This story was written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

ROUND 10

Wimbourne Wasps - BEATER 2

Soapies

Write about a character suffering from amnesia (or relevant memory impairment).

Optional Prompts:

(object) television

(setting) a graveyard

Harry looked at the students sitting in front of him—their faces in awe, their eyes full of unanswered questions. They had just started learning about the recent history of magical Britain in Professor Binns' class, and the old ghost had managed to fascinate them with the story of Voldemort's defeat. It was the first time the fourth years left their history class with excitement and the wish to return as quickly as possible to learn more. It was the only topic that even old Binns couldn't flog to death with his endless monotonous monologues.

As was expected, Harry's class had swarmed him with questions about his time on the run and about the hunt for Horcruxes. Of course, they had known that he was the Harry Potter their parents still talked about with wonder in their voices and apparent admiration. So far, they had only known him as their Defence Professor who gave them annoying practice lessons and page-long essays for homework. Like clockwork, every term brought a new year of students who were totally transformed, full of questions and a new sense of overexcited motivation. Harry dreaded this day. Patiently, he answered all their questions. He had long ago given up on trying to see through his lesson plans in this situation.

A stray owl interrupted his class in the middle of their reverent questions, impatiently tapping its beak against the window pane.

Harry sighted and paused in his description of the sword of Gryffindor, getting up to put an end to the insistent tapping. The bird let the letter drop into his palm and flew right off again. With one quick glance at the sender, Harry paled in shock.

He turned back to his class, who was still waiting for him to continue his tale of how he had killed the Basilisk.

"I'm afraid we'll have to end it here. We can discuss everything else in the next lesson, but as we didn't manage to talk about the topic I had planned today, you will do the research yourself. I expect you to write five pages about werewolves by next week." He suppressed a smile, knowing well that Remus had removed all books on the topic from the library when he had been a teacher at Hogwarts. They would need to be creative with this essay, and hopefully it would occupy their minds enough to prevent any further questions.

Harry locked himself in his office, staring at the letter that he had dropped onto his desk like hot iron. The sender was his cousin. Harry hadn't even thought about his family in years, and now suddenly his mind was thrown back to the time where he had shared his bed with spiders and dust bunnies under the stairs of his aunt and uncle's home.

Harry felt a misplaced sense of nostalgia when he read his name: attn. Harry Potter, Hogwarts School. Seeing the insecure script reminded him of how clueless and terrified his relatives had been about the wizarding world. He hadn't bothered contacting them after the war or even letting them know he was alive. Dudley apparently had just randomly written to the only address he knew in this world in the hope that someone at his old school would know where Harry was working. Ironically, his cousin had hit the bull's eye with his guess. The letter was covered with several post stamps, and had been readdressed at least three times. Somehow, the Ministry must have their hands in the Muggle postal system for this letter to have reached him at all.

Harry plucked up his courage and ripped the letter open.

Harry,

I am not sure how to contact you, or if you even want to be contacted, but I still hope this letter reaches you somehow before it is too late.

Harry frowned and continued reading.

I know you have no interest in us, seeing as you broke off all contact after we were resettled when this war broke out. However, I feel like you deserve to know that my mother is currently very ill and will probably not live much longer. I do not expect anything from you, but seeing as she is the last connection you have to your own mother, I wanted to inform you about the state of things.

I sincerely hope you are alright and have a good life. I am sorry for how your childhood with us has been, we weren't the family you needed or deserved.

Dudley

Harry's hands trembled. Dudley had told him that he didn't see him as a waste of space when he had left them; he even had been quite civil before that. But to be reminded of this tweaked his heart, and all the bad and repressed childhood memories resurfaced at once.

Suddenly, Harry had trouble breathing. The air seemed strangely thin in his office, and his lungs were incapable of taking in any of it. He wheezed, his whole body shaking, and only when the tears dropped from his chin did he realise that he was crying uncontrollably. All the hurt and nightmares, all the unfulfilled wishes of having friends or a single present for his birthday, or even just a comforting hug when he had fallen and scraped his knee beat down on him and broke a damn Harry hadn't realised he had been building inside.

Harry didn't go to dinner that evening, and the day after, he asked to have a week off. The walls of Hogwarts had suddenly lost their comforting protection for him. He knew that he finally needed to go out and confront his childhood trauma. The war had left scars, but his fight against Voldemort, starting the day of his birth, had left something broken inside of him that he had never cared to mend. Instead, Harry had locked himself away from curious gazes and traumatic memories in the only place he could call home. Everything was familiar at Hogwarts, and with the exception of the yearly questions from his fourth years, people left him alone about his past.

He packed his trunk and left early the next morning. Neville had promised to take over his classes for the week, and Harry had never felt more relieved and anxious at the same time as he did when he apparated to the address Dudley had sent with the letter.

Harry took a deep breath before he conjured up a bouquet of lilies, knowing well that Petunia hated them for obvious reasons. He just couldn't help this little petty gesture.

He was surprised to find himself in front of a hospital-like retirement home. Somehow, Harry had failed to consider that his aunt had aged in the time he had been gone. At first, he felt a little sadness when he entered the cold building with white walls, plastic plants in the foyer and a tiled floor so shiny that he could make out his own reflection in it. In that moment, he remembered that Aunt Petunia had had an extreme standard of cleanliness, and Harry smiled, thinking that she probably couldn't be at a better place.

A strict-looking receptionist eyed him. "Can I help you?" she asked in a harsh tone, her voice unnaturally deep.

Harry reluctantly nodded, unsure if he was ready for this. "I am here to visit a patient of yours. Petunia Dursley."

"Dursley you say? We don't have a Dursley here."

"Ahem. I was told this address, I am her nephew. I haven't seen her in a while. Are you sure there is no one going by that name?" Harry nervously looked around, as if Dudley would jump out of the blue to tell him it was all a bad joke. "My cousin Dudley probably visits often." He was unsure whether the woman was sceptical of his motives to be here or just unwilling to help but to his relief, she pursued her lips before she entered Aunt Petunia's name into her incredibly tiny computer. Harry marvelled at how technology seemed to have developed in his time away from the Muggle world.

"We have a Petunia going by the name of Evans," the woman grunted in her baritone voice.

Harry's eyes widened. "That's her! It's her maiden name. I didn't think she'd go by that now, but it's definitely her."

The woman only raised an eyebrow at his excitement. "You'll find her on floor three, room 317. Announce yourself with the stationary nurse."

"Thank you," Harry said politely, glad to finally be able to leave this impolite person behind.

He decided for the steps, wary of the elevator.

The nurse, a dark-skinned, cheery man with a rounded belly, greeted him and showed him to a room in the middle of the egg yolk-yellow painted hall.

"Ms Evans, you have a visitor," the man called, knocking on the door and then opening it wide when an uncomfortably familiar voice called for them to enter.

"Oh, Dudders, I didn't expect you to come this early today."

"Her son visits in the evenings usually," the nurse whispered.

Harry stared uncomfortably at the old woman in front of them. She wore an ancient-looking flower dress; her hair was thin and completely grey but still styled in the perm she had had when he was a child.

"Aunt Petunia, it's me, Harry," he said, unsure if she recognised him at all. She looked so frail that he was sure she'd break into tiny little pieces if she fell.

"Harry?"

"She might not remember you," the nurse said, smiling sadly. "Her Alzheimer's is affecting her memories of the past decades mainly. But at least she still knows how to walk and sit down."

Harry nodded. So that had been the illness Dudley had written about.

"Your nephew?" he tried again when Aunt Petunia kept staring at him without recognition. "Lily's son."

"Oh, Lily! How is my little sister? Is she still with that scallywag? What was his name?"

"Potter. James Potter," Harry replied. "She's… still with him," he said. It wasn't a lie exactly. They shared a grave in Godric's Hollow after all. He wasn't sure if his aunt needed to know that her sister had died long ago. She didn't seem to remember, and Harry decided to save her that grief.

"I miss her. Will she come and visit sometime? "

His heart did a funny little jerk at that. "I'm not sure," Harry said evasively.

"Ah, she sent her son in her place! Lily's probably busy. She always was out somewhere to learn her magical things and meet her magical friends."

The nurse eyed Harry. "Her mind isn't the best anymore. You don't need to worry about that too much. It's perfectly normal for people with Alzheimer's."

Harry nodded smiling, knowing that his aunt's mind hadn't failed her there.

"I've brought you some flowers, Aunt Petunia."

Her face lit up. "You're such a gentleman, Lily has raised you well. It's such a pity that she didn't introduce us before. Come and sit. It's so nice to meet you. Tell me, are you living in London? My son Dudley lives there. He's working all day, but in the evenings, he visits me sometimes."

She didn't wait for him to reply, but just continued talking.

"I only have the telly in place of companions for most of the day. I wish Dudders could visit more often, but he has to work, you see?"

Harry nodded and marvelled at how his aunt was talking to him as if he were a regular person. His mind was overrun with melancholic memories and unable to process sitting right in front of his aunt who didn't seem to hate or even remember him at all. She had never talked to him that much; she had never given him her thin-lipped smile.

"Will you watch my soapie with me? Dudders doesn't like it."

Harry nodded. "Sure."

That moment, a loud cry was heard from somewhere down the hall. The nurse excused himself and hurried in the direction of the ruckus.

Aunt Petunia shook her head. "That's Maggie. One would think she'd be ashamed to make such noise, but that woman has no shame whatsoever. She's a bit of a loon, you must know."

Harry had to suppress a grin, remembering how his aunt had bad mouthed their neighbours just as bad when he had still been a child.

The watched her terrible Muggle soap, which Harry found surprisingly entertaining. He was glad that he didn't have to talk very much, save for nodding at the right moments as his aunt explained to him who the characters on the soap were. "She's an unapologetic liar." She pointed at a woman who was clearly the villain. "I like her," Aunt Petunia said.

When Dudley made an appearance half an hour later, the awkwardness grew tenfold. They formally shook hands, and Dudley asked Harry if he would join them on a short walk to the nearby graveyard.

"I'm sorry, Mum, I forgot the flowers," Dudley said when greeting his mother.

"I already bought some, Dudders." She pointed at the lilies Harry had brought. He didn't care to correct her.

"It's good seeing you," Dudley said quietly to Harry, when they passed the rows of graves, and Harry shot him a tentative smile.

Aunt Petunia stepped up to a little gravestone and arranged the blooming lilies in the clay vase in front of it.

"He died several years ago," Dudley explained, gesturing towards the gravestone of Vernon Dursley.

Harry nodded, not looking his cousin in the eyes. He wasn't exactly sorry, so he didn't say it.

"I didn't think you cared, so I only contacted you now," Dudley said. "I'm glad you came. Mum—well, she doesn't really remember much. Sometimes she even needs to be reminded that I'm her son. That's why she is called by her maiden name here; it's familiar for her."

Harry understood.

They brought Aunt Petunia back to her room and said their goodbyes before leaving for the exit together.

"Keep me updated," Harry asked Dudley.

"Sure," he replied when they stepped outside. They awkwardly eyed each other, unsure how to proceed. Harry didn't exactly feel like hugging his cousin was appropriate, but shaking hands felt detached and cold after just standing with him at his father's grave.

"Man, you look old," Dudley suddenly said, as if only now realizing that they both had passed the middle of their lives a decade ago.

Harry laughed. "You look older!" he said, pointing at the greying moustache that was just a fraction less walrus-like than Uncle Vernon's had been.

Dudley grinned. "It looks awful, doesn't it? My wife has been pestering me to shave it off, but Mum likes it."

Harry chuckled. "Maybe you should listen to your wife, Dudley."

He clapped on his cousin's shoulder, and it felt like a goodbye between childhood friends who hadn't seen each other for most of their lives—a nostalgic familiarity connecting them.

Thank you TheQuietAwakening, Carolare Scarletus and Nora Fares for beta reading :3