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i-trey-writing · 2 years ago

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Petunia and the Being that is Harry

If you asked Petunia, she had tried everything in her power to love the boy. She had taken him in, given him a bed and clothing and food and ignored any weird things he did. She had looked at him, trying to see something other than his horrid eyes and too dark skin. She had tried to be gentle as she spoke and touched, but it was hard, a gentle torture. Her hands weren’t made for softness, even Vernon knew that. She was only ever soft on one person and that was her true born son, but you couldn’t say she hadn’t tried.

She had tried, back then.

She would even say she did a fairly good job, at least in the beginning. She couldn’t tell you when she began pinching and pushing the boy around. She couldn’t tell you when she began with harsh remarks or harsher punishments. She couldn’t tell you when that became the standard.

She did however know the exact moment she knew that she could no longer try harder.

Harry, because “Hari” was simply a horrendous name, must have been 5 when Dudley pushed him down the stairs for that first time. Petunia had been in the kitchen making her son some snacks for when he had to do his homework, when she heard a loud crash. She remembered running in her heels into the entryway, only to see Harry laying on the floor, his cheap glasses smashed on the ground next to him. She remembered Dudley looking at her with panic in his eyes before he fell to his knees and pulled Harry’s head into his lap as he began shaking the boy as if that would help.

That was the one and only time Petunia had ever snapped at her son.

“Don’t shake him!” She has shrieked and run to Harry’s side and got him to answer questions as best as he could. She has once fallen down the stairs in her own house when she had rushed down the stairs a bit too fast. She did everything her own mother had done with her, and she had helped Harry to sit and gave him water and gave him his cracked glasses because she didn’t have any spares. In the heat of the moment, she had looked Harry straight in the eyes and said, “You fell down the stairs.”

She repeated it until Harry nodded in agreement, until he seemed to understand that he could not say anything else.

Then she had called Vernon and told him to come home because the black-haired boy needed to get to the hospital, but he had said he couldn’t. Something about an important meeting and in her panic, Petunia had said, “If you don’t get here as soon as you can, you might as well not come home today.”

Vernon was home in a bit more than 30 minutes and at that point, Harry seemed somewhat ok, but Petunia was rushing him out into the car anyway. She had sat, in her pretty dress, with Harry sitting next to her and the whole way to the hospital, she had been muttering about random things, asking Harry silly questions from Dudley’s homework when she had helped him the day before. If he didn’t answer, she squished his hand in hers until he had either answered or admitted that he couldn’t. She didn’t hear Dudley ask his father what was wrong, and she didn’t pay attention as Vernon grumbled something in answer.

The hospital visit turned out to not be needed, but Petunia refused to listen as Vernon complained about it. She snapped back at him, telling him to shut up. She wasn’t about to let the boy get brain damage from something as stupid as falling down the stairs, of all things.

Harry had been good. He had said everything he had to say, had told the doctor and nurse what he should. Petunia let out a sigh of relief, releasing the stress she had built up.

That night, after the boys had been send to bed, Petunia sat next to her large husband as she began recounting things, she had never told him before. About the things her sister did and could. About whom Harry was, about the strangeness that was going to infect their life. She sat in her neat little social area and talked about her own childhood home. How every summer, everything would be Lily and how the school year would be when is Lily back? and what do you think she learned?

She talked of the slimy boy who once threw a branch on her and about brown eyes that stole her sister away like she was a price to be won. She still remembered her parents and their hurt faces when perfect little Lily had told them she couldn’t be back, that something was wrong in her already wrong world. It was like hearing of her parents’ death all over again, remembering their faces. Like they died that day and died again later.

Vernon had held her gently, so gently, as she spoke, as she tried to explain everything and he just... accepted it, because he was a wonderful man who hadn’t ever had to mistrust his wife. That night, when Harry was 5, was the day Petunia did everything she could. There was nothing more, only less. Petunia had cried openly for the first time in almost 5 years, sobbing into her husband’s shoulder, telling him that those nasty people were going to come and take him. Like they took her. They would never see him again because that’s what that insidious world did. It took you and shallowed you whole and you could never escape. It was all consuming like a hellish beast.

They decided to move Harry downstairs, even if that was a strange thing to do, they had no bedrooms downstairs, but at least downstairs he wouldn’t have a reason to be upstairs, he would give no opportunity for Dudley to push him.

Harry was 7 when they stopped going to church.

Petunia used to get all of them to go every second Sunday, because sometimes Vernon didn’t feel like driving given that he had worked all week and would work again the next day. Petunia had dropped Dudley and Harry off for Sunday school in the early afternoon, went on to do some errands and went to pick them up. Usually, nothing special happened, just Dudley rattling on and on about the verses they had learned that day and if Samuel had been there and such. Petunia still hadn’t meet Samuel, but he was apparently Dudley’s favourite person at the time.

But that day, she had been held back by the teacher, who had very kindly informed Petunia that she must be tutoring the kids about God in his old language, because today, Harry had read a Latin verse without stumbling,

Petunia had stopped breathing, her eyes going wide before she turned to Harry, grabbed him a bit too tightly and thanked the teacher profusely. Yes, they had been practising some Latin at home and Harry had taken to it like a sponge to water. Her smile had been tight, and she was sure that the teacher didn’t believe her.

After that, every time the boys should have been in Sunday classes, they ended up at Mrs. Figg. The woman’s house may be unsanitary, and she always smelled of cats, but at least they were safe there. No one would believe the strange cat woman of the neighbourhood if she suddenly began telling them that Petunia’s strange nephew could speak Latin like it was inherent to him. It was probably around this time that Petunia stopped buying new clothing for Harry, because he suddenly grew too quickly; Everything about him really. His hair, his need to glasses and his prescription, his height, but not his weight. Petunia had begun giving him more hand-me-downs than before and she had never really stopped.

When Harry turned 10, Petunia had baked him cupcakes. She didn’t know what had possessed her to do it. Maybe it was that tiny, stubborn soft spot she had for Lily’s ghastly eyes in the boy’s face. Maybe his dark hair made them feel more... his than hers.

Dudley had eaten most of the cupcakes anyway and Petunia had almost felt bad. She had saved four for dessert but considering how Dudley had eaten like he was dying; Petunia decided to give Harry two cupcakes and give them both one at dinner.

Harry had looked like she had hung the moon. He even said, “Thank you, Aunt Petunia.” with so much sincerity that Petunia couldn’t even tell him to just call her “Petunia” like he had for the last few years. If Petunia hadn’t known better, she would have thought that she was seeking that little, stupid word. There was no way, however, she had told him to stop calling her aunt. She didn’t remember why.

Petunia did not cry, thank you very much.

Then the bloody letters came. One and another, every day, through every crack and down the chimney. Petunia had made Vernon shut Harry into the cupboard before she snatched up every single letter and made a neat little burn pile. All leading up to his 11th birthday, just like with Lily.

She didn’t want that horrible, cruel world to touch her Harry. He was too little; he was too small; he was too gentle for that brutal life. He had his small moments of magic, but he was clearly not ready. Petunia would look at him, in his oversized clothing, with his recently broken glasses, with his thin frame.

Vernon was the one who had chosen the travel route, after boarding up their entire house hadn’t worked. He had chosen the destination, where they would sleep, he was the one to bring the gun, but Petunia was the reason. She hated everything about the impromptu journey, but she was thankful for it, almost kissing the car when it carried them to where they had to go.

On the night of Harry’s 11th birthday, Petunia could barely sleep, as if she was waiting for something to happen.

A minute past midnight, the hairy man showed up. He talked to her like she was the wrong one, when he could barely pass through the door. When he was the one who had travelled across the violent sea outside, just to give Harry a squished cake and the horrible, horrible news.

“Yea’re a wizard, Harry.”

And poor clueless Harry knew better than to go along with it what a stranger said. Petunia had broken, all the venom she didn’t who she still carried spilled out of her like water from a faucet. She hated this. She didn’t want to be a summer home; she didn’t want to slowly lose the boy even more than she already had. She might have tried not to get attached, but she had tried, she had truly tried everything! It’s not her fault that the whole of the wizarding world couldn’t kill one person, that they had been saved by a baby. Her baby, her sister’s baby.

#Harry Potter #hp fandom #fanfiction #short fanfic #character introspection #Harry Potter Rewrite #petunia dursley #petunia evans #Harry potter and Petunia #I just wanted to write something from Petunia's pov #Might include it in something some day #Harry is of indian decent in this one

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