Better
Petunia Evans was not a good sister by any sense of the phrase.
She filled her sister Lily’s water bottles with frog spawn and laughed when she choked, stole Lily’s best friend’s school bag in retaliation to him telling on her, didn’t write at all when her sister and the boy went away to school, and stole their school books when they returned. Of course, she paid dearly for it, but it didn’t stop her from doing it again.
When Petunia was a child, she was a babysitter, because a five-year age gap meant her parents could work full-time with free childcare. She was proud of this at first, bragging to her friends that she was mature enough to be trusted with her baby sister. However, as time passed and her friends went out together to the mall and to the beach and she was stuck at home with Lily, the illusion slowly faded. Yet, she loved her sister more than life itself, so she shoved her anger and hurt deep down inside of her and read Lily bedtime stories and kissed her scraped knees.
Then, when she was fifteen and supervising Lily down at their local park, a raggedy boy snuck into the bushes by the swings and stared at her dear sister in a way Petunia would never expect from a child. So, naturally, she watched him suspiciously out of the corner of her eye. Then, Lily did something stupid.
Petunia watched in abject horror as Lily let go of the swing she was on at the height of its arc, because all she could see was her sister crumpling on the asphalt, red hair in a halo around her. Yet, Lily soared, and the boy leapt out of the bush.
Petunia immediately stepped between him and her sister, but Lily pushed her to the side and let the boy talk, and soon she had to supervise Lily at that park far more often.
Then, the boy called her dear sister a witch. Petunia wasn’t supposed to hear, but she was looking for her sister and happened to hear him insult her from just outside the clearing. Naturally, she leapt forward, preparing to come to her sister’s defence, but Lily was laughing and the boy stared at her like she was dirt beneath his shoe, and a branch fell on her head. Lily’s babbling apologies mixed in with ramblings about magic didn’t soothe her hurt in the slightest, because Petunia knew deep in her heart that Lily had forgotten her.
Then, an owl flew through the window and into Petunia’s breakfast. Naturally, she shrieked and upturned her plate to get it away, but she was snapped at and sent to her room, because this was Lily’s letter that the boy had told her about. She was only carted along to London because the weird woman who came to explain everything saw her and insisted she join.
So there she was, skulking along behind her family as they gaped around the freaky alleyway, listening to the weirdly-dressed woman rant about selfish, nasty creatures called goblins. She eyed the warriors on each side of a beautiful marble building, the most normal-looking beings in the whole place, and decided to simply smile at the witch, nod, and subtly pry for information. Her parents watched her out of the corners of their eyes, because this was just one more thing to distrust, one more reason to give Lily the attention she always craved and leave Petunia in the dust, because Lily was a witch and Petunia was not.
Petunia Evans was bitter. She was horribly, devastatingly bitter, because special little Lily was a witch, and that meant her parents immediately started pretending that they had been present during her childhood, and Petunia was shoved to the side again. Her heart was breaking, but Lily didn’t seem to notice, caught up in her silly wand-waving and the freakish noises and smells and sparks.
Weeks turned into months, and Petunia regularly went without meals now, because every time she stood up for herself against Lily’s “experiments,” she was told she wasn’t being welcoming and not to be jealous. She no longer got given new clothes, only her sister’s hand-me-downs that made her look even thinner than she was. Yet, Petunia still held out hope for her sister, because she loved her more than life itself, magic be damned.
And then she had to make the tiny study by the front door her bedroom because Lily wanted her upstairs room to turn into a potions lab.
She could barely stand up straight in the glorified closet that her family called the study, and she could touch the side walls easily when she stood in the middle. Her bed barely fit, and her closet was nothing more than an old shelving unit she had to climb over to open. She had almost a metre of floor space, but sitting in it was horrid as she needed to cram her knees against her bed frame in order to not have her back digging into the closet.
Petunia spent the first night in her new room sobbing as quietly as she could into her pillow, because if anyone heard her she would be screamed at for being ungrateful and wouldn’t be given breakfast, even though her last proper meal had been almost two days prior.
Petunia was done. Done with magic, done with her sister, done with the parents that pretended she didn’t exist because they got a glimpse of something better.
She would show them better.
Petunia was sixteen when she met Vernon. She wasn’t particularly pretty, and any attractiveness she did have was crammed beneath a thick, hard layer of anger, so when she caught the hot, young football player’s eye, to say she was surprised was an understatement. He was one year older than her (seventeen years old seemed so mature), and Petunia decided that better had just grinned at her and told her she was cute. Her friends said to be careful with him, and Petunia decided that she would, because, no matter how much she wanted to rebel, she would make this last longer than Lily and her inevitable partner would.
Vernon’s family were a rotten bunch, if Petunia could say so herself. They sneered down their noses as skinny, sharp-edged Petunia in her best sundress that was only slightly too small, and she decided that sneering back wasn’t worth it. Instead, she let her eyes glisten slightly and she smiled in a quivery sort of way at her boyfriend. Vernon did not ask her to meet any more of his family after that, and they were all the better for it.
Lily only met Vernon once. Seventeen-year-old Petunia and him were reading in the park- a new novel in a series they both loved had come out, so Vernon bought it and they read it together on their afternoons in the city- and Lily had flounced up and batted the book out of Vernon’s hands. He blinked, then glared at her, snatching the book back. “Excuse you?”
The girl sneered. “Who are you? Don’t you know how nasty Tuney is?”
Petunia’s heart twisted with hurt and rage at the old nickname, and Vernon gently helped her to her feet as he stood, towering over Lily. “I don’t know who you are, but you have no right to be so rude,” Vernon chastised. “Who are you with? Aren’t you too young to be here alone?”
Lily puffed up like a cat, spitting, “I am twelve years old.” She huffed and turned to Petunia, red hair flying across her shoulders. “Come along, Tuney. Mum’s gonna be so mad knowing you were out here with a boy.”
Petunia couldn’t contain a nasty little giggle as Vernon stared down at Lily incredulously. “Who do you think you are, ordering Petunia around?” He took her hand protectively and dismissed Lily with a scoff. “Let's go, love.”
“Let’s,” Petunia said, allowing Vernon to guide her through the park and ignoring the shrill yelling behind her. “Now you’ve met my sister.”
“Your sister?” he asked, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry. Someone needs to teach that girl some manners.”
Petunia hummed, swinging their joined hands. “Nobody will.”
Vernon glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “I take it you don’t wanna talk about it?”
“Yup.”
“Alrighty,” he shrugged, and Petunia’s heart swelled. “Wanna go read over there instead?” He lifted their hands and pointed to a large willow by the river.
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
Then, one day when Petunia was nineteen, they were laying under that same tree and she smiled and told him that evening almost two years ago was the first time Lily got reprimanded. Vernon looked at her smug face and laughed raucously. “What, did she tell them I was a brute?”
“Yes, actually,” she grinned. “They didn’t believe her that I had a social life and grounded her. I didn’t hear the end of it for weeks.”
His smile dropped. “That’s upsetting, I’m sorry they did that.”
Petunia shrugged uncomfortably, which Vernon noticed. He swallowed then hitched his smile back onto his face. “I like to think I grew out of my brute-ness.”
“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart,” she teased, laughing when he gently shoved her shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re in my life, Vern, even if only to spite Lily.”
He snorted. “Wow, love you too!”
She laughed with him, squeezing his hand. “I love you, dear, I do, but my spite for Lily is stronger.”
“I know,” he chuckled, leaning against her and curling a strand of her hair around his finger. “But soon you’ll be out of there, and she’ll never see you again. Why she’d hate you so much to begin with is lost on me,” Vernon added, sitting up. “You’re so lovely.”
Petunia felt a stab of guilt. She hadn’t been able to tell him anything, it was against the freakish Ministry’s laws; they could come and take him away, wipe his memory, leave her all alone again. The old wizard’s words, his thinly-veiled threats not to tell anyone about anything, drifted into her mind. Then, Vernon squeezed her hand, and she decided that what the freaks didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. “My sister is magic,” she blurted.
Vernon blinked at her. “What?”
“She’s magic.” Petunia twisted her hands in her lap, avoiding his gaze. “And I’m not.”
Vernon said nothing and she felt her heart sink, too afraid to look up at his face, sure that she would find disgust.
“Magic’s real?”
Petunia blinked, looking over at him. He looked a little confused, but there was no trace of the fear or hate that she had expected to see on his face, just slightly baffled acceptance. “What?”
Vernon gave her an exasperated look. “Love, magic or no, she’s still a bitch, and if that’s the reason she and your parents are being so nasty I wouldn’t wanna touch it with a ten-foot pole. Point is, you’re telling me magic’s real?”
“You believe me?” she asked quietly.
He nodded. “You wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
Petunia swallowed. “You’re…not mad I haven’t told you before?”
“Nah!” he waved a hand. “It’s magic, there’s probably stuff in place to make sure normal people like me don’t know about it. You’re telling me something about your home life, and I know you don’t like doing that; of course I’m not mad! I don’t blame you, love, and I’m happy you trust me enough to tell me.” He took her hand and patted it reassuringly.
“Oh,” Petunia breathed, an inexplicable sense of relief filling her. “Oh, okay.”
Vernon smiled at her, then looked a little contemplative. “Does this mean Lily’s little friend is also magic? The boy?”
“Yeah, they both are. He saw her make a flower bloom with her hands when she was nine and told my parents she was a witch.” Petunia’s face twisted, but Vernon’s hands found her cheeks and she was drawn into a hug. She sank into it, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and burying her jealousy into his neck.
“Wanna get married?” Vernon said suddenly.
Petunia blinked, pulling away from the hug to stare at him. He went red, hurriedly saying, “Not right now! Just, some day.”
“Did you just propose to me?” she asked, a grin spreading across her face. “In a park? Like this? After that?”
Vernon went redder. “Maybe.”
Petunia beamed at him, kissing both of his burning cheeks before kissing him properly. “You’re amazing. I would love to marry you, Vern.”
Vernon could not hide the smile that lit up his face, kissing her all over her face before his smile dropped a little. “I’m sorry, I don’t have a ring for you.”
“Vernon!” Petunia rolled her eyes at him. “I want to marry you, not a piece of jewellery. Besides, there are so many other things money like that could be used for.”
Vernon kissed her soundly. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Vern.”
“Now, tell me about magic.”
Petunia laughed at his determined face, laughing harder as he protested, “Hey, no, I mean it! How am I supposed to protect my future wife from something I don’t know about?”
“God, I love you so much,” she giggled.