Petunia

I don't remember the first couple days in my new life very well. I think I was in shock. It's probably a good thing the children are still so young and Vernon Dursley so utterly inattentive, or I might have found myself in an asylum quicker than I could realize that this wasn't all just a dream.

The world felt like the real world, but have you never had a dream feel real before, right until you woke up and realized the real world felt even more real in comparison?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/55133812/chapters/141582928/edit#

I thought I just needed to wake up.

Each morning, the alarm clock rings, an obnoxious mechanical sound, so harsh compared to the soft melodies I usually set myself on my Sony: first a quiet one so I already wake up a bit and the alarm won't pull me from a deep sleep which always leaves me groggy for hours after waking, then a louder melody, and another couple minutes afterwards an obnoxious beep just in case I went back to sleep instead of getting up as I should have (I know myself well).

This alarm is different: an obnoxious square metal thing, and the only setting you can change is when it rings.

The first time I woke up, I sat up abruptly and gasped so loudly, Vernon gave me a strange look, but he only grumbled something about sleep and the theatrics of womenfolk before getting ready for work.

"Have a good day, Pet." His breath on my neck, chapped lips and stubble against my cheek. I'm frozen in shock, heart still beating overtime since the alarm ripped me from sleep, the adrenaline spiking even more as I notice the man in the room with me, I'm too scared to even flinch as he leans in for a kiss goodbye.

Have I been kidnapped? Locked up by some lunatic to be his kept wife the way you sometimes see on the news?

The front door shuts, I take a few deep breaths, climb out of bed on unsteady legs, walk to the window, see a car leave the driveway. The window opens full, if I'm locked in here he didn't do a very good job of it.

Breathe in, breathe out.

I can do this. I'm not trapped. Maybe I lost my memory, and I'm really married to that man? Not something I can really see happening, but I can't come up with a different explanation, either.

I look at my hands. They seem different than I remember. Older? Not by much, but I think there are wrinkles that weren't there before. I turn them over, look at my palms. Didn't my life line used to look differently? And where's the small mole on my left pinky?

Loud steps outside my room, I freeze again. I should have checked whether I was alone, made sure there isn't another kidnapper keeping an eye on me, should have taken the chance to escaped while I wasn't watched -

"Mom! Mom, I want sugar puffs for breakfast!"

I exhale shakily.

Well, that's another point for the memory loss theory, then.

Carefully, I open the door. Chubby cheeks and wide eyes of a child look up at me. "Were you still asleep?!" Oh, the innocence of youth. I suppose he might have never woken up before his mother before. Maybe that's why the man had looked at me strangely, and not my reaction to the alarm, if he's used to me being up before him...

"You want... sugar puffs, was it? Cereal?"

"With chocolate milk!"

We go downstairs, I'm still in my pyjamas, my bare feet cold on the hallway tiles. I'm grateful for the child to lead the way, the house doesn't seem particularly big so I would have figured it out eventually, but I had no idea where the kitchen is.

The fridge looks ancient, as do the horrenduous yellow and beige designs on curtains and wallpaper. All the rage in the 1970s, I imagine. Maybe my husband, or whoever he is, inherited his childhood home? But surely I would have insisted to redecorate a little. Even if we're not particularly well-off, painting supplies aren't especially expensive, and I can paint the walls myself. 

I find the milk, tell the boy to look for his sugary cereal. He unceremoniously dumps out boxes of oats and other healthier cereals out of the cabinet next to the sink onto the floor before finding the sugar puffs and stomping over to the kitchen table. While his back is turned, I look through the cupboards, finding cutlery in a drawer on the other side of the room and bowls and plates in one of the upper cupboards, out of the way from grabby children's hands. 

Two bowls, spoons and box of oats in hand, I join the boy - my son? - at the table. He babbles something about a TV show he is excited to see, I nod without quite listening. Maybe I should pay better attention, tried to learn more about my situation, but it is all just too weird. I need to think, eating spoonful after spoonful of tasteless cereal because I have no idea where in the kitchen cinnamon and vanilla or other spices might be hidden, and the sugar puffs the boy is practically inhaling look quite frankly disgusting. Or maybe that's just because of his eating habits. Am I that bad of a parent that I couldn't even tell a - what, seven year-old maybe? I've always been bad at guessing kids' ages. Or adults, for that matter - that I couldn't even teach my own son how to eat without spraying milk all over the table?

"...and after that's over I want to go play with Piers, he says we'll need to go to the playground every day now because next summer we can't go anymore because his cousin says that's for babies. I don't wanna be a baby, but I want to play thieves and robbers at the swingset! And the freak can be a thief so Piers and I can both be robbers. Is the freak not getting out today?"

"Sorry?!" I had still only been listening with half an ear, but now the boy directed a question at me, something about a freak?

He points towards the hallway, the door to it open, behind it I can see what looks like a cupboard under the stairs.

I stare at him, incredulous.

Then it sinks in, and I start to laugh.

Of course! This is all just a dream, nothing mysterious about it. It wouldn't even be the first time I dreamt about being a character in a book, I had a lovely one about a threesome with Arwen and Aragorn just last week, and a not so lovely one about being chased by some mixture of Dracula and Aro Volturi with the face of the Jared Leto joker a couple days before that. That's the easiest explanation, how did I not realize it immediately?

Except, usually when I notice that a dream is a dream, I start being able to tell how it isn't quite right, and that's if I don't just immediately wake up. And usually when I dream about fictional characters, their faces are the ones of their actors, or of random people I know in real life. I'm certain I've never seen Dudley and Vernon's faces ever before.

If they are, in fact, Dudley and Vernon Dursley.

When I look down again, the child is staring at me like I have completely lost it.

"Dudley," I say, trying out the name. He doesn't react one way or the other, but I'm pretty sure I've guessed correctly. "Dudley, don't call your cousin a freak."

"Why?" he whinges. "Because he has to be called Harry in school? Piers always calls his sister a sissy and she's already in school! I want to call the freak a freak!"

His cheeks have turned an unhealthy shade of pink, the child is well on his way to working himself into a proper tantrum. I half expect him to have cartoonish anger clouds coming out of his ears.

"How old are you?" I interrupt his little tantrum. 

"Five! You know I can count that far even though I'm not in school yet, cause I'm a clever boy!"

Just before starting primary school, then. What a strange spot in the timeline my dream picked for me to explore.

I tell Dudley to go play, get Harry out of the cupboard and tell him to use the bathroom before meeting me in the kitchen, and then I sink down on a kitchen chair and try to assess my situation.

It feels less and less like a dream by the second, but what else can this possibly be?

Little Harry looked so scared and malnourished when I let him out of that cupboard. And his face isn't young Daniel Radcliffe, nor does he look like any other person I recognize.

Harry is back in record time, stopping after he takes a single step into the kitchen, looking at me expectantly. This must be part of their usual routine, his and Petunia's.

"What do you want for breakfast?"

This, however, clearly isn't, if the way he looks at me now is any indication. His eyes flicker to the side, to the cereal containers still on the table.

"Cereal? You can also have something else, if you can make it yourself."

Canon Harry was made to cook from a young age, right? Or was that just a fanfic thing? I'm kind of hoping he'll be able to help me figure out Petunia's kitchen.

Tentatively, Harry goes to the fridge, takes out an egg and a single strip of bacon.

"You won't be full from that little. I won't have you eat sweets when you're still hungry for real food."

Harry looks at me as if I've grown a second head, but he takes another piece of bacon and a tomato, so I'll take it as a win.

As I watch Harry expertly fry bacon and eggs on the stove, I take stock of which things I now know of in the kitchen: the fridge, the gas stove which needs matches to turn on, they're in the cupboard on the left of it (and I will make sure that neither of the children uses the stove unsupervised - bad enough that Harry is clearly used to cooking without help, but on a gas stove? Open flame! Those things are dangerous!), cereal, the spices Harry used, and pots and pans that are a cupboard on the wall over the cutting board, Harry had to climb on a chair to get out a pan before I noticed what he was trying and helped him get it down.

I wonder whether the placement was by design, whether Petunia had hoped that the child would hit himself over the head with an iron pan and remove her problem for her.

After Harry finishes his breakfast, I tell him he can stay in or go out to play.

"...I haven't finished my chores..."

"Which chores?"

"The dishes, and Dudley's laundry, and the weeding, and pruning the roses, and mowing the lawn...

All that hard yardwork is completely unreasonable for a boy his age and size, but I suppose doing the dishes might keep him out of my way for now, and while I do pity the child, I also need a moment alone. 

"Just pick one chore for the day."

The boy looks at me like he think that that's probably a trap, then quietly asks whether he can weed the garden. A bit surprised by his choice, I nonetheless nod and tell him to play or read a book afterwards. At least he didn't pick the lawnmower.

Harry is out of sight quicker than I can ask him whether he knows where the gardening supplies are, but I suppose this isn't the first time the child is working in the garden.

I put the dishes in the sink, deciding that they are going to be future me's problems, if I even stay in the dream long enough for it to be relevant. 

If this is a dream.

I had dismissed the thought of being trapped by some madman earlier, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe 'Vernon' is an insane Harry Potter reinactor? 

I need to get out of the house, get into town, into London. You can fake a vintage house, but you can't fake an entire city decades out of time.

Going back upstairs, I step into the bedroom and look through Petunia's belongings. Three pairs of black shoes, two brown handbags, a lot of blouses, some skirts and trousers, a bunch of dresses that seem old-fashioned and staid, but that might just be the time and not necessarily Petunia's taste or lack thereof in fashion. I wonder whether they are accurate for the 1980s - it is the 1980s, isn't it? The Harry Potter books take place in the 90s, but they don't start until he's eleven - I have no idea what constitutes accurate 80s clothing, even though I've watched a bunch of vintage sewing tutorials on youtube. I usually just watched them to try and motivate myself to at least mend some of the clothes in my sewing pile, or because the youtuber women and their pretty clothes were nice to look at, I didn't much care about the historical aspect of it, so my subconsciousness probably can't conjure up accurate portrayals.

Inside her nightstand, I find a book of poetry. It's a hardcover, so it's harder to tell than with the visible dents or lack thereof in a paperback, but I think she hasn't read much of it. Beside it is a small hairbrush and a wooden jewellery box.

Taking out the box in the hopes of finding something valuable, I open it and find myself looking not at a photo as I first think, but into a small mirror in the lid of the box.

The young woman that looks back at me is not at all what I expected. Even knowing that I was 'Petunia' here, I still expected my old face to look back at me, not this horrible proof that I'm not myself any longer.

I reach out with a trembling hand, fingertips that aren't quite my own reaching a cheekbone that is definitely more pronounced than mine ever were.

Is there plastic surgery good enough to completely alter your appearance without leaving any visible scars?

Or maybe I'm just going insane.

Trying to ignore the insanity of the situation, I look at the mirror. Even if I had been ready to see Petunia's face, I would have expected her to be uglier, like she is described in the book, too much neck and too small eyes, thin blonde hair and horse teeth. She, I, don't really look too bad. Her eyes are pale grey, a lovely colour, though something to get used to for me. My hair is lighter than I am used to, but still a dark shade of blonde, and while it is a bit of a mess right now as I haven't even brushed it, Petunia has clearly made sure that it is well cut and taken care of. I squint at the mirror, try to make an angry or judgy face. Alright, yes, if that's how Petunia usually goes through life, I can see why she would be called ugly, but she actually looks quite pretty when she smiles. I can get used to this, if I have to. 

Getting dressed in a blouse and skirt that look the least atrocious and brushing Petunia's blonde hair, I grab one of the handbags and get ready to leave.

The wrong face in the mirror should have made this feel more like a dream, but instead it's feeling even more real.

I need to get out of the house, make doubly sure I haven't been kidnapped by some cosplaying lunatic and his brainwashed children.

While I don't find a wallet or a credit card (did we already have credit cards in the 1970s or 80s? I think so, but I can't remember for certain. Paying by card had been the norm for me for so long, it's hard to remember a time where it might not have been), there is money for groceries in a small clay pot in the kitchen, together with a house key and a grocery list, the latter of which I first ignore but then decide to take with me, if only to have an excuse to leave the house.

Harry is still in the backyard when I am ready to go, and I make sure the backdoor is unlocked and he knows he is allowed to come inside before I leave through the small path from the garden to the front of the house. 

Out on the street, I try to walk quickly and with purpose, without looking hurried but also without looking as lost as I feel. I had considered asking Harry for directions to the nearest bus stop, but I'm not sure that's something he even knows about, and I don't want him to be even more suspicious than he already is after the morning we just had.

After walking aimlessly for twenty minutes, I find a bus stop. If I am reading the map below the sign correctly, I could have found one sooner by walking the other way. Good to know for later, though I think I will return the way I came to make sure I can find the right house.

I dearly miss my smartphone and gps map right now. Even more so when a woman walks up to the bus stop and tries to start chatting with me. If I had my headphones on, that wouldn't have happened.

At last, the bus arrives, taking us to a tube station where I can get into the heart of London.

Not that the trip is necessary at this point - if the woman's vintage outfit hadn't clued me in, the lack of CCTV in the tube station certainly will.

This is real.

Or rather, it isn't real at all, because it can't be real, because I'm stuck in a dream world that is twentieth-century and Harry Potter inspired, and I need to wake the fuck up.

I'm trapped in a nightmare that feels real. Maybe I should just throw myself in front of the train tracks and I'll wake up back in my own world. But what if I don't? What if I'd just die, either because this is real, or because of some if you die in the Matrix scenario?

If this is real, I should do my best to stay alive. And if it isn't... living a little dream life probably won't harm me any, and I'll wake up eventually.

I stare at the darkness of the tube window, lost in my thoughts, stuck in my personal little existential crisis.

If this is real, if I somehow got transported into the body of Petunia Dursley, if I am in a world where magic is real and my old self doesn't exist, I might never go home again.

And like - my life wasn't perfect. But no matter how much I might have cursed my job and the state of the world, if someone had given me a chance to leave it all behind I don't think I would have taken it. 

I'm going to miss it, the people, my apartment, all of my things, my blog...

The announcement voice tells me I have reached Charing Cross, and I quickly decide to get off the train. This is where the leaky Cauldron is supposed to be, isn't it? I'm not sure whether I dare venture inside the magical world, but at the very least I can check whether it exists at all. If I am capable of seeing the pub, that is - Petunia is a 'squib', after all, magical talent has skipped her over.

London looks both familiar and very strange. The buildings largely the same, just some skyscrapers missing in the distance, but all the adverts are on paper or cloth, some written in neon lights, no screens taking up entire storefronts, no bright moving ads in shop windows, and not a single apple store or phone repair shop in sight. 

The streets are bustling with people on their way to the stores, to and from work, on any number of errands. As I move through the crowds, I think about how easy it would be to disappear here. I could stay in the city, find some job, dye my hair, never return to the husband and children that aren't really mine. There's no social media to identify me, no digital IDs, I could create an entirely new identity for myself, using my old name.

But then the two boys in the Dursley household would be stuck with Vernon, and who knows how that would turn out?

I find the entrance to the wizarding world in a side alley, women in coats more like robes making their way inside.

I can see the doorway if I squint just enough and believe that it is there.

My heart in my throat, I keep walking as if I had never seen it at all. There have been enough revelations for today. I might return some other time, now that I know it is there... but I need to wrap my head around that fact first.

When Vernon comes home in the evening, I make dinner without complaint. If this is real (can it be real?!) I can't afford to alienate my 'husband' on the first day. Though dinner is as far as I will go to keep the peace - I'm ready to fake illness if he wants to touch me, and I hope he isn't enough of a brute to try anything despite it.

As we sit together on the dining table - the four of us, and while my place setting for little Harry has gotten raised eyebrows from Vernon and a look of shock and adoration from the boy, nobody speaks of it - I observe Vernon during the meal.

He's not even that ugly - big, yeah, but I don't mind that much, though with how unhealthily skinny my new body is, I have to wonder whether he doesn't squish Petunia during sex. Maybe she was always on top? I somehow can't picture them doing anything more adventurous than missionary, though. Maybe they only did it on their wedding night, the fact that Petunia has only one child and yet isn't on any kind of birth control that I can find seems to prove that theory. And Vernon certainly hasn't seemed too surprised when I turned my head so he'd catch my cheek instead of my lips as he leaned in to kiss me after dinner one day.

But I digress. He isn't physically unattractive - I can see why Petunia might have fallen for him one day, or at least why she thought other people would think she made a great catch (if I remember her correctly from the books, Petunia Dursley always cared more about how she was perceived by other people than about her actual happiness), he is tall, his lips are full and his eyes are a pretty shade of grey.

It's his mannerisms that make him so unappealing to me: the way he squints at everything from foreign food over the news anchor to his nephew, a suspicious, angry glint in his eyes; the way his mouth twists into a grimace more often than a smile, the way he seems so utterly uninterested in his own son (apart from fantasizing about creating a family dynasty of mid-level management) that he hadn't even noticed Dudley wearing dirty clothing from playing outside until the boy complains about me not having helped him clean up for dinner.

"Once you're in school, you'll need to learn to take better care of your things," I mildly tell him, trying not to show that I had no idea I was supposed to help him change clothes.

The rest of dinner is tense. Vernon and Dudley disappear to the telly after, Harry helps me with the dishes. I'd say it's sweet of him, but he was probably forced to in the past, while Dudley just parks his overweight arse on the couch.

I'm glad when I can finally go to sleep, even next to Vernon.

I hope that when I wake up, it will be back at home in my own bed, that I will wake to the sound of a digital alarm.