Chapter Text
The bathroom was still and dim, early morning light filtering in through the narrow window above the sink. The silence buzzed in her ears—Dudley at 12 weeks old was still asleep, and Vernon had already left for work. For once, the house was calm.
Petunia stood by the sink, arms crossed tightly as she stared down at the small white stick on the counter.
Two lines.
Her breath caught.
For a moment, she didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. She just stared, her eyes wide and unblinking.
Two lines.
It was real.
She pressed a hand to her flat stomach, tentative, almost afraid to disturb whatever small, impossible life might be beginning there. A second child.
A sibling for Dudley.
Her throat tightened unexpectedly, and before she could stop herself, she looked toward the phone on the wall.
The number sprang up in her mind like muscle memory.
Lily.
She imagined her sister’s voice—bright and teasing, the way it had been before . Before the shouting, before the cold silences. Before wands and owls and a world Petunia was never allowed into.
She’d want to know, a voice inside whispered. She’s your sister.
Her hand hovered near the receiver.
But then she remembered. The last words they’d spoken. The way Lily had looked at her—hurt, disappointed. Like Petunia had become something unrecognizable.
Petunia had said things she didn’t mean.
Lily had said things she did mean.
Her hand dropped.
She turned away from the phone.
She didn’t cry.
Instead, she sat at the kitchen table, the positive test still clutched in her fingers, and stared out the window. The neighbor’s cat slinked along the fence. A bird called out, distant and sharp. Somewhere upstairs, Dudley turned in his sleep.
She let her palm rest on her stomach again, gently this time.
“I’ll do better,” she whispered. “I’ll… I’ll be better.”
She didn't know if she believed it.
But it was a promise, all the same.
The stick was still in the drawer, wrapped in tissue and tucked beneath the spare dish towels.
Two weeks had passed.
Every night she had nearly said something to Vernon. Every night she had stopped herself.
He would huff, make some offhanded comment about money or Dudley’s toys being chewed on. He might even be pleased— might —but it wouldn’t be safe . Not yet. Not until she knew how she felt.
Not until someone looked at her with warmth and called it good news .
So instead, she waited. Waited and wrestled. Kept her voice calm and her eyes tired, brushing off her fatigue as “just a bug.” She hummed when she folded Dudley’s too-small clothes, stared too long out the window while washing dishes, caught herself holding her belly without realizing it.
And then one morning, she woke before the sun.
Made tea.
Stood in the kitchen barefoot, hands curled around the warm mug, watching the sky lighten.
And she knew.
She needed to tell someone .
Not Vernon.
Not yet.
Not Lily.
Not anymore.
But her mother. Her father. They would listen. They would know what to say. They always had.
She fed Dudley breakfast and dressed him slowly, pressing a kiss to the soft curls at the crown of his head. He smelled like oatmeal and soap.
Mrs. Sedgewick from down the road was already trimming her roses when Petunia wheeled the pram up.
“Would you mind watching him for just a few hours?” she asked, trying to keep her voice casual. “I have an errand I need to run. Won’t be long.”
Mrs. Sedgewick beamed. “Of course, dear. He’s no trouble at all.”
Petunia smiled. “Thank you.”
She left the pram with the woman, kissed Dudley one more time, and walked quickly down the street before she could change her mind.
Her parents’ house wasn’t far—just a fifteen-minute walk if she didn’t dawdle.
With every step, her nerves curled tighter, but so did something else.
Hope.
Maybe this could be a turning point.
Maybe this time would be different.
Maybe she wasn’t too far gone.
The gate creaked as she opened it.
She smiled, just barely, as she stepped onto the familiar path.
She stood on the porch with trembling hands and a heart full of something like hope. It wasn’t joy exactly—she didn’t know if she was allowed that anymore—but it was close. Close enough.
Dudley would have a sibling. And this time… this time she would be different. Kinder, softer, maybe even—no. That word still caught in her throat.
She decided that she was actually excited to tell her parents first. To see their faces light up. Her mum would have made tea, her dad would’ve grumbled about another little monster underfoot and then smiled when he thought no one saw.
She had imagined it all. The warmth, the clinking of china, her mum’s hands over hers.
But the door was ajar.
That was the first thing.
The second was the silence.
“Hello?” she called, stepping inside. “Mum?”
The air hit her like a wall. Thick. Metallic.
Wrong.
Her voice caught in her throat. “Dad?”
The house didn’t answer.
She moved forward on numb legs. The hallway felt longer than usual. Colder.
She rounded the corner.
And the world fell apart.
He was crumpled by the stairs, eyes open. Mouth slack. His glasses were askew, a smear of blood across the floor beneath him. His fingers still curled like they had tried— tried —to hold something back.
“No—no no no—” Her voice cracked. She turned, stumbling, heart in her throat, vision tunneling—
“Mum?” she choked out.
She found her in the kitchen.
There was a handprint of blood smeared across the refrigerator. Her mother’s body was twisted, one arm outstretched, nails torn and broken where she had tried to crawl.
Petunia made a sound then. Not a scream, not a sob—something primal and hollow, like the sound of something inside her cracking.
The world tilted.
Her knees gave out. She barely registered the sharp knock of bone against tile. Her breath came in gasps, short and shallow.
“No. No. Please.”
Pain twisted low in her abdomen. Sharp, burning.
She pressed a hand to her stomach.
No.
But it was already happening.
Hot blood seeping, her body curling inwards. Her mouth opened in a silent wail.
She wasn’t just losing them.
She was losing everything .
She didn’t know how long she stayed there.
Her mother’s hand was cold when she touched it, trembling fingers closing over the one outstretched toward the fridge. Blood—her blood—had dried at the base of her nails. Petunia stared at it, willing it to make sense, to not be real. But it was.
Somehow, she stood.
Somehow, she reached the phone on the wall, fingers slipping on the numbers as she tried—desperately—to dial.
Her voice shook. “Hello? Police, I—my parents—they’re—”
Crack.
The sound was like a whip, sharp and sudden, and then—
Another crack .
Her heart stopped.
Three people stood in the entryway, cloaked and rigid and so impossibly out of place. One woman with bright red hair held a wand still raised. The other two scanned the house, their own wands drawn.
Petunia dropped the phone. It clattered against the floor, the receiver bouncing once on its coiled cord like a broken limb.
She backed against the counter, breath heaving. “No. No, no, no— get out. ”
The red-haired woman took a cautious step forward. “Petunia Evans?”
Her voice was soft. Familiar, even.
Petunia didn’t answer. Her eyes darted to the kitchen door. To the blood. To her mother.
To the wand in the woman’s hand.
“Get away from me!” Her voice cracked. “ You did this! ”
“We didn’t,” the woman said quickly. “We’re here because of it. There was an attack. We’re from the Ministry—”
“I don’t care! Get out! Get out! ”
The woman faltered. One of the others murmured something under his breath. The third—a tall man with a lined face and tired eyes—stepped forward.
“We’re sorry,” he said. “There was a Death Eater attack here tonight. We were too late.”
Death Eater.
The word meant nothing and everything . She’d heard it once, in a fight with Lily. It had sounded ridiculous then—like something from a comic book.
Not real.
Not this.
Petunia’s knees buckled again, and she sagged against the counter, shaking. The blood on her hands wasn’t hers—not all of it. But enough of it was.
Her stomach twisted, sharp and burning. It was worse than before— so much worse . A stabbing pain, unbearable. Something tearing apart inside her.
Her breath came in short, jagged gasps. She pressed her palm against her stomach, but the pressure only made it worse. Her body was trying to expel something—something she wasn’t ready to lose. Her mind couldn’t wrap around it.
“No…” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Not now…”
The pain spiraled, a hot, pulsing ache low in her abdomen, spreading out like fire. Her knees gave out again, and she crumpled to the floor, gasping for air.
“Petunia!” The woman’s voice was frantic now. “Are you alright? We need to—”
But Petunia couldn’t hear her. She couldn’t hear anything except the sound of her own heart pounding in her ears, the rush of blood in her mouth.
Her vision blurred. Her body trembled violently.
“No,” she moaned, pressing her hand tighter against her belly, as if willing it to stop. She was losing it. She was losing everything. She wasn’t just losing her parents. She was losing her child, too.
“Please,” she whispered to the empty air. “Please…”
The woman crouched beside her, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “We need to get you to St. Mungo’s. You’re bleeding. You’re—”
There was another voice shouting, "She's a muggle."
But Petunia couldn’t even form the words. She felt the weight of everything crashing down on her all at once, and she broke. The scream tore from her throat, ragged and desperate. She couldn’t keep it in. She couldn’t control it. It was too much.
Her world, her hope, her baby—gone.
The woman cursed softly, grabbing Petunia’s arm, but Petunia yanked away, clutching her stomach, curling into herself. She could barely breathe through the pain, through the shock.
Through the sheer, utter, crushing loss .
The tall man with the tired eyes stepped forward. “We’ll take care of this,” he said firmly, but it sounded empty. There was no taking care of this. Not now. Not ever.
Petunia looked at them with wild, unfocused eyes, and the last thing she could manage to whisper, the only thing that felt like it mattered in that moment was, “I… I wanted it to be different.”
But it never would be.
Petunia’s eyes fluttered open to the bright, sterile light of a hospital room. The smell of antiseptic filled her nose, mixing with the faint scent of coffee in the hallway outside. It was the last thing she wanted to be smelling right now—the cold, clinical reality of a place that offered no comfort for what she had just lost.
She groaned, her hand pressing to her aching stomach. Her head was throbbing, and she felt drained—like the energy had been drained from her body, leaving nothing but a hollow shell.
A figure was sitting by her bed, just a silhouette against the harsh overhead light. Petunia’s vision blurred as she tried to focus. The shape was too familiar, and when she finally blinked away the haze, she saw her more clearly.
The red hair. The sharp eyes. The posture, so similar to Lily’s.
The woman looked up at her, and Petunia recoiled, the memories of her parents' lifeless bodies coming rushing back. She wanted to scream but could barely make a sound.
“You’re awake,” the woman said quietly, her voice filled with something Petunia couldn’t place—sympathy, maybe, but something colder too, as if she were distant, removed from the pain in Petunia’s eyes. “How are you feeling?”
Petunia shook her head, trying to push herself up, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. She felt weak—physically, mentally, emotionally. “What… what happened? Where am I?”
“You’re at a Muggle hospital,” the woman replied, standing and walking toward the door. “You’ve been stabilized. The doctors confirmed… the pregnancy is gone.”
Petunia’s chest tightened, and she shut her eyes. She wanted to scream, to hit something. But instead, a terrible stillness fell over her. She was too empty now—too hollow—to feel anything except a deep ache in her bones. Her hand pressed to her stomach again, the memory of life—of a child she never even got to know—aching within her.
“Why…?” she whispered hoarsely, her throat raw. “Why are you here?”
The woman hesitated, then sat back down. She looked at Petunia with that same soft, painful expression. “I’m an Auror,” she explained gently, “We were called in after the attack on your parents. I was sent to make sure you were safe.”
Petunia clenched her fists. “Safe?” she repeated bitterly. “What good is safe if it costs everything?”
“Petunia,” the Auror said softly, her voice faltering, “I’m sorry for your loss. I truly am.”
The words stung like salt in a wound. She didn’t need anyone’s pity. She didn’t need anyone’s sympathy. The world had already taken everything from her, and now… now it was all crashing down around her.
Petunia’s voice was a desperate whisper. “Please… just make me forget. Make me forget all of it. I can’t… I can’t live with this. I don’t want to remember.”
The woman’s face twisted with uncertainty, her eyes flicking to the door as if she was looking for some way to escape. “I can’t do that,” she said, her voice soft but firm. “Obliviating someone is… It’s not that simple. It’s not something that should be used lightly.”
Petunia’s hand gripped the bedsheet, knuckles white. “Please. I don’t care. I just want it all to go away. I can’t keep carrying this. I can’t keep living with the weight of losing them… of losing my baby. I’ll never be whole again.”
There was a long pause. The woman looked torn, and Petunia thought she saw the faintest flicker of something—pity? Guilt?—in her expression.
“I can’t make you forget everything,” the Auror said finally, almost reluctantly. “But... I can help you forget the pregnancy. Just the pregnancy. Nothing else.”
Petunia’s eyes widened. She could barely comprehend what the woman was saying. She didn’t care. She didn’t care what it took, as long as the memory of what had happened could be wiped away. It was all too much.
"Please," she whispered again. "Please."
The woman stood and walked to the door, her face softening for a moment. Then she turned back, her voice quiet and steady. “This is wrong. I shouldn’t—”
But Petunia didn’t let her finish. “Please, I can’t do this. I can’t live with it.”
The Auror hesitated for a long time before taking a deep breath. Her fingers twitched at her side, and the air in the room shifted. She looked at Petunia one last time, almost searching her face for something.
Then, with a soft exhale, she raised her wand.
Petunia didn’t even flinch.
A moment later, the memory of the pregnancy—the small spark of life inside her—was gone. There was only the ache of her parents’ death. Only the vivid, sharp pain of the loss that had torn through her world. The other pain, the one that had felt like it could shatter her heart, was gone.
The Auror stepped away, her back turned to Petunia as she began to leave the room. Petunia’s mind felt like it had been emptied, and she couldn’t even remember what she had asked for in the first place.
Just before the door clicked shut behind her, the woman spoke one last time.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I truly am.”
Petunia barely heard her. The door closed, and the silence swallowed her whole.
And then, just as the sound of footsteps echoed from the hallway, Vernon appeared, his face twisted in worry. He froze when he saw her sitting there, pale and broken, the vacant expression on her face telling him everything he needed to know.
Petunia didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. He didn’t deserve an explanation.
But she couldn’t stop the tears that welled up in her eyes, nor could she stop the one thought that rang in her mind.
Her baby was gone.
And now, even the memory was too.
The room was thick with the sterile smell of antiseptic, and Petunia was still trembling as Vernon walked in. His face was pale, his eyes darting from her to the door, but there was no warmth in his gaze—only a sharp, disapproving edge.
Petunia’s hand rested limply in her lap, her mind fogged by the memory that had been wiped clean from her memory by the Auror's spell. The pain in her stomach had dulled to a faint ache, but her heart still hammered in her chest, suffocating her with its weight.
Vernon’s voice cut through the haze.
“Well, it’s about bloody time, isn’t it?” he grumbled as he entered the room. His eyes narrowed as he took in her pale face, the weariness clinging to her like a second skin. “This whole place is a waste of time. A bunch of nonsense, if you ask me. They’ve done nothing but make a spectacle out of you.”
He walked toward her bed, crossing his arms. "It's a shame about your parents, of course,” he muttered, his voice laced with disgust. “But we both know who’s to blame, don’t we?”
Petunia flinched, her stomach twisting in an uncomfortable, familiar way. Her mind still swirled, unable to keep up with the chaos of emotions crashing through her like a storm. She had lost her parents. She had lost her baby. And now, she was facing the man who would never truly understand.
“It was your bloody sister,” Vernon spat, his voice rising in anger. “She’s the one who brought all this madness down on us. She’s the one who dragged you into all that—dragged us into it. If she hadn’t gone off on that bloody… whatever it was with her wand and all those strange people, your parents might still be alive.”
Petunia’s hands clenched into fists at her sides, though her heart wasn’t in it. The weight of everything pressing down on her made her feel like a thousand miles away from the world. It was hard to breathe. It was hard to think.
She couldn’t respond. The anger, the bitterness—everything Vernon said felt so far removed from what she’d just experienced. From the devastating loss. The grief that was already twisting up into something jagged and unbearable.
“Get up,” Vernon barked. “We’re leaving this place. There’s no point in staying here. You’ve had your check-up, and now it’s time to get back to some normalcy.”
Petunia’s gaze dropped to the bedclothes, the sheets tangled and askew beneath her. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Vernon as he stood over her, his fists clenched at his sides. He was angry, sure. But he didn’t understand. He never understood.
"Vernon..." Petunia’s voice was a ghost of sound, barely audible.
He cut her off before she could speak further. "It’s a bloody disgrace," he muttered, his eyes flashing with something like contempt. "You always let her drag you down. First, it was her, and now—now look at what’s happened."
Petunia didn’t want to hear this. She wanted to tell him to stop, to shut his mouth and just let her breathe. She wanted to tell him she had lost something far more precious than he could ever understand. She wanted to scream at him.
But instead, she stayed silent.
She had lost so much, and yet here he was, blaming Lily—the same sister who had been pulled into a world of magic that Petunia had always feared. She had never wanted to understand. She had never been given a choice.
Vernon wasn’t even looking at her now. He was pacing by the door, muttering under his breath, completely oblivious to how badly his words were cutting into her already broken soul.
“We need to leave. I’ll take care of the funeral arrangements,” he said, as if the words barely mattered. “You’re coming with me.”
He reached for the door, not waiting for her to respond. Petunia sat frozen for a moment longer, her hands trembling, the last fragments of the shattered memory gnawing at the edges of her mind, even though she couldn’t quite grasp them.
"Petunia," Vernon barked, his hand resting on the doorknob. “I’m not waiting all day for you. Let's go.”
She stood slowly, the cold room pressing down on her, and shuffled toward the door. She had no strength left to fight him. She had no words left to say. All she had now was the raw, empty space where her grief once lived, and she couldn’t let herself give in to it. Not with Vernon so close, not with his accusations and anger hanging in the air like a foul-smelling cloud.
The hospital room, with its cold walls and bright lights, felt too much like a dream now—something distant and blurry. Petunia walked out of the room, her mind a dull, aching throb as the door clicked shut behind her. She let Vernon’s presence consume the space around her, and she tried to push everything else away. She had to.
He was right about one thing, though. There was no going back to the life they had once had. There was no room for softness, for understanding, for any of the things that might have made this situation bearable.
And so she followed him, her feet dragging along the sterile floors of the hospital, her chest tight with the unbearable knowledge that she had lost everything—and nothing would ever be the same again.
Vernon was a few steps ahead, muttering about getting back home and handling everything himself. She barely heard his words. Her mind was still spinning, overwhelmed with what had happened, with the gnawing pain in her chest that she couldn’t escape.
She passed a few nurses, but her eyes were unfocused, her mind too clouded to even register their presence. It was only when she nearly bumped into someone at the end of the corridor that she noticed the figure standing in her path.
A woman—tall, with striking red hair that glowed faintly under the harsh fluorescent lights. Her clothes were strange, dark and official, definitely not a nurse, perhaps a mortician. She looked serious, eyes sharp and alert, but there was something about her… something so familiar that Petunia stopped, her breath catching in her throat.
The woman’s gaze shifted towards her, and for just a moment, Petunia felt as though she was looking at her sister, Lily.
No. No, it couldn’t be Lily. Yet, in that split second, something in the woman’s eyes—the way her brows furrowed in concern, the way she stood—reminded her of her sister.
Petunia blinked, trying to clear the fog that clouded her mind. The woman, who must have been an mortician, stepped back, seemingly oblivious to the internal storm raging inside Petunia. She offered a brief nod and turned to continue down the hallway, her footsteps echoing faintly as she walked away.
It was the strangest thing.
She didn’t know why the woman reminded her of Lily. It didn’t make any sense. The woman’s features were different, the look in her eyes was colder, harder. But still, for just a heartbeat, Petunia had felt the pull of memories—her sister’s smile, her laughter, the warmth that used to exist between them.
And just like that, it was gone. The fog thickened once more and everything pressed down on her in one heavy weight. She didn’t know this woman. The woman was just a stranger.
But for that split second, Petunia could almost hear Lily’s voice in the back of her mind, like a whisper she couldn’t quite catch.
“Get it together, Petunia,” Vernon’s voice cut through the haze, his hand on her arm, steering her away. “We have funerals to arrange and Dudley is still with the neighbor.”
Petunia blinked again, forcing herself to focus on the present, on the cold, hard reality of what had happened.
Her parents were gone.
The car’s engine hummed monotonously as Petunia stared out the window, her mind a haze of disjointed thoughts. Vernon was beside her, muttering endlessly about the cost of the hospital stay, the funeral expenses, and everything else that seemed to bother him. But Petunia didn’t listen. She couldn’t. There was too much swirling in her mind—her parents' sudden deaths, the devastation that had shattered her, and the crushing weight of everything she had tried to bury.
Vernon’s voice droned on, like a constant buzzing in the background. “It’s a shame what happened to your parents. Bloody shame,” he said, his voice full of judgment. “And now we have to deal with all of this, and for what? What’s it all for? Your bloody sister and her mess!”
Petunia barely reacted. Her gaze was fixed out the window, the houses blurring past, her thoughts far away. Vernon continued to complain, but it felt distant now. She felt detached from it all—almost as if she were watching the scene unfold through a glass wall, separated from the world around her.
The drive home was slow. Vernon took a wrong turn at one point, and Petunia didn’t say anything. She didn’t have the energy to argue. She didn’t have the energy for anything.
As they finally pulled up to their street, something made Petunia’s heart skip in her chest. She saw the figure on the porch before she realized what was happening.
Lily.
She was standing there, her red hair bright even in the dim light of late afternoon. And there, strapped to her chest in a carrier, was a tiny infant—no more than ten weeks old, if Petunia had to guess. The sight of it took Petunia by surprise. She hadn’t seen her sister in years, not since… well, not since everything fell apart.
Lily looked just as she remembered—her face soft with the weight of motherhood, her arms wrapped protectively around the baby. There was something serene about the way she rocked gently, her attention fully on the child. But there was no smile, no wave. She didn’t acknowledge Petunia in the way she once might have. There was only the quiet stillness of the moment.
Petunia’s breath hitched. She hadn’t expected this. The sight of her sister was like a sharp breath in the middle of a nightmare. She wasn’t prepared for it. She wasn’t ready for it.
Vernon’s voice broke through her shock, the car coming to a stop in front of the house. “Bloody hell, what’s she doing here?” he muttered, annoyed, as he reached for the door. “This is just what we need, a bloody visit from your sister after all that’s happened.”
Petunia couldn’t tear her gaze away from Lily, standing there on the porch, cradling the baby.
The door slammed open, and Vernon’s gruff voice startled her back into reality. “Come on, Petunia. We don’t have time to stand around gawping. Let’s get inside.”
She couldn’t look away from Lily, her sister standing there as though nothing had ever happened between them. As though they hadn’t spent years apart, their words hardened by fights, by things that could never be taken back.
Her sister’s eyes flicked toward her, meeting Petunia’s gaze for the briefest moment before her expression shifted into something unreadable. She didn’t smile, didn’t wave. She just looked. And Petunia was left standing there, frozen.
The baby shifted, small sounds escaping as it fidgeted in its carrier, but Lily didn’t break eye contact. It was a fleeting moment, one that felt too heavy to bear. Petunia’s chest tightened as the enormity of it all washed over her.
She had come home. Her sister was here, alive, with a child of her own.
And somehow, despite everything that had happened, she couldn’t bring herself to speak. To do anything.
“Petunia!” Vernon barked again, louder this time, and she jumped, pulling herself out of the trance. Her feet felt rooted to the ground, her heart still heavy with the sight of Lily standing on the porch, holding a baby, something about it made her look away.
The door to the house creaked open behind her, and Petunia could hear Lily’s voice, light and familiar. “Petunia?”
Petunia turned, slowly, still trapped in the haze of confusion and sorrow. There was her sister, standing at the threshold, the baby tucked carefully into her arms and Petunia’s chest tightened at the sight of the child. She had long ago buried any semblance of a relationship with Lily, but now, standing there in front of her, her sister was a figure she could neither recognize nor confront.
“Mum and Dad,” Lily said, tears welling in her eyes, stepping closer with the hesitant warmth Petunia had once known so well. “James is talking with Dumbledore. We were just—”
Lily’s voice trailed off when she saw Petunia’s face, the guarded look that Petunia couldn’t shake. But still, Lily stepped forward, opening her arms in a gesture of comfort. “I’m so sorry, Petunia,” she murmured, the words laced with genuine grief. “We can get through this, I’m here for you.”
But Petunia couldn’t hear her. She couldn’t focus on Lily’s words. All she could see was her baby, small and helpless in his mother’s arms. His dark hair, his innocent face. A child of the very world that had driven the wedge between them all those years ago.
Petunia’s heart pounded, a wave of grief crashing over her, but it wasn’t just sadness—it was a storm of anger and frustration, twisting inside her like a wild thing. She couldn’t understand why it was happening, why this feeling was overwhelming her with such intensity. All she knew was that his presence, his existence, was somehow tied to the unbearable loss she had just suffered.
Her fists clenched at her sides as she looked at her sister, she didn’t know why, but she felt like she was suffocating. Every part of her screamed that this wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Lily had everything, everything their parents had never wanted for her. And now, with their deaths so fresh and painful, the sight of Lily made it all feel like some cruel joke.
“No,” Petunia snapped, her voice trembling with emotion. “No, Lily. You don’t get to pretend like everything’s going to be okay. You’re not welcome here. Not after everything that’s happened.”
Lily’s face faltered, confusion and hurt flashing across her features. “Petunia, I don’t understand. What do you mean? I’m just trying to help. We lost our parents. I’m so sorry…”
But Petunia wasn’t listening anymore. The anger was a roaring tide inside her chest. She pointed sharply at the baby in Lily’s arms, her words sharp and bitter. “Your precious little world. That’s who you are. That’s all you are. They are the reason everything’s fallen apart. He’s the reason we’ve lost everything. He’s the reason Mum and Dad are gone!” Her voice cracked with the weight of the accusation.
Lily’s eyes widened in shock, and she stepped back, as though the words had physically struck her. “Petunia, that’s not fair. You can’t blame me for this. It’s not my fault. It’s not—”
“Of course it is!” Petunia yelled, her anger rising like a tidal wave, drowning her in grief and frustration. “You always chose him over me! You always chose that damn world over your own flesh and blood. And look where it’s gotten us! Look where it’s gotten me !”
Lily’s face turned pale, her eyes hurt and confused. She stepped back, instinctively pulling the baby closer to her chest, as though trying to shield him from the venom in Petunia’s words.
“I… I didn’t mean for any of this,” Lily whispered, her voice cracking. “I never wanted to hurt you, Petunia. I never wanted this. But I’ve always been—”
“Stop it!” Petunia screamed, the words tearing from her throat before she could stop them. “Just stop! Don’t act like you didn’t know. Don’t act like you didn’t know this would tear us apart.”
Lily’s eyes glistened, a flicker of hurt crossing her features before it was quickly replaced with resignation. She shook her head, too tired, too hurt to fight back anymore.
“You’ve made up your mind,” Lily said quietly, her voice low. “I can’t change that. But Petunia… I’ve always loved you. I always will.” She took a step back, holding her baby gently but firmly in her arms. “Goodbye.”
And with that, Lily turned, and disappeared.
Petunia stood frozen in place, the anger still boiling inside her, but now it felt hollow. She didn’t know where it had come from, or why it hurt so much. All she knew was that something inside her had cracked, and it was too late to fix it.
Vernon’s gruff voice called from inside the house, pulling her from her thoughts. “Petunia, are you coming in or what? We’ve got a lot to deal with.” She didn’t look back, but she couldn’t stop the tear that slipped down her cheek.
It had been a year since her parents funeral.
The pain hadn’t dulled, not really. The ache was still there, pulsing just beneath the surface of everything Petunia did. A dull, sour grief clung to her like smoke—always present, even if she tried to keep moving forward. She’d buried her parents with the weight of the world pressing down on her chest, and she hadn’t been able to speak a word to Lily the entire day. Lily had come—of course she had—but Petunia couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t hear her voice. Couldn’t bear to see the baby in her arms.
She remembered the moment clearly: standing in the farthest row at the graveyard, black gloves clenched tight in her fists, staring down the line of mourners until her eyes landed on the tiny bundle in Lily’s arms.
Harry, she’d learned his name was. Harry James Potter. Just a soft, plain thing. But even so, Petunia felt her stomach twist at the sound of it.
It wasn’t just Harry. That was what confused her the most. It wasn’t just him that unsettled her. It was all babies now. Infants in strollers at the market made her throat close. The faint sound of a baby crying from the flat next door left her restless for hours. Even Dudley—her own flesh and blood—sometimes made her heart ache in a way she couldn’t explain.
He would wail, red-faced and loud, and all Petunia could feel was this disjointed panic, a chasm opening inside her. Sometimes she found herself staring at him in the middle of the night, unable to remember how she’d gotten to the nursery. Vernon, blissfully unaware, snored in their bedroom. And Petunia would sit in the rocking chair, cradling a sleeping Dudley and crying so quietly her own body shook.
But there was something different about Harry. Something that sent her over the edge in a way nothing else did.
She hadn’t seen him much—Lily had only visited once after the funeral, trying to explain what had happened that day but Petunia couldn’t bring herself to relive that day. Even so that brief glimpse of the boy had stayed burned into her memory. The dark hair, the too-wide eyes, the way Lily held him like he was her entire world.
That had done something to Petunia. Something she didn’t understand.
She’d told herself it was just bitterness. Just leftover anger from a lifetime of Lily always being the special one, the one who got magic, who got the attention, who got everything. But this went deeper. This was sharp. Unsettling. A weight she couldn’t shake.
Every time she thought of Harry, a chill ran down her spine. It wasn’t hatred, exactly. It was… dread. A foreboding that made her skin crawl. As if her body remembered something her mind refused to recall.
Petunia didn’t know what it was. She didn’t want to.
She focused on Dudley. On the house. On keeping Vernon happy and the curtains straight and pretending, always pretending, that she was fine. That she was normal.
But in quiet moments, when she was alone with her thoughts and the wind whispered against the windowpanes, a strange emptiness opened up inside her. A hollowness she couldn’t name.
And in those moments, she hated how much Harry haunted her.
Even when he wasn’t there.
The air had turned crisp, and golden leaves danced along the pavement as dusk settled over the neighborhood. Petunia bundled Dudley into his yellow-and-black striped costume with a proud little smile. He wriggled with excitement, tiny wings stitched onto his back, and a puffy hood with antennae that kept slipping down over his eyes. He was a chubby, babbling bumblebee, and for the first time in a long time, Petunia felt something warm in her chest that wasn’t twisted by grief.
Dudley had loved every second of it—his pudgy hands grabbing at candy, the sight of carved pumpkins glowing, the laughter of other children as they darted through the cul-de-sac. Petunia followed close behind, his small pumpkin-shaped candy bucket bouncing in her hand. Neighbors cooed and complimented him, and for once, Petunia let herself smile freely.
Vernon had stayed home, naturally. Something about not wanting to miss his shows , and that Halloween was “a waste of good bloody sense.” Petunia hadn’t argued. She’d bundled Dudley into his stroller and left without a word.
The neighborhood festival had been sweet, even quaint. Booths with caramel apples and hot cider, simple games for toddlers, a few scattered decorations that danced in the light breeze. She’d felt safe there. Normal. Surrounded by other mums and dads with their giggling little monsters and pumpkins and superheroes.
For a brief evening, she let herself exist in that space. In that carefully curated little world she had tried so hard to build—where things were tidy and predictable, where her grief stayed tucked in its box and nothing magical, or awful, could touch her.
By the time she got home, Dudley was fast asleep, his cheeks sticky with the remnants of a lollipop, his little hands curled around the edge of a blanket. She carried him inside, stepping softly past Vernon’s snoring form on the sofa, the television flickering in the dim living room.
Petunia tucked Dudley into his crib, brushing a bit of sugar from his chin, and lingered for just a moment, watching the soft rise and fall of his chest. Her heart gave a strange little flutter.
Something about tonight had felt too good.
Too quiet.
She shook off the thought, went to lock the front door, and drew the curtains tight.