She received the letter a chilly autumn night, next to it, a sleeping baby. She knew who he was the moment she saw him of course, spent so many nights looking at moving pictures that kept appearing at her front door.
However, she never expected him to actually appear there, she wasn’t sure what game Lily was playing this time. Oh god, and Vernon wasn’t going to be happy about it. Where was her stupid younger sister? She had to be around. Petunia knew her well enough to know she would never leave her son alone, she never was able to leave things alone in the first place anyway. That was how they ended up in this position in the first place.
She opened the letter one handed, the other holding young Harry close, almost protective. He was looking at her with those big bright green eyes and she could almost hear Lily laugh. Stuck in those whirlpool of bittersweet memories with her sister, she barely registered the words on the page.
Lily was dead.
Her Lily. Her little sister..
She had been.. killed. Harry was the sole survivor.
She couldn't make sense of the rest of the letter, something about Lily sacrificing herself for her son. The words blurry, tears troubling the letters who just turned her world upside down.
She wasn’t sure when she fell to the floor, almost dropping the boy, screaming, begging, for someone, something, anything. She would do anything. She would stop renouncing magic, would accept James and Lily whole world away from her, she would accept the love her parents always gave to Lily more, she would let go of any resentment, any dispute, any hate that had logged in her heart. She would let go of everything, her husband, her life. If it could bring back Lily, if it could bring back her sister? She would sacrifice herself without a second thought.
Vernon had to rip Harry from her arms, after running off to see why she had wailed after opening the door. She didn’t realize she was holding him so close, as to almost merge him in herself. He was the only thing. The one thing magic left untouched, it took everything else. Her sister's sweet smile, the fierce look in her green eyes, her conviction, her love.
As always, magic left a hole that was going to swallow Petunia whole.
She didn’t know what she was supposed to do now, all alone on this planet. No one to share dessert under the table with, no one to argue and disagree with, and still love with your whole heart. She was used to being alone in her world, had begrudgingly accepted that she would never share a world with her sister again after she left the last time. What she had never thought about, what she could barely comprehend at the moment, was the idea that Lily would be taken from her completely.
She was gone, and no matter how Petunia would fight against the world, God, she couldn’t change a single thing about it.
The baby cried from her husband arms, waking her up from her spiral on the floor. She got up, still lost in her sister memories, and took him back in her arms.
“It’s just me and you, little one.. or maybe it’s just me. I’m the only Evans left, after all.”
As she hug him again, she projected to late night singing lullabies and telling stories, her dearest memories. The late autumn nights where a small Lily would climb in Petunia bed and ask for good memories. “Just enough to chase away my bad bugs,” she always said. And minutes always turned into hours, because even so she never told her, for the older girl, those were the most precious moments of her life. When the red haired would fall asleep after stories of dragons and magic and princesses with flower names, Petunia would look at her sleep and engrave the night in her memories, just before joining her in peaceful sleep. They never slept better than after those nights, all tangled together. Full of love.
You never think you will have to grieve your younger sibling, how do you do something you never even thought to learn. How do you grieve someone who lived in such a different world, you can’t even stand by her one last time.
Lily was going to be laid to sleep one last time surrendered by everyone, but her older sister. And now she was the only one left with the memories.