The Cursed Creature

Chapter 11

Rightful Repentance

Petunia Evans was left stunned. Since Lily and the nosy Snape boy had snooped in her private mail as well as teased her about the letter she wrote to Dumbledore, she was constantly in a bad mood.

She hated the Snape boy for taking her sister from her. She hated that they had magic and she didn’t. And above all things she hated that magic would separate her and Lily completely when her little sister would turn eleven. Lily had been her best friend ever since she was born and she had always looked up to Petunia until that hideous boy came around with his ‘wonderful’ magic.

Now, looking after the foreign boy who was running for the park, she felt guilty. Petunia had been venting her frustration on an innocent kid who had nothing to do with her bad mood. He probably didn’t even know that magic was real. Petunia sighed.

She was so used to others reacting with appeasements or insults of their own to her tantrums, that she had never thought she would actually hurt the boy. If she was being completely honest with herself, she hadn’t thought at all. She was just continuously irritated and seeking quarrels.

Petunia might not have been as good with people as her little sister was, but she knew when she had to apologise. With great reluctance she forced herself to follow the boy into the park and found him hidden under a white willow tree, where he sat at the pond with one of his books open on his lap.

When she got closer, she saw that he wasn’t actually reading the book as much as staring unseeingly at the surface of the water, reflecting the sun. Hesitantly and slowly to prevent startling the boy, she sat down a few paces away from him. Petunia thought hard about how she could start the conversation as the two things she wasn’t used to doing were admitting to be wrong and apologising.

She opened her mouth a few times only to close it again, growing irritated with herself. The boy hadn’t reacted to her presence at all yet, which was why she jumped slightly when he started to speak. “Freak was a new one. I’ve been called a monster. I’ve been called a dark creature, a curse and a faulty existence. Freak is new, but I guess you are right.”

While he was talking the boy didn’t look at her once. He kept his eyes locked on the water and his voice sounded so distant that Petunia couldn’t discern any emotion from it. Hearing the boy agreeing with her insult made her feel even worse. Why did she have to pick a fight with someone who was clearly already beaten down? “I’m sorry!” Petunia blurted out.

She hated being in this position. “I wasn’t angry at you. I was mad at them. I shouldn’t have called you that.” Usually, the boy would never be a person Petunia would voluntarily interact with. He looked shabbier than the Snape boy and didn’t seem to have a lot of self-confidence.

However, now that she had made him cry she would feel bad to just leave him in this state. If she did that, her mind would tell her that this would be an action suiting the Snape kid and any resemblance with him she did not approve of.

When the boy didn’t answer, Petunia started to babble to fill the awkward silence. “You know, Lily, the redhead, she is my little sister. And the stupid boy is the one who stole her from me. We used to be best friends until he came into her life. And now it’s all about them being special and the special school they’ll be going to when they’ll turn eleven. No one is thinking about me being stuck here when she’ll be gone for most of the year.”

Petunia knew that it was kind of selfish to continue using the boy to rant about the situation seeing that he seemed already kind of depressed, but it made her feel better and at least he would get an explanation for her tantrum earlier.

She waited a moment to give him a chance to reply before she continued: “They’ll just vanish in their new magical world and forget about us normal people”. Oh no. She had used the ‘M’-word. Hopefully, the boy would take her sentence to be meant figuratively. Petunia once again scolded herself internally for not thinking before she spoke.

“Magic isn’t all good, you know. There are good and bad things just like in the non-magical world. And you can be special without magic, too.” the boy said with a silent voice. Petunia stared at him wide-eyed. So she had been right about him and the books all along! What was it about shabby looking boys and magic? Was that a requirement for being a wizard?

Reminding herself of her previous blunder she tried to keep her contemptment out of her voice: “So you are one of them?”

The boy’s answer surprised her. With a self-deprecating smile he said: “I’ll never be one of them. They would never let me into Hogwarts”.

Petunia was confused. In the reply she got from Dumbledore it said that only children that had magic could attend Hogwarts, therefore she was declined.

Did that mean the boy was non-magical like her just with a magical family? “So you can’t do any magic either?” she asked, just to be sure.

Her confusion grew when the boy shook his head and replied: “I can. Or at least I could, but I’ll never be allowed a wand”.

Petunia frowned. That made no sense at all. “But why?”. He glanced at her for a moment, seeming to consider something, before he shrugged and looked back to the pond. “Because I’m a monster,” he whispered.

Petunia would have laughed if the boy wouldn’t have looked so sad. This whiny boy should be a monster? A bit dishevelled maybe. He could certainly do with a new outfit and a haircut, but that didn’t justify the label monster.

“Why would you think that? Because of the scar? Other people got scars too, you know. Sure it doesn’t look pretty but it would hardly be considered monstrous and if it bothers you so much you could always try to cover it up. Mum says her makeup works wonders for the rings under her eyes.”

Now, it was the boys turn to stare at her uncomprehendingly. Hmm. Probably not the scar then. “You, yourself, called me a ‘freak’ earlier, remember?” he finally asked sulkily, completely ignoring her comment on his scar. Probably a sensitive topic.

Petunia harrumphed: “That is because to me all wizards are freaks, so you would fit right in with the others in that freak-school”. With that statement she actually got the boy to laugh. Petunia was surprised he was capable of laughing, but it suited him way better than the moping.

She didn’t know what compelled her to tell him what she did next, though probably the fact that he was a stranger who did know about magic was a crucial factor. “I did write to Dumbledore, you know. And he actually answered, even if it was a rejection.” She could hear the bitterness in her own voice. ”Did you try that?”

The boy sighed. “They wouldn’t accept me. I have a magical condition, a curse. They wouldn’t want to be responsible for taking care of my symptoms every month”.

Petunia considered what she had heard and there was only one thing she knew of with monthly recurring symptoms. It made no sense at all but with magic nothing seemed to be logical and she was curious, so she had to ask: “So it’s like a cursed magical period?”

With amusement Petunia watched as the boy's skin colour turned a deep shade of red that could match Lily’s hair. “Noo!” he squeked. Her question had clearly embarrassed him, but how would she know what was and what wasn’t possible in the magical world? The boy seemed to be either unable or unwilling to explain his condition, which left Petunia disappointed.

She had to admit that she was somewhat interested in magic, if it wasn’t presented to her like something she would never be a part of or unable to understand. And the boy in front of her didn’t give her that feeling at all. It felt more like he was uncomfortable with speaking about himself. Which was fair enough, considering they didn’t know each other.

He put his book aside and scrutinised her in a way that made her slightly uncomfortable. Though he had to have an internal debate with himself, because he appeared to start speaking several times before stopping himself again. Petunia wasn’t known for her patience, therefore she had to force herself to stay silent while he struggled to find the right words.

“If I’ll tell you, can you promise me not to say a word about it to anyone? Especially to your sister and her friend? We’ll stay here only for a few weeks, but if wizards around here were to find out it would be bad for me and my family.”

Petunia was delighted. She loved secrets, especially if she finally got to know something about magic her sister and the Snape boy did not. Therefore, she readily agreed to not utter a single word about what he was going to tell her to anyone. Petunia loved gossip too, mind you, but knowing something others did not was equally marvellous.

The boy nodded more to himself than to her but she took that as an affirmative anyway and waited with keen anticipation. Slowly but surely he took a careful look at their surroundings before he spoke: “I am a werewolf. I got bitten before my 5th birthday and now I’ve got a curse that turns me into a monster every month at full moon. That’s why they call me a dark creature. One night a month I’m not myself.”

The words came out rushed, which made it hard for Petunia to follow, though she was sure she got all of it. He averted his eyes as if he was expecting her to be disgusted, so she chose her next words carefully: “And why would that prevent you from going to that school of weirdness if it’s only one night a month?”

He laughed bitterly: “Because wizards hate dark creatures”.

Magical people just didn’t make any logical sense to Petunia. “So what? Spend one night a month at home and there won’t be a dark creature that doesn’t fit their special rules of weirdness. Why are they calling werewolves ‘dark creatures’ anyway? If it's a curse wouldn’t ‘cursed creature’ be a better fit?”