Their Sorry
A Harry Potter Fan-fiction
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Harry was now seventeen years old. The battle was over. Hogwarts was slowly being rebuilt. He lost his friends and his family. It was all his fault. Why couldn’t he just be better? He couldn’t save Serious. He couldn’t save Fred. I couldn’t save Remus. Colin, Lavender, and even other innocent people. What would he have been like if he couldn’t save them? He isn’t the chosen one. Because the chosen one is a hero. A hero doesn’t let people die. He was no hero. He was just Harry. A boy. A child.
This was his first time seeing the Dursleys since the start of the war. They said they never wanted to see him again, why did they invite him over? Harry held his suitcase in a tight grip, he knocked on the door of the unfamiliar house. The door opened and what he saw was a surprise. A pregnant woman opened the door. “Hello, who might you be?” the woman asked, she had tan skin, hazel eyes, and short black hair. She wasn’t his type, but she was pretty. “Oh.. my apologies, I seem to have gotten the wrong house. I’m looking for-” He trailed off as he saw a familiar face.
Dudley walked towards the front door. “Hun, who-” His eyes widened. “Harry! You're here early.” The Brunette looked between the two men before she came to a realization. “Oh, you’re his cousin! I'm Dudley's fiance, Samantha!” She said with a smile, holding out her hand to Harry. “...Fiance?” He questioned before taking her hand and shaking it. “I was just on my way out, but it is very nice to meet you!”
She then got into the car that he had guessed one of her family members was in, picking her up. I looked back at Dudley. “Since when did you have a fiance?” Harry questioned as Dudley let him through the door. The house was about the same size but it felt a bit cold. He led me upstairs to the room I’d be staying in. “We met a few weeks before we moved, and we got engaged about two years later. And as you saw, now we have a little one on the way.”
Harry nodded. He led him into a room, it was very empty but still better than… the cupboard. “Oh, Mom and Dad are waiting for you downstairs.” Harry nodded, tensing slightly. Dudley noticed and understood. “I'll give you a few minutes to warm up and unpack. We’ll be waiting for you downstairs.” Harry appreciated him for that. “Thanks.”
As he left, Harry sat on the bed. The sheets were thin, but he could deal with it. He took out his diary and his pens, setting them on the table that only held a lamp. Harry wanted to write something, it helped him become less tense. He sat for a few minutes before deciding to head downstairs and into the open living room. All three people were staring at him the second they heard his footsteps. He stiffened up while awkwardly looking down, no one knowing quite what to say.
“So… Harry.. How is everything at school?” Petunia asked in a slightly strained voice. Harry wasn't quite sure how to answer. “I-.. I have a partner.” This time Vernon spoke. “What’s her name, boy?”
Harry didn’t go into detail. “Well, I'd prefer not to say..her.. name.. but she has short blond hair, and green eyes.” He said “her” weirdly but they suspected it to just be an embarrassment because of the soft tint of red on his cheeks. Harry couldn’t find the strength in him to tell them that he didn't have a girlfriend; he was too scared of rejection. “That’s nice..” Petunia said. “Well, I’ll go check on the food.” She left the room and into the kitchen.
She held a big pot and went to the dining room, sitting in the middle of the table. “Foods ready!” Dudley and Vernon went to the dining room and Harry followed. They sat at the table, Vernon and Petunia on one side, Harry and Dudley on the other. The meal was Chicken and veggie stir fry. They ate in pure silence, it was awkward yet again. Harry didn’t end up eating much because of the tension.
He waited and soon everybody finished. Harry was expecting them to clean up and/or ask him to help. But instead, he was met with Petunia's voice. “Harry… We have all been avoiding this conversation for way too long. She took a deep breath before she spoke.
“Harry, we wish to apologize to you.”
Apologize? “We treated you badly in the past, and we want to ask for pardon for all of our actions.” The silence that followed Petunia’s words was eerie. Harry was dead silent. He was never like this, his stance was tense, eyes locked onto the woman he called his aunt, his family, speak.
Dudley suddenly spoke up from his seat beside Harry. “Harry, what-” “For what?” Harry had suddenly cut him off. This time Vernon spoke up, “Excuse me?” Harry looked straight into his eyes. “What are you sorry for?” His voice had no warmth to it, he had no hesitation to ask that question. Petunia's voice shifted to a more stumped one. “What do you mean, for what? For how we treated you when you were young.”
Harry turned his gaze to her once more as she started speaking. “What did you do to me?” They were at a loss at this comment. “Just everything.” Harry started getting annoyed. “You can’t even tell me what you did to me.” His hands clenched into fists. “Do you even know what you did wrong? Do you understand what you put me through?” “Harry-” Dudley got cut off. “I slept in a cupboard. I didn’t mind the hand-me-downs, I didn’t mind the spiders, the dust. But I thought I was going crazy…”
Harry kept getting angrier. He held on tightly to the edge of his shirt. “I had no sunlight in my room, not to mention, you locked me in there when I did something wrong.” He felt his eyes sting slightly as water started to swell up. “You lied to me about my parents, you left me in the dark about everything. It's like all you wanted was someone to do the work you didn't. You just wanted to torment me, you made sure no one knew I existed. You encouraged Dudley and his friends to beat me till I was bloody! You didn’t feed me! I had to eat the scraps of what you didn’t finish!”
They didn’t deserve his tears, but even so, he couldn't help them as they started falling out of his eyes. “You made me think I was worthless. That I wasn’t even human. And no one helped me think otherwise.”
“I was a child.”
The Dursleys were quiet. “A child.”
Petunia spoke up. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s too late for apologies.” That was the last thing Harry said to them before he conjured up his luggage which was now filled back up before he walked out of the house, the door closing behind him. That was the last time they spoke. Their story together ended. Forever.