Chapter 37 : Rock Bottom
Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences."- Robert Louis Stevenson
POV Petunia
Everything had been going well in Petunia's life. Her sister's child, the one she'd been forced to take in, had decided to spend the holidays elsewhere, and that suited her just fine. It meant an entire summer without that freak hanging around the house. Just her husband and her wonderful boy, she didn't need anything more than that.
Ever since her sister had gotten that letter, or actually, even before that, ever since she'd met that Severus boy who'd shown off his little magic tricks, her relationship with her sister had changed. Her little sister had been different from her. Her little sister had been a witch. Her little sister had magic. Her little sister had been a freak. Her little sister is dead now.
She preferred not to think about it, but she was her sister, after all, and they'd grown up together despite everything. She was well aware of her own jealousy toward her, and even more aware of just how powerless she'd always felt next to her, but she was still her little sister, regardless. When she died, Petunia found out through a letter left with a baby on her doorstep. None of her sister's so called friends, not the headmaster, not any of the people who'd fought for the same cause she had, a cause that should never have had anything to do with Petunia at all if she'd simply been left alone, none of them had bothered to come tell her in person, let alone offer their condolences.
And for that, she resented them. That whole world she'd never been allowed to touch, that world that had broken her heart and killed her sister.
That baby had been her sister's child, her only legacy, and Petunia was the one saddled with raising her. Otherwise... well, there was no real "otherwise," but she could easily imagine those freaks showing up at her house and doing whatever they wanted to her without consequence. She also knew they didn't hesitate to erase people's memories, and that terrified her. Maybe she'd already been wiped clean more than once without even knowing it.
Still, despite the happiness her husband and son brought her, there had always been that shadow hanging over the house, that little witch with no self control, one temper tantrum away from practically killing someone without even meaning to. It was something she'd almost managed to forget, until the cupboard door under the stairs had literally exploded off its hinges, with the girl responsible walking away without a scratch.
That had come from her being claustrophobic, apparently, and her magic had simply responded by eliminating the obstacle in her way, the door. And if the obstacle was ever a person instead?
She was a constant reminder of everything Petunia wasn't, and everything her son would never be either. She was a reminder of that horrible world, full of even more horrible people, utterly prejudiced against anyone without magic. Thankfully, Petunia had her faith, and she was certain those people would be punished by God eventually for their unnatural, heretical powers.
She hadn't wanted to send that freak off to that school, afraid she'd learn even more magic and come back for revenge over how she'd been treated in that house, but there hadn't been any real way to stop it either. She'd hoped the girl simply wouldn't come back at all, but she'd still had to put up with her every single summer regardless.
Her husband and son, if anything, were even less receptive to the freak than she was, that unnatural little thing that also happened to be a walking bomb living under their roof. It was ironic, honestly, but she and Vernon both knew perfectly well that the rage they felt toward their niece came from fear. They were utterly terrified of her, and that fear simply wore the mask of anger instead. It had been a mistake, giving that freak to them. First, she'd ruined their lives. Second, of course she'd been treated badly, but maybe that was exactly what they'd wanted from them in the first place, those people were stranger than one another, after all.
If the consequences of the mistreatment hadn't shown themselves so early on, they might have managed to fully break her, and perhaps, just perhaps, take control of her, turn her into a weapon of their own. Why not, after all? They had to defend their own little patch of ground against unknown threats somehow. Unfortunately, there was no "perhaps" to speak of, and all they could really do now was endure her for a little while longer.
It was with real joy that she'd agreed, last summer, that her niece wouldn't be spending it under their roof. A small bottle of champagne had even been opened that evening, to celebrate the absence of that particular burden, at least for one summer.
The only thing that had genuinely unsettled them was the look she'd given them before leaving. They'd never seen that look on her before, never had such open disgust been directed their way, as if they'd somehow owed her their affection on top of everything else. What an idiot.
The summer had been wonderful. Her family had even managed to spend two weeks in France, in Paris, and she'd never felt so relaxed in her entire life. Everything had gone beautifully, perhaps a little too beautifully, and she should have known better. In Petunia's life, happiness never came without a price, and that should have set off alarm bells. Unfortunately, it went unnoticed instead, lost under the glow of a well earned rest.
It happened a week after school started back up. Dudley was at his prestigious private school, Smeltings, and her husband was at work at Grunnings. That was when the police showed up.
"We've received a report that a certain Harriet Potter, currently in your care, has gone missing and hasn't been seen since the start of the summer. Can you tell us anything about that?" the officer in charge of the case asked.
An anonymous caller had contacted the police, claiming to be worried that the young girl living at 4 Privet Drive had disappeared, and stating that she was the family's niece, adding that the relationship between them wasn't a particularly good one. That had been enough to open a case.
The further the investigation went, the more questions arose about their claim to be a perfectly normal family. The initial trigger had been the girl's absence, but it snowballed from there, their inability to name the school she supposedly attended, the neighbors only too happy to come forward with something interesting to say, and the ugly truths about the emotional, and in some cases physical, abuse they'd thought they'd kept so well hidden, all of it finally coming out into the light.
It was the first incident that completely upended their lives. The neighbors stopped even pretending to be cordial, throwing suspicious looks their way at every turn. The last time they'd gone to a neighborhood barbecue, none of the other children would play with Dudley, Petunia was snobbed outright by the garden committee, and Vernon could do nothing but stand awkwardly off to the side, nursing his beer alone. The days when everything in their perfect little life had gone smoothly, with Harriet as their only real burden, were officially over.
And as if that misfortune wasn't enough, Vernon Dursley started facing one disciplinary issue after another at work, at Grunnings, the drill manufacturer. Originally a sales manager, a position he'd only gotten in the first place thanks to the Potters who held stakes in a handful of Muggle companies quietly arranged to keep Lily's family financially secure, he was demoted after a steady stream of complaints from clients and coworkers about sloppy work and poor conduct. Grunnings had, by the way, recently been bought out by a certain holding called Kuma holding.
The complaints kept coming, each more absurd than the last, and the truly remarkable part of the whole story was that he still hadn't been fired, working the warehouse floor now instead, packing boxes.
The result was a drastically reduced salary, which also meant there was no way to keep little Dudley enrolled in his prestigious private school any longer. The tuition became impossible to afford, and for the first time in his life, Dudley started facing real social fallout of his own. That, combined with the other students' parents having heard the rumors, that his own parents were child abusers, meant he was slowly frozen out by the very friends he'd had.
In the end, Dudley could only get into a local school full of kids who already knew him, and already knew exactly what his family situation was. In an almost perfect mirror of how he'd once made sure Harriet never had a single friend growing up, he now found himself in precisely the same position.
But even that wasn't enough to cover the household bills, the food, the everyday essentials, the one silver lining being that both Vernon and Dudley each lost at least ten kilos in the process, and the mounting debts from a seemingly endless string of lawsuits opened against them. Suits over property damage Dudley himself had caused that had somehow been pinned on the family's liability. Suits stemming from professional misconduct at Vernon's old job, negligence claims from clients he'd apparently mishandled, a formal complaint that had somehow resurfaced from years back. Case after case kept opening against them, until they no longer knew which way to turn, as if someone out there was deliberately trying to make their lives as miserable as possible. In the end, they mortgaged the house just to stay afloat, the longest argument Petunia and Vernon had ever had, to this day.
She remembered this moment.
Vernon kept circling back to the same sentence, over and over, "We are not signing away this house, it's everything we worked for," as if saying it enough times might somehow make it true.
"And what exactly do you propose we do instead, Vernon? Sell the car? Sell what, exactly? We don't have anything left to sell." Petunia's voice cracked slightly on the last word, something that almost never happened.
He didn't have an answer. He never did, not anymore. He just sat there, jaw clenched, staring at a signature line that hadn't asked for his opinion in the first place.
Petunia signed first.
Marjory, Vernon's sister, refused to help when he finally called her, and there had been no word from her since.
After that if the pressure from outside never seemed to let up, the tension inside the house was just as fierce. Vernon had taken to drinking, coming home nearly every night already drunk. Dudley withdrew completely, refusing to speak to anyone anymore. As the arguments piled up, whatever restraint had once existed between them started to erode too, and for the first time, Vernon hit her. It wasn't the last time. Petunia felt herself growing more and more compliant, more submissive, and had slowly begun questioning every choice in her life, marrying Vernon among them, though never once did she stop to question how she'd treated Harriet.
With absolutely no one left in her corner, Petunia turned even more fervently to her faith. She was now utterly convinced this was some kind of test sent by God, meant to make her stronger for having endured it. After all, faith was the only thing she had left.
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And it was in that grim, joyless atmosphere that the family had been living, right up until that evening.
Ding dong.
Dudley was in his room, most of his toys long since sold off, with nothing left to stare at but the walls, wallowing in his own misery. The rest of the house had lost its shine too, wallpaper peeling at the seams, a damp stain spreading across one corner of the ceiling, the front garden Petunia had once been so proud of now overgrown and neglected, weeds pushing up through cracks in the path that no one had bothered to fix.
Petunia opened the door, and the last person she ever wanted to see again was standing there, dressed in a simple, tailored coat, sharp and effortless, the kind of understated elegance that made it obvious she didn't belong on this street at all.
"Not going to welcome me in, Petunia? Didn't miss me?" Harriet said, perfectly relaxed.
That relaxed air of hers was almost enough to send Petunia over the edge.
"You, why are you back!?" she snapped, finally finding somewhere to direct her rage. At that, Vernon came to the door too, followed by Dudley making his way down the stairs.
Harriet and Yuna walked straight into the house without waiting for permission, and Vernon started closing the distance, ready to do something physical, apparently forgetting every last shred of self preservation, but before he could take another step, he found himself staring straight down the length of Harriet's wand.
Normally that alone would have stopped him, but not this time. "Oh, that's not enough anymore? Well, you clearly don't understand the full picture then. Look the other way." And as he turned toward Yuna instead, he found himself staring straight down the barrel of a gun, a Browning Hi-Power, standard army issue, cold, practical, and utterly out of place in a suburban living room doorway.
"I came to visit, and to have one last conversation with you. Honestly, forcing us to pull out a gun just for a simple chat, aren't you the least bit ashamed of yourselves?" Harriet said, thoroughly smug now, though a poorly hidden flicker of real anger still lingered in her eyes.