Sisters
Petunia’s life felt like it had meaning for the first time in years. Her boyfriend - her fiance - wanted to marry her, and she wanted to marry him, and they would move out, and her life could finally begin. The happiness she felt did not fade for weeks; not after they found a perfect little house an hour north from London in an obscure little town; not when their mortgage application got accepted; not when they were told they could move in in October. Petunia’s heart swelled almost to bursting with love and hope, even as March bled into April and she still had months to go. Vernon took to meeting with her a few times every week to discuss finance and jobs and things that made Petunia feel like an adult, and Petunia hoped.
Petunia kept that hope even when Lily slipped a potion into her drink that made her swell up like a balloon, the antidote only given to her when she stopped being able to breathe.
Later, she was desperately trying not to cry as she sorted through her things on her floor, making her hands busy to distract herself from the sister-shaped crack in her heart, when a tap on her door made her turn. She glared at the boy in her doorway and flapped a hand at him. “If you’re here to make fun of me, piss off.” She turned back to her sorting, tossing a CD she got from Lily years ago on the bin pile with rather more force than necessary.
“I’m sorry.”
Petunia snorted dismissively. “No, you’re not.”
He glared at her, crossing his skinny arms over his chest. “I am! I didn’t know what Lily wanted it for, and you didn't deserve that. I’m sorry.”
Petunia turned to face him fully, crossing her legs and scowling suspiciously up at him. “Is that all?”
The boy just sneered at her, lank hair falling into his face. Petunia sneered right back, huffed an annoyed sigh, and turned back to the pile of her belongings.
“Either come in or go away. I want the door closed.”
A rustle and a click told her the boy had come in and shut the door behind him. She did not look at him as she tossed an old backpack onto the bin pile. “You can sit on my bed if you want.” Another rustle, then the squeaking of her mattress. Petunia decided to keep an old David Bowie record that her grandmother had given her. “Did she do anything to you?” she asked idly, stowing the record in the suitcase that lived under her bed so Lily couldn’t get to it.
“Lily?” the boy asked.
“Mm. Why else would you be here?”
“No. But her other friends are upstairs.”
Oh, that was right. Lily had invited a group of friends over for the night, Petunia had forgotten. She tossed an old doll onto the bin pile and glanced at him. His arms were crossed again and he was glaring at a point on her carpet. “Don’t blame you for not wanting to be there.”
The boy grunted. Petunia let her eyes narrow at a yellow bruise peeking out of his collar and nodded. “Want to talk about it?”
“No,” came the sullen reply. Petunia shrugged and didn’t push, eyeing the too-big pants and ratty trainers before turning away again.
The next ten minutes were spent in silence, save for the rustling Petunia made as she sorted. Finally, she stood up, stretching her back with a groan and gathering up her bin pile into her arms. “Mind giving me a hand?”
The boy eyed her, then opened the door. She nodded to him, “Ta.” She carried her precarious pile of trash down the hall, thanking the boy again as he opened the front door for her, and dumped the pile into the bin by the road. She sighed in satisfaction, wiping her hands on her shirt and squinting at him in the darkness. “Thanks.”
The boy grunted. Petunia didn’t expect anything different. She nodded to him again, then made her way back inside and settled on the floor in her room, closing the suitcase and shoving it back under her bed. An annoyed sniff made her look up to see Lily standing in the doorway, the boy hovering awkwardly over her shoulder. Petunia sneered at her. “What do you want?”
Lily scowled. “Am I not allowed to see my big sister?”
Big sister. Petunia turned away from the doorway and ignored the twist in her gut. “After what you did to me at dinner, you are no sister of mine.” She said it perhaps a bit harsher than she intended, but she refused to take it back or look at the girl in the doorway, resolutely picking up the scraps of her sorting and tossing them into the wastebasket by her bed. “Go back to your little friends.” She stared at her hands and listened to the retreating footsteps; Lily was bound to tell their parents and Petunia would probably not get breakfast the next morning. Fantastic. Petunia sighed and dropped her head onto her hands, resting her forehead on the edge of the wastebasket.
“Harsh.”
Petunia jumped and whipped around, shoving the self-pity deep down into the depths of her soul to glare at the boy. “Fuck off.”
He shrugged at her. “I don’t blame you, I’m just saying.”
Standing, she pointed a shaking finger in his face and hissed, “I don’t need your damncommentary, kid. Go blow something up or whatever you guys do when I’m stuck here.”
The boy visibly swallowed and vanished back around the doorframe. Petunia growled as she closed the door and slumped against it, sinking to the floor. She faintly wished she could use magic for a moment, just for the chance to curse Lily, but that thought vanished as quickly as it came, and she stared at the wall as an ache in her back made itself known.
Come morning, Petunia slouched down the hall towards the kitchen after she woke up only to be shoved back the way she came. She didn’t bother fighting it; years with this treatment had told her that fighting made it worse; so she skulked to her room and re-read one of her books for the fiftieth time. She was halfway through a fantasy book about dragons and monsters when a tap came from her door. Petunia threw the book down and groaned loudly in frustration. “What?”
“I brought you food,” came the voice of the boy, almost too quiet for Petunia to hear.
Her face twisted, “I don’t want your fucking pity.” Petunia glared at the door, listening hard, and eventually footsteps retreated back down the hallway. She leaned over the edge of her bed to grab her book back and flipped to her page, slumping back down to ignore the world again.
Another read of the same book later, Petunia heard chatter coming down the stairs across the hallway. Lily’s laugh rang through the thin walls and Petunia winced; some people called her laugh tinkling, she thought it was piercing and harsh. Shoes clomped down the hall as the group gathered by the front door, right outside her bedroom. Petunia put her book down and shoved her head under her pillow. It muffled the noise just to a point where she couldn’t make the words out, and that was good enough for her. She sighed and closed her eyes, waiting for the front door to creak and the children to leave. Surely she hadn’t been that loud when she was fourteen.
Finally, the door slammed and Petunia breathed a sigh of relief, one that grew louder as she heard Lily retreat up the stairs. She was the only set of footsteps, which meant the boy had left. Good riddance, came a mean little thought, and Petunia half-heartedly batted it away. The boy wasn’t all that bad. After all, he had tried to give her food, pity or not. At the thought of food, her stomach clenched unhappily and Petunia scowled. Maybe I shouldn’t have sent him away, her mind whispered, but she banished that thought too.
At least she was seeing Vernon today, which meant she would get lunch from someone - her clock announced that it was one in the afternoon and her parents still had not unlocked her door. She only hoped they would before she had to meet with Vern. Petunia sighed and rolled over.
Thankfully, the door lock clicked open as the time neared two, and Petunia took the opportunity to gather her purse and slip out the front door before her parents could stop her.
Vernon, as usual, badly hid his anger and sorrow as he hugged her bony frame, and bought her a meatball sandwich the size of her leg. Petunia snorted as she took it. “Vern…”
He raised a hand, not letting her protest. “In case you don’t get dinner tonight. Or breakfast,” he muttered, eyebrows meeting in a frown. Petunia sighed and gave him a one-armed hug.
“Love, it’s not for much longer. Two more months.”
Vernon sighed, holding her closer before releasing her and taking her hand. They began their usual walk down the bike path to the park, and Vernon said, “When we move out, I’m making sure you’re never hungry again.”
Petunia felt her heart swell and her eyes sting. “Vern…”
“Nobody will ever withhold anything from you again,” he said fiercely. “Ever.”
A single tear slipped down Petunia’s cheek and she gripped Vernon’s hand a little tighter. He pretended not to notice, knowing she hated crying in front of others, and simply squeezed her hand back. “Eat your sandwich, love.”
Petunia did, tears subsiding into laughter as Vernon talked about this and that. It really was a very good sandwich, and her empty stomach made it taste all the better. Vernon snagged a meatball and popped it in his mouth. Petunia chuckled as he grinned at her. “What? It smelled good.”
“You know you can have some, you got it for me,” she grinned. “I can barely manage a quarter of it!”
Vernon let her wrap up the sandwich and wipe off her hands before he linked his arm with hers and smiled at her. “I can’t wait to marry you.”