Wild Horses
Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted, I bought them for you
Graceless lady, you know who I am
You know I can't let you slide through my hands
Wild horses couldn't drag me away
July 1972
In a short brick house, down the road from the White Horse pub and the post office, the Pettigrew family functioned dysfunctionally together.
Annie Pettigrew (nee Dawlish) had seen the house in the background of a postcard, and had moved there post-Hogwarts to be around the muggles. She found them fascinating, with all their technology and different social rules and laws.
It was at her job in a little cafe two streets away, that she met Robin.
He worked as a barman in the week and a bouncer on weekends. Took her to hear music at dance halls and to see old fancy houses they both longed to afford. Always pushed in her chair and opened doors for her. Once he’d moved in, he woke her up every day with a cup of tea and a toasted teacake and the washing up all put away.
Sometimes Annie wondered if she had ruined it all by being a witch.
It wasn’t that she hated her magic, just that she hated that Robin hated it.
Once she’d shown him, he’d made her swear not to do it again, and drank himself into a stupor. The next morning, it was as though she’d never told him. They married, popped out a son, and continued on with it. And then the baby had exploded a bottle of milk in a little tantrum, and Robin had gone to the pub and gotten so drunk that he hadn’t been sober since.
Which was difficult to explain to her sweet boy, her little Peter. Named because she truly hoped he’d never have to grow up and deal with this shite. If he could just be her sweet boy forever… she’d be content.
In the mornings, Annie made Peter a mug of warm Ribena and a slice of buttered toast. She made herself a cup of tea and a toasted teacake, put the washing up away and the beer bottles in the bin. The duo would sit and chat for hours, or go for walks through the village, or collect free cake from the little cafe she used to work in.
Once he was old enough, she sent him off to school with the other children (with a promise from him not to do any magic) and spent the days alone. After a while, the solitude became soothing. She found a new job in the library and spent her days there, her shift ending in time to walk and collect her kind boy.
They’d get home and she’d smile through Peter describing his day, ask the right questions and make sure his homework was all done. They’d make supper together, and place a plate to the side as they sat and ate at the table.
It was usually as they were finishing up, that Robin would emerge from his drunken slumber, eating the dinner cold as breakfast before leaving for work with a beer already tucked in his pocket for later. Peter was always quiet when his father joined them, since the time he’d asked his dad if he wanted some bread for dipping and the man had thrown a bowl of peas at his head. Luckily, Annie had remembered the spell to heal a wound.
She was aware that she should have stood up to her husband years ago, that his presence in her home was like a leech, draining their hope with every silent day and drunken rage. But how could she leave him alone when she remembered who he had been? If he just hadn’t learned of magic… if she had just kept quiet, pretended Hogwarts was some fancy academy.
What ifs had become her favourite type of thought.
After dinner, she would wash up and Peter would put the dishes on the rack. They would listen to the radio, or go next door to watch television with their elderly neighbour Dorothy. And when it got later, she’d tuck Peter into bed and tell him that he was the best part of her life.
She’d tuck herself into her own bed, and sleep until the early hours of the morning - when Robin would stumble through the door and collapse on the bed beside her. Sometimes he’d be angry and tell her that he wished she were normal. Other times, he’d speak about how much he used to love her, how much he missed the her from before. She’d make sure he wouldn’t choke in his sleep, and apologise for her magic.
The summer before Peter left for Hogwarts, it was very hard for Annie to pretend to be excited. Really, she dreaded that empty space, that loneliness of losing the only person who cared about her. She had forced all attention onto her son, and she had forgotten that she would not have him forever.
His smiles as he found his wand made it all worth it, she decided. He got a chance at the thing she had turned her back on so long ago.
Annie smiled and waved as he got on the train, then left to get on with it. She made friends with the girls at work, made dinner and took it round Dorothy’s - watched television afterwards. She started staying in Peter’s room, just so Robin could have more space and no disturbance as she left for work.
And she waited until Christmas.
But then Christmas came and went. He was gone, again. So, she waited for summer. Waited for her boy to get home.
And once he was, she felt complete. He had dozens of wonderful stories about his new friends, about pranks they’d done and odd happenings in the school. He told her that his very best friend was Ara Black, because she had made him smarter and wasn’t ever mean to him. That Remus was also Ara’s best friend, and Peter really liked him and thought he was super smart. That he was also friends with Ara’s twin, but that he was best friends with that James boy from the station.
He spoke of charmed toys and skies, feasts and libraries.
It took until the final days of July for her to realise a truth that knocked her world off kilter; her little Peter had begun to grown up. And he was going to leave her behind one day.
So, she had six years to figure her shit out. Six years to watch her son turn into a man.
And Merlin, six years wasn’t enough time.