Harry Potter & The Hand God

“The chicken wakes up

Like she does every morning,

To the sounds of her husband’s screams.

Sat in the dark, on the eggs she is warming,

She closes her eyes and dreams

Of walking to Memphis,

Becoming a dentist,

Anything but this.

I mean, she likes her as 

A mother and wife but

Is that all she is?

She stares out the window.”

-- “The Chicken,” Bo Burnham.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Petunia Evans sits in her perfectly normal house. Her normal husband sleeps upstairs and her normal son is at a friend’s house -- a house that surely looks just as Petunia’s does; so extraordinary in its ability not to appear extraordinary. 

There’s just one problem. There’s just been one problem -- for a while now. She would like to give an exact date, but it seems that the longer the days go on, the more they seem to blend in with themselves. 

She cannot give a date. Perhaps she doesn't have to; she knows the enticing incident for what it is and not for what it was. 

She received a letter from her nephew. It is a kind letter. Polite in order to hide what must be an incessant and extravagant, a rude, curiosity.

She received a polite letter and decided that she is the only one left standing with the Evans’ name. It is hers to ruin, hers to define, hers, hers, hers. It’s hers because Lily abandoned it and then Lily died -- Lily died, and now it is just Petunia. It’s just Petunia… Petunia, and Lily’s son.

At least, that’s how it feels. She does have a husband and she does have a son but she sits in her kitchen, fresh cup of black coffee warming her fingers, and has never felt more isolated. She is a freak in her house -- her perfectly normal house -- and even though she is a freak by proxy, by her unwitting and unwilling connection to the world she has so desperately tried to shun… she is ashamed. 

This is the type of abnormality that should be hidden. That makes her close the blinds, lock the doors, and wish only for her walls to be soundproofed, too.

Because she knows that what she has now is fragile. She knows she is fragile -- perhaps she’s always been -- and that, with one wrong move, the entirety of her world will threaten to break and then it will. Like the seemingly shaken walls of this beige, plain, and normal house, everything will collapse in on her. 

She wonders if she will survive the aftermath. The truth is she does not have to wonder much longer. 

A sound echoes from the chimney and, yes, there it is. Right on time. Every morning, a bright white owl swoops down in from the chimney.

It drops off a startlingly red letter. And then it leaves her to it. 

It’s a howler -- and she knows it is a howler because she knows – knew -- Lily… and because she sent one herself.  This letter, however, is nothing like the one she sent. It is not filled with screaming, raging insults made with heart in lue of head. It’s far too sophisticated for that, she thinks, and it instead plays one, long, ear wracking note. It hurts her head and her heart and won’t play unless it knows that you’re listening to it -- what a charm that is, and it must be a charm, mustn’t it? 

The first time it happens, she is convinced it is payback. She does not know Blaise or Harry more than what they conveyed in their letter, but there is the capacity for darkness in everyone. Even in people related to Lily. (Even in her.) It is natural, perhaps, that after receiving what they did, they would want some kind of revenge. Natural. Fair, even, and Petunia listens with her husband at her side with a small smile on her face.

An eye for an eye. Fair is fair.

But then the letters keep coming. The next morning, every morning, she gets a new one, just as unwavering in its inability to shut the fuck up as the last. And Petunia starts to get it. She starts to understand.

Her letter to the boys… yes, it was punishment. She does not take well to those who disgrace the dead and that’s what this is, this attempt at necromancy. Who is Lily? Who is she, who is she, who is she? What she is is dead, and it should’ve stopped there. But, no. Harry and Blaise Potter reach out and try to pry her from her grave -- it is a sin. And it is a sin that does not deserve to go without pushback.

Blaise’s letters are not like that. He is not like her and this fact becomes more and more moutiningly clear as the days go by. He’s not like Petunia and his letters aren’t, either. 

This is a punishment. But it is also something more. 

What that ‘something more’ is, she doesn’t know. She will, soon enough. But not yet.

Vernon, after maybe a week, probably less, of suffering through their fate together each morning, tells her that it is a fate to suffer alone. He will be going to bed and she will do her wifely duty; sit through the howler’s noise and have breakfast ready by the time it is over.

And she says Okay. What else is she supposed to do? Women cannot say no. Wives cannot even think about it -- and Petunia is not sure who she is. Most of the time, she cannot tell today from tomorrow and the dull ache of stomach acid eating at her serves as one of her only forms of comfort.

She thinks most of her identity is a tangled mess of the past getting wrapped up around her and refusing to let go -- but she is sure of some things. The tangible ones. And the tangible facts are is that she is a wife. She is a mother. And she is a woman.

What women do is they sit, suffer, while their husbands sleep soundly upstairs. What women do is make breakfast they do not plan on eating. What women do is allow their husbands to fool themselves into thinking that fault is shared is, in actuality, something that has nothing to do with him.

This is her life. This is what she was always made to do, and so she’ll do it. 

The letter finishes its unholy symphony and Petunia knows that that is her cue. It is time to get up. Dump out the rest of her coffee, begin making breakfast, put on her makeup and day clothes afterwards. The day is waiting.

But, for whatever reason, she doesn’t do that. Not today. She closes her eyes and listens to the distant sounds of her husband’s snoring and wishes that that was her right now. Or that he was with her. 

But he is not. He made the choice not to be.

Her feet move without her meaning to and the next thing she knows, she holds a bundle of letters against her chest and is walking to the post office.

She doesn’t know what she is doing. She knows that, whatever it is, she shouldn’t be, she should be curled over the stove right now -- but she soothes herself. There is time to be wifely later. She’s just… doing something first. And that’s okay. It is all okay.

Or it will be.

Whatever Harry and Blaise want, they are not asking for; they’re demanding. They’re demanding something with unclear, vague words and a motive yet to be revealed -- so sure of themselves. So sure of Petunia, that she would be able to figure it out and so sure she would be able to give it to them.

And maybe they’re crazy. Maybe they’re crazy to assume that, but, hey, that’s alright. Everything’s alright now. She thinks she has figured it out -- has cracked the code! -- spontaneously. Spontaneously and by complete and total chance. 

And she will be left only. Their letters are both a punishment and a request, and as soon as that request is filled, she should be free. 

(Deep down, she knows that, even if what she is giving them is lacking, is not what they were asking for… she will be free of them either way. She’ll be okay. Soon enough.)

Lily, you see, had, for her time alive, sent Petunia letters. They were ignored, thrown in the back of a closet, joining a growing bundle, and at some point, they were only noticed for their absence.

Petunia supposes that is around the time Lily died. 

It is all she has of Lily, all she has left -- for even her memories are but blurs; lost to the wind of time and mental illness -- and if these boys want it, they can have it. They can have it. She doesn’t care anymore. She thinks she couldn’t even if she tried. 

She does not need them anymore. She never needed Lily -- just like Lily never needed Snape and Vernon never needed her -- and it’s time to accept that.

It’s time to let go.

She throws the letters in an envelopment in a daze. She addresses them and stamps them and puts them in the P.O. box she knows leads to the magical world.

And then she leaves the post office. She is not going home. She never will again.

This is the start of someone else’s story and this is the end of hers. That is how she lives, as a sacrifice. She sits alone while her husband sleeps. She goes hungry while her husband eats. She gives away what she is for others to cherish. 

She has never lived for herself. 

But she can die. For herself, she can do that. 

She’s leading herself to the bridge. The bridge, the one she hardly remmebrs, the one that, somewhere in her, she can’t forget. 

This is where she learned that her sister was dead. She was living in limbo before that and she has been living in limbo ever since. 

She remembers Severus. Looking pained, looking sick and sad, the face of a grieving man still in love. Still betrayed, beyond the grave. He holds his grudge because it’s all he has left of her… and Petunia had thought him rude and horrible at the time, for a many number of reasons, but she realizes now, on this bridge again, that she is just like him.

Yes. Petunia Evans peaked in high school. Petunia Evans has never grown up. 

Has Severus? 

His appearance had changed considerably from the time he was in school to the time she last saw him but she recognized him instantly. It is not his face, his clothing style -- though those are telling – but instead the way he carries himself.

Severus Snape has never grown up. Severus Snape is just like her.

Yes. That’s right. That’s exactly right.

Petunia wonders what he is up to now -- and on some level, she knows that she doesn't care. Not really. But he is all she has left of the life she remembers and that counts, she thinks. For something. 

Vernon will not notice she is missing for a week. Four days, if she is special. She is not. 

But it’s okay. 

It’s all okay.

She’s always inspired to be something she’s not. A wife, a woman, a mother -- these labels slip right off of her. She can’t be who she needs to be. She is only sorry it took her so long to realize it.

She should be sorry for a lot more -- she leaves a trail of throbbing regrets in her path, each one more cutting than the last -- but she isn’t. Not really and not anymore; she frees herself of this weight.

She does this because she knows the truth. Because she’s an Evans. And Evans… they are never really sorry about hurting the ones that love them.

Petunia smiles. She steps off the bridge and dies a slow, long, agonizing death, drowning in the freezing waters below.