cast off his influence like a snake would old, useless skin. Meeting him wouldn't impact her one way or another.
Repeating it a few more times in her head so she'd start to believe it, Petunia scooped a handful of glittering powder out of the vase and threw it into the hungry flames. They exploded with a whoosh into green, flickering tongues, stretching for her, and Petunia heeded their call, stepping inside the fireplace, burning wood crumbling beneath her soles. Prickles ran up her limbs while she tightly closed her eyes and recited the address she already knew by heart.
The by now almost familiar sense of vertigo assaulted her, scrambling her senses and stirring her essence and just when Petunia felt it was unbearable and that she would lose herself, it all came crashing back and she was whole again. Stumbling forward she coughed at the ashy film clinging to her throat, while blinking her eyes open.
Petunia's first instinct told her that she was in a kitchen - a strangely antiquated kitchen with open fires and cauldrons instead of gas-stoves and pots and naked brick walls that were dark and undisturbed by windows. The only illumination came from the bright flames behind her, bathing everything in a sinister, greenish glow. Taking a few steps away from their dry heat, Petunia inspected the objects arrayed around her. Instead of sugar, salt and flour the wooden shelves held arrays of dried flowers and potted plants and a large table dominating the middle of the room was laden down with raw, bloody meat. If Petunia hadn't been familiar with the metallic, strangely sweet smell because of regularly feeding Aspen with the same, she might have felt sick when the aroma lingered around her nose.
Before she could reach the door at the other end of the room, it burst open, a woman carrying an empty bucket bustling inside. She stalled when she saw Petunia, who had frozen in shock.
It wasn't that the woman looked intimidating, quite the contrary. She was wearing a high-collared, grey dress that was last in fashion around the time Petunia's mother had been born, faded and worn with frequent use. Her frizzy hair was held in two lopsided buns on the sides of her head, the original strawberry-blond colour blinking through between strands of grey. Just like with Newt, Petunia found it hard to pinpoint the woman's age; there were a few lines etched around her thin-lipped mouth, but not enough to actually consider her old-looking. A smear of dirt adorned her rather plain face, no rouge or lipstick giving her a bit of liveliness.
It wasn't her appearance that caused Petunia to freeze. It was the fact that Petunia had expected to encounter Newt (or even Eugene) but not a stranger.
But why shouldn't she? It wasn't like she had announced her arrival in any way … to think of it, it was actually very rude of Petunia to just burst into someone's home through a fireplace, without proper invitation or even prior notice …
"Oh." The unknown woman broke the silence first, setting down her bucket with a hollow clatter. "You must be the girl Mr. Scamander talked about."
Upon hearing this Petunia slightly relaxed and gave a polite smile. "Hello. My name is Petunia Evans. I'm sorry for just coming in like this …"
"Bunty Broadacre," the woman introduced herself, giving a smile in return. "Don't be sorry, Mr. Scamander assured me that you're always welcome. You're looking for the Occamy?"
Petunia nodded and felt a flutter of excitement in her stomach that eased her tense nerves like running a soothing palm down Aspen's flank. Was it really this easy? Would she really see Ivy again in just a few fleeting moments?
And then another thought crept in. What if Ivy didn't recognize her? Or what if she didn't want Petunia anymore, now that she was with a Magizoologist like Newt, who surely knew a lot more about her care than a muggle girl reading his book?
Bunty of course didn't sense Petunia's worries. She exchanged her empty bucket for a new one that had a tin lid, which she flipped open for a second. A round brown pellet floated from the container as if it was weightless and Petunia followed its wobbling trajectory with wide eyes. Bunty quickly snapped the lid closed again with a resounding clang. "I'll take you to them on my way to the Mooncalves. It can be a bit disorientating out there."
Petunia was just debating if she should ask what the woman meant or if that would come across as too ignorant when she had followed her through the doorway and the question became moot.
Petunia was inside a labyrinth. A labyrinth of criss-crossing stairs that led up and down into endless darkness, open doorways interspersed between them, offering disorienting glimpses into new worlds.
Petunia was reminded of Newt's suitcase while she numbly followed behind Bunty. The woman didn't comment on Petunia's stunned expression, a business-like briskness to her steps that didn't allow the girl to linger in front of any of the doors. But it was still enough for brief glimpses and a bubbly, excited feeling tickled Petunia's chest at each new world she caught sight of.
One of them was covered in frost and snow, a chilling gust blazing across Petunia's exposed skin when she walked in front of it, while the next one greeted her with a wave of heat that almost singed the fine hairs off her arms, while smoke hid everything but the brightly glowing lava from view through the doorway. A thundering waterfall, whose noise drowned out the echo of Petunia's steps and whose spray soaked the front of her shirt was next, only to be replaced by grainy sand when she walked by an endless, red desert.
And then her eyes glimpsed something through the next doorway and her feet simply stopped as if they had been caught in tar.
The most fantastic displays of nature, contained in a wizard's maze, hadn't made her breath catch as effectively as what she was currently staring at.
The biome behind the arched bricks showed a wide, sprawling plain with softly rustling grass and wildflowers. A bright blue sky complimented it, looking endless and cheery.
A creature was reclined on the grass, its head, front legs and giant wings that of an eagle while its body and hind legs resembled a horse. Sunlight was caught in its pure black feathers and fur, making its beak and eyes stand out in startling yellow.
But the strange, majestic creature wasn't what Petunia was staring at. No, all of her attention was fixed on the golden-haired boy patting its neck.
Eugene.
Petunia was still trying to figure out where all the oxygen had disappeared to when Eugene turned around, as if he could feel her boring eyes like something physically piercing his back.
He's taller, was the first conscious thought that flitted through her head upon really seeing him. Taller, and his face was slimmer as well, all in the span of a few months. What changes would a few years have havocked?
He was wearing loose trousers that were ripped around the knees (unkempt, Petunia's inner voice provided) and a white shirt whose cuffs were rolled back to his elbows, showcasing tanned skin and fine blond hairs. His hair was blissfully familiar, a nest of wayward curls that shone like spun bronze and gold. His eyes though … the same deep, warm brown as in her memories but he gazed at Petunia as if he couldn't quite trust what he was seeing. There was no teasing sparkle, no mischievous gleam - no too-wide smile stretching his lips.
"Petals?"
Hearing the address only he would ever use, Petunia took an unconscious step back. What was she doing here? She shouldn't have come during Summer Break, she had known this would happen, what was she supposed to do …
Stay calm, she tried to tell herself, despite her wildly pounding heart. Stay calm, he doesn't matter anymore. Be polite, but show him that you don't care.
Still staring at him, Petunia forced herself to remember why she didn't care anymore - couldn't care anymore about Eugene - but the indelible voice refused to speak.
Usually Eugene's devastating words would echo quite freely in her head, unbidden and unwelcome, especially whenever her thoughts strayed to him. But now that she was actually looking at Eugene, at his eyes, his mouth, his few freckles and his unruly hair … everything remained silent. Somehow the picture of his face didn't want to mesh with the memories of that callous voice she'd heard while standing outside the rusty aluminium shed. All those months she was haunted by it, she had never once tried to picture Eugene while he said it …
And now her brain refused to merge the two things when he was right in front of her.
Without realising, Petunia had already opened her mouth. "I …"
"The Occamies are through here," Bunty's voice ripped through Petunia's like a branch through a feeble, thin spider web. "I'll let Mr. Scamander know you're here, he should be back soon."
Petunia's head turned slowly, as if it was grinding against her neck, to stare at the woman, and so she missed the way Eugene's eyes widened at Bunty's words - only for his expression to shutter a second later.
Bunty was standing in front of an arched doorway just two down from the one Eugene was in, her dirt-smeared face lightly illuminated by trickling, sunset light. Just a few seconds ago Petunia would have had no compulsion about going over, her wish to see Ivy propelling her steps so fast she would have been in danger of tripping over her own feet. But now those same feet stayed rooted to the ground, as if invisible shackles bound her ankles.
Bunty didn't wait for Petunia to come over, but gave an encouraging smile before taking her close-lidded bucket and continuing down the round walkway, before descending a set of stairs and disappearing from sight into the gloom.
Only the faint echo of her fading steps broke the sudden silence and Petunia fervently tried to remember what she'd been about to say to Eugene. Had it even been anything? Or had she just wanted to address him, with nothing to say at all?
"You're here to see my father?" Eugene interrupted her thoughts.
Petunia turned back to him, expecting to see the same image as a second ago - only for her breath to stall in shock.
His eyes were dark, not like the molten chocolate she used to compare them to in her most ridiculous flights of fancy, but bitter and hard. Suddenly it clicked into place, the voice and his face, this face he was showing her right now, and the memories crystallised without her consent.
I must not give a damn, then.
He scoffed slightly when Petunia took too long to answer. "I should have known."
"Known what?" Petunia was secretly glad to hear the venomous bite in her own words, skillfully concealing her hurt and confusion. Falling back into old mannerisms she wrapped herself tightly in derision, like bristling armour. Some instinct told her she would need it.
"That you're the same after all." His eyes were still dark. Something in his tone must have alerted the slumbering monster behind him, because it got up on long horse-like legs and brushed its beak against his shoulder. Eugene ignored it. "I guess congratulations are in order. You didn't need me after all."
"What are you talking about?"
"My father, of course." The monster nudged him again and Eugene raised a hand to lay against its long neck. It looked more like a reprimand than a calming gesture. "You're not the first and you won't be the last, but I have to admit that you were the only one who had me fooled for so long."
Petunia really was growing angry now. "I have no idea what you're on about!"
"No?" He sighed. "I thought it was strange when you suddenly stopped replying. I knew something was up, but I just couldn't figure out what. To think that I …"
But he didn't continue and Petunia just got angrier when she felt the guilt bubbling up in her stomach.
You have nothing to feel guilty about, she reminded herself furiously. You were not the one to cut it off, he was, when he was sitting in that blasted garden shed and …
"Your approach was fresh," he continued, as if Petunia had any idea what he was getting at. "In that bookstore, when you ordered me around while looking so lost … And you never asked after my father. When you needed help, you asked me. It made me think …"
But Petunia would never learn what it made him think, because he switched tack mid-sentence.
"People are not that difficult to understand. To them, it's important whose son I am. They smile and flatter, but they don't really look at me. They don't care about me."
You don't care at all, Gene, and it's your 'penpal' we're talking about.
"You're the one who doesn't care!" Petunia burst out, fed up with the confusing accusations, fed up with the voices haunting her whenever her attention slipped, fed up with everything about this situation - the nauseating mixture of dread and happiness at the first sight of him, the guilt and the anger, the helplessness and fury, simply everything about this one-sided fight.
Because they were fighting, for lack of a better term.
Fights, in Petunia's experience, were always accompanied by raised voices, wildly gesticulating hands, flying spittle and flushed, tightly screwed faces. So seeing that Eugene was so calm and collected instead of loud and animated was bewildering and slightly annoying. Petunia felt like she was traipsing in unknown territory, like she was the childish one.
So when there was finally a spark of fire in his dark eyes, a furrow between his brows, Petunia was strangely elated, even though it really wasn't logical. She shouldn't be happy that he was angry with her, but she was. At least now it showed.
"Obviously I cared just a little too much," he said, his voice still quiet but strained as if he had to force it out between his teeth.
"Liar," Petunia threw in his face. "Don't try to fool me, I heard you! I heard every word you said that night at the Weasley's, when you couldn't wait to tell your friends how little I mattered -"
"What are you talking about? I never said anything like that -"
"I must not give a damn, then!" Petunia quoted him, her triumph quickly swallowed by the raw pain that followed the words. It was the first time she had spoken them out loud herself.
Eugene was frowning. "Yeah, I don't give a damn whether you're a witch or a squib or a muggle."
Petunia froze when the forbidden word passed his lips. Muggle.
And then her mind picked up on the rest of what he said, and his voice was almost like a needle piercing her chest, through which her rage leaked out, as if Petunia had turned into a deflating balloon. "What?"
"Isn't that what you're getting at? Billy was going on and on with his wild theories of why you're not attending Hogwarts and I just got sick of it. It was ridiculous. Why should I care? I don't. You're you, witch or not."
"No … but you …"
And then Petunia felt something other than anger or confusion - she felt a hot flash of panic. It blistered down her spine like a bolt of lightning, her breaths coming short in its wake.
You misunderstood, she realised. You misunderstood and then you messed everything up! And now he knows, he must know!
But Eugene obviously didn't know. His own assumptions overshadowed any realisation Petunia's words might have brought. "Of course I hadn't yet realised that you were only ever in contact to find a way to my father -"
Petunia was overwhelmed by a white wave of anger that almost blinded her, fueled by her panic and remorse. "Oh, stop with your father! I don't care about him! I never even heard of him, before you gave me his book!"
"Why else would you write so often, then?"
"Because I care about you, you idiot!"
And then everything froze. Petunia, Eugene, even the eagle-horse and the warm air all around her. For a few heartbeats she just stared at him, at his widening eyes, and then mortification burst through her like a shot of pure adrenaline. And in that moment Petunia mindlessly switched from fight to flight, turned around and simply ran. Ran away from this pocket of sunshine, ran through the wizards maze, ran away to escape from Eugene's eyes which hadn't looked all that hard at the end.
Ran away from her own unspoken words, that seemed to hover on every hasty breath she took.
Because I like you.
In her flushed haste, Petunia had overlooked one very elemental thing: that a maze was called a maze for a reason.
Her mind was so overwhelmed with the maelstrom of emotions and perplexing thoughts that the memory of the path she had taken to get here got swallowed up in them. Did Bunty ascend or descend the stairs? And how many? When had Bunty taken turns in the brackish darkness? Petunia's attention had been so focused on the miracles contained behind the doorways she passed that she had barely paid attention to her steps.
Now she was standing on a low plateau, two stairs in front of her. One leading down, one leading up. And she was very much unsure which path to take. Both curved slightly and shimmery light promised more surprising doorways at their ends but Petunia was no longer concerned with magical landscapes and beasts. She wanted to find the kitchen fire and get home and then … and then she wasn't sure what she wanted to do.
Curl up beneath her covers in embarrassment? Go through the whole conversation in her head repeatedly and come up with better answers than the ones she had given? Take Aspen for a flight to let the cutting wind whip the tumbling thoughts right out of her head?
"Petals."
Petunia whirled around, her eyes widening. Eugene was standing a few steps behind her, his hair looking unusually dark in the low light. She couldn't read his expression because her eyes quickly sought a point over his shoulder, refusing to look into his eyes.
Petunia hadn't even heard him approach. For a moment wondering whether the reason was her preoccupied mind or his silent tread was the only thing stopping her from contemplating much more heavy questions.
Like the one asking if there was any way he wouldn't correctly interpret her statement.
Petunia had told him, no, shouted in his face, that she cared about him and now he was right here and she didn't know what to do.
"I'm glad you haven't left yet, Petals."
Petunia refused to admit that this was solely because she had completely lost her way. "Well, I was just about to."
For a second silence reigned and then Eugene stepped closer. Petunia still stopped herself from looking at his face, trying to distract her thoughts by counting the rips in his hideous trousers. He really should throw those out.
"Don't go yet."
Before Petunia could think of an answer to that ridiculous (heart-pounding) request, Eugene suddenly shook his head like a wet dog trying to get rid of the water, his blond looks getting even more tangled up as a result. A gusty sigh escaped his chest and his shoulders relaxed.
Immediately he looked more like the Eugene Petunia had always encountered at the magical station, open but comfortable body language, raised face and casually propped hands. He walked past her and lounged on one of the steps of the stairway leading up, tousling his already jumbled hair in a futile effort to make it fall properly.
Before the silence could settle around them, Eugene started speaking, his words soft.
"My father has always been … eccentric. Sometimes I'm convinced he understands beasts better than people. Might even prefer them. There are exceptions of course - my mother, me, my uncle and aunt - but in general he doesn't concern himself overmuch with others."
Petunia swallowed against her dry mouth, a strangled tangle of nerves bursting in her stomach. She knew that this was something important, something personal, and Eugene was sharing it with her.
"He never cared about his fame. He actually couldn't care less. But in that he is the only one - everyone else puts a lot of stock on it. And his reputation exceeds him. He is known to be difficult to approach."
A strange urge to be closer, to not stand above Eugene like a judging statue lest he stopped talking, propelled Petunia towards the steps. She kept her eyes on him when she carefully lowered herself down next to him, the rough stone a shock of cold against her thighs even through the layer of her dress. But Eugene didn't scoot or lean away. Instead there was a smile playing around his lips - small, and not at all like the one that she was so used to seeing, but a smile nonetheless.
"I didn't really have a concept of my father beyond being 'my father' until I was about five. I went to a friend's birthday party and instead of playing with the children, his parents talked to me the whole time, asking me about 'Newton Scamander, the famous magizoologist'. And the older I became, the more things I noticed. At first I enjoyed all the attention. It made me feel special, proud even, though being born as someone's son was nothing I had accomplished or influenced in any way. Until I realised one day that all the flattery was hollow and not meant for me. They didn't care about me, just as my father didn't care about them. If I was the best or the worst in class, the teacher would praise me regardless. If I got into a fight, the other kid got blamed before anyone even questioned what happened. It was a privilege but strangely, it was a burden at the same time. I think if my Mum were less strict, I would have turned into a complete brat."
Petunia shook her head without thinking, Eugene being the farthest thing from 'brat' she could imagine.
"Sometimes, it just all comes rushing back. The fake smiles and compliments, the hints that they would love to meet my father or visit my home with all the creatures … and then there was you. I thought we were friends, penpals, and then it suddenly stopped. And now you're here, waiting for my father and … I'm sorry for the way I acted. It wasn't fair to you."
"I'm jealous of my sister." Petunia blinked after the words had already tumbled from her lips, more surprised than Eugene. But for some reason she just couldn't stop herself. "Lily's pretty. She's vibrant and full of laughter and sunshine. She's magic."
The word sounded like a vile curse out of her mouth.
"Compared to her I was nothing. Before Aspen, I was nothing. Had nothing."
No friends, no confidence. No joy.
Petunia opened her mouth, but self-preservation finally pulled the brakes on her bitter confession.
She shouldn't be saying these things to anyone, especially not to the boy she wanted to look good in front of.
Why had she let herself go, why had she let him see her for the small-minded, black-hearted thing that she was?
Eugene leaned back on his hands, his shoulders opening so his collarbone stood out prominently. Petunia's lungs felt crumbled and squeezed while she waited for his judgement, his realisation - jealous, ugly trollop who wished she was half as good as her sister - but instead his smile widened a bit.
"Seems like we're both a bit messed up thanks to our families."
Petunia's heart started beating again. She hadn't even noticed it had stopped. "You make it sound like it's Lily's fault instead of mine."
"Well, isn't it? At least I'd simply think so in the privacy of my head. Don't always push all the faults onto yourself, it'll make you sick, Petals."
Petunia felt an acidic burn behind her eyes and understood with mounting horror that she was about to cry. Lord no, you already revealed your petty thoughts, no need to bawl in front of him on top of that, keep at least a measure of composure … Think of something else, anything else …
But the problem was that Petunia was just a bit too overwhelmed. No-one ever blamed Lily. Lily was perfect. It was Petunia who couldn't control her envy, Petunia who didn't want Lily to have anything nice, Petunia who … was guilty.
When she raised her eyes she gave a start at meeting Eugene's. He was looking at her, but she could see neither judgement nor pity in his deep brown eyes. He just seemed … intrigued.
Oh God.
"An Occamy!"
"What?" Eugene frowned in slight bemusement, the intense moment ruined by Petunia's sudden exclamation, like a soap bubble popped by a forceful finger.
"I'm here to see an Occamy. Not to visit your father. This is all a stupid coincidence. And I stopped replying to your letter because … I thought you were bad-mouthing me with your friends."
Eugene waved the accusation away, unconcerned. "Back up. An Occamy? What exactly has happened since we last met?"
Petunia breathed in deeply, feeling lighter than she had in the last seven months. A strange kind of giddiness washed through her arteries and she had to consciously stop herself from tapping her feet. "Well, there's this pawn-shop in my town, very run-down and the owner is positively dreadful, an old man with bad teeth."
Eugene's nose crinkled in distaste and Petunia quickly banished all thoughts that it looked … adorable.
Petunia had never fancied herself as some kind of storyteller, but now with Eugene as her captive audience she wanted to do well. To make him relive the experience alongside her, to make him understand why Ivy was so important to her - to impress him. To make him think that Petunia had more to offer than an inferiority complex thanks to her sister and a biting tongue when in front of his friends.
So she embellished her story as much as she could, trying to remember certain sights and smells and feelings while telling it. And Eugene supported this endeavour with a wide range of facial expressions, each more animated and catching than the previous one. Sometimes he even interrupted with a snarky comment or two, and Petunia couldn't find it in her to grow annoyed with him.
Quite the contrary. It might have been the most enjoyable day she had spent in a long time - the most exciting day in the last seven months. Her story wandered from Ivy to the Nogtail, and she even found herself briefly talking about Lily, explaining that she was absolutely hopeless in the kitchen, while Petunia herself was by now good enough to try her hand at complicated dishes like Beef Wellington.
Despite sitting on a cold, hard, dirty stone staircase, which numbed her flesh and caused a small ache in her buttocks, surrounded by the dull gloom of this underground maze, Petunia wouldn't have wanted to change locations for anything. Sitting here with Eugene in the darkness almost felt like they were the only two people in the world, secluded and hidden from sight, and no-one there to judge if her cheeks blushed a little too deeply or her voice grew a bit too exuberant.
But all good things had to come to an end. And so Petunia found herself running out of stories to tell and forced herself to acknowledge that it was time to go, before either her parents or Lily could grow too nosey because of her absence.
"I'll show you the way," Eugene offered while Petunia dusted the dirt from her previously pristine skirt. She had picked out one of her best dresses to make a good impression and now she felt a slight pang of regret at seeing the smears of dirt on the sky-blue fabric.
Refocusing on Eugene's eyes though, warm and twinkling, her regret was snuffed out like a candle in the wind.
Eugene traversed the winding paths and a number of staircases with the same ease as Bunty had before and Petunia felt quite sure in the assumption that he must spend a lot of his time down here.
Only when he had thrown a handful of Floo powder into the crackling fire did Petunia realise that she had seen neither Ivy nor Newton Scamander today - despite Bunty's assurance of letting the man know about Petunia's visit.
He probably assumed she had already left, when he couldn't find her with the Occammies, Petunia thought. Stepping into the green flames, she spared a last glance for Eugene's wide grin and decided that it didn't matter that she had missed out on seeing Ivy today.
She would simply come visit again.
A bit of my personal headcanon is that the reason Petunia fell in love with Vernon - a not very handsome and rather boorish man - is that he freely badmouthed her sister (and brother-in-law). Something no-one else in Petunia's environment ever saw fit to do, leaving her alone with her complaints and feelings of unfairness until she met him.
As always, thank you for reading, commenting and enjoying this story, you guys make my day!