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FIC: Changeling (Petunia, Gen)
Title: Changeling
Author: shiiki
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Petunia Dursley, Gen
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word Count: 332
Summary: The changeling baby was half of Petunia's worst nightmare.
Before Dudley had been born, Petunia had occasionally been seized with an irrational terror that her baby might inherit the gene--or whatever it was--that she'd once coveted, the one that had gone to Lily instead. She'd feared her own child would take after her sister, whether in looks, personality, or ability.
Maybe it wasn't so irrational a fear. As Vernon's sister loved to say, these things ran in families.
It had been a relief when Dudley had come out the spitting image of his father. If Petunia had felt the slightest hint of an opportunity lost, like the tiniest drop of bitterness in her tea, she never acknowledged it.
In her nightmares, she went to Dudley's crib and instead of the blond cherub that was her son, she'd find a skinny changeling with strings of carroty hair and almond-shaped eyes that fixed her with an accusing green stare. She woke from one such dream now, her skin covered in an icy sheen of sweat and her ears ringing with the howls of a wailing infant.
Her precious Dudders was sound asleep in his cot--bless his soul, her son was just like his father: out like - light once she got him settled. And he was most definitely the blond angel she had borne.
He hadn't been snatched and replaced. But the changeling of her dreams was there nonetheless--the miserable crying baby in the old crib she'd shoved into a corner of the room. The one who'd been dropped on her doorstep a week ago with a curt missive and an appalling scar.
Sure, he didn't look exactly like the changeling in her dreams--his hair was decidedly not Lily's, though those eyes could have come straight out of her face--but who needed nightmares when her sister's child was here, live in the flesh, threatening to push Dudley out of his place?
Well, she might have care of the freakish whelp now. But Petunia vowed he would never, ever usurp her own darling son.
Author: shiiki
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Petunia Dursley, Gen
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word Count: 332
Summary: The changeling baby was half of Petunia's worst nightmare.
Before Dudley had been born, Petunia had occasionally been seized with an irrational terror that her baby might inherit the gene--or whatever it was--that she'd once coveted, the one that had gone to Lily instead. She'd feared her own child would take after her sister, whether in looks, personality, or ability.
Maybe it wasn't so irrational a fear. As Vernon's sister loved to say, these things ran in families.
It had been a relief when Dudley had come out the spitting image of his father. If Petunia had felt the slightest hint of an opportunity lost, like the tiniest drop of bitterness in her tea, she never acknowledged it.
In her nightmares, she went to Dudley's crib and instead of the blond cherub that was her son, she'd find a skinny changeling with strings of carroty hair and almond-shaped eyes that fixed her with an accusing green stare. She woke from one such dream now, her skin covered in an icy sheen of sweat and her ears ringing with the howls of a wailing infant.
Her precious Dudders was sound asleep in his cot--bless his soul, her son was just like his father: out like - light once she got him settled. And he was most definitely the blond angel she had borne.
He hadn't been snatched and replaced. But the changeling of her dreams was there nonetheless--the miserable crying baby in the old crib she'd shoved into a corner of the room. The one who'd been dropped on her doorstep a week ago with a curt missive and an appalling scar.
Sure, he didn't look exactly like the changeling in her dreams--his hair was decidedly not Lily's, though those eyes could have come straight out of her face--but who needed nightmares when her sister's child was here, live in the flesh, threatening to push Dudley out of his place?
Well, she might have care of the freakish whelp now. But Petunia vowed he would never, ever usurp her own darling son.