Title: Don't Ask Questions
Era: early 1980's, Privet Drive
Genre: Drama/General
Characters: Petunia Dursley, Dudley Dursley, Harry Potter.
Ships: N/A
Summary: It's been the mantra that's helped her hold the memories, the emotions at bay... She can't afford to get lost in those memories. Petunia Dursley introspection
Notes: Originally written as the second half of a high school english exam. Finally unearthed it the other day, typed it up and tidied it up a bit. So, apart from the tidy up, fic is about 3 years old.
Disclaimer: Not mine.

"Mummy, why is it raining?" asked the four-year-old, tugging at his mother's skirts.

Petunia Dursley sighed as she looked out the kitchen window into the dismal winter weather, trying to come up with a sufficient explanation which the four-year-old could understand and—hopefully stem the seemingly endless flow of questions.

"Because it's winter, sweet," she answered finally.

A comfortable silence then fell as Petunia continued to wash the lunch dishes in the sink, while young Dudley happily played with his toys on the floor.

But it was a futile hope that the four-year-old's curiosity would be sated for a significant length of time.

"Mummy," Dudley started again, and Petunia sighed and braced herself for yet another 'Why?' question that children were so fond of. "Why doesn't Harry live with his parents?" he asked.

She froze. She hadn't been expecting that. All of a sudden, she found her self grasping at straws to come up with an acceptable answer.

Or, more to the point, struggling not to let those memories surface. She didn't want to relive them. Not now, not ever. Harry, her little sisters only child. It was hard enough having him in the house, she could barely looking at him at time. The boy's only saving grace was that apart from his eyes, he took after his father. But his eyes... they were the same clear green as Lily's. And that was something she feared. There were just too many memories that she didn't want to acknowledge.

Jealousy. Anger. Fear. Love.

With five years between them, there had always been little in the way of common ground between the two girls. Petunia thin, dark-haired girl and was a serious child who loved knowing everyone's business. Lily, on the other hand, from an early age had been a ball of charismatic red-headed energy. Everyone loved Lily. She was the one their parents 'Oooh-ed' and 'Aaah-ed' over. Petunia, though, felt like she'd been left to fend for herself. As the girls got older the gap between them only seemed to grow. They fought. They bickered. Their parents despaired.

When the letter from that school came, they were all shocked. Petunia had half-hoped that her parents would stop treating Lily like the golden child, but no such luck. She was the only one in the family who seemed capable of seeing the freak her sister was. How was a witch in the family something to proud of?

But off she went to that school. Each time Lily came back home after that, the gap widened further. Joke teacups that tried to bite your nose, ridiculous tale about her silly little friends. Then during the Christmas holidays of Lily's final year, she brought a guy home with her.

Predictably, her parents had been thrilled, and James Potter had been charming, funny and polite—but Petunia had fumed all night. Her parents had not been as approving when she'd brought Vernon home. They'd never really warmed to him at all, yet here they were, joking and laughing with this... freak... She'd excused herself early that night.

She hadn't attended the wedding, and barely acknowledged Lily's presence at their parents funeral a year later.

And even now—after three years of bringing up Lily's son—she couldn't ignore the still festering resentment.

Snapping out of her internal struggle she answered Dudley.

"Because they died, Dudders," she informed him in a clipped tone.

"Why?" he pushed further, unaware that his usually indulgent mother was beginning to lose her patience.

Petunia closed her eyes in frustration. 'Because Lily should have never gone to that school, she should have pretended that that... freaky side of her didn't exist. Not flaunt it. She got in way over her head and got herself murdered,' she thought viciously to herself.

"Because they were in a car crash," she managed to answer through gritted teeth.

"Why?"

This time, Petunia snapped, hurling the dishcloth into the sink, hard. The fact that she could see Harry out in passageway in her periphery vision didn't help her temper either. "Just because!" she screeched.

By now, the small, black-haired boy that was her nephew had entered the kitchen, and both him and his fair-haired cousin were silent as Petunia struggled to regain her composure.

"Don't ask too many questions," she told the two boys in an authoritative voice.

As she continued with her daily cleaning routine, sometimes demanding her nephew's assistance, she didn't realise how often she would use that mantra in the years to come. It was just so much easier to keep it all buried than to face all those painful memories.

Fin.