Salt and Pepper Fest: One Last Time (Harry, Petunia, Dudley; PG)

[hpgoldenage_mod]

Title: One Last Time
Author: _hannelore
Characters/Pairings: Harry Potter, Petunia Dursley, Dudley Dursley
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~1400
Content/Warning(s): mentions of terminal illness/death of a parent(s)
Prompt: Harry kept in touch regularly with Dudley ever since the war, but was never able to reconcile with Petunia and Vernon. One day when he meets Dudley, Dudley tells him that Petunia is in her last days and would like to see Harry one last time.
A/N: Thank you for such a touching, inspirational prompt and to the mods for a great fest! The original prompt suggested that the tone could be bitter, reconciling or sad. I feel like I went with a bit of all three. Many grateful thanks to my beta, p.

The nurse was just leaving the house when Dudley and Harry arrived. While she and Dudley exchanged a few quiet words, Harry tried to gather his thoughts. He had known Aunt Petunia was sick, but Dudley hadn't told him that she had taken for a worse until now. Harry had not seen Aunt Petunia nor Uncle Vernon since they left Privet Drive.

"The door's open," Dudley said. "I'll wait out here."

"You're not coming in?" Harry said.

"She asked for you," Dudley said. "Dad's at work, don't worry."

His aunt and uncle had never returned to Privet Drive, not even after the war was over, so he stood in totally unfamiliar territory. On the drive over, Harry didn't even send word to the Ministry to say he wouldn't be in. He didn't expect this to take long.

As he shut the front door behind him, Harry foolishly realized he didn't know which bedroom was hers.

"Harry?"

He couldn't ever remember her using his name. He walked upstairs as if in a trance, hesitating in bedroom doorway.

The first thing Harry noticed was how sunken her eyes were. Not from sickness, but from age. In his mind's eye, she looked the same as she had when he was a teenager. To see her as an old woman, even though she still wore her pearls, couldn't quite register in his brain. Aunt Petunia frowned, the lines in her forehead furrowing even deeper. But then she chuckled. It was as almost as strange a sound coming from her as his own name.

"Dudley's got more hair left than you," she said. She lifted a withered hand and gestured at him. "My eyes are sharper than my ears, boy. Come closer so I can hear you."

Boy. Harry felt a shiver creep up his spine. He should have told Dudley no, but Dudley said she asked for Harry. This had been her wish after all, not his. He shuffled a little closer to her bedside, feeling like an awkward 11-year-old boy. Her hollow cheekbones frightened him a little; it made him wonder how he would feel to see his Mum or Dad like this. He wondered how it made Dudley feel.

"You have a family," Aunt Petunia said. Her creaky voice still had that edge to it, the scorn Harry remembered all too clearly. "I hear they're every bit like you."

"Just as terrible," Harry said. "I'm sure you thought I'd never amount to much. Hate to disappoint you though, I --"

"I know everything," she interrupted. Aunt Petunia gestured to a chair nearby. "Sit."

"Why?" Harry said. "To hear you insult me? Dudley said you wanted to see me, but if after all this time it's just to berate me --"

His voice trailed off as her eyes softened. She looked down at her hands, toying with the loose wedding band on her finger.

"I thought I'd give you the chance to apologize to me."

"Me?!" Harry said, incredulous. "What the hell did I do?"

"What did you do?" Aunt Petunia repeated, spitting out his own words. "You ruined my life! She ruined my life! Both of you had to be special, didn't you? My life invaded, my home invaded and then after all of that --"

She broke off with a fit of coughing, barely able to catch her breath. Harry waited until her breathing slowed down again.

"Voldemort invaded our lives," Harry said quietly. He sat down in the chair by her bedside. It was hard to peel away the layers of anger that she had slapped upon him, but perhaps for the first time he was truly hearing her. It was a topic Dudley had brought up before, but only after a few pints. Dudley didn't like to talk about the time they were forced from their home, even though he knew it had been for their safety.

"Without Voldemort," Harry continued, "you would have had your perfect life and maybe I'd have had mine."

"A fairy tale monster," Aunt Petunia said. Her hands trembled. "Lily thought magic was so powerful and yet one man was able to cause all of this."

"He was more than just a man," Harry said. "You know that. I never had a normal life because of him, but I guess none of us did. I've had many years to think things over. To make amends."

Aunt Petunia looked at him curiously, but said nothing.

"You saved my life," Harry said. "I was there when Dumbledore threatened you. But you could have thrown me out all the same. Even if you didn't want to, you protected me."

"I was the Muggle," she said, a slight break in her voice. "I was the one who didn't get to go to Hogwarts and yet he put me in the position of finishing what she'd started. The magic that saved you. Her sacrifice."

"Why didn't you ever tell me, Mum?"

Dudley was standing in the bedroom doorway. Harry wondered how long he'd been listening. Aunt Petunia looked up at the sound of Dudley's voice. She looked away, as if ashamed.

"You never explained any of that to me," Dudley said. "Harry told me. You kept me and Dad in the dark about everything that would have made any sense."

"I had my reasons," Aunt Petunia said softly. "I needed to protect my pride."

Harry nodded, feeling a lump in his throat. "I spent so many decades hating you and Uncle Vernon. That's why I never came around. Or maybe it was because I thought you both hated me. Now I can't even remember which is which anymore."

Aunt Petunia sighed. When he looked up at her, she touched his hand with her thin fingers.

"I thought the same thing," Aunt Petunia said. "Isn't that funny? All that time, wasted. But I didn't think I could bear it. I saw the pictures, your daughter --" her voice faltered. "-- I saw her grow up in Dudley's photo albums. I saw them all. I wanted your life to be terrible somehow. My anger was misplaced."

"As was mine," Harry said. He took her hand and held it.

"Dudley tried to help," Aunt Petunia said, her voice breaking. Dudley came to her side, resting his hand on her frail shoulder. She looked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes. "My lovely boy."

"Ginny tried too," Harry confessed. "She told me you were my blood relatives, that I had to make peace. But I didn't want to. Too many bad memories."

"Is it too late to love you?" Aunt Petunia said, her voice barely a whisper. "Harry?"

The tightness in Harry's chest was unbearable and he had to try not to grip her frail hand too tightly for fear of hurting her.

"I think I'm all out of hate," Harry said. "Giving love a try might not be so bad, Aunt Petunia."

She reached out and he put his head on her chest. He felt a sudden surge of compassion, as if a spell had been cast upon him. He felt her hand on the back of his head, stroking his hair gently as a mother might. He heard Dumbledore's voice in his head: "She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you." Harry wanted to cry, but the tears would not come.

"This is my house," Harry heard Aunt Petunia whisper. "Let's pretend it's the first time again. Let me look upon you with new eyes."

He sat up as she took his hands in hers.

"I still see the little boy in you, all swaddled up on the doorstep. Fast asleep without a care in the world. This time, I'll welcome you in."

As she spoke, Harry saw a different childhood. He saw himself and Dudley growing up as siblings, rough-housing as Albus and James used to do. He saw the Dursleys waving him off at the platform as he left for Hogwarts, a much younger Dudley rushing after the train and waving. He saw Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon in the church row along with Dudley as he married Ginny. Aunt Petunia cradling a newborn James in her arms at the hospital.

When he looked at Aunt Petunia, he could tell she was seeing it too. She looked at Dudley and then back again to Harry.

"My boys."

Comments

[enchanted-jae.livejournal.com]

What a lovely, melancholy story

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

Thanks! It was a perfectly melancholy prompt that spoke to me.