Harry Potter does not talk to snakes. They wink at him, sometimes, (which is impossible because snakes have no eyelids) and they might be particularly easy to chide into his arms, but Harry gets up to no mischief with snakes, even if he wishes one would eat his teacher. He puts it all down to his skill with animals.
Christmas comes and goes. Dudley gets ten presents and Harry, surprisingly, gets three. He is gifted another photo of his parents, not nearly as faded as the ones Aunt Petunia keeps in the attic, in the collection from which she usually takes them.
It looks brand new, and signed, although it isn't framed. Aunt hands him a wrapped box and holds up a camera as he opens it. He wishes she wouldn't, but what's inside makes him widen his eyes.
A pair of spectacles, new and sleek. They sit beautifully on his nose and he extracts a promise from Dudley to not let Piers break them. He doesn't wear them for long though, setting them aside so that he can 'appreciate' Petunia's gift of whatever fiction book the teacher has recommended for him.
Vernon glares at him and he hurriedly thanks his Aunt.
"Thank you for the book- and the glasses," is what he says. Aunt Petunia hesitates and looks at Vernon, before sighing and replying it was what he deserved. After a short pause, Dudley thanks his parents too.
Later she takes him aside and reveals the truth- that the glasses were from a friend of his parents.
"I- my parents?"
"You father's friend, actually. They went to school together."
"The school in Scotland?"
" . .Yes. That one."
"Did he know my mum as well?"
"Of course he did, they were in the same year."
Something is pounding in Harry's chest. Aunt Petunia took him in because it was her duty as his mother's sister. Are friends the same way? It feels like they should be, that they should at least try to come and see him, tell him what Harry's father was like. He only knows that they look alike, brown skin and black hair and all- but what else? There is so much he doesn't know about his father and his mother. He knows his mother, but only a little only what she was like as a child. Aunt Petunia refuses to tell him what kind of adult she was. He likes to imagine someone careless- a carefree kind of mother. She wouldn't have worked him half to death weeding the garden, and she might have given him hot chocolate instead of tea to warm up from a chilly evening.
His dad, though- and Vernon wouldn't half measure, and suddenly Harry hated Lupin.
"Did he come here? With the present?"
Aunt Petunia's mouth tightens into a line. "It was sent by post," she says, but her voice is less stern than usual.
Did he want to see me?
"Did . ." The words sound too pathetic in his head to say.
"Did he what?"
"I mean- when did he send it?"
"Last week. He wrote and asked to keep it hidden." She takes out a brown paper bag from a shelf.
Harry looks up, surprised. Her eyes are considering, skating over the words written on its side. "Remus Lupin," she reads aloud. "I remember that boy. He was chronically ill with something or the other."
She looks down at Harry, recalling memories. "He attended our wedding with your father, and he fell asleep at the reception," she adds. No such thing happened, of course, but then she remembers Lily's complaints about Lupin refusing to let himself rest too clearly to be comfortable.
"Why didn't he come to see me?" Harry's voice trembles slightly, and Petunia's expression softens, just for a moment.
"Perhaps he thought it was for the best," she says quietly. "He did care enough to send you something useful." She places a hand on Harry's shoulder, then stands and busies herself with some other task.
Harry wears his new spectacles and takes the photo and book upstairs. The paper bag has a signature on it, 'R.J Lupin' and nothing that Harry would find interesting. It doesn't mention that the package is dated, the glasses having been commissioned before Harry was born. It doesn't mention that R.J Lupin will never sign his name with such confident loops, or prepackage a box with such hope for the future.
It doesn't mention that R.J Lupin is inching towards a slow and self-inflicted death.