Petunia and the Little Monster

August 1972

Dead, glassy eyes stared at her from the lump on the forest floor, soft brown feathers rustling in an evening breeze. The chicken's neck hung at an awkward angle, leaving its head almost upside down.

The longer she stared at those small, unseeing eyes, the colder Petunia's neck got.

"Aspen ... where did you get this?"

His ears twitched at her tone and his wings tightened against his flanks. That probably wasn't the praise he expected for bringing his biggest bird yet, but Petunia's worries overrode her tact.

"I know you didn't catch this in the air. This is a farm animal. I told you - no owls, no chickens or ducks!"

Aspen snorted and nudged the dead chicken closer to her. A fluffy feather tickled his slit-like nostril and he sneezed.

Usually Petunia would have smiled but right now her face was pale and drawn. "Farmer Wilson will probably think it was a cat or fox, but it's not safe to get that close to other humans. I can't be the only one with a dead relative in all of Cokesworth and someone might be able to see you and then ..."

... and then the wizards would come and take you away from me. And put me in wizard prison.

Whenever Petunia took Aspen flying, she would only do so at night, above the empty fields, never close to town or during daylight. Because even if most people were unable to see Aspen, she would still very much be visible. And some small part of her, the part that realised that 'muggle' wasn't a nice word, the part that warned her every time before the wicked boy had cursed her in the past, was sounding the alarm even before she had heard Lily talk about this Ministry.

She could never be found out - Aspen could never be found out. Which was why he couldn't start targeting livestock. The magical folk might look down on normal people, but Petunia knew better. No matter how clever and magical Aspen was, his leg would get caught in a 'muggle' trap just as surely as any fox'.

Just picturing it made something sharp and nasty wash up her throat. The dead chicken at her feet morphed from an innocent lump of soft feathers into something ominous and frightening.

Petunia's voice was different, more fragile, when she spoke again. "Don't go to the farm again ..."

"What are you doing?"

Petunia froze.

"Is that a dead chicken?"

Petunia's pale blue eyes met black ones at the other side of the clearing. The wretched boy was standing in the trees' shadow, his grey and washed out clothes almost melting with them, his hair as stringy and long as always. His pale face was haggard and she could read the distaste in the furrows around his lips.

Aspen was standing right next to her. Petunia's heartbeat was throbbing in her ears. Would the boy see him?

But Severus continued to focus on the chicken, eyes switching between her face and the ground.

He can't see Aspen, Petunia realised and was almost swept away by her giddy relief.

She didn't trust Severus. He was the lovestruck fool with a vicious streak that followed after her little sister and he hated her. If there was something he could hold over her head, something that he could use to hurt her as 'revenge' for her presumed misdeeds against angelic Lily, he would no doubt do it. So he could never know about Aspen.

She had waited too long to answer him and the wretched boy came over, avoiding the sun-soaked grass in the middle of the clearing by sticking to its dark edges. As if he was afraid what the bright light would reveal.

"Did you kill it?"

Petunia didn't look at the dead bird. "No, I found it."

His black eyes narrowed. He had stopped close enough that Petunia could just make out her own pale face reflected in them. "I don't believe you."

She tried to mask her nerves with exasperation. "Why bother asking, then?"

"I wanted to know if you would lie."

Annoying git.

His eyes were drawn to the chicken again. "A waste."

Petunia opened her mouth to snipe back, when his words registered. A waste? Of what? Life? Food?

Petunia tried her best to not notice his sunken cheeks and bony hands. She knew as well as anyone in town did that his family was poor - wretched poor - but she didn't know if it was to the point of starvation. Didn't his father have a job at the local incineration yard? Did he waste all his salary on booze so that there wasn't much left for food?

Or was she reading too much into the boy's casual remark?

"Who were you talking to?"

Petunia's heart skipped a beat in panic, all thoughts about his family situation forgotten.

His eyes were like two splinters of frozen ink, unmoving and cold, their sharp edges cutting at Petunia's composure.

"Myself." Her voice didn't sound as steady as she would have liked.

Severus surveyed the shadows all around them, his gaze ghosting over Aspen without seeing him. What was he looking for? "Lie."

"What do you care, Severus?" Petunia exploded, masking her fear with fury. "Go back to simpering around Lily and leave me alone!"

His eyebrows twitched down but before the expression had time to form, he had already whirled around, hiding it. His steps were bigger as he stalked off, still sticking to the tree line, his narrow shoulders stiff - and then he disappeared between two oaks, as quietly and quickly as he had shown up.

Something ticklish touched her foot and Petunia looked down to see Aspen roll the chicken closer again. Petunia huffed in annoyance, but didn't kick it away. "Eat it, at least. Then it won't be a waste."

A waste ... was the wretched boy really starving? Or was he simply looking gaunt because his growth spurt was stretching him?

Petunia found herself glancing at the place he disappeared. Why had he been here in the first place? The wretched boy never - never - talked to her without motive. He always either wanted to humiliate and ridicule Petunia or defend Lily.

But this time had been ... strange. There'd been neither insults for her nor praises for Lily.

It didn't sit right with her, as if it was a small fishbone lodged in her throat, that didn't loosen no matter how often she swallowed. And no matter how often she thought about the emotion that had shortly flashed across his face before he was gone, the more she couldn't figure it out.

Because if Petunia didn't know better, she would almost think that it had been ... a hurt scowl.