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Harry had come back late that night, as usual. He’d been kicked out of the house that morning, as usual, and had loitered and delinquented about Little Whinging, as usual.
The day had been sticky-hot and unpleasant, which hadn’t made for good delinquenting about but also meant no one had had the energy to give Harry dirty looks for it. Plus, anyone outside was at the new mall with the air con a town over, or at the ice cream place by the post office. Harry wasn’t at either of those places, because he had no money, but had miserably managed to fill the day anyhow.
All the misery and humidity and lazy malaise had made nightfall a magnificent poorman’s relief. Harry had thus taken full advantage by sitting alone in the park, walking the curve of Magnolia Crescent (which looked exactly like Privet Drive), and then sitting alone in the park again. He had known, once twilight had gone full dark, that he’d missed the Dursleys’ dinner, and had decided he might as well not see them at all that day.
It was far after midnight but far before morning when Harry, who was sitting on the swings, made up his mind to head back to Number Four. He’d always thought this was a cool time of night, a mysterious time of night, the time of night that cats come out and shadows seem more real than people.
It was maybe this feeling that’d made him swing his legs and lean back. It was maybe this feeling that’d made him kick out then lean forward. It was maybe this feeling that’d made him—after having inspired the swing into a horribly squeaky back-and-forth flight—leap from his seat at the apex of its arc. And the feeling then coalesced into something even better, something magical, and he felt himself floating. He was weightless, bodiless, he was nothing at all. It had only lasted for a few seconds, but it was enough. It had happened.
Harry’s ratty trainers had met the ground softly and soundlessly. Time began to tick again.
…
And so Harry had come back late. He pushed open the back door and toed off his shoes, moving as quietly as he could manage. There was nothing worse than having a good feeling be ruined by a late-night interaction with Dudley.
The carpet of the living was soft under his feet and the house was dark. He could hear a clock faintly ticking. His eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, but he knew the house and navigated through the living room into the dining room.
For a moment Harry didn’t even know what stopped him. He had been turning towards the stairs when the feeling from earlier had washed over him, that quiet nighttime shine. He walked towards the table, as if pulled by some strange emotional force. Something on it seemed to be glowing.
The Dursleys weren’t much for flowers. Vernon occasionally would get Petunia her namesake, but those didn’t lend well to a proper bouquet. The garden outside was pretty, as expected, and sometimes Petunia would attempt to impress a guest with a nice arrangement, but otherwise no one in the house cared for a beauty that was only temporary.
Still, the vase on the table was home to a full set of flowers. It was a tragically beautiful sort of bouquet, bursting with white, star-shaped blooms that seemed to shimmer in the night. Harry couldn’t recall what kind they were. They were dying, though, he could tell. He’d had enough experience with gardening and herbology to know that much. The stems were beginning to droop and there were lost petals littering the table below. It wouldn’t be long before they were dead.
Some instinct, maybe the same secret-soul feeling that had pulled him up from the swing, brought Harry’s hands to cup one of the weak flowers. He closed his eyes for a second, not really sure what he was going to do but doing something anyway, then released the flower. It was radiant.
Harry’s chest tightened and his face hurt with the force of his joy. Then he went about healing the rest of the bouquet, brightening the night bit by bit.
The sound of a shaky gasp froze him in place, hands around one of the last flowers. He looked up into the watery, washed-out blue of Aunt Petunia’s eyes. Neither of them spoke. She just kept making that strange gasping noise. It was ragged and horrible and strangely muted sound, as if she was holding something back. Harry realized she was crying.
Harry couldn’t look away from her, couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. She just kept crying.
Then, in a voice so hoarse Harry could barely hear it, Petunia rasped, “Those were always her favorite.”
Harry blinked, and asked, “Whose?”
She shook her head. “Sometimes you remind me so much of her,” she said, “You nasty, cruel boy.”
The flowers continued to shine their tragic, innocent moonlight. The wind, which had been nonexistent all day, began to pick up outside. The faint glow from the streetlights seemed to stretch the shadows into strange shapes. And all the while, Petunia continued to cry.
But then the witching hour seemed to come to an end.
…
Years later, looking through the heartbroken eyes of Severus Snape, Harry would see a girl with his eyes and his smirk open her palms to reveal a flower. Both she and the lily in her child-size hands would be the very picture of liveliness.