Petunia and the Little Monster

December, 1971

Severus felt wretched and he hated himself for feeling like that, because Lily's sister wasn't worth it. He had simply stated the truth: she was a spiteful, dull-looking, mean trollop whose jealousy burned so bright no one could ever miss it.

He'd called her a 'trollop' because he was sure that it was something bad, even though the actual meaning of the word eluded him. He just knew that it made his mother clench her fists in indignant anger whenever his father shouted it across the room.

Severus had even held back, he knew a word so bad that it made his mother storm off and disappear for a while. Sometimes hours, or if it had been an especially vicious fight, even days.

Severus wondered why she always came back. He wanted to think that it was because of him, but that felt almost like a lie. Was it because of his father?

Or was it because she had nowhere else to go but this dirty, little house ruled by a drunkard muggle?

Turning over, the mattress springs poked his ribs like a lecturing finger. Maybe he shouldn't have called Lily's sister a 'trollop' after all. But everything else he said was the truth. He really couldn't understand why his stomach churned in unease ever since he saw her crying.

He had never felt any regret, no matter what he had done to Lily's sister over the years. She deserved it for being so mean to Lily, for calling her a 'freak'.

But whatever he had done in all those years, hexed her clothes, hexed the ground she was walking on, even hexed herself, she had never once cried. She had glared and hurled biting insults and ran away when she thought herself in danger - but never once cried.

It had been a very strange picture, like two things that didn't belong together suddenly overlapping. Like a devil's snare suddenly sprouting exotic, fragrant flowers; it had looked wrong, almost grotesque.

But he saw it every time he closed his eyes. Lily's sister, standing in her pretty, perfect kitchen, looking at him out of her dishwater-grey eyes, a glittering trail of tears painted down her thin cheeks. They caught the muted light and then one gleaming drop hung on her sharp chin like a small diamond.

He hadn't waited for it to fall.

He hadn't done anything wrong. What did he care about Lily's bitter older sister anyway? She could stay in her empty house and cry her eyes out for all he cared. She had said much worse things to him over the years, things about ... his parents. His little outburst was nothing.

He still felt wretched though. Turning around on his narrow bed, the old linen smelling like moth balls, he closed his eyes, trying to banish the picture.

It would fade once he saw Lily again. He just had to wait until tomorrow.

And he refused to think about the reason he had been unable to see her today.

Her new Gryffindor friends ...

Lily's older sister was the one who should feel wretched. She had clearly been plotting something, the way she looked at him and talked all sweetly. He hadn't even known she was capable of doing anything but spit venom.

He hated her, and she hated him, he knew.

So why had she cried?

❀

That evening Petunia found herself in the little garden shed, a place she hadn't visited since she'd read that dreadful Fantastical Beasts book. Aspen welcomed her enthusiastically, prancing around her so much he was almost jumping, nipping at her hands and clothes and pressing his skeletal head into her chest on every circle. It seemed he had missed her.