The sun filtered in through rosy red curtains, and Petunia Dursley stretched languidly on her soft king-sized bed.
She smiled and slipped out of the covers, careful not to wake her handsome husband, as she stepped over to the little balcony where she loved to sit and soak up the sun and watch her grand garden soaked in the light of all creation.
She stepped outside for a moment, then turned and walked back in.
Perhaps she'd just gotten used to it, having lived her for so long now, but she didn't feel the same awe as when she first came her.
Her husband had woken now and wrapped her in his loving arms, covering her neck with kisses.
It was a beautiful morning. A perfect morning.
She should feel happy and loved.
Should.
Her smile faltered.
How strange...
A beautiful butterfly fluttered outside her window. Yesterday the sight would have humbled and awed her with it's beauty.
It was perfect!
...so why didn't she feel it?
She turned back to the view from her wonderful balcony once more.
It was the kind of day where the flowers were in bloom and you could not help to be moved by the beauty of all creations.
Petunia was not moved.
She looked at her husband, and she still felt the love for him. She felt sure he loved her as well, just thinking about his wild passion yesterday put a blush to her cheeks.
And yet she felt cut off from some powerful source of love that she had never even realized was there.*
What was going on?!
She swallowed hard and pushed the feeling aside.
Her husband went to get ready for the day, and she opened the closet to choose what to wear.
Boring. Boring. Boring.
Why was everything she owned so boring?!
She threw the majority of the clothes on the floor, making a note to get rid of them later, pushing her way to the very back of the closet, hoping to find something more... salacious.
Where did that word come from?
Then she found it. The perfect dress!
The sleek lined of silk that curved itself around her voluptuous body when she wore it, hugging every curve and splitting the crimson fabric to show off off her ample bosom and well-shaped tights.
She still remembered the day her husband gifted it to her for that years valentine's day.
She had blushed, but worn in when they were in private.
But never in public.
...she wondered why...
As she stepped into the shower, she noticed a strange marking on her left breast. Like a stylized D, with swirls and a devil's tail, centering itself around her pink nipple.
When did she get a tattoo?! And were those claw-marks?!
She shook her head and wondered if she really had been drinking too much yesterday. Her head felt foggy, and yesterday felt like some strange nightmarish dream. Delicious and hot... but horrifying all the same.
But she had wanted it...right?
Yes. She must have. She had begged for more, swearing her love for her husband over and over.
Swearing herself to him.
To the Dark.
What a strange dream...
She shook her head and turned on the hair-dryer. The warm wind felt great on her head, and for a moment she got lost in the wonderful sensation.
It was strange, she thought. Yesterday she'd been filled with passion. But today she felt...empty.
As if something she had lost something she never knew she had.
She shook her head and picked up her dress. Clearly she was hungover from drinking too much wine.
She had a black-out, they went to a tattoo-parlor just like people in her favorite sit-coms, and did something stupid.
There was simply no other explanation!
She looked in the mirror, and watched as the red silk dress clung to her shapely figure, showing off her cleavage and legs very well.
As she admired herself in the mirror she could not help but wonder why she had never worn this before. This dress was absolutely beautiful!
She frowned as her panties made an outline against the clinging fabric. Well... That just wouldn't do!
She slipped out of her panties and smiled at her mirror image.
Much better!
It felt a bit strange to not wear panties. But now that she had chosen not to, she discovered she felt more sexy than ever.
She wondered why she'd never done this before.
"Have a good day at work, dear," Petunia said as she kissed her husband goodbye, giggling just a bit as he pushed her against the wall and changed the kiss from a small peck into something far more indecent and lustful.
Harry watched them with a smirk, and Petunia could recall how shy and unwilling she had been about doing anything sexual in front of a child -especially her own child- before today.
But that made not sense to her now. Why should she feel ashamed of something so natural?
She felt as if she had forgotten something. Something she could not quite put her finger on...
Her sense of loss was quickly lost in the passionate embrace of her husband, and his roaming hands.
"Oh, Vernon," she smiled as they finally broke off the kiss. And then she remembered.
"Oh! You're lunches!" she hurried into the kitchen to fetch their expensive, brand-name lunch-boxes.
Maybe that was what she'd forgotten?
Yes. That must have been it.
She was met in the doorway by a smiling young girl with long black hair and a skimpy leather skirt. She let out a surprised squeak, and grasped her chest.
"Oh, sorry miss Tuny," the girl said, before handing Petunia the two lunch-boxes. "Thought you'd like to give 'em these," she said with a wink and a grin.
"W...who are you?!" Petunia demanded.
The girl looked shocked and crestfallen.
"Are you okay, miss Petunia? Do you need your pills? VERNON!"
"What's wrong?" Vernon came in, a worried look on his face.
"Mistress Petunia seem to have trouble with her memory again. Should I get her pills?"
"Memory..?" Petunia let her husband fuss over her while the young girl hurried over to the closet her pills was in. Petunia watched her fetch a glass and fill it with water -all the while acting as if she'd been living there since they moved in.
"It's okay, Pet. She's our maid. You remember we have a maid, right?"
"What's wrong with mommy?" Harry chimed in, looking up at her with those big, worried eyes.
"I- I-" Petunia stared at the girl as she gently placed down a glass of water in front of her and handed her two pills. She felt her forehead and fussed about her in a way that warmed Petunia's cold heart.
"Should I call ?" Vernon said, patting her hand gently.
"I'll call him Mr. Dursley. You go to work, or you'll be late. And schools important too, right champ?" she ruffled Harry's hair and the boy's wide grin grew wider still.
She shook her head. This wasn't real. It couldn't be real!
Her gaze went to her husband's face, scanning it for deception.
"Pet?" her husband said, the worry in his voice cutting through the fog in hear head.
Her face crumbled as guilt hit her like a ton of bricks.
Her family was just worried. She was sick, the doctor -everyone said so.
No wonder they worry about me.
"I- I'm fine.." she tried to smile reassuringly, but it felt like a grimace.
"If you're sure," Vernon said with a look that made her feel like the worst wife in the world.
She tried to remember their maid, but no matter how hard she tried all she could remember was an older, foreign woman that tried to kill her...
She swallowed down the pills with water, and accepted the tea that the nice, young girl made for her.
It had exactly the right amount of milk and sugar, and it was her favorite.
...maybe the girl really did know her?
Had she dreamt it all up?
This young girl certainly didn't look like she could kill anyone -black clothes and occult jewellery aside.
Certainly not.
As she listened to the girl chatting happily,she felt feel comfortable and relaxed. And she started to wonder if maybe this was a good thing. Maybe this girl was their real maid, and everything else had been a horrible fantasy caused by her head-injury?
Maybe she never killed anyone?
She clung to the cup and tried hard to visualize this girl cleaning their floors and watering the flowers.
The girl's boundless energy -and her picking up a glass to water the flowers in the kitchen with made it surprisingly easy.
Petunia relaxed and sipped her tea.
It really was a wonderful day outside.
And a strangely pleasant emptiness lingering inside.
"That's right! We got entertainment, music, and everything you need for a fun night out!" Harry said, handing the bored-looking teen a pamphlet.
"A youth club?" the boy raised and eyebrow and took a deep drag of his smoke, blowing it in Harry's face. "The fuck would I want to join that shit?"
"Don't let the pamphlet fool you. The whole socially upstanding shit is for your parents. This is not the boring preppy-church-club it looks like, trust me," the preppy-looking blond girl said and tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder, while Harry waved away the smoke from his face.
"Uh-huh..." the teen said, his eyes traveling down to the girl's assents, ready to pop out of her half-buttoned shirt.
"Oooh~ You like them, don't you?" she smirked and popped open another button. "Go ahead, touch them~ No one can see it from here," she leaned towards him suggestively.
"For real?!" the boy said, his hands already moving before she could reply.
"I do a little show and dance at the club you know~ The kind our parent's won't like...if you know what I mean," she winked at him.
"Give her a few shots of vodka, and she'll give a far better show in private," Harry said with a conspirator smirk to the dazed teenage boy.
"Yeah... I'd love to taste your cream~" she said, licking her lips as he pawed at her breasts.
"Holy fuck! Yeah, sure! I'll come! When did you say it was?"
"Officially we're an after-school club," Harry said.
"Unofficially we're always open to members, especially hot ones~" the girl ran her finger down his chest and winked.
"Give that flyer to your mom tho. She's not a part of my father's inner circle yet, so she might need some convincing that everything is... 'wholesome',"
"Hell yeah! Be there the second school lets out today!"
Harry shared a conspirator grin with the girl.
One more lamb to the slaughter.
"Hello? Can I speak with Dr. Martin please?" Petunia said, her hands clinging to the phone.
"Sure, I'll hold," she said, her manicured nails digging into her soft hands.
"Dr. Martin? Thank...someone... you are there! Do you remember my maid?"
And it all flowed out of her, right then and there.
Tears.
Her suspicions.
Her dreams.
Her fears.
By the end of the conversation she was a sobbing mess, clinging to her white-laced handkerchief, her body a mess on the floor.
"You really think my memory will come back to me, Martin? I'm not going insane?" she clung to the phone like a life-line.
"Yes, yes of course I can come in on Monday. Thank you doctor. I don't know what I'd do without you!"
She wiped her eye and a weak, shivering smile graced her lips.
"Double my dosage?! But I'm already..." she swallowed hard.
"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well... If you think it's best..." her voice came out a resigned sigh.
"Of course. It's not her fault. It's mine. I understand that," she gazed towards the doorway.
"I...I know. I'll try and get along with her," she nodded, even tho the man on the other end could not see her.
"Yes. I'll see you on Monday. And once again, thank you."
She pressed the phone back onto the receiver, leaning her head against the wall to think.
Dr. Martin was right of course.
It wasn't fair to take out her own mental problems on the poor, young maid. She was a good girl, she tried to hard to please her, and make her life easier.
And at any rate, the girl looked nothing like the maid from her delusional dreams. They couldn't be the same person. It was impossible.
She swallowed hard and walked to the kitchen, placing a kettle on the stove.
Grasping her little box of pills she poured four of them into her hand.
'Double dosage he said'
She grabbed a glass of water and threw her head back, four times.
Each pill went down with the ease of familiarity and habit.
And the calm, floating sensation that followed was equally familiar by now -it no longer unsettled her.
She sighed and sat down by the table, grabbing the newspaper.
She put it away just as fast.
Habit, she supposed.
'Dr. Martin told me to not read things that may upset me', she reminded herself.
And the news always aimed to upset people.
People buy more papers when they're scared.
She walked to the shelf in the living-room and pulled out the romance book her friend had recommended.
The man on the cover looked diabolically hot, with a wicked gleam in his eye. She fanned herself.
"Claiming the Witchfather", she read.
Well... It certainly sounded... quite far from reality.
But maybe a little fantasy was exactly what the doctor prescribed?
From the outside Little Wiggling Youth Center looked as prim and proper as everything else in this upscale small town, but Harry knew better.
The ivy-covered red bricks and the polished oak door hid a world of depravity unlike anything this small town had ever seen before.
Harry grinned as the preppy-looking kid on guard duty held the door open for him, and he stepped inside.
"What's up, bitches! I bring beer!" Harry yelled over the loud rock music, showing off the two six-packs in his hands.
A loud cheer rose from the crowd, and within seconds he was overrun, teens and older children fighting to get close.
Harry laughed and slid over to high-five a tall, lanky boy dressed in all black, before sliding over to a table that on any other day other day would have look as if it belonged to a noble lord.
Two of the preppy-looking girls seemed to have a giggle-fit. The straw in the hand of the girl to the left slowly slipping onto the ornate plate in front of them.
"Give it here!" said a boy with shoulder-long, blond hair, grabbing the straw and leaning down to snort up the white powder roughly lined up on the plate.
"Want a go?" he said, turning towards Harry.
Harry grabbed the straw and leaned down to the plate to indulge himself, laughing as he felt his head go light and the weight lifting of his shoulders.
"My turn!" a black-clad girl exclaimed, grabbing the straw from his hand, letting Harry go back to his trip around the 'upstanding after-school club'.
"Hey, Nick. Having fun?" he smiled and accepted the beer the older teen handed him. The can let out a soft 'psst' as he popped it open.
"Sure! Lillian here's great fun! Right, Lil?" he grinned at a shy-looking blond girl, his arm slung casually over her shoulder. She looked to be no older than twelve, the boys must have been at least sixteen.
"S-sure..." she said, her head bowed down as she pushed at the groping hand of the black-haired boy on her other side, as he slipped it under her sweater. It did not dissuade him from trying again.
"Lils got bigger boobs that most girls in my class! She's great!" the other boy grinned and grabbed her boob roughly, making her whimper in pain, clinging to the hem of her sweater.
"That's the spirit Lil! Satan loves girls who revel in their sexual freedom, and Asmodeus is the King of Pleasure! You will surely be rewarded for this" he grinned and pulled a small bag from his pocket, shaking out two small pills that looked like candy.
"R-really?" her face lifted up, eyes wide and glittering on the verge of tears. She grasped his arm like a lifeline, faith -the need to believe in something- shining in her misty eyes.
"Satan loves all his people, and Asmodeus loves whorish girls most of all," Nick lectured, and Harry nodded as he spoke.
"What's the harm in playing along a little?" he said with a gentle smile. "This will take the edge off. Open up," Harry held his hand out to Lillian and placed the candy-like pills on her tongue, before handing her his beer. "Besides... everybody does it."
She accepted the unholy communion with the reverence of a girl in love. Her soft lips closing over his fingers, lingering a second too long.
He leaned close to her now flustered and blushing face, his breath hot on her ear as he whispered softly;
"Just let it happen."
He smirked as he watched her swallow the pill, the beer and whatever was left of her prudish pride.
Her hands stopped fighting, and a trembling smile graced her lips as the drugs took effect.
The boys' hands slipped underneath her sweater and her eyes grew hazy and distant. Her hands clutched the hem of her shirt, but slowly her grip slipped and she let herself be pulled into a clumsy kiss. She whimpered under the older boy's rough hands.
Pleased with his scheme, Harry turned his attention to the cheerful shouts coming from the other room, ignoring the ever weaker sounds of protest from the girl.
Opening the polished oak door, he stepped into a scene that would not be out of place in a dive-bar on the wrong side of the tracks. If it was full of teenagers hooped up on drugs, that is.
"Oh, I have all my fingers, the knife goes chop, chop, chop
If I miss the spaces in between, my fingers will come off~"
"OW! Bloody hell!"
Harry laughed as he watched Kenny play the infamous knife-game while singing a song, and failing miserably.*
"Hey, Harry! Come join us!" Mike said, waving him over.
"Yeah! Show Ken how it's done!"
A loud bang went on in a corner, accompanied by laughter.
"Missed the can! You owe me ten quids!"
"Shut up! It's not my fault the kid can't stand still!"
"Maybe later, Mike," he said, "Better make sure John doesn't shoot himself in the foot first," Harry said.
Laughter followed him from the guys at the table, when the pain-filled scream of a girl reached him from the room he just left, followed quickly by weak sobbing and drunken cheers from the crowd of spectators.
He smirked and walked towards the drunk teenager tooting a very real gun.
Petunias hands shook.
'It's not possible! It was only a game. They told me! It's not possible!'
She fumbled with the glass in one hand, and her pills in the other, in her panic she wondered how to turn on the tap.
"FHHHHSSSSSHH!"
"AAAAH!"
The tap flowed with water before she could touch it, and she hurried to turn it off.
"It's not possible!"
Another electrical current rushed thought her body, causing her to drop the cup.
"NO!" 'Aunt Maurice's gift!'
The glass hovered in the air, and Petunia curled up in a corner, sobbing in fear as pain and magic ravished rushed through her body like an electric current.
"-and then the girl's hair caught on fire!" she sobbed into the warm embrace of her husband.
"I know how much you envied you sister, but look at you now! You're prettier than her, you have more powerful magic than she could ever have, AND you have a wonderful family that loves you! You have everything your sister had and more!"
He handed her a cup of tea, sitting her down at the table.
"I wanted you to have everything you could ever wish for. And I know you want this. You've always wanted this," he gently stroked her hand.
"But it's impossible! I spoke to the headmaster of the school! I spoke with everyone I could reach. Even Lilly told me it was impossible!"
"Witches and Wizards today have forgotten their roots. They've forgotten that their powers -always- came from Demon Pacts. They've forgotten about the very existence of demons -believing themselves to be somehow better than the ancestors whom traded their souls for power, even tho they still carry the very same pact in their veins."
"But demons are evil," she said. Even to her own ears it sounded rehearsed.
"And what is wrong with being evil?"
"I.. That..." she fumbled for an answer, but she couldn't for the life of her think of one.
"Humans claim it is bad to do bad things, but why is that? If you never experience the bad effects of it yourself, why should it matter to you what befalls someone else? Especially someone you dislike."
Around the broken and jagged edges of her mind she felt she should have known an answer that could not be explained by logic -but it was all gone now.
"I... I don't know..." she bowed her head and clasped his hand like a lifeline.
Why did she care if someone she didn't care about got hurt? Why was it so bad to show off your body? Or set someone's hair on fire if they talked badly about you? Or have sex with people that wasn't her husband, if her husband didn't mind?
Why did it matter what he thought, if he never found out? It couldn't hurt him if he never knew.
When she really thought about it, it was laughable how foolish most moral concepts was.
She supposed that was why most people didn't think about it.
"But how could you possibly..." her eyes widened as glimpses of her dream came back to her.
"It wasn't a dream..." she said, her voice a low whisper. She swallowed hard.
"Who... What -are- you?!" she pulled her hand back and scanned her face.
"I am your loving husband, Pet. Surely you know that!" his eyes showed a strange hurt that made her reach for him again.
"I'm sorry," she sniffled.
"It's okay, Pet. I know you love me. And I understand it must seem scary, so I'll try and explain," he paused for effect, and ignored Harry's eyeroll in the background.
"I am the chosen Avatar of the great King of Demons; Asmodeus, the right-hand man of Lucifer himself!" he declared, and Petunia gasped.
"Lucifer is very misunderstood you know. Humans painted him in a bad light, but all he ever wanted was for everyone to be free to do anything they desire. "
Petunia remained silent, unsure what to think. Her small hand clung to the only familiar comfort she knew, and he stroked it gently as he spoke.
"All Asmodeus wants is for humans to be free from shame and guilt, and indulge in pleasure to their heart's content. Are those really such bad things?"
"Oh, Vernon! Of course not!" she said, quickly rising to give him a hug.
"I'm sorry I doubted you! Mmmph!"
Leaning into her husband's kiss, lost in pleasure, she completely missed the whispered comment from her son.
"You're so full of shit," Harry mouthed as he passed.
The only answer he got was an enigmatic smile.
"Tch. Look at that whore in her whoreish little dress."
"Little is right."
"You can see her breasts! I bet the only reason Ian likes her is cuz she gives it up for free."
The group of plainly dressed girls giggled, while their leader glared daggers at the black-clad girl.
"Don't listen to them, Lillian. They're just jealous." Julia said, handing her friend a smoke.
"It's Lilith. Lillian is dead," the girl in the skimpy black dress said, putting a cigarette between her red-painted lips and lighting it.
"Lilly!" Ian grinned, placing his arm around the girl's slender shoulder.
"Ian..." her painted lips stretched into an inviting smile that never quite reached her eyes.
He whispered into her ear, and she gave a small shudder before regaining her smile.
"And you have the...?"
"You know it!"
"Alright," she said, allowing him to grasp her hand. "But I want it before we..."
"Anything for you, babe!" Ian grinned, pulling her unresisting body towards the toilets.
"Whore!" muttered the plainly dressed girl, while her friends just rolled their eyes.
"Wonder why she changed?" one of them said.
"The slut clearly knew my Ian would never like her for anything else, so she used her body to steal him. Obviously!"
The other girls exchanged glances, but didn't protest.
Non of them wanted to get on the bad side of the minister's only daughter.
Harry watched the scene with a smirk, before turning back to his notebook.
Then he frowned.
That church-girl and her family might become a problem.
The other ones he could handle -he could see the mark of sin upon each and everyone one of them.
But her...?
Better tell dad.
Dad would know what to do.
Sunday was such a wonderful day in Little Wiggling.
Petunia smiled and waved to everyone she knew, swinging her picnic basket ever so gently as to not disturb the delicate family meal her maid had made.
She looped her other hand around her handsome husband's arm and felt hotter than the sun made her when he smiled down at her with those wonderfully wicked eyes of his.
"Mom! Look what I found!" Harry said, and hurried over to Petunia with a wallet.
She examined the wallet, worn and full of cash. She felt greed clawing at her insides just from looking at it.
The plastic window had a picture of a happy man with three children, one of which looked a bit sickly, and a folded note turned out to be a small list saying things like; 'Jenny's Medicine', 'Pay dentist bills for Jamie', and 'Flowers for Samantha's grave'.
"We found it, so we can keep it right?" Her son shone his big, bright eyes up at her.
"I should say so. Finder's keepers. Right, Pet?" Her wonderful husband smiled at her. There was something strange in both their smiles. A kind of expectation of sorts.
She couldn't help but feel like it was a test, but that was foolish, wasn't it?
She shook her head.
"Well, I..." she paused. A stray thought from another life fluttered by telling her the pictures and notes was important, but she could not for the life of her imagine why.
She stared at the happy family in the picture once again. Taking in the poorly mended clothes and all too skinny frames.
...shouldn't this make her feel something?
"You okay, hon?" her husband's worried words snapped her out of it.
"Oh, yes, yes. Sorry. I was just thinking we should buy some ice-cream for Harry, and maybe something for the two of us later. We can certainly afford it, but finding this was certainly a nice treat," Petunia said and pulled the money out of the wallet.
"That's my girl," her husband said and gave her a quick kiss.
She giggled and casually dropped the empty wallet in a trash-bin, the family photo fluttering to the ground was carried away by the wind before it could reach it.
Moving on to their wonderful family outing, she never saw the shabby-looking man that ran around pushing through bushes and looking under cars, worry and desperation shining in his eyes.
And even if she had seen...
...she would not have cared.
Not anymore.
*Those whom are damned, or those whom sells their soul to a Demon, is said to be cut off from g-d's love. That is what Petunia feels, tho she does not know it. It also cuts her off from feelings of shame and guilt, and morality.
When she proclaimed she belonged to the Demon she believes to be her husband, and sealed the pact with Blood and Lust, she sold her soul to him without even knowing. And that will have consequences she could not foresee.
One does not sell ones soul without paying the price for it. But the change will be clear in time.
The cost can be well worth it to many people. And many things are seen as a boon by one party, and a curse by the other. It remains to be seen what someone like Petunia will think.
There is more change than simply the loss of innocence, but I will leave it up to my dear readers to figure out what else she has lost, by selling herself to the King of Demons.
*The Knife Game Song by Rusty Cage. If your country has not outlawed it, you can find it on YouTube.
Hilarious song by a funny guy with a very dark humor.