Stay - Mattheo Riddle

Familiar Eyes

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were both looking at Harry and Kirra suspiciously, so they decided they'd better skip dessert and escape from the table as soon as they could. Outside in the hall, they leaned against the wall, breathing deeply.

"You okay Harry?" Kirra whispered to her brother softly, she hesitated before reaching over and grabbing onto his hand. He looked over at her with a small smile, "Yeah I'll be alright, the sooner she is gone the better, I don't know how much more of this I can take"

"It's alright Harry, just try not to lose control," Kirra told him softly and he nodded his head. It had been a long time since he'd lost control and made something explode. He couldn't afford to let it happen again. The Hogsmeade form wasn't the only thing at stake — if he carried on like that, he'd be in trouble with the Ministry of Magic. They heard the Dursleys leaving the table and hurried upstairs out of the way. 

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Kirra got through the next three days by forcing herself to think about how once she got through this, she would finally be able to see all of her friends again. This worked quite well, though it seemed to give him a glazed look, because Aunt Marge started voicing the opinion that she was mentally subnormal. 

 At last, at long last, the final evening of Marge's stay arrived. Aunt Petunia cooked a fancy dinner and Uncle Vernon uncorked several bottles of wine. They got all the way through the soup and the salmon without a single mention of Kirra or Harry's faults; during the lemon meringue pie, Uncle Vernon bored them a with a long talk about Grunnings, his drill-making company; then Aunt Petunia made coffee and Uncle Vernon brought out a bottle of brandy. 

"Can I tempt you, Marge?" Aunt Marge had already had quite a lot of wine. Her huge face was very red. "Just a small one, then," she chuckled. "A bit more than that... and a bit more... that's the ticket."

"Aah," said Aunt Marge, smacking her lips and putting the empty brandy glass back down. "Excellent nosh, Petunia. It's normally just a fry-up for me of an evening, with twelve dogs to  look after..." 

She burped richly and patted her great tweed stomach. "Pardon me. But I do like to see a healthy-sized boy," she went on, winking at Dudley. 

"You'll be a proper-sized man, Dudders, like your father. Yes, I'll have a spot more brandy, Vernon..." 

"Now, these two here —" She jerked her head at Harry and Kirra, who felt their stomachs clench.

 Mattheo Riddle and his beautiful goddamn eyes... she thought quickly. 

"This one's got a mean, runty look about him and she's the most runty i've ever seen, look how tiny she is. You get that with dogs. I had Colonel Fubsterdrown one last year. Ratty little thing it was. Weak. Underbred." 

Kirra thought about the way it felt when Mattheo would wrap his arm around her waist randomly, when they were sitting next to each other or walking down the corridor. 

"It all comes down to blood, as I was saying the other day. Bad blood will out. Now, I'm saying nothing against your family, Petunia" — she patted Aunt Petunia's bony hand with her shovellike one "but your sister was a bad egg. They turn up in the best families. Then she ran off with a wastrel and here's the result right in front of us."

Kirra was staring at her plate, a funny ringing in her ears. You know better than this, don't lash out Kirra, control your anger, control your anger, she reminded herself. But she was only getting more and more worked up as the seconds passed. Aunt Marge's voice seemed to be boring into her like one of Uncle Vernon's drills.