beholder_mod (beholder_mod) wrote in hp_beholder, @ 2011-05-18 13:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | beholder_2011, dudley dursley, dudley/piers, femslash, fic, original character, petunia dursley, petunia/ofc, piers polkiss, rating:pg |
FIC: "Souvenirs and Lost Luggage" for florahart
Recipient: florahart
Author: girl_tarte / tarteaucitron
Title: Souvenirs and Lost Luggage
Rating: PG
Pairings: Petunia Dursley/OFC (pre-slash), Dudley Dursley/Piers Polkiss (established)
Word Count: 5900
Warnings/Content Information (Highlight to View): *none*.
Summary: In 2003, Petunia leaves Little Whinging for good. It is four years before she can talk about it.
Author's Notes: copious thanks are due to louise_lux for helping me come up with the idea and think it through, to buckleberry for beta-ing carefully as usual and helping me to be more thoughtful, and to bethbethbeth for her extreme forbearance and encouragement in adverse times. <3
At seven months pregnant, Petunia had lost her footing climbing out of the bath and nearly fallen. She sat naked on the bathroom floor for 45 minutes until her bottom felt bruised and she shook from cold, one hand on the tight round of her belly, realising for the first time that what was in there was her child. Only when her heartbeat had finally slowed, and her sweat dried to a grubby skim, did she get to her feet and wrap herself in a dressing gown.
It's four oh six. Petunia has been woken by a strong cramp in her calf and now she is lying on her side staring at the red display of Vernon's new digital alarm clock. Four oh seven. She reaches down underneath her belly to try and pull the pillow into a better position, but the fluttering of her internal functions will not stop and she cannot keep still.
She has been awake long enough that she doesn't need to turn on the landing light to find her way to the stairs. The new curtains are double-lined, but still Privet Drive beams anaemically into her house. A grunt comes from the open bedroom door as she lowers herself off the top step. She stops for a moment; it's just her and the baby, breathing stealthily together so that he doesn't get up and follow them down to the kitchen.
A cup of tea has become a force of habit. When it is made, she sits at the kitchen table and props her feet on a chair, something she would not do during daylight hours. She's become an inhabitant of the night in the last few weeks: a person who sits in the dark and drinks tea. Sleep is becoming more and more elusive as labour gets closer, but at the same time Petunia's need for silence and privacy is growing.
She rubs slow circles on her stomach. Her entire body is colonised by this baby, her skin tight and full like an unpricked sausage, and she holds onto it greedily. A little girl, perhaps, the first of two sisters. Yes, a girl – she is sure of it. A short letter from Sheffield a month ago told her about a cousin, too, but Petunia is going to construct a new family out of herself and her own desires, and there won't be space in it for cousins. Petunia and her girls, with good strong names that are not flowers, girls who know real human languages and meet her in cafés to talk and drink tea.
In twenty minutes the stirring in her abdomen has ceased and Petunia dozes at the kitchen table. Outside, the car doors of Privet Drive are beginning to clunk, engines hacking into life.
There is a letter. Mr and Mrs V. Dursley. Mrs V. Dursley. So it can't be. Petunia's stampeding pulse slows. The baby grunts in its sleep, shifts, crumpling the paper against the side of the basket. Petunia bends down, pinches it between thumb and forefinger and draws it slowly free.
She reads the letter three times and then drops it to the floor. Her hands are shaking, and she says to herself 'It's cold' and shuts the door on the bundle outside. Her bare foot slides on the letter – Albus Dumbledore's regret – and she presses it into the carpet with her toes.
She stares at her reflection in the back of a spoon as she lets the water out of the plughole. Dark eyes glare back, then the reflection fogs and Petunia feels the burn of tears filling her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. Some awful physiological reflex trying to melt the frozen spike of her body into the shapes of grief. Well she won't have it.
When she brings the basket in and puts it on the floor at the foot of the sofa, the baby inside is trembling, its face is screwed up with some tremendous internal effort. There is a little wound on its forehead, which is beginning to leak blood from the stretch of its skin. Dried blood smears up into its hairline. Petunia runs a finger over the baby's sparse dark hair, and her hollow body fills up with a heat which feels nothing like love.
The baby settles a little in the warmth of the house, and slowly blinks awake, makes a noise like parrot.
"Petunia! Petunia, what's going on down there?"
Petunia allows it to stare at her from dark green eyes for no more than half a minute – "Petunia!" – before she pushes the basket under the coffee table with a foot and folds herself double, gasping into her knees.
She packs a week's worth of underwear, two dresses, a spare pair of shoes. When she has money, she will replace it all.
"Stupid woman, you've got nowhere to go."
"There are places. I'll – find Dudley."
She zips the bag, and Vernon snatches it from her. "You don't talk to that boy."
"He's my family. Haven't I given up enough?"
"This!" Vernon sits down hard on the bed; his finger stabs towards her. "This is about her. Isn't it? Your abomination of a sister!"
The jolt of rage that goes through Petunia almost makes her shout out. She breathes for a second through her teeth. "Oh, Vernon. Don't be such a fool. This is about me."
She grabs the bag and her coat and stamps down the stairs. Outside the living room she pauses and looks at the photos on the mantelpiece. There is room in her bag, but she doesn't want to take anything with her. The Dursleys will stay where they are, to grin out smugly at Vernon for as long as he can stand it.