Lying Letter
Hello Mum and Dad
I’ve not called because the phone doesn’t work at Hogwarts. Apparently nothing electric does. They don't even have TV's! It's so boring having to just sit around when you're not in class. Sorry about the owl, I know you don’t like them Mum, but they don’t do normal post here at all.
Lessons are going really well. I’m by far the best in the class. Though noone can do anything useful yet. The teachers all love me. Especially Professor Snape, he’s the head of my house and I think I’m his favourite student.
I was sorted into Slytherin (that’s one of the school houses) It’s meant to mean I’m ambitious, which should make you happy Dad. The other Slytherins weren’t too happy about it. They tend not to like people from normal families, but I’ve won them over really quickly.
I’m really enjoying Hogwarts, but I can’t wait to come back at christmas. I’m missing you already.
Love
Dudley
P.S. Can you send some sweets back with the owl. They don’t have good ones here.
Petunia reread the short letter over three times. She tried to feel happy for Dudley, but it felt hollow. She should be glad that Dudley was settling in well, but she had to admit that his letter was a bit suspicious. If Professor Snape was that Snape… well… Petunia couldn’t imagine him being friendly with her son. Memories of a greasy boy whisking her sister away drifted into her mind's eye. The boy who had tried to drop a branch on her. The boy who had left her sister in tears when she was fifteen. It was the one time Petunia had comforted Lily. When she came home for the summer and wailed about how horribly they had fought. He’d called her something, she recalled. Something bad. Something about her family. Petunia didn’t like the idea of that man teaching Dudley.
It had all started with that boy. Petunia had always known that there was something wrong with Lily – had tried to make her see that the magic wasn’t fun. Even at nine, Petunia was used to listening in to the neighbors. She knew they had noticed. She knew they thought Lily was mad. Then that boy had turned up and filled her head with fairy stories about ‘their world.’ And for a brief time, Petunia had believed them too. Until she hadn’t gotten a letter. Until her parents spent every day musing about what Lily was doing. Dissecting Lily’s letters. Remarking on how helpful it would be to have a witch in the house. And all Petunia had was a supercilious note from the headmaster saying how sorry he was that she couldn’t be one too. Like there was nothing he could do.
She wasn’t sure when her jealousy had curdled into hatred. But it had been inevitable. It seemed that she couldn’t do anything better than her sister. She went to secretarial college. She graduated with flying colours. She met Vernon at her first post and they started a steady romance. He had connections, a good job, and family. But it never felt like enough. It never made them see her.
Vernon had been like a breath of fresh air. He was normal. He took pride in it. When, one vulnerable night, she confided in him about her sister and the freaks she consorted with, he had agreed that he would hate to have a sister like that. The vindication felt sweeter than any gift he had given her. So she brought Vernon to her weekly lunch with her parents. They smiled and shook his hand. Then the conversation turned ever-predictably towards her sister. It was such a shame that Vernon couldn’t meet her, but Lily was so busy nowadays. On and on it went until eventually Vernon had stood up and bellowed at them that, in case they hadn’t noticed, they had two daughters and only one of them had bothered to come to lunch. That was the moment when Petunia knew she would marry him.
Petunia sighed and leaned back in her chair. Her gaze roamed around the small flat. She lingered on the ratty sofa, the peeling wallpaper, the two cardboard boxes she had left unopened in the middle of the room. She hadn’t told Dudley yet. She didn’t know if she could. But Petunia couldn’t stand to stay with Vernon. Not after that first night where he had been forced to truly accept what Dudley was.
Petunia had known. She hadn’t admitted she knew, but how couldn’t she. She was his mother. She saw all the signs. It had been natural to just assume that Vernon had seen it too. The plates that cracked when Dudley had demanded second helpings. The way his tvs and games would be completely broken, but still playable. They report cards that read one thing when their meetings with teachers said another. But Vernon had been better at ignoring it. Better at calling teachers incompetent and the tv’s faulty and, when all else failed, blaming Harry. He had been so adamant that they could stamp it out of him. That they could train him to repress it. That they could go back to being normal. She’d tried to believe it herself, if only to excuse how she acted. Now she just felt a dreadful twist of shame when she thought of that cupboard under the stairs, and how the second room she now had for both the boys was barely bigger than that had been.
Because when Vernon couldn’t deny the magic any longer, he had to deny something else.
“He isn’t mine,” He’d said with that vicious certainty she had once admired, “He isn’t mine and you know it.”
It wasn’t true. Vernon had been the only man she ever loved. She had never so much as looked at another. When he had accused her of cheating, of making him raise someone else’s son as his own, she knew there was no moving past it. She’d thought of all the vitriol they had delighted in together. It was too easy to imagine him turning it on Dudley. If he convinced himself he wasn’t his father, he wouldn’t spare him any love.
So she had kept Dudley away from Vernon. She took him to Diagon Alley by herself and didn’t complain when Vernon started to work late and leave early. She asked an old friend from her secretarial course about the divorce lawyer she now worked for and started combing the papers for ads on cheap flats and good work. Both were in short supply, but by the time she was waving Dudley away on the train she had found what she needed to leave. Even if she wouldn’t be comfortable.
It was lucky the owl had come to her. God knows what Vernon would have done if it swooped through his kitchen window. The bird had settled itself on the counter and was watching her. It was probably expecting her to give it her reply. Petunia sighed and eased herself up from her seat. She snapped at the owl to stop scratching the formica with its claws while she busied herself with finding some paper.
Eventually, she emerged from a neatly packed box with a notepad and pen, sat down, glared at the owl, and tried to think of what to write. She couldn’t tell Dudley yet. It wasn’t worth worrying him. If Hogwarts was bad enough that he was lying about being Severus Snape's favourite then he didn’t need more on his plate.
Dear Duddykins,
We’re so delighted that you’re settling in well. Of course it must be a big change, but we were both confident that you would do well. Any school house that values ambition will be perfect, your father is so proud. Work hard for us Dudley. You are a talented boy and I can’t imagine those classes giving you any trouble, but let’s not get complacent.
Be careful about that Professor Snape though. I have heard of him before and can’t imagine him being very kind to you. I don’t want you to be hurt. (Though you shouldn’t worry darling, I doubt there is much chance of anything coming from this.)
I’ll send a care package soon, we can’t have you going hungry. The food can’t be as good as homemade.
Keep in touch darling.
We love you lots and lots,
Mum and Dad
P.S. Best to address future letters just to Mum. Otherwise the owl might turn up at Dad’s work and there might be questions.
Petunia sat back and looked at her handiwork. She cringed at the lies she had slipped in, but what else could she write. He was a smart boy, whatever his teachers had said. Perhaps he didn’t apply himself as well as he should have, but given that he had actively chosen Hogwarts himself she thought there was a good chance that he might genuinely be excelling.
Or at least that was what she would tell herself.
Petunia folded the letter neatly and then fumbled around her boxes for an envelope. Eventually she admitted to herself that she didn’t have one and taped a post-it note over the one Dudley had used. She wrote his name and the school then paused, trying to remember where Hogwarts actually was. The owl hooted at her impatiently and she glanced at it.
“You’re going back there anyway.” She muttered, embarrassment tinting her cheeks.
She sighed and shook away the thought that she was caving to peer pressure from an owl of all things. She ought to send something with it. But what could she give him? The promise of a care package was already looming over her tight finances. But the owl soon flew off with her letter and a Mars bar that had been left in a cupboard by the previous tenant. Petunia watched it disappear into the evening sky. She felt frayed. The past month had torn her down completely. She had lost her husband, her home, her security. She had even lost a bit of the hatred she had harboured for her sister. Petunia had realised that she had never really known Lily. All her resentment had really been for what she represented. Their relationship had boiled down to perfunctory christmas presents. And now it seemed that Lily would have been a good person to know. She could have asked for advice for Dudley. Well he’d just have to excel on his own.
Petunia sighed and turned back to her tiny flat. The sparse room loomed at her. Some great monster seemed to writhe inside her. This was it. All her life working to keep the peace in her own house and this was what she got for it. Three small rooms with peeling paper and neighbours that had kept her up all of last night. Well she wouldn’t stand for it. This wouldn’t be the rest of everything. The temp agency had found her a post for tomorrow and that would be a start, but she’d look for better the moment she could.
Petunia Evans did not settle for less than perfect.