Fic: Because It Is My Heart
Title: Because It Is My Heart
Characters: Petunia/Alice, Lily, Mum, Dad, Dudley
Word count: 4600
Rating: PG-13 for adult situations
Contains: *Sadness; non-explicit descriptions of impregnation; characters acting in an abusive way*
Summary: Much to Petunia's surprise, not all witches are like Lily.
Author’s note: Written for
woldy's informal HP femslash exchange. For the fabulous
miss_morland with all of my warmest year-end wishes, a ficlet responding to the prompt Petunia/canon witch of your choice, bitterness.
The summer Petunia turns sixteen, Lily comes home even more superior than usual, taking about witches and wizards until Petunia could cry with boredom. She keeps her magic stick and her stupid pot on her desk and her school uniform draped over the chair in the bedroom, so that Petunia has to look at them, every single day.
"Aren’t you supposed to hide?" Petunia asks crossly after a week of Hogwarts and spells and feasts and Alice and OWLs and Gryffindor, Gryffindor, Gryffindor. She and Lily are both sprawled on their beds reading in the fading light after dinner. Lily has her nose in something that looks suspiciously like a textbook, and she hasn't paid any attention to Petunia in hours. "I could write to the Ministry and tell them you’re not keeping your things secret from normal people."
"I don’t have to hide from my own family," Lily says.
"Everything’s visible from the window."
Lily laughs. "We’re on the first floor! No one is going to see my things from out there, silly."
It's on the tip of Petunia’s tongue to say that that awful boy is out there almost every day, especially after dusk, when Lily changes into her nightie right in front of the window, hasn’t she noticed? But then Lily might say something to Mum and Dad, and Petunia would get in trouble, and she wouldn’t have the satisfaction of knowing that Lily’s creepy little wizard friend was spying on her, and so she keeps her mouth shut.
Wizards aren't as wonderful as Lily makes them out to be. Somehow no one seems to notice this except Petunia.
*
For the first time this summer, Mum and Dad have given Lily permission to ask a friend to visit. Petunia thinks this is unfair, since none of her friends come to stay. ("But, sweetie," Mum says. "You can see your friends every day.") At first Petunia is convinced she's going to hate this witch called Alice who comes up in Lily's stories so often, just like she hates everything in Lily’s silly, make-believe world. Alice shows up on a late Sunday afternoon, all sooty from their fireplace, and Mum and Dad fall over themselves just saying hello. Petunia sets the table for dinner silently while everyone else opens Alice's gifts in the living room. At least she's wearing proper clothes and not a costume like the one Lily has upstairs. Petunia wonders if her Mum sent them along.
At dinner, Lily can’t stop talking about Alice and her family and her magic and the invisible house they have near Regent Street in London. "Alice’s family have been in Gryffindor since anyone can remember," Lily says excitedly. "Her grandmum’s name is carved on my bedpost, in our room."
Petunia imagines Alice’s grandmum’s name carved into the skin of Lily’s knobbly, freckly forearm, and that makes her feel a bit better. Lily would like that, Petunia thinks.
"I didn’t realize that was how the houses worked," Mum says. "I thought the Sorting Hat decided, not your family."
"Sometimes, the family is what decides," Alice says. "I always hoped I’d be in Slytherin, actually. I like having my way."
Petunia, who hasn’t been listening very carefully up until this point, warms up to Alice immediately. Lily has never once said anything nice about Slytherin.
"What house would you have been in, Henry?” Mum asks. "Ravenclaw? You were always so studious."
Dad smiles. "Perhaps. What about you, Tuney?"
"What are the houses?" Petunia asks, feigning confusion. "I don’t remember which is which."
"Ravenclaws are swots, Slytherins are sneaky, and Hufflepuffs are loose," Lily says. "Gryffindor is the best."
"Lily," Mum says in a warning voice. "That's not nice."
"I suppose I'd be in Slytherin, then," Petunia says. "I'm so sneaky you don’t even know what's most interesting about me yet."
Alice smiles at her from across the table, and before she can help it, Petunia finds herself smiling back.
"What would you like to do while you are here with the Muggles, Alice?" Mum asks.
Petunia doesn't know what she had expected Alice to say, but she's surprised by the passion with which Alice speaks. "I'd love to go to Manchester," Alice says. "I've never been to a Muggle city before. And my mum says the cinema is brilliant. She gave me Galleons so we could go." Oddly, Alice is looking at Petunia, not at Lily. In fact, Lily is leaning in toward Petunia, trying to catch Alice’s attention, so eager that she hasn't noticed her hair is dangling in her potatoes.
"Petunia loves the cinema," Mum says fondly. "Lily, watch your hair. You’d like to take her, wouldn't you, Tuney?"
Much to her own surprise, Petunia would.
*
The summer she turns sixteen, the summer Alice comes to visit, Petunia falls in love. It happens so gradually she hardly notices it: a few trips to the cinema, a visit to the department stores and a tea shop in Manchester, an afternoon teaching Alice to ride Lily’s half-forgotten bike, when Alice falls over and looks so silly that Petunia starts to laugh and can’t stop. Alice laughs with her. She hasn’t fallen since she first learned to ride a broom when she was six, Alice says. Petunia replies very seriously that it takes enormous talent to ride a bike, and not everyone is born with it. She herself got a letter when she was eleven, saying that her parents would buy her a bike for Christmas, and she alone would be able to ride it. Alice laughs some more, and Petunia catches herself laughing too, at her own silliness.
Alice is nothing at all like the girl Petunia had expected. She adores Muggle music and riding on buses and shopping at the supermarket. Nothing is beneath her. Perhaps because her mum is a doctor in that other world, the chemist fascinates Alice, so much that sometimes they go for an hour or two, even when there’s nothing they need to buy, because Alice wants to look at the medicines and check their prices and skim the magazines that are sold outside. Lily is a bit bored with them both, and Petunia is glad to have Alice all to herself. Alice asks all about her life, her school, her friends, the things she does on the weekend, the eager bloke in her year who fancies himself her boyfriend. Alice is not very pretty, at least not the way Lily is--she’s a bit overweight, with a round face and short, coarse hair and a bump on her chin that Petunia secretly thinks of as the hogwart. But she’s very bright and quick to learn, and she’s absolutely fearless, and she likes Petunia, and that’s enough. Actually, that’s more than Petunia has ever imagined. Alice always makes Petunia feel as if something wonderful is about to happen to her, and it's a new and heady state of affairs.
Two days before Alice’s return to London, that creepy boy stops by after dinner to talk to Lily, and Alice and Petunia decide to listen to records in the bedroom. Shortly after they’ve started the record and settled in on Petunia’s bed, Alice leans in and kisses her.
Petunia, who’s half expected this, leans in and kisses Alice back. After a few minutes, Alice unbuttons Petunia’s shirt and fumbles with her bra. Petunia pulls away for a moment to unfasten it herself.
"Ha!" Alice says, delighted. "I thought so!"
"Sorry?"
"I'm so much better than Vernon," she crows. Petunia shudders, pulls her bra off, and drops it on the floor. There's no comparison.
"You're so full of yourself," Petunia says, batting Alice’s hand away from the waist of her skirt, but what she really means is “I love you, silly,” and she thinks Alice knows that, too.
*
They fall into an easy pattern of daily conversations and weekends together and, every once in a while, a blissful, lazy holiday all to themselves. Alice even begins to talk about children. Petunia, who still doesn't fancy Vernon enough to spend more than an hour or two with him, hopes that Alice doesn't imagine him as the lucky man.
In the six years they are together, Alice and Petunia have only one lover's quarrel, the autumn that Petunia goes to school to learn to be a secretary and Lily writes home to say that both she and Alice are engaged. It's not a surprise--they've talked about Frank as the best of several bad options--but Petunia does not appreciate being informed by Lily. She writes Alice a letter--a single line: Why didn't you tell me?--and then fumes for days. She and Alice only ever correspond via a post box in Glasgow, where someone from Alice’s world takes Muggle letters and sends them along to Hogwarts, and it can take ages to get a response. When she finally writes back, Alice is uncharacteristically repentant.
Petunia, I thought you understood. Nothing will change between us. Please write back. I can’t stand to think you’re angry. Al
Even after she receives the letter, Petunia is rather cross. Alice rarely apologizes for anything, but Petunia feels that deciding to marry is a decision Alice should have discussed with her first, and she really ought to say she’s sorry for not having done so. Petunia hides the letter under floorboard in her bedroom and waits for the next. It arrives the following day in the afternoon post.
I should have told you first. Please write back. Petunia hides that one, as well. She has a typing exam tomorrow, after all. She has better things to do than work on personal correspondence.
The third arrives via one of those ridiculous owls and is even shorter: I'm sorry.
Petunia prepares a message on a crisp sheet of business stationary the next day. I can't even talk to you now. How will we keep in touch when you're married? P. The Olivetti pings as she pounds its keys.
Alice arrives at her house two days later, on a Saturday morning while Petunia is making coffee. She holds the handset of a black telephone, its severed cord trailing.
"What's that?" Petunia asks, holding the door half open, so Alice knows she is not welcome inside.
Alice offers her the handset. "It's a telephone, right? Lily charmed it so that you can talk to me. I have another one." She pulls a similar handset out of the pocket of her wool jacket. Its cord has been severed, as well. "Hold it up to your ear," she says. "I'll be back in a moment." Alice disappears behind the garden gate.
Petunia frowns and looks down the street, but no one is about. She holds the telephone to her ear and hears a fuzzy static and then "PETUNIA!" Petunia jumps.
"Quiet," she says. "You don't have to speak so loudly."
"Oh," Alice says.
"Just use your regular voice."
"Right," Alice says. "I'm sorry, Petunia."
"I know," Petunia says.
"This spell won't work at school, but I'll have it with me all the time, afterward. I'll put it on my desk, at work."
"I don't want you to marry Frank," Petunia says. Somehow it's easier to say this to a broken phone than it is to Alice.
"I know, Alice says. "I need to leave now. McGonagall thinks I'm in--
Alice slips out from behind the garden gate and returns to the front door. "Hogsmeade," she says in her regular voice. Petunia lowers her handset.
Alice hugs her and then disappears.
When Petunia returns to the kitchen, Mum is there, yawning and fixing a coffee. "Did you have a fight with Vernon, dear?" she asks. Then: "What's that? Is that our telephone?"
"Nothing, Mum," Petunia says, but it warms her heart, to have this bit of Alice with her.
*
When Petunia is twenty-two, Alice decides they should have children. "I’ve found a spell," she announces one day in that matter-of-fact way she has. "We're going to have a baby, you and I."
This sounds ridiculous, but Petunia has grown used to Alice doing odd magical things, and it doesn’t bother her as much as it bothers her when Lily does.
"We can't have a baby, silly," she says. "What are you talking about?"
Alice shows her the potion the next weekend. They lock themselves in Petunia's bedroom after Mum and Dad have gone to bed and lie on Lily's old bed, because the Olivetti is on hers. The book Alice holds is huge and musty and ancient, and the spell itself goes on for seven pages, in tiny, crabbed writing. Petunia peers at it curiously. It calls for all sorts of animals parts, as well as a chunk of the beloved's flesh. Petunia finds magic rather disgusting.
"You do want a baby, don't you?" Alice asks when they finish reading the spell and Petunia begins to kiss her neck.
"Of course," Petunia says, because doesn't everyone? She's not convinced that this will work, in any case. Alice has odd ideas at times.
But the next weekend Alice returns with a bag of jars and phials and a giant copper pot and begins to spread her things out on the bedroom floor.
"I've asked a friend, and he thinks we should take a nick off our heels," Alice says. "That's where it will hurt the least. Something the size of a pea should do."
"I'm not sure this is a good idea, Alice," Petunia says. The thought of frog skin and snails and the fur of a dog's tail sounds profoundly wrong to her. "What do we do, just stick it in there?"
"Exactly," Alice says as she adds more ingredients to the pot. "Actually, I think we should stick in both of us, in case it doesn't work for one. Come here, I need your skin."
Petunia feels ridiculous, lying on her bed with her legs in the air and her heel bleeding despite the plaster and Alice poking a long pipette inside of her, but she doesn't complain, and afterward she does the same thing to Alice. They have sex in Petunia's bed when they finish. It seems like the thing to do. It's considerably less enjoyable than usual. Perhaps, Petunia thinks, it's down to the fact that she can't get the snails out of her mind.
"That was very Dark magic," Alice says when they are done and lying side-by-side on Petunia's narrow bed. "The kind of thing that can get me sent to Azkaban."
"Is that bad?" Petunia asks absently. She feels warm and sleepy.
Alice turns on her side and looks at her. "Have you had sex with Vernon yet?" she asks.
Petunia shudders. "No." Vernon’s attentions are flattering, but as a person he is awful, sweaty and pompous. Sex with him sounds unpleasant.
"Do it soon," Alice says. "You don’t want him asking any questions."
Petunia’s stomach lurches with fear and excitement and shock and uncertainty. She’s having a baby. This is unbelievable. Alice’s baby. In--seven, eight, nine--in late July of the next year. Mum and Dad will be so excited. Lily will be excited. Petunia herself is excited. Vernon will ask her to marry him. That might not be so bad; she’s tired of being a secretary, anyway. She thinks that this might be the way Lily felt, when her letter from Hogwarts arrived. Everything is about to change.
*
For almost two years, Petunia is as happy as she has even been. She and Vernon marry, and Mum and Dad plan a wedding that's every bit as lovely as Lily's. Alice tells her about the war in the wizarding world, but it seems distant. Dudley is born, then Neville, then Harry, all within a week. Vernon finds a job in London, and Mum visits for a month to help her set up the new house. Alice gives her an enchanted rose bush that will bloom for as long as they are alive and in love. It's the most ridiculously romantic thing she has ever done, and Petunia can't bring herself to do anything but grumble about what the neighbors will say, when the roses are still alive in January.
"You can just say thank you," Alice says, laughing.
"Hmph," Petunia says.
*
When Petunia is twenty-four and the garden is finally blooming properly--all of it, not just the roses--and Dudley is learning to walk, Alice disappears. Not a word. Not a call on their telephones, not one of those ridiculous owls. At first Petunia is worried, then after a week, she is frightened, then after ten days, she is angry. She wishes she had subscribed to that magical newspaper Alice had always talked about, so that she knew something, anything, about Alice's world.
Swallowing her pride, she writes to Alice and Frank’s house via the post box in Glasgow. It is a stiff, distant letter inquiring after an old friend, in case someone else happens to read it. No one replies.
In Petunia's front garden, the rose bush thrives. Petunia checks it daily.
In a panic, she writes to Lily. Lily replies with a letter that sounds even more frantic than Petunia's. She could be dead, Lily writes. I don't know. Someone is killed every day. James and I are at a friend's in Northumberland. Next week we're going to a safe house and won't be able to receive letters. I don’t know if we'll survive this war, Petunia. I'm so afraid. I need to talk to Mum. I think someone can arrange for us to fire-call next week.
Lily's call never comes; Harry arrives on her doorstep instead. Petunia hates him with a passion she can't quite explain.
She has awful thoughts about Alice. She wonders if Alice had ever really loved her. She wonders if Alice had tricked her, with that silly potion. How would she know, after all? She wonders if Frank has somehow convinced Alice to cut off all ties to the Muggle world, if they are living together happily and magically wherever those kinds of people lived.
On Dudley's fourth birthday, Petunia throws the broken telephone into the rubbish bin at the neighborhood park, while she watches Dudley play with his friends. No more magic, she says to herself. Never again.
*
Petunia only cries once, years later, shortly after Dudley returns from university for the first time. She is sorting through the post on a sunny Saturday morning in June when sees a letter from Lily’s son addressed to Dudley.
Her heart stops when she sees the name on the envelope. She finds an knife and opens the letter. It's a wedding invitation. Her mouth tastes bitter.
Dudley sleeps past noon on weekends, so Petunia has hours to get angrier and angrier. When he finally enters the kitchen, yawning and bleary, she thrusts the letter in his face.
"What?" he says blankly, catching her hand and pushing her away. "Oh, he's marrying that girl Ginny. I thought he might."
"You're not going, are you?" Petunia asks.
"Might do," Dudley says, helping himself to a sip of her coffee.
"Don't go," Petunia says, and suddenly she finds herself holding Dudley by the shoulders and shaking him, hard, the way she used to shake Harry when he was small. Dudley is too large, though. She can't move him. Out of sheer frustration, she sits down on the kitchen floor, her head in her hands, a sob welling up.
"Why do you hate him so much, Mum?" Dudley asks. "He’s not so bad."
Petunia scrambles to her feet and races to the bathroom, where she locks herself in and turns on the bathwater before the tears begin to flow.
*
Two days before Christmas, when she is forty-six years old, Petunia sees Alice again.
Petunia is at Tesco on a bleak, rainy December afternoon, shopping for the holiday dinner with less enthusiasm than usual, since this is the first time Dudley has not come home for the holidays for a visit. The store is crowded and understocked, and the lamb is overpriced, and she can feel her irritation building up as she prods a batch of rubbery cucumbers.
Alice is standing there next to her, staring at the lettuces. After a moment, she notices Petunia watching her.
"Sainsbury's has a sale," Alice says, by way of explanation. "I wonder if I have time to go there, too?"
Petunia touches her wrist. "It's Petunia," she says. Her mouth is so dry she can hardly speak. "Petunia. Are you--"
"I'm Alice," the woman says with a quizzical glance. She clearly does not recognize Petunia, but never mind, it’s been twenty years; they both look older. Alice is rounder than ever, and she no longer has that bump on her chin. She looks softer than she had been at twenty-two, more calm.
Petunia glances about. "We can’t speak here, I know," she says. "But there's a cafe down the street that's always empty around now. Would you--"
Alice beams. "I’d love to. Thanks."
They purchase their groceries and walk to the cafe where Petunia sometimes reads magazines in the afternoon. The cafe owner, a sullen woman whose television is always on a bit too loudly, serves them coffee and a slice of cake.
When the owner retreats behind the counter, the words begin to flow. About Dudley, about her mum, about the rose bush in the garden. How she misses Lily. How she wants a job. How she might look for something in IT. How she still thinks about the times they spent together, the broken telephones, the bike, the time they took the bus into Manchester. Petunia is more animated than she’s been for years, she can feel it. She is flushed and excited and alive, and she can't stop talking. Only when she realizes that Alice is staring at her in confusion does she stop.
"I’m so sorry!" Alice says, flustered. "I misunderstood. I think we’re not--"
Petunia freezes, a sour, cold feeling spreading in her stomach.
"Pardon?"
"My name is Alice," the woman says. "But I don't think I'm the person you knew. I-- I've never been to Manchester."
Petunia feels as if the world is falling apart. "Why did you come here, then?" she snaps.
"I thought you were asking me on a date," the woman says. She flushes a deep, unflattering red. "I'm so sorry. I've been single for so long, and I was so flattered that you would-- I’m so, so sorry. Here, please, I’ll pay--" She fumbles in her bag for her wallet and begins tossing coins and bills on the table, far more than they need.
It seems ridiculous that there might be another woman named Alice, who also looks like Alice, who just happens to stand next to Petunia in the vegetable section at Tesco twenty years after Petunia decided she would never think about Alice again. But then again, Alice had always said that sometimes wizards didn’t understand things in the Muggle world, and sometimes Muggles couldn’t explain magic. Was this magic in her life again at last? Petunia wants to believe. Any sign that there was something else out there, apart from rubbery cucumbers and waiting in queues and another dull holiday at home with Vernon.
At this moment, Petunia remembers Alice more vividly than she has in years--Alice, who made her feel as if good things could happen to her, too. In fact, she can almost hear Alice hissing at her: Don’t be stupid, Petunia! This could be magic! This is your chance!
"Please," she says. Petunia never asks anything of anyone, and this may be the hardest sentence she has ever spoken. "Please don’t go."
The woman who is not Alice sinks back into her chair.
"I had a friend once, many years ago," Petunia says slowly, and to her surprise, her cheeks are wet and her voice is shaking. "A girlfriend, Alice. Who left me without a word, and I never knew what happened to her. And I have a dreadful husband, and my son isn’t coming home for the holidays, and I miss her so much and--"
Petunia breaks off, because the tears are coming so quickly now she can’t see, and there’s a sob building in her throat that makes speaking difficult.
"I think I would like this to be a date," she said, dabbing at her eyes with a dirty napkin from the table. "This isn’t the best way to introduce myself, I’m sorry. I haven’t cried in years. I don’t know--"
Now she is sobbing.
"There, there," says the woman who is not Alice, patting her hand. "You can cry."
She cries uncontrollably. The woman who is not Alice reaches out and holds her hand in a comforting way, saying "now, now," every once in a while, and murmuring softly about her own breakup with her girlfriend going on six years ago, and how sad she was when it happened, and how her sister hadn’t approved and was just awful about the whole thing. She keeps talking quietly and calmly, as if everything were all right, until Petunia's sobs die down and the cafe owner brings them a tea towel, which Petunia uses to wipe her face and blow her nose.
"Are you all right now?" the woman who is not Alice asks. She is gentler than Alice and less bossy, and perhaps that’s not a bad thing, because Petunia knows she needs to act. If she doesn’t say anything, she’ll never see this woman again.
"If I were to ask you on a date," Petunia says, "Somewhere where we could have dinner and talk for a while, would you come?"
The woman who is not Alice smiles shyly. "I would."
"I won’t cry again."
"You can cry if you want to. I’m just awful. Sometimes I cry at the cinema, and everyone looks at me. My girlfriend used to bring an handkerchief with her, just in case I needed it."
Petunia can’t imagine Alice crying at the cinema, and somehow that makes asking easier. "Next week, then? After the holidays? I think I need to have a conversation with my husband first."
They exchange phone numbers, jotting them down quickly on an old receipt Petunia finds in her bag. Petunia asks for an e-mail address, too, just in case, and they walk out into the street together. Petunia watches Alice board her bus and waves at her as they pull away.
As she walks home, she pulls her mobile from her bag and rings Dudley. They talk for a few minutes about their plans for Christmas day. Just they are about to get off, Petunia asks him if he wants to come around the second weekend in January. Dudley isn't sure. He hasn't made plans yet, but he thinks he will be free.
"I thought you might bring some pictures from Harry's wedding," she says.
Dudley is silent at the other end for a moment. "You mean the one I went to five years ago?" he asks slowly.
"Yes, that one," Petunia says, a bit impatiently. Which one did he think she meant?
"Okay," Dudley says. "I just think that's a bit odd, that's all." Like Alice, he has always been blunt.
"We're all a bit odd occasionally, aren't we?" Petunia says. "If you can't come, you can always put them in the post. Look, I've got to go, I'm almost home."
She's forgotten her cucumbers and lamb somewhere this afternoon, but Vernon can be irritable, for all she cares. Her heart is light for the first time in years. Roses bloom in the winter. Telephones work without cords. Babies are born. Children grow up. Love endures. Good things might yet happen again. She has never been so ready for magic in her life.
This entry was originally posted at http://magnetic-pole.dreamwidth.org/18935.html. It has
comments.
Characters: Petunia/Alice, Lily, Mum, Dad, Dudley
Word count: 4600
Rating: PG-13 for adult situations
Contains: *Sadness; non-explicit descriptions of impregnation; characters acting in an abusive way*
Summary: Much to Petunia's surprise, not all witches are like Lily.
Author’s note: Written for
woldy's informal HP femslash exchange. For the fabulous
miss_morland with all of my warmest year-end wishes, a ficlet responding to the prompt Petunia/canon witch of your choice, bitterness.
The summer Petunia turns sixteen, Lily comes home even more superior than usual, taking about witches and wizards until Petunia could cry with boredom. She keeps her magic stick and her stupid pot on her desk and her school uniform draped over the chair in the bedroom, so that Petunia has to look at them, every single day.
"Aren’t you supposed to hide?" Petunia asks crossly after a week of Hogwarts and spells and feasts and Alice and OWLs and Gryffindor, Gryffindor, Gryffindor. She and Lily are both sprawled on their beds reading in the fading light after dinner. Lily has her nose in something that looks suspiciously like a textbook, and she hasn't paid any attention to Petunia in hours. "I could write to the Ministry and tell them you’re not keeping your things secret from normal people."
"I don’t have to hide from my own family," Lily says.
"Everything’s visible from the window."
Lily laughs. "We’re on the first floor! No one is going to see my things from out there, silly."
It's on the tip of Petunia’s tongue to say that that awful boy is out there almost every day, especially after dusk, when Lily changes into her nightie right in front of the window, hasn’t she noticed? But then Lily might say something to Mum and Dad, and Petunia would get in trouble, and she wouldn’t have the satisfaction of knowing that Lily’s creepy little wizard friend was spying on her, and so she keeps her mouth shut.
Wizards aren't as wonderful as Lily makes them out to be. Somehow no one seems to notice this except Petunia.
*
For the first time this summer, Mum and Dad have given Lily permission to ask a friend to visit. Petunia thinks this is unfair, since none of her friends come to stay. ("But, sweetie," Mum says. "You can see your friends every day.") At first Petunia is convinced she's going to hate this witch called Alice who comes up in Lily's stories so often, just like she hates everything in Lily’s silly, make-believe world. Alice shows up on a late Sunday afternoon, all sooty from their fireplace, and Mum and Dad fall over themselves just saying hello. Petunia sets the table for dinner silently while everyone else opens Alice's gifts in the living room. At least she's wearing proper clothes and not a costume like the one Lily has upstairs. Petunia wonders if her Mum sent them along.
At dinner, Lily can’t stop talking about Alice and her family and her magic and the invisible house they have near Regent Street in London. "Alice’s family have been in Gryffindor since anyone can remember," Lily says excitedly. "Her grandmum’s name is carved on my bedpost, in our room."
Petunia imagines Alice’s grandmum’s name carved into the skin of Lily’s knobbly, freckly forearm, and that makes her feel a bit better. Lily would like that, Petunia thinks.
"I didn’t realize that was how the houses worked," Mum says. "I thought the Sorting Hat decided, not your family."
"Sometimes, the family is what decides," Alice says. "I always hoped I’d be in Slytherin, actually. I like having my way."
Petunia, who hasn’t been listening very carefully up until this point, warms up to Alice immediately. Lily has never once said anything nice about Slytherin.
"What house would you have been in, Henry?” Mum asks. "Ravenclaw? You were always so studious."
Dad smiles. "Perhaps. What about you, Tuney?"
"What are the houses?" Petunia asks, feigning confusion. "I don’t remember which is which."
"Ravenclaws are swots, Slytherins are sneaky, and Hufflepuffs are loose," Lily says. "Gryffindor is the best."
"Lily," Mum says in a warning voice. "That's not nice."
"I suppose I'd be in Slytherin, then," Petunia says. "I'm so sneaky you don’t even know what's most interesting about me yet."
Alice smiles at her from across the table, and before she can help it, Petunia finds herself smiling back.
"What would you like to do while you are here with the Muggles, Alice?" Mum asks.
Petunia doesn't know what she had expected Alice to say, but she's surprised by the passion with which Alice speaks. "I'd love to go to Manchester," Alice says. "I've never been to a Muggle city before. And my mum says the cinema is brilliant. She gave me Galleons so we could go." Oddly, Alice is looking at Petunia, not at Lily. In fact, Lily is leaning in toward Petunia, trying to catch Alice’s attention, so eager that she hasn't noticed her hair is dangling in her potatoes.
"Petunia loves the cinema," Mum says fondly. "Lily, watch your hair. You’d like to take her, wouldn't you, Tuney?"
Much to her own surprise, Petunia would.
*
The summer she turns sixteen, the summer Alice comes to visit, Petunia falls in love. It happens so gradually she hardly notices it: a few trips to the cinema, a visit to the department stores and a tea shop in Manchester, an afternoon teaching Alice to ride Lily’s half-forgotten bike, when Alice falls over and looks so silly that Petunia starts to laugh and can’t stop. Alice laughs with her. She hasn’t fallen since she first learned to ride a broom when she was six, Alice says. Petunia replies very seriously that it takes enormous talent to ride a bike, and not everyone is born with it. She herself got a letter when she was eleven, saying that her parents would buy her a bike for Christmas, and she alone would be able to ride it. Alice laughs some more, and Petunia catches herself laughing too, at her own silliness.
Alice is nothing at all like the girl Petunia had expected. She adores Muggle music and riding on buses and shopping at the supermarket. Nothing is beneath her. Perhaps because her mum is a doctor in that other world, the chemist fascinates Alice, so much that sometimes they go for an hour or two, even when there’s nothing they need to buy, because Alice wants to look at the medicines and check their prices and skim the magazines that are sold outside. Lily is a bit bored with them both, and Petunia is glad to have Alice all to herself. Alice asks all about her life, her school, her friends, the things she does on the weekend, the eager bloke in her year who fancies himself her boyfriend. Alice is not very pretty, at least not the way Lily is--she’s a bit overweight, with a round face and short, coarse hair and a bump on her chin that Petunia secretly thinks of as the hogwart. But she’s very bright and quick to learn, and she’s absolutely fearless, and she likes Petunia, and that’s enough. Actually, that’s more than Petunia has ever imagined. Alice always makes Petunia feel as if something wonderful is about to happen to her, and it's a new and heady state of affairs.
Two days before Alice’s return to London, that creepy boy stops by after dinner to talk to Lily, and Alice and Petunia decide to listen to records in the bedroom. Shortly after they’ve started the record and settled in on Petunia’s bed, Alice leans in and kisses her.
Petunia, who’s half expected this, leans in and kisses Alice back. After a few minutes, Alice unbuttons Petunia’s shirt and fumbles with her bra. Petunia pulls away for a moment to unfasten it herself.
"Ha!" Alice says, delighted. "I thought so!"
"Sorry?"
"I'm so much better than Vernon," she crows. Petunia shudders, pulls her bra off, and drops it on the floor. There's no comparison.
"You're so full of yourself," Petunia says, batting Alice’s hand away from the waist of her skirt, but what she really means is “I love you, silly,” and she thinks Alice knows that, too.
*
They fall into an easy pattern of daily conversations and weekends together and, every once in a while, a blissful, lazy holiday all to themselves. Alice even begins to talk about children. Petunia, who still doesn't fancy Vernon enough to spend more than an hour or two with him, hopes that Alice doesn't imagine him as the lucky man.
In the six years they are together, Alice and Petunia have only one lover's quarrel, the autumn that Petunia goes to school to learn to be a secretary and Lily writes home to say that both she and Alice are engaged. It's not a surprise--they've talked about Frank as the best of several bad options--but Petunia does not appreciate being informed by Lily. She writes Alice a letter--a single line: Why didn't you tell me?--and then fumes for days. She and Alice only ever correspond via a post box in Glasgow, where someone from Alice’s world takes Muggle letters and sends them along to Hogwarts, and it can take ages to get a response. When she finally writes back, Alice is uncharacteristically repentant.
Petunia, I thought you understood. Nothing will change between us. Please write back. I can’t stand to think you’re angry. Al
Even after she receives the letter, Petunia is rather cross. Alice rarely apologizes for anything, but Petunia feels that deciding to marry is a decision Alice should have discussed with her first, and she really ought to say she’s sorry for not having done so. Petunia hides the letter under floorboard in her bedroom and waits for the next. It arrives the following day in the afternoon post.
I should have told you first. Please write back. Petunia hides that one, as well. She has a typing exam tomorrow, after all. She has better things to do than work on personal correspondence.
The third arrives via one of those ridiculous owls and is even shorter: I'm sorry.
Petunia prepares a message on a crisp sheet of business stationary the next day. I can't even talk to you now. How will we keep in touch when you're married? P. The Olivetti pings as she pounds its keys.
Alice arrives at her house two days later, on a Saturday morning while Petunia is making coffee. She holds the handset of a black telephone, its severed cord trailing.
"What's that?" Petunia asks, holding the door half open, so Alice knows she is not welcome inside.
Alice offers her the handset. "It's a telephone, right? Lily charmed it so that you can talk to me. I have another one." She pulls a similar handset out of the pocket of her wool jacket. Its cord has been severed, as well. "Hold it up to your ear," she says. "I'll be back in a moment." Alice disappears behind the garden gate.
Petunia frowns and looks down the street, but no one is about. She holds the telephone to her ear and hears a fuzzy static and then "PETUNIA!" Petunia jumps.
"Quiet," she says. "You don't have to speak so loudly."
"Oh," Alice says.
"Just use your regular voice."
"Right," Alice says. "I'm sorry, Petunia."
"I know," Petunia says.
"This spell won't work at school, but I'll have it with me all the time, afterward. I'll put it on my desk, at work."
"I don't want you to marry Frank," Petunia says. Somehow it's easier to say this to a broken phone than it is to Alice.
"I know, Alice says. "I need to leave now. McGonagall thinks I'm in--
Alice slips out from behind the garden gate and returns to the front door. "Hogsmeade," she says in her regular voice. Petunia lowers her handset.
Alice hugs her and then disappears.
When Petunia returns to the kitchen, Mum is there, yawning and fixing a coffee. "Did you have a fight with Vernon, dear?" she asks. Then: "What's that? Is that our telephone?"
"Nothing, Mum," Petunia says, but it warms her heart, to have this bit of Alice with her.
*
When Petunia is twenty-two, Alice decides they should have children. "I’ve found a spell," she announces one day in that matter-of-fact way she has. "We're going to have a baby, you and I."
This sounds ridiculous, but Petunia has grown used to Alice doing odd magical things, and it doesn’t bother her as much as it bothers her when Lily does.
"We can't have a baby, silly," she says. "What are you talking about?"
Alice shows her the potion the next weekend. They lock themselves in Petunia's bedroom after Mum and Dad have gone to bed and lie on Lily's old bed, because the Olivetti is on hers. The book Alice holds is huge and musty and ancient, and the spell itself goes on for seven pages, in tiny, crabbed writing. Petunia peers at it curiously. It calls for all sorts of animals parts, as well as a chunk of the beloved's flesh. Petunia finds magic rather disgusting.
"You do want a baby, don't you?" Alice asks when they finish reading the spell and Petunia begins to kiss her neck.
"Of course," Petunia says, because doesn't everyone? She's not convinced that this will work, in any case. Alice has odd ideas at times.
But the next weekend Alice returns with a bag of jars and phials and a giant copper pot and begins to spread her things out on the bedroom floor.
"I've asked a friend, and he thinks we should take a nick off our heels," Alice says. "That's where it will hurt the least. Something the size of a pea should do."
"I'm not sure this is a good idea, Alice," Petunia says. The thought of frog skin and snails and the fur of a dog's tail sounds profoundly wrong to her. "What do we do, just stick it in there?"
"Exactly," Alice says as she adds more ingredients to the pot. "Actually, I think we should stick in both of us, in case it doesn't work for one. Come here, I need your skin."
Petunia feels ridiculous, lying on her bed with her legs in the air and her heel bleeding despite the plaster and Alice poking a long pipette inside of her, but she doesn't complain, and afterward she does the same thing to Alice. They have sex in Petunia's bed when they finish. It seems like the thing to do. It's considerably less enjoyable than usual. Perhaps, Petunia thinks, it's down to the fact that she can't get the snails out of her mind.
"That was very Dark magic," Alice says when they are done and lying side-by-side on Petunia's narrow bed. "The kind of thing that can get me sent to Azkaban."
"Is that bad?" Petunia asks absently. She feels warm and sleepy.
Alice turns on her side and looks at her. "Have you had sex with Vernon yet?" she asks.
Petunia shudders. "No." Vernon’s attentions are flattering, but as a person he is awful, sweaty and pompous. Sex with him sounds unpleasant.
"Do it soon," Alice says. "You don’t want him asking any questions."
Petunia’s stomach lurches with fear and excitement and shock and uncertainty. She’s having a baby. This is unbelievable. Alice’s baby. In--seven, eight, nine--in late July of the next year. Mum and Dad will be so excited. Lily will be excited. Petunia herself is excited. Vernon will ask her to marry him. That might not be so bad; she’s tired of being a secretary, anyway. She thinks that this might be the way Lily felt, when her letter from Hogwarts arrived. Everything is about to change.
*
For almost two years, Petunia is as happy as she has even been. She and Vernon marry, and Mum and Dad plan a wedding that's every bit as lovely as Lily's. Alice tells her about the war in the wizarding world, but it seems distant. Dudley is born, then Neville, then Harry, all within a week. Vernon finds a job in London, and Mum visits for a month to help her set up the new house. Alice gives her an enchanted rose bush that will bloom for as long as they are alive and in love. It's the most ridiculously romantic thing she has ever done, and Petunia can't bring herself to do anything but grumble about what the neighbors will say, when the roses are still alive in January.
"You can just say thank you," Alice says, laughing.
"Hmph," Petunia says.
*
When Petunia is twenty-four and the garden is finally blooming properly--all of it, not just the roses--and Dudley is learning to walk, Alice disappears. Not a word. Not a call on their telephones, not one of those ridiculous owls. At first Petunia is worried, then after a week, she is frightened, then after ten days, she is angry. She wishes she had subscribed to that magical newspaper Alice had always talked about, so that she knew something, anything, about Alice's world.
Swallowing her pride, she writes to Alice and Frank’s house via the post box in Glasgow. It is a stiff, distant letter inquiring after an old friend, in case someone else happens to read it. No one replies.
In Petunia's front garden, the rose bush thrives. Petunia checks it daily.
In a panic, she writes to Lily. Lily replies with a letter that sounds even more frantic than Petunia's. She could be dead, Lily writes. I don't know. Someone is killed every day. James and I are at a friend's in Northumberland. Next week we're going to a safe house and won't be able to receive letters. I don’t know if we'll survive this war, Petunia. I'm so afraid. I need to talk to Mum. I think someone can arrange for us to fire-call next week.
Lily's call never comes; Harry arrives on her doorstep instead. Petunia hates him with a passion she can't quite explain.
She has awful thoughts about Alice. She wonders if Alice had ever really loved her. She wonders if Alice had tricked her, with that silly potion. How would she know, after all? She wonders if Frank has somehow convinced Alice to cut off all ties to the Muggle world, if they are living together happily and magically wherever those kinds of people lived.
On Dudley's fourth birthday, Petunia throws the broken telephone into the rubbish bin at the neighborhood park, while she watches Dudley play with his friends. No more magic, she says to herself. Never again.
*
Petunia only cries once, years later, shortly after Dudley returns from university for the first time. She is sorting through the post on a sunny Saturday morning in June when sees a letter from Lily’s son addressed to Dudley.
Her heart stops when she sees the name on the envelope. She finds an knife and opens the letter. It's a wedding invitation. Her mouth tastes bitter.
Dudley sleeps past noon on weekends, so Petunia has hours to get angrier and angrier. When he finally enters the kitchen, yawning and bleary, she thrusts the letter in his face.
"What?" he says blankly, catching her hand and pushing her away. "Oh, he's marrying that girl Ginny. I thought he might."
"You're not going, are you?" Petunia asks.
"Might do," Dudley says, helping himself to a sip of her coffee.
"Don't go," Petunia says, and suddenly she finds herself holding Dudley by the shoulders and shaking him, hard, the way she used to shake Harry when he was small. Dudley is too large, though. She can't move him. Out of sheer frustration, she sits down on the kitchen floor, her head in her hands, a sob welling up.
"Why do you hate him so much, Mum?" Dudley asks. "He’s not so bad."
Petunia scrambles to her feet and races to the bathroom, where she locks herself in and turns on the bathwater before the tears begin to flow.
*
Two days before Christmas, when she is forty-six years old, Petunia sees Alice again.
Petunia is at Tesco on a bleak, rainy December afternoon, shopping for the holiday dinner with less enthusiasm than usual, since this is the first time Dudley has not come home for the holidays for a visit. The store is crowded and understocked, and the lamb is overpriced, and she can feel her irritation building up as she prods a batch of rubbery cucumbers.
Alice is standing there next to her, staring at the lettuces. After a moment, she notices Petunia watching her.
"Sainsbury's has a sale," Alice says, by way of explanation. "I wonder if I have time to go there, too?"
Petunia touches her wrist. "It's Petunia," she says. Her mouth is so dry she can hardly speak. "Petunia. Are you--"
"I'm Alice," the woman says with a quizzical glance. She clearly does not recognize Petunia, but never mind, it’s been twenty years; they both look older. Alice is rounder than ever, and she no longer has that bump on her chin. She looks softer than she had been at twenty-two, more calm.
Petunia glances about. "We can’t speak here, I know," she says. "But there's a cafe down the street that's always empty around now. Would you--"
Alice beams. "I’d love to. Thanks."
They purchase their groceries and walk to the cafe where Petunia sometimes reads magazines in the afternoon. The cafe owner, a sullen woman whose television is always on a bit too loudly, serves them coffee and a slice of cake.
When the owner retreats behind the counter, the words begin to flow. About Dudley, about her mum, about the rose bush in the garden. How she misses Lily. How she wants a job. How she might look for something in IT. How she still thinks about the times they spent together, the broken telephones, the bike, the time they took the bus into Manchester. Petunia is more animated than she’s been for years, she can feel it. She is flushed and excited and alive, and she can't stop talking. Only when she realizes that Alice is staring at her in confusion does she stop.
"I’m so sorry!" Alice says, flustered. "I misunderstood. I think we’re not--"
Petunia freezes, a sour, cold feeling spreading in her stomach.
"Pardon?"
"My name is Alice," the woman says. "But I don't think I'm the person you knew. I-- I've never been to Manchester."
Petunia feels as if the world is falling apart. "Why did you come here, then?" she snaps.
"I thought you were asking me on a date," the woman says. She flushes a deep, unflattering red. "I'm so sorry. I've been single for so long, and I was so flattered that you would-- I’m so, so sorry. Here, please, I’ll pay--" She fumbles in her bag for her wallet and begins tossing coins and bills on the table, far more than they need.
It seems ridiculous that there might be another woman named Alice, who also looks like Alice, who just happens to stand next to Petunia in the vegetable section at Tesco twenty years after Petunia decided she would never think about Alice again. But then again, Alice had always said that sometimes wizards didn’t understand things in the Muggle world, and sometimes Muggles couldn’t explain magic. Was this magic in her life again at last? Petunia wants to believe. Any sign that there was something else out there, apart from rubbery cucumbers and waiting in queues and another dull holiday at home with Vernon.
At this moment, Petunia remembers Alice more vividly than she has in years--Alice, who made her feel as if good things could happen to her, too. In fact, she can almost hear Alice hissing at her: Don’t be stupid, Petunia! This could be magic! This is your chance!
"Please," she says. Petunia never asks anything of anyone, and this may be the hardest sentence she has ever spoken. "Please don’t go."
The woman who is not Alice sinks back into her chair.
"I had a friend once, many years ago," Petunia says slowly, and to her surprise, her cheeks are wet and her voice is shaking. "A girlfriend, Alice. Who left me without a word, and I never knew what happened to her. And I have a dreadful husband, and my son isn’t coming home for the holidays, and I miss her so much and--"
Petunia breaks off, because the tears are coming so quickly now she can’t see, and there’s a sob building in her throat that makes speaking difficult.
"I think I would like this to be a date," she said, dabbing at her eyes with a dirty napkin from the table. "This isn’t the best way to introduce myself, I’m sorry. I haven’t cried in years. I don’t know--"
Now she is sobbing.
"There, there," says the woman who is not Alice, patting her hand. "You can cry."
She cries uncontrollably. The woman who is not Alice reaches out and holds her hand in a comforting way, saying "now, now," every once in a while, and murmuring softly about her own breakup with her girlfriend going on six years ago, and how sad she was when it happened, and how her sister hadn’t approved and was just awful about the whole thing. She keeps talking quietly and calmly, as if everything were all right, until Petunia's sobs die down and the cafe owner brings them a tea towel, which Petunia uses to wipe her face and blow her nose.
"Are you all right now?" the woman who is not Alice asks. She is gentler than Alice and less bossy, and perhaps that’s not a bad thing, because Petunia knows she needs to act. If she doesn’t say anything, she’ll never see this woman again.
"If I were to ask you on a date," Petunia says, "Somewhere where we could have dinner and talk for a while, would you come?"
The woman who is not Alice smiles shyly. "I would."
"I won’t cry again."
"You can cry if you want to. I’m just awful. Sometimes I cry at the cinema, and everyone looks at me. My girlfriend used to bring an handkerchief with her, just in case I needed it."
Petunia can’t imagine Alice crying at the cinema, and somehow that makes asking easier. "Next week, then? After the holidays? I think I need to have a conversation with my husband first."
They exchange phone numbers, jotting them down quickly on an old receipt Petunia finds in her bag. Petunia asks for an e-mail address, too, just in case, and they walk out into the street together. Petunia watches Alice board her bus and waves at her as they pull away.
As she walks home, she pulls her mobile from her bag and rings Dudley. They talk for a few minutes about their plans for Christmas day. Just they are about to get off, Petunia asks him if he wants to come around the second weekend in January. Dudley isn't sure. He hasn't made plans yet, but he thinks he will be free.
"I thought you might bring some pictures from Harry's wedding," she says.
Dudley is silent at the other end for a moment. "You mean the one I went to five years ago?" he asks slowly.
"Yes, that one," Petunia says, a bit impatiently. Which one did he think she meant?
"Okay," Dudley says. "I just think that's a bit odd, that's all." Like Alice, he has always been blunt.
"We're all a bit odd occasionally, aren't we?" Petunia says. "If you can't come, you can always put them in the post. Look, I've got to go, I'm almost home."
She's forgotten her cucumbers and lamb somewhere this afternoon, but Vernon can be irritable, for all she cares. Her heart is light for the first time in years. Roses bloom in the winter. Telephones work without cords. Babies are born. Children grow up. Love endures. Good things might yet happen again. She has never been so ready for magic in her life.
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