Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. He would never accept it.

Chapter 3: You Put Me On A Shelf

You put me on a shelf
And kept me for yourself
I can only blame myself
You can only blame me

He was not home for the next winter holydays, nor was he during the next summer. Instead, only Potter's gruesomely untidy dark hair showed up at their door, his selfish smirk shining at all sides, and it was there to stay. She had blindly looked around for him sometimes, searching uselessly for any movements under the streetlight's shadow through her sister's window.

She supposed then, as the summer neared to a close, that he had gone to that Lord he would sometimes speak of, that Dark Lord he worshipped and whose power he desired most of all. She remembered how he had sometimes fantasized on having such power in his hands, how he would use it with his wit and skill, how it would make him the most wanted man on earth. And so, she shrugged any thought of him off once again, she drew her mask back up her chin, nose and eyebrows and kept it there, steadied with tight ropes, mingling with her skin, blood and organs, making it all one and one only for the longest it could.

That summer passed, fast and discrete, and in September she accepted Vernon's marriage proposal. By spring there were wed and moving to another neighbourhood, closer to London, where they were to build on their lives, were she was to plant her mask as a tree and live the life it had brought her. About a year later they had a son, and shortly she received a letter from her sister notifying her of her nephew's birth. She had not talked to her since that last summer, barely noticing her presence at Christmas or her own wedding, leaving her forever when she moved out from home. She had then ignored that letter, ignored the boy's name, ignored his father's and moved on with her life.

It passed as a blur before her eyes, that life she worked so hard for. Like a masked ball it shifted and swung in front of them; dancing through songs and acts, switching and moving. She had taken care of her son as she promised she would, she had cared for her husband like she had vowed to. She had kept all her mind and spirit on her tasks, on her cleaning and caring, on her reputation keeping, her nose high in front of others. She had kept her too strong curiosity at bay, trying desperately to feed it with mere random and meaningless information about star's and neighbour's lives, about the people they talked and walked with, about the things they did and said to do. Sometimes, she would see beyond it all, sometimes she would distinguish their masks and acts, their own falsity matching her own. And then, she would tilt her nose even higher as if she were trying to keep her thin cover from falling off of it. But it never had, it never had fallen off again as it had with him, it had stayed on its rightful place, clawing to her face, decided never to let go.

She had kept her distance from all that she craved for. From that magic she wanted and spit on. She thought, she convinced herself, that it was that magic, or pure sorcery, that had pulled the act forcefully off her face, that had in a way hypnotized her into believing she had once cared, into believing he had once cared; into believing she had been someone different, into believing she could be someone different. She could hear of it sometimes, hear her nephew talking about it, worshipping it. She had taken the bait, at first, feeding herself from it, almost unconsciously taking part in his enthusiasm. Later, as he had let out of that Dark Lord again, as he had mentioned his name – she could never remember – his oh-so-terrible name that had murdered his parents, she had even worried for a awhile, the thought of those winter night creeping up her mind, the thought of him and his dreams, and she had wondered whether he shared that Lord's power, whether that Lord was he. And suddenly her face seemed to melt through her features, her curiosity seemed to rise like a monster from its deep sleep, and she would stop the boy, act scandalized, shout at him, and it all hardened off again and stayed like a crust in from of her irises.

But then, here he is, sitting on her couch. That boy she so badly treated, who had no fault in all that she built, in all that she lived through, and who paid for it. He is here now, in front of her, his face drawn to hers, his eyes either searching her own pale ones, either looking down at his worn shoes, his back bent, his elbows on his knees. His hands are twitching; his fingers are mingled, pausing seldom to run through his untidy raven hair, to clean his glasses nervously, to play with his own ear. His mouth is moving hesitantly, his lips are dry and nervous, as he retells her all that happened and that she ignored, all she truth she repulses, all of that world she craves to know and which she had spit out of her own.

She was startled in her cleaning by the doorbell earlier this afternoon by the end of the summer, and she moved suspiciously to open the door. He was standing there, a young and nervous man, his bright green eyes terribly aged by things he should never have known, things he should never had seen. He looked searchingly at her; he tried to act strong and imposing as any young man. He asked then whether her husband and Dudley were home, she shook her head slightly muttering something about a work interview and a coffee in London, still startled by his visit. He nodded knowingly letting a small drop of relief run through his face. But nervousness returned to his lips, as he tried to utter difficultly that he wanted to talk to her, if he could come in the house he had once lived, to talk to her only, to tell her. She nodded mutely back at him, stepping slightly away from the door to let him through.

He glanced over his shoulder at three persons standing in the street, and gave them a reassuring nod before entering the house. A couple of them moved away then, a tall red-haired young man with his young bushy-haired girlfriend, his arm firmly on her shoulders, dragging her gently away to a nearby bench as she threw some last worried looks at Harry. But the third stayed, a young woman, her hair like fire around her face, staring determinately at the house, her arms crossed and her face settled. For a moment, Petunia wished she would come in too, she wished she would stay, wishing she could apologize, wishing she could make it all up again, wishing she were back to her. But when the girl moved reluctantly towards the boy's calling, she was glad she did, too scared of her reaction if she hadn't, too scared of the image of Lily.

On her couch, he stammers, playing with the tea she just brought him, an act which seemed to surprise him into jolting from his seat. Now, he opens and closes his mouth in front of her, like a fish gapping for water in a dry desert, toppling with each uttered word.

"Well, I – er – came here because – hem. There are just some things, you know, that I was told – that I saw – during this last year. And I thought – I mean, I just had a feeling – that maybe you ought to know about it, I mean, somehow - ..." He sighs tiredly, a clear struggle stretched upon his face. He runs his fingers through his unravelled hair, rubs his tired eyes and looks up at her again, and starts over. He sums up here and now to her all that he lived, all that he witnessed during this last year, all that she knew not and all its 'why's and 'how's, all it's 'what's and 'when's. For a moment, he pauses, his mouth gaping at her lack of reaction. He thought she would have jerked up at his first word, she would have pushed him out of her house, she would have yelled at him at the very least. But here she sits on that tight couch, her pale eyes looking down on her pale face, avoiding his by all costs; here she sits in front of him, silent and attentive, drinking each of his words. He closes his mouth again, realising his ridiculous figure, gulps the bulge forming in his throat and continues with his story.

She thinks, she evades him for a few minutes, she looks at him absent-mindedly, she studies him, sees what he has become. A fine young man, she has to admit, his eyes so much like his mother's. She can't face him, she thinks, after all his been through, after all he is telling her, after all she herself put him through. Her life passes like a blur in front of her eyes, it runs and jumps and fumes with no pause, tilting and sweeping on a silent and bored tune. Until a name, a single lone name escapes his mouth, a name she knew and forgot, a name she loved and hated.

"Listen – I know, I know you knew him." He blurters out loudly as if trying to restrain her from moving, from denying it, from throwing him out. But she moves no more, she stares. Her eyes are wide and distant, every suppressed thought rising like raging volcanoes in her inner, rising and erupting in images and sounds, in scents and touches, evolving her in its commotion, taking over her whole trembling body.

But it slips, she knows, it slips again, like it had more than twenty years before, it slips and tilts at the tip of her nose.

Her nephew stares for a second, confused and ashamed. He continues with his story, he tells her all that he did not on those few white-lit nights, all that she guessed, all that she hoped secretly under her pillow, all that she thought of him. He tells her what he did, he tells her how he was, he tells the 'why's and 'how's, he tells her all and nothing.

She thinks, for a moment, that he might know. He might, by some strange turn of feat, know who he really was during those nights; know who she really was during those nights. But if he does, he does not show it. He keeps it at bay, letting only slip what she had guessed, letting only slip what that dark boy had felt for Lily, what he had endured for her. He understands that she had known him, he understands that she had seen him, at least because of her sister, he understands she knew some good of him, he ignores how much, he knows not how much she has ever missed him. He takes a deep breath again, cutting short his sentence, cutting short how that skinny and greasy boy had helped him, how he had contributed to the destruction of that Dark Lord he talked so much about, how he had been a secret hero. He runs a hand through his hair again, he rubs his eyes again, as if a heavy weight was heaving on his thin shoulders, and he breathes out.

"– He – he was killed. And he saved our lives."

It topples and crashes, and she cannot stop it. It topples off her face, off her eyebrows, nose and chin. It topples to the ground with no final stand. It topples, it crashes, it breaks. Into million pieces it's splattered across her clean wooden floor, endlessly it stood there, never to come whole again.

A terrible shiver runs through her whole body, shaking it violently and endlessly on her couch, washing over her like a cold avalanche. Her trembling hand jolts to her face, tries desperately to hide it, to keep it from view, to keep it away. She feels naked – naked as she never has been – she feels alone and naked. She feels whole for an imperceptible second, and then falls into nothingness, into darkness and reality, away from all that masquerade, falls into him.

She barely registers her nephew jerking up from his awkward seat, she does not see him running at her, stopping in his tracks, staring utterly confused at her face. She does not see he bend down trying to reprieve the fallen tea cup, trying with a wave of a wooden stick to put it back together, imagining for a wild second that it was the cause of her sorrow. But it will stay no more. He leaves it at once, startled again by a violent shaken sob of hers, and walks awkwardly to her pitiable figure. He kneels at her feet, rubbing her arm nervously, staring confused at her face, muttering comforting words in his utter misunderstanding, in his utter amazement.

He uncovered her and she knows it. She knows that that hard mask she wore for all those long years, for all her life, that hardened mask made of steel had imploded into nothingness, melted before her nephew's lost eyes, undone forever in the vast light atmosphere of the Earth, brought to pieces by him. That lonesome boy she had once met, that skinny and lost boy she had once talked to, with whom she spent so much long and blissful nights, hiding from the sun, covered by the moon's soft blanket. He had unlocked it, he had unlocked the fantasy she hid behind, he had unlocked it at once, after all those years, he had unlocked it and kept the key so she could lock it no more, wear it no more. He took it to the depths of the Earth, to the highest cloud, taking it with him until she would come and then, she would see, she would see she needed it no more, she would see the ghost of her mask hovering in the planet's crust, and she would step on it, crash it again against the hard ground, and would hear of it no more.

But she would not see him, she would not see him ever again, she thinks as she stares at her house's tea-stained floor. Her tired eyes tilt up at her nephew's, stare into their green depth, and she hugs him, for the first time in 18 years she takes him in her arms, letting the last sawdust slip away with her tears. He is surprised beyond belief and she knows it, he is stunned into place, kneeling there on the floor as she holds him tight against her. His mouth is gasping for air, his eyes wide and unmoving. Until, after some long moments, she feels his muscles relax under her touch, she feels his body lean closer to hers; she feels his now strong arms lace themselves awkwardly around her, brushing her back nervously.

"You know...I..." he stammers in her ear lost in his words, in his thoughts, in his discovery. She can still feel his amazement; can almost hear the wheels working in his skull, his thoughts racing trying desperately to find a reason for her acts, for her sudden act of gentleness. Maybe, she thinks, he still hasn't got it. He might think this was only due to her sister, to the sudden recall of her sister he brought to her, to the sudden vision of her, to the sudden remorse she might feel. But, whatever crosses his head at this moment, she cannot tell, and she bets, to her own inner self, that neither can he.

"I'm holding a funeral for him – and – er – well – hehem – you might... you can come if you want. Maybe, er, you could meet Ginny, I guess - ... – I guess I'd like you to meet her."

And she feels it, she senses it her voice. He knows, she thinks. He knows it fell and broke, he knows he found her; he knows she changed to what she was always supposed to be. Later, she would have to talk to Vernon, to Dudley. Later, she would have to meet Harry's friends, later she would have to apologize to them. Later, she would have to fix it all, later she would have to be honest with all of them. But now, her head burrowed on the shoulder of her nephew, of Lily's son, she thinks of nothing else. Maybe, she thinks,we can still be sisters after all.

Not swallowed in the sea.

A/N: So, there it goes, I'm done. I still think I am sort of insane, don't you? Anyhow – it ended with a happy ending, after all, I had not planned to... But please, REVIEW! I beg you.

Oh, and there's this weird thing I mentioned on the previous chapters, about a "traffic jam unlocking itself" Actually, originally, it was to be a metaphor and I was going to explain it on his chapter...but it did not fit, so... Basically, I just wanted to say that Petunia and Snape's meeting was only like two cars crossing each other on a red light.

"And the car seems to halt at her side again and lowers its window softly, making her lower her own by the same act. Because it was all it had been, or so she had convinced herself, nothing but a crossing car with lowering windows. All that winter, all that summer, was nothing more than a red light, nothing more than two cars halting one beside the other, when eyes meet and cross, avoided and reunited, and for a second, that person from across the door is the only important thing in the world. But then, the light turns green, and the cars move, each to its way, one right, one left, one straight forward, the traffic unlocks itself, and the other is forgotten, buried under lights and sounds."

Well, there it is. Thank you all for reading...

PLEASE REVIEW!!!