Tuney

prologue

"Hey Mum, I'm sorry, but could you make this quick? I have to get to my kid's football match before four," says her son on the other line, her one and only son, sounding impatient and even annoyed.

"Are you so grown up that you're even too busy for your mumsy, Dudderkins?" she coos into the telephone, trying to mask her hurt feelings. Although, she should be used to these sorts of things by now.

"Muuuum," her son wails, and she thought she knew him but now he's gotten so distant that she can hardly even picture how he looks on the other line.

She hangs up. No use in bothering Dudley when his heart is obviously not into it.

t is just her now, for they are all gone-grown up and out of her reach, left her, abandoned her for someone, something, they must have thought better. Her mind goes backwards, and she recalls each one that left, from the most recent to the most distant.

five

Vernon died a few years back of some illness. Petunia can't remember the name of the disease, just that it made Vernon crankier and crankier until his soul finally let up and took him to a better place. She remembers him as the man he was when she first married him, being fine and practical and so reassuringly normal, but the things she found desirable then don't seem quite so desirable now. Not after everything, not now, exactly four years after his death, when everything's so lonely and she tries to imagine how things would have been if Vernon hadn't been so normal.

But it's sin to think ill of a dead man, so she pushes the silly thoughts about the other folk and tries to remember Vernon the way she thought of him when she married him at nineteen, Vernon who was going to love her instead of her sister, who was going to get her out of the home that had never loved her, at least not enough, who was going to be her way out.

four

She'd thought Dudley would never leave her, her one and only Dudderkins who was going to be her little baby boy forever, so she was shocked when all of a sudden Dudley was getting married and saying goodbye.

"I love you, Mom," he had said with a kiss on her cheek. "But it's time for me to leave the nest. We all leave the nest, don't we?"

She bawled about how much he had matured and how he would always be her baby, and he just stood there and kind of looked embarrassed. Petunia knew she was making a scene, but she was losing her baby; she deserved to at least make a scene.

Dudley now only comes visit for holidays; he has a successful job somewhere far away with his lovely wife and two little girls (she supposes the girls aren't too little anymore-they too have grown), and a third one, a boy, on the way.

three

She would never admit it, but it hurt when Harry left.

She was saying goodbye to the last part of Lily. She hated Harry, or so she told herself, but only because she loved Lily too much and it ended up hurting her.

Harry, with his Lily-green eyes and silly ideas and that stupid mop of hair. Harry who apparently was the hero of the Wizarding World. Harry who Dudley had been strong enough to reconcile with but she would never be strong enough to do the same.

In truth, she loves Harry too, although she would never admit it, so she does not shed a single tear when Harry somehow manages to find them after the Wizarding War or whatever is called is over, and he tells him that everything's fine. He brings along with him a redheaded girl that reminds her too much of Lily and a wedding invitation, which she declined.

She hadn't seen Harry since.

two

Clari chose Lily over her.

Just like everyone else.

Clari was something silly—a little orange cat—but when Lily was packing up to go to Hogwarts and wanted to take a cat with her, Petunia refused to let Clari go.

Clari was her cat too. Something she and Lily had always shared. Except it seemed impossible for them to share ever since the letter had come.

They squabbled, they insulted, they screamed. In the end it was decided that Clari would decide where to go. They put the cat in the middle and backed away, and beckoned for the cat to choose one of them.

Clari chose Lily over her.

Just like everyone else.

one

Lily left her.

Perfect, beautiful Lily, the pride and joy of the family, went off to be special, to learn things that made Petunia green with envy, and it seemed to Petunia that their parents completely forgot that she even existed. Petunia became someone made to pamper and serve Lily, not their daughter.

"Petunia, Lily's only around for the summers while you're here all year-you ought to let her watch the telly."

"Is it really that awful that Lily went to borrow the car for a single evening? She's just going out to the movies with some of her friends! Your sister deserves a life!"

Lily abandoned her, and Petunia never forgot about it. She shunned Lily, burned the letters that would undeniably be filled with gloating that Lily sent by owl (by owl, really!), and told her friends that Lily was a freak, and that she was at some freak school. And years afterwards, after Petunia had married Vernon and Lily had married that horrid James boy, Petunia learned that she was dead.

By then, Petunia had been getting tired of their game and had wanted to apologize. But Lily had left forever.

zero

It's one of those rare days that Harry has a day all to himself.

James and Albus, of course, are at Hogwarts, having fun no doubt. Lily's at the primary school, and Ginny is there too, to watch the Halloween parade. Harry's used one of his "sick days" to take a day off from work, because to him Halloween isn't just Halloween.

He's going to visit his parents' graves.

There are days where he goes with the entire extended family, Ron and Hermione and anyone else who could spare some time, to the gravesite to have a picnic and be happy, but today is not one of those days. Today, he is going to go alone. Just for a few days.

He leaves a note for Ginny, one telling her not to come follow, and leaves for Godric's Hollow.

He drops flowers on the grave and stays a while before approaching the house, the house where Voldemort killed them, when he hears a soft weeping.

He wonders who else could be there, who else could have known his parents so well to be weeping. Certainly not just a tourist, and Remus and Sirius are gone—dead—with their own graves not too far away. He turns the corner and soon sees the weeper.

It's his aunt, Petunia.

She's a Muggle, so certainly she can't even see the house, but still his aunt sits there on her knees, sobbing. So different from the emotionless figure Harry always thought of his aunt to be as a child. Her aunt sits there, quiet tears leaking out of her eyes, and, not noticing anyone is watching, she mops her eyes and whispers, "I loved you, Lily, I loved you."

Harry is about to make his presence known when he decides against it. There is something not to be disturbed about his aunt's tragic tale, something too personal that he somehow knows he shouldn't be infringing on, so he simply turns around and leaves, Petunia never having seen him.

negative one

Thanksgiving comes, and with it an invitation.

It's from Harry, of all people, inviting her to come to eat Thanksgiving dinner with him and the Weasleys. She is about to reject, as she always does, for she cannot let any sign of weakness show when he is watching, but her four years of loneliness have taken its toll on her.

She must be crazy, absolutely crazy, but she says yes and comes.

She goes, and it's the craziest thing she's never seen, with all these redheads and flying dishes and the most delicious food she's had in a long time. Everyone's surprisingly kind to her, and when they call her a Muggle it's not condescending or with contempt or as if they're blocking her out. It's just a fact to them, like how someone may be African American or Asian, and it doesn't make any difference to them.

So she tries to be polite too, and she answers all the questions about how a "tell-you-vision" works to the man who introduces himself as Arthur Weasley and seems very interested, and compliments the oldest Mrs. Weasley ("Oh, just call me Molly.") on the delicious food. And she can't help but to feel ashamed as how she mistreated all these people for such a long time.

The dinner is over and now everyone huddles into the family room, all of them somehow fitting in, and the thin warbling voice of a female singer blares from the speakers while everyone else mingles and speaks of old times. It's nothing like the Thanksgiving celebrations she's usually been to, where the men all go into one room to watch the television, and the women all go into the other room to gossip about local news, and the children stay upstairs and calmly play.

Here, bottles of what they call firewhisky are passed around, the children run amok, couples sneak off to do who-know's-what, and it's just chaos, but the good sort of chaos, because these people are just so familiar with each other and everyone is having a good time.

She is feeling a little out of her element, that ever-present loneliness still nagging at her. For the longest time she blamed others for her loneliness, but now she knows that it's her that drove everyone away. Yet everyone is so nice to her. She doesn't deserve it, and she feels awful because she doesn't deserve it, and she shouldn't have accepted that invitation. She should've just left. Kind as they all are, she doesn't belong with them. She never was good enough. Never would be.

She is about to just quietly slip away and leave when little girl approaches her, Harry's one and only daughter, a tiny redheaded wisp of a thing that pulls on her sleeve.

"I'm Lily," she says. "Who are you?"

And she hesitates. To most the reaction would be immediate and obvious—offer a hand, shake and introduce. But Petunia sees Lily, her sister, upon this Lily, her grandniece, and hears a voice in her head. This is your last chance. Your last chance to reconcile.

It may be the most difficult choice she's ever made in her life. But shyly she holds out a hand.

"I'm your Aunt Tuney."

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated. I would like some feedback on whether or not this is canon because I haven't read the books in a while, and also how you think I could add more details to certain parts. And of course, whether you liked it or not.

Thanks for reading!