As said in the blurb, this is a sister piece to Giving Up. A series of character portrayals of which so far this is the only one. There should be more. I think. Depends on my mood. It's dark, it's potentially triggering and you have been warned. As per usual, all reviews are very much appreciated. I am currently struggling through the next chapter of I Did Nothing, which simply doesn't want to be written. I'll get there. Either way, in the meanwhile, welcome to the shards of glass that are left behind. Try not to cut yourself.

Every mother dreads the knock at the door from uniformed officers. It's a recurrent nightmare, one that comes in the dead of night and haunts me long into the morning. I've imagined their faces, their voices, their sincere sympathy so many times that sometimes it almost takes me by surprise when Dudley hammers down the stairs of a morning demanding bacon. I almost believe the horror of the nightmare.

We nearly lost him last year. Those dementor things that the boy was talking about. I've heard Lily talk about them as well. They suck out souls leaving nothing but the body. Two boys would have been found as good as dead. And there would have been that knock on the door. "We're sorry to have to inform you, Mrs Dursley, but there's been a terrible accident." From then on, the nightmare came more often. Nearly every night. I'd look into the eyes of some kindly policeman and see the face of my dead son. Or worse still.

For some reason it had never had occurred to me that those sorts have the same kind of calls to do.

Of course I knew what they were immediately. You can't mistake the robes and the ridiculous hats are a give-away. I remembered the old man from last year. But the barbed and cutting words that started to bubble up in my throat died when I looked into the faces at my doorstep. Both faces were lined and weathered. They could only be described as haggard and there was true grief in both of their eyes. Before either of them said anything I knew, just knew that something horrific must have happened. And whatever it was, I didn't want to hear it. I didn't need to know. I swallowed hard before speaking.

"Is it not enough that I'm stuck with that boy in the holidays?" I bit out sharply, refusing to flinch back at the look in the old man's eyes. "I have no interest in having your kind come and badger me during term time as well."

I tried to close the door in their faces, but it was as if the door hit a solid invisible wall. Neither of them had moved. Neither of them had spoken. I just couldn't close my front door.

"Mrs Dursley," the headmaster spoke and his voice is the voice of my nightmares. Somehow his voice has been etched upon my very memory. Remember my last. The words from an envelope over a year ago. The day I nearly lost my Dudley. "We need to speak to you."

They walked past me, they walked into my own home without permission, and with a wave of a single hand the door slammed shut behind us. Standing in my own doorway, I was left to trail down the hallway and into the living room behind them. There were no niceties said and my throat was suddenly too dry to have offered them drinks even if I had wanted to.

"Mrs Dursley," he repeated my name but then stopped, almost as though he was at a loss for words. His cool blue eyes flickered towards the woman with him, but she didn't meet either of our gazes. "I'm sorry but we've got some terrible news to share with you. Harry Potter… Your nephew…"

"What has the irresponsible boy done now?" I bit out even more sharply than before, as if by making my words as cutting as possible, I could slice through this knot in my chest. "It can't be any worse than the usual."

But of course, it could. Each summer for the last few years, the boy has come back thinner and paler. Each year his nightmares get worse. Each year I shut it off. I never wanted this responsibility, I never wanted to care for him. I never asked for this. He is not my child. He is the child of Lily Damn Potter and her arrogant, offensive and insufferable waste of space of a husband. Every time he came home I saw the pain in his eyes, eyes that look so much like my sisters used to. Every year, that pain seemed to grow exponentially. But he has James Potter's face. And Lily's freakish talent.

"He's dead." The words are torn out of the woman's mouth as if by force and the house seems to shudder with the force of the grief and pain behind them. The pictures on the wall seem to shift slightly and the woman draws herself ever more tightly inward. "Mrs Dursley. Your nephew is dead. You don't have to be 'stuck with him' any longer. He's dead."

More words were said. Of course, more words were said. Few of them stuck with me though. The important ones did. The cutting charm in the middle of the night. The fact that he used that thrice damned freakery to take his own life. That it wasn't the dreaded Lord after all who killed him. The idiot boy did it all to himself. And the note he left. They handed me a copy. Apparently he'd left it on his bed and his roommates found it the following morning. Far too late.

The words that I'll remember though are those two words, said with such grief, such pain, such anguish. He's dead. Behind those words I heard all of the other words that the woman wanted to say. He's dead and it's your fault. He's dead and it's our fault. He's dead and it's my fault. Behind those words, those two simple, single syllable words, I can hear the guilt, the anger, the loathing and the despair. He's dead. He's dead and there is nothing in this universe I can do to bring him back.

I told Vernon that evening. His only words were 'Good riddance to bad rubbish', as he filled his mouth with beef. He didn't even bother to look up. And for a moment, just a flash of a moment, I wanted to scream at him, I wanted to throw his food at him and wipe that self-satisfied smirk off his face. I wanted to hurt him. But how could I? After all, I'd been no better than he had. I didn't have to take the child in. But I did. And in doing that, I made a choice. A choice I dragged Vernon along into. But a choice.

And so I'm sat in a cupboard of all places. A cupboard under the stairs, the cupboard where a child grew up. The cupboard where he was sent hungry and cold because of his freakishness. The cupboard we determined was a fit space for a young child to live. It's full of Dudley's junk now, piled on the bed and on the floor, but I cleared a space to sit. And I remember Lily's eyes. Those emerald, beautiful, life filled eyes. Those eyes that reminded everyone of Granddad.

Lily's eyes as they flashed with the joy and the wonder of this magical world that she was allowed admittance to and I was forbidden. Lily's eyes as they sparkled with excitement as she showed me her textbooks and her wand, her frantic explanations of everything she'd learned at that freakish school. My little sister, once more better than me. I remember Lily's eyes as she brought home that boy, that arrogant freak, filled with love and adoration. His self-satisfied smile as he looked down on me from on high.

After all, who would have a Petunia when they can have a Lily?

I hated her. I hated her for everything she could have that I couldn't. I hated that she got to see this whole marvellous, magical world that I would never be allowed entry into. I hated that everything was so easy for her. Just a wave of a wand and everything works out all right. Because it was never that easy for me. It was never that easy. I hated her. And I missed her. I missed the smart little girl who looked up to me. Who expected me to have all the answers. Because now I had none of the answers and she had all of them. She had a whole world of answers that I was never, ever going to be able to access. I hated her. I loved her. I hated that I loved her.

Lily's eyes. In James Potter's face. But Lily's eyes. I am never going to see my sister's eyes again. I am never going to see them flash, even if the only times I've seen that lately has been in anger or in fear. I am never going to see the emerald hew that I envied all the way through my childhood. They were yet another thing that Lily had that I didn't. I am never going to see her eyes again. Somehow, despite everything over all these years, that fact is more important than the fact that I will never have to look at James Potter's self-righteous face again.

My shoulders shake once, twice and suddenly I'm crying. I'm crying for a boy I hated. A boy I despised. I'm crying for the child whose life I made a living hell.

"Mum?" Dudley's voice outside the cupboard is filled with bewilderment. "Mum? Are you in the freaks cupboard? Are you crying?"

"I'm ok, Duds," I choke out between sobs, trying to get a handle on my treacherous body. "Everything is ok."

The door opens and my darling son stands framed in the entrance to the cupboard. I can't see his face from my position, he's too tall now and all I can see are his legs and his body. I imagine sitting here as a five-year-old, sitting in exactly this position as my husband screams down into the space. Emerald eyes filled with helpless tears. My shoulders shake uncontrollably. Yet I don't deserve the relief of crying.

"What's happened, Mum?" Dudley's voice is full of concern, of worry. He kneels down in front of the cupboard, his hand outstretched. "Why are you in the cupboard?"

"It's nothing to worry about, Dudders," I manage to say, attempting to smile at my beautiful son. The look in his eyes says I've fooled no one. "Mum's just getting a bit upset about nothing, that's all."

"It's about Harry." He surprises me by saying the boy's name so matter of factly. No scorn or hatred, no fear or anger. Not the freak. Just Harry. "I heard you talking to Dad. Harry's not coming back, is he?"

"No, Duds," I whisper. "Harry's never coming back. He… he…"

"He's dead." He finishes for me, almost calmly. "Was it those… Dementor things. Like before?"

It is so, so unbelievably tempting to lie to my son. To say that yes, something completely outside of our control killed the boy. I even open my mouth to speak the words and then I stop. I can't say them. I just can't. Because whilst there are some truly horrific things in that freakish world, there isn't anything more horrific than what actually killed the boy. Lily trusted me with her son, her bundle of joy. I could have shown him some affection. I could maybe have loved the boy. Perhaps I could have, if he didn't have his father's face and his mother's eyes and every time I looked at him, I saw what I could never be. What I could never have. And I can't tell my son that Dementor's killed his cousin. I can't tell him that it was an evil lord. I can't say that it wasn't our fault.

"No, Dudders." My voice wavers and shakes in a manner most unbecoming of a female. I can't seem to steady it. "No. He… he did it to himself."

"Oh."

That's all my boy says. And then he walks away. I hear his feet as he climbs the stairs and I feel the door as it slams shut behind him. Then silence. Until there's a smashing sound and I jolt upwards, my head hitting against the cupboard roof painfully hard. Climbing out there's another series of crashes, bangs and slams coming from above my head. Unsurprisingly, Vernon hasn't shifted himself to see what is going on. Can't interrupt his TV time, after all.

Following the noises to Dudley's bedroom, I knock at his door. There's no response other than the sounds of something else hitting the wall with velocity. The door shakes with the vibrations.

"Dudders? I'm coming in."

I open the door in trepidation, and look around at the utter carnage of the room. The TV, the consoles, everything I can see is in pieces. And Dudley sits down on the bed and just stares at it. His eyes meet mine and I can't bear the confusion and the pain that I can see in my precious, darling child's eyes. It's almost a mirror image of the pain that I have seen in Lily's emerald eyes for the last few years. That realisation cuts me to the heart. I move to put my arms around my son, but he pushes me away.

"Don't." His voice is gruff and pained. "Please. Don't."

His mouth opens as if to continue and then he shuts it sharply. Sitting down on the bed next to my child, I wait. Dudley was never the most patient of boys. And he can't stand silence.

"I wasn't…" His voice falters and breaks. "I wasn't very nice to him."

"No," I agree softly. "None of us were."

"He saved me. Last year. He saved me even though I was horrible to him." My boy looks up at me and my heart breaks anew. "I never said thank you. I never told him I was grateful. I should have."

"Yes." Once more there is nothing that I can do except agree. "There are lots of things we all should have done. There are lots of things I should have done."

"I think I need to be alone now, Mum."

His voice is soft but sure, more adult than I've heard him before. I nod silently, and back out of the room, closing the door with a soft click behind me.

What more is there to say? What more is there to discuss?

Lily's son. With her bright, sparkling emerald eyes. Eyes that had become dull and pained, tired and weary. James Potter's face. Too thin to be that insufferable gits face though. Too drawn and pale. I don't know what the boy went through these last years. I never bothered to ask. I heard him cry out in his sleep, but I never bothered to ask. Sirius. Cedric. Don't hurt them. Come back. I love you. Why didn't I bother to ask?

The boy didn't even mention us in his note. His last words, written in a shaky hand. Tears blotching the letters in random places. Ron, Hermione, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape. Sirius and Cedric. All of those people had a place in his last words. He didn't mention us at all.

I pray that there isn't a heaven or a hell. I pray that there isn't a God. I pray that Lily is dead, that her soul doesn't still exist in some form. Because if she does, one day there is going to be a reckoning. And it doesn't matter what else I do now… I will deserve every last second of it.

I pray that there is an afterlife. I pray that Lily is able to see her son once more, that they have been joined together at last after so many years. I'll take my reckoning. When my day of judgement comes, I won't be judged by any God. I will be judged by my sister. I will be judged my mother and my father. I will stand before them and say, I killed your son. I killed your grandson. I killed my nephew.

I may not have held the knife. I, a mere muggle, may not have been capable of wielding that cutting charm. But that makes me no less responsible.

Walking back down the stairs and into the living room, I almost don't believe the words that come out of my mouth. And yet, they are right. They are the first right thing that I have done in nearly fifteen years.

"Vernon. We're getting a divorce."

There's no invisible wall stopping the door now. It closes with a meaty thunk.