Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was Mother’s Day, or at least that’s what Harry’s primary school teacher had told him, the words drifting in the air like a soft lullaby- sweet, yet distant, as though they belonged to someone else’s life. The kind of life that Harry could never quite touch, never quite hold.

The teacher’s voice had danced through the room, filled with a tender warmth as she spoke of mothers- the women who had given life, who had nurtured, who had loved unconditionally, their hearts swelling with devotion. It was a love that wrapped around children like a blanket, soft and steady, never wavering, always there, like the sun that rose each morning. And for a brief moment, Harry wondered- wondered if his mother had loved him that much too, the way the teacher described, with that same unshakeable, all-encompassing love.

But no, he couldn’t quite picture it. The image slipped away from him, like a memory that never quite formed.

He wondered, in the quiet of his heart, if his mother had loved him with the same fierce tenderness that Aunt Petunia loved Dudley. Or perhaps, had she only loved him in fragments- broken bits of affection, scattered and lost, that never quite added up to what the others described. He could see Aunt Petunia, her eyes wide with pride, her voice dripping with affection as she spoke of Dudley’s small triumphs. But with Harry, the affection had always felt thin- like a shadow, flickering, but never steady enough to hold. Harry had always accepted that he was the type of person that didn’t really get to experience love and all that it was comprised of.

No- Harry had long since accepted that he was not going to be loved. He could only love as much as he could and hope it would be enough one day.

Around him, the classroom buzzed with the chaotic excitement of six-year-old voices. The children chattered loudly, bouncing their words off one another like pebbles skimming the surface of a lake. To Harry, the sounds were all jumbled together, thick and muffled, as though he were submerged in some faraway ocean, where the voices were echoes, distorted and faint, lost in the current of their own joy. Their laughter rang in his ears like a distant bell and it ached in his chest.

"My mummy makes pancakes!" one child chirped, her face alight with the simple joy of a morning ritual.

"My mummy sings me songs!" another piped up, his voice proud, as though the mere mention of it could wrap the whole world in warmth.

"My mummy is the best- she always warms my coat on the heater before school!" a third child added, her words floating into the air like a feather in a breeze.

"No- my mummy is the best!" came the reply, as if love were something that could be quantified, won, or measured.

One by one, the children sang the praises of their mothers, sharing tender snippets of their lives, each little moment building a tower of affection so high it seemed to touch the sky. Their voices were full of certainty, of innocence, of unshakeable belief that the love they received was as boundless as the universe itself. But Harry sat in silence, his small hands gripping the edge of his desk as if the world itself might fall away if he let go.

He was the quiet one at the back of the room, the child who did not belong to the laughter, who could not join in their celebration. His dark hair hung messily, a tangled nest atop his head, as if it, too, had been neglected, abandoned, left to fray and knot itself into something unrecognisable. His green eyes, wide and wide with the knowledge of too much, too soon, were hooded now. They held the heaviness of secrets, the weight of questions too fragile to ask. His tears, those delicate beads of sorrow, swam behind his eyes, but he refused to let them fall.

He clenched his hands into fists, so tightly that his nails bit into his palms, leaving behind tiny, red crescents, like the marks of a battle he could never win.

The pain was not loud. It was quiet, like the ache of an empty room, the kind that nobody notices at first- but then, when you finally turn to look, it fills the space in ways you never expected, a kind of silence that screams.

There was no voice to speak of his mother, no stories to share. There were no songs, no pancakes, no warm coats on heaters. Just a stillness that surrounded him, colder than the wind that swept through the cracks in the windows, colder than the classroom walls that seemed to press in on him from all sides.

Harry had learned to live with this silence, with the absence of things that should have been- should have been woven into the very fabric of his existence, should have been as simple and natural as breathing. He had learned to be small, to remain unnoticed, to fold himself into the corners of the room where no one would ask.

The world outside was full of mothers, full of warmth and light. But inside Harry’s chest, there was only an ache- a longing so deep it felt like a hole in his heart, a space that nothing could ever fill. And as the classroom swelled with stories of mothers, Harry sat, alone in his silence, wondering what it felt like to be loved. Wondering if that love was ever real at all, or if it was just a story the world told to the lucky ones. And the harder he tried to push the tears back, the more they threatened to drown him, to pull him under the water of his own solitude, a place he had known for so long but never learned to survive.

One little girl- small, with red ribbons tied neatly in her plaits- raised her hand. Her voice was soft, but it cut through the chatter like a whisper slicing silk.

“Miss… Harry looks sad.”

Miss Ellis turned her head, her smile faltering. A small crease formed between her brows as her eyes settled on the boy at the back of the room- the boy who looked like he might dissolve into the air if only he held his breath long enough. He sat curled in on himself, like something wounded. The corners of his small mouth were pulled downward and his thin shoulders hunched, as if trying to shield himself from the world’s gaze.

He was good at that, she’d noticed- good at becoming invisible.

Miss Ellis had never taught this class before. She was just a substitute, called in last-minute after the regular teacher had fallen ill. She didn’t know their routines or their hidden griefs. She didn’t know, until that moment, how easily pain could be overlooked in a room full of noise.

Before she could speak, another voice rang out- this one loud and brash, scraping against the quiet like a fork dragged across a plate.

“Oh yeah !” The boy’s face twisted with an ugly kind of glee, the thrill of attention lighting up his small, smug features. His name had already been written into her mental list with a red pen: Dudley Dursley - the sort of child who wielded cruelty like a toy sword, not yet knowing how deeply it could cut.

Miss Ellis’ stomach clenched painfully.

“Harry doesn’t have a mum!” Dudley crowed, pointing a stubby finger with the theatrical flourish of someone revealing a dark secret. “His mum is dead! He has no mummy!”

The words slammed into the room like a stone thrown through a stained-glass window. Something beautiful and tender had been shattered. The silence that followed wasn’t stunned; it was uneasy. The children didn’t quite understand the weight of what had just been said, but they felt it in their bones. Something sacred had been broken.

Harry didn’t look up.

He didn’t argue. He didn’t cry. He only stared at the desk in front of him, as if it might open and swallow him whole. His breath was shallow, and his fists remained clenched in his lap, trembling slightly- the only evidence that the words had struck somewhere deep inside, in a place too bruised for new wounds.

Miss Ellis inhaled sharply through her nose. The room tilted slightly in her vision, nausea curling in her gut- not just from the cruelty of the words, but from the guilt that followed. The guilt of ignorance.

She should have known. The regular teacher, in their absence, should have left her something- anything- to prepare her for this moment. A quiet word. A note. A single sentence would have done. Especially on a day where the world was celebrating mothers.

Harry’s mother is dead.

That was all it would’ve taken to change the shape of this day.

Instead, she had stepped into this room blindly, and now stood witness to a grief so ancient it didn’t even look like crying anymore. It looked like silence. It looked like shrinking. It looked like trying, every moment, not to be seen.

She turned sharply on Dudley, her face cold and stern now, the softness wiped away like chalk from a board. There was a flicker of fear in his eyes, the kind only a child feels when they realise, too late, that the adults aren’t amused.

“That’s enough,” she said, her voice low and trembling with restrained fury. “No more.”

Dudley’s smile faltered and he shrank back into his chair, his triumphant air slipping away. The other children shifted uneasily in their seats, stealing glances at Harry- curious, confused, some even ashamed, an emotion so strange for such young faces. One that spoke of guilt so great that Miss Ellis had no doubt this was a regular occurrence.

Miss Ellis tried to steady her hands as she turned back to the class, smoothing her skirt like it might smooth her heart as well. She gathered herself, her throat thick with the ache of too many unspoken things.

“All right, everyone,” she said. “It’s time to start your Mother’s Day cards. You can each choose a flower or a small plant to gift to your mothers when you’ve finished.”

Her voice was too bright, too forced. She hated herself for it.

The children began bustling again, pulling out coloured paper and pencils, the room humming with the scratch of crayons and the murmur of excitement. But at the back, Harry didn’t move. He simply sat there, his face pale and still, like the world had slowed down and he’d been left behind in its wake.

Miss Ellis hovered for a moment, then turned away. What could she say? What could she do, in this moment, in this crowded classroom filled with glue sticks and glitter and laughter and sadness and joy and a thousand innocent dreams?

But inside her, something splintered.

She had always believed school should be a sanctuary- a second home. A place where no child ever felt forgotten, or unloved, or less. But Harry… Harry looked like a child who had no home at all. No place where he could reside. Not even within himself.

She would do better. She had to do better. She pushed the thought deep down, but she knew, even then, that she would carry this boy with her. His name had been quietly etched into her heart, where all the quiet ones go, the ones who never raise their hands, the ones who never get picked first, the ones who hold their sorrow like stones in their pockets.

Miss Ellis quietly made her way over to Harry’s table, her steps careful, as though approaching a wounded animal too timid to trust kindness. She eased herself onto the tiny chair beside him, knees bent awkwardly, heart even more so. Her eyes scanned the cluster of children at the table- heads down, little fingers busy folding and drawing- but none of them looked at Harry. He sat slightly apart, a pocket of stillness in a whirlwind of colour and noise.

His head remained bowed, the dark fringe of his hair falling like a curtain, a makeshift shield between himself and the world. She couldn’t see his face, but the heaviness radiating off him was palpable, as though sadness had made itself a coat and he wore it daily.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she said gently, almost whispering so the words would land softly. “I didn’t know about your mummy.”

There was a pause- a long, uncertain moment- and then, slowly, he looked up.

His eyes found hers, and Miss Ellis felt her breath catch in her chest. There was something in those eye s . They were impossibly green, like wet leaves after a storm, like a forest breathing quietly in the fog. And within them, a storm. A grief so old it didn’t even cry anymore, just watched the world with quiet endurance. His gaze held her, not in defiance or rebellion, but in the fragile way of someone who wants, so desperately, to be seen- if only it wouldn’t hurt so much.

She had seen many children in her years. Seen tears over broken toys, scribbled apologies, scraped knees. But this wasn’t the sorrow of a child who had misplaced a teddy or been told “ no .” This was older. This was hollow. This was haunted.

“What about your daddy, Harry?” she asked softly, uncertainly, trying not to push. “Could you make a card for him instead?”

Harry shook his head, almost imperceptibly. His voice, when it came, was a faint thread, barely strong enough to hold the weight of his words.

“I can’t. My daddy is with my mummy. They both died when I was a baby.”

There it was. So simple. So stark. And so crushing. The finality in his tone left no room for fantasy, no childlike cushion. Just fact. Simple and devastating. Loss wrapped in quiet.

Miss Ellis felt something collapse inside her. No child should have to carry this kind of emptiness. Not at this age. Not ever. She didn’t ask how. She wanted to- of course she did. There was a story there, and it itched at the edge of her thoughts. But her heart held her back. The need to know wasn’t greater than his need to feel safe. And so, she swallowed the question and folded it away, untouched.

“Well then,” she said after a moment, careful now, “who do you live with, Harry? Maybe… maybe you could make a card for the person who looks after you?”

He blinked at her. There was confusion in his eyes and something else- something like hope, not yet fully grown. She could see the question forming in him, the quiet need to be told that he could . That it was allowed .

“A Mother’s Day card doesn’t have to be just for your mummy,” she added gently. “It can be for anyone who takes care of you. Anyone who loves you. Anyone you love.”

The room buzzed around them- children laughing, scissors snipping, chairs scraping. But inside that tiny conversation, something shifted. Harry’s posture loosened slightly, like a knot gently unravelling. His eyes lost a little of their cloudiness. Not gone, not cured, but a flicker of warmth crept in, hesitant and new. He nodded, barely, and spoke in a voice that almost didn't sound like his own.

“I live with my aunt and uncle. And Dudley. He’s my cousin.”

At the mention of the last name, Miss Ellis involuntarily glanced across the room and winced. Dudley Dursley was currently cackling as he hurled a blob of glue at a classmate’s forehead. She grimaced. The contrast between the two boys was like night and fire- one burned too loudly, the other only flickered.

But she turned back to Harry and smiled, not with pity, but with quiet encouragement.

“Well, then… perhaps you can make a card for your aunt?” she offered. “She looks after you, doesn’t she?”

Harry nodded slowly. “I… I think so. Yeah.”

And then, so softly she almost missed it, he added, “Maybe I can make two.”

Her heart swelled. It wasn’t much, but it was something. A small offering from a child who had been given so little. Two cards. Two tiny windows into a life that had never known the warmth of songs at bedtime or coats warmed on heaters from a mother- but still, somehow, found a way to offer kindness back into the world. His Aunt was surely the luckiest woman in the world to have a child like Harry in her life.

She watched as he reached for the coloured paper, his fingers trembling slightly. He selected a piece of pale blue and then another of soft yellow, like sunshine breaking through a storm. And Miss Ellis stayed beside him for a while longer, not saying anything more. Just sitting with him. Just being . Because sometimes, that’s all a child needs- to know that someone will sit beside them. That someone sees them. That they are not, and never were, invisible.

And as Harry began to draw- tentatively, clumsily, but with quiet purpose- Miss Ellis found herself blinking back tears.

Because he was making cards. For people who may never deserve them. For a world that had given him so little. And still, he gave back.

Miss Ellis spent the rest of the lesson flitting in and out of Harry’s orbit like a soft breeze- present, but never pressing. She knelt beside him more than the others, adjusted his glue stick when it threatened to roll off the table, pointed out any spelling errors he’d made, turned away when he wrote something hastily, yet covered it as though he wanted no-one to see. She fussed in that gentle, maternal way that didn’t feel like fussing at all- only like care, something Harry was not used to receiving so openly.

Her heart twinged with that same quiet ache every time she caught him glancing sideways to see if she was still nearby. She noticed, too, that he really was making two cards. He had laid the first one out clearly, decorated carefully with a crude but earnest drawing of a tulip and a shaky message in blue pencil that said ‘ To Aunt Petunia’ on the outside of the card. That was the one she helped him with, correcting his spelling and showing him how to draw a little heart even though he didn’t think his aunt would care for one. He did not show her what he’d written inside and she didn’t ask to look either.

But the second card he kept turned slightly away from her, shielding it with the slope of his shoulder, his hand folded protectively over the page. She chose not to ask. Whatever he was pouring into that card, it was not meant for prying eyes. She simply hovered nearby, offering a word of encouragement here, a soft smile there. She would not trespass into the quiet corners of his grief.

As the final minutes of the lesson ticked away and the children bustled to finish their projects, Miss Ellis caught Harry scribbling one last line onto one of the cards. The pencil scratched in haste, as though something inside him had burst open and he needed to seal it shut with words before it slipped away. But by the time she leaned in, the page was folded, the moment tucked back inside him like a secret.

She let it be.

Harry's hands were still smudged with glue when the bell rang, but he didn’t notice. He was somewhere else entirely, somewhere far beyond the walls of the classroom and the stares of curious children.

He was stuck solely in his own mind. And in his mind, he was with her. His mummy.

He didn’t remember her face- just the vaguest impression, like something half-dreamt and fading with the morning light. But when he closed his eyes and tried very hard, he could almost summon the sensation of her. A softness. A scent, warm and sweet, like flowers after rain. The whisper of a touch across his cheek. The gentle press of lips to his forehead. And always, that voice- like wind chimes in spring. Like safety. Like home.

He wondered if she had been kind like Miss Ellis. Had she spoken softly? Had she knelt down to his height when she talked to him, just like that? Had her smile been quiet and full of knowing?

He imagined her face every night before bed, building her image from fragments of overheard memories and the aching need to believe she had once been real. She had hair like fire, he decided- not “ red like the Devil,” the way Aunt Marge had spat, but like roses in full bloom. Hair soft as clouds and long enough to trail behind her like stardust. And her eyes- he was certain they matched his. After all, if he didn’t have her hair then surely some part of him came from her. They would be green like the leaves that trembled after a storm. But hers would be gentler. Brighter. They would be the kind of eyes that smiled even when her mouth didn’t.

And her voice… oh, her voice would be music. Not like the television jingles that played too loud in the Dursleys’ living room. No, hers would sound like the soft ringing of church bells in the distance, like laughter tangled in lullabies. Her voice would make even the coldest room feel warm.

He decided then that his mummy had been a princess. His princess. Not the kind trapped in towers or waiting to be rescued. No- his mummy had rescued him once- in a way no one else ever could. She had held him close in a world that was unravelling. He didn’t remember what happened, but sometimes, when he concentrated until his temples throbbed, he could feel it- a moment suspended in time.

He would be pressed to her chest, tiny and barely aware of the world. The thud of her heart filled his ears, the sound of life itself. There were whispers, soft as sighs. Words he didn’t know how to translate but which he understood all the same. I love you. I love you. I love you . Again and again, like a lullaby the world had long since forgotten.

That was the last time he remembered feeling safe.

And as he folded the second card and slipped it quietly into the back of his frayed book bag, he allowed himself to imagine, just for a heartbeat, that somewhere, in a place beyond the stars, his mother would see it. That she would know her boy had made her a card. That she would whisper back across the great, dark silence: I love you, Harry. I’m proud of you. I’ve never stopped loving you.

And though the bell had rung, though the children were spilling into the corridors in bursts of laughter and shouts, Harry sat quietly for a moment longer, his hands resting on the desk.

He had no home. But for just a few minutes, he had memory and love. And somewhere deep within, something unfurled- not quite joy, but the memory of it. Sometimes, even that could be enough.

Dudley gave his mother his card the very moment he spotted her in the doorway, waddling up with flushed cheeks and eager hands. Petunia squealed, her voice shrill with delight as she showered him with praise.

“My precious Diddykins ! Oh, what a darling card! Did you make this all by yourself?”

She kissed his cheek, his forehead, the crown of his head- any bit of him she could reach, her affection embarrassingly loud and unashamed. Dudley, naturally, puffed up like a rooster in full strut, basking in the attention as though it were his birthright.

“And this flower!” she cooed, holding up the battered dandelion like it was a prize bloom from a royal garden. “Oh, Duddy, it’s so pretty. You are the sweetest, kindest, cleverest boy in the whole world!”

Harry followed them quietly, a few steps behind. He watched the scene unfold with a small, aching hope blooming in his chest- fragile and trembling, like something newly born. He imagined, just for a second, that Aunt Petunia might look at him the same way. That when he handed her his own carefully made card, she might smile, or say thank you, or even just see him.

But she didn’t.

The moment they stepped out of the classroom, Petunia placed a hand firmly on Harry’s back and pushed him forward to walk ahead, letting go as soon as he stumbled forward. He barely had time to glance over his shoulder and give Miss Ellis a small, reluctant wave before he was herded down the corridor. She didn’t ask about his day. She didn’t wonder if he had something to show her. Her eyes never even landed on him. Miss Ellis stood by the classroom door, watching them go. A heaviness settled over her like fog. She tried to reason with herself- surely , if something were truly wrong, Harry’s usual teacher would have said something. Teachers talked. They passed on notes. They noticed. But then again, not always.

Not always soon enough.

She thought about Harry often in the weeks that followed- those solemn green eyes, that careful, hesitant voice- but their paths never crossed again. Still, she held on to the hope that wherever he was, he was being loved. That someone, somewhere, was tucking him in at night, telling him they were proud.

She hoped. And hoped. And hoped.

Back at Privet Drive, Dudley tore into an after-school feast of cheese, crackers, crisps and a half-melted chocolate bar while the television blared cartoons at full volume. Harry noted it was a marathon bar, one he could only wish he could taste. Harry followed Aunt Petunia into the kitchen, his small feet silent against the floor. He didn’t ask for a snack- he knew better than that- but he lingered behind her, card in hand, heart trembling with quiet anticipation.

She turned, sighing like he was a smudge on glass she hadn’t the patience to scrub away.

“What is it, boy?” she snapped. “Don’t just stand there. Make yourself useful and dry the dishes.”

Harry didn’t answer right away. He simply stepped forward and held out the card. It was made with careful hands. Not perfect, but sincere- decorated with a crayon drawing of what was supposed to be her in the garden, something she claimed to love, a tulip on the cover as Harry knew those were her preferred flowers. The words inside were simple: Thank you for looking after me . He had hesitated before writing them, unsure if they were even true, but they were all he had to give.

Petunia barely looked at it. She took the card in one hand and tossed it onto the counter without a glance, where it landed crookedly beside the kettle, far from the place of honour Dudley’s card held on the fridge.

“Go get Dudley’s dishes,” she barked, already turning back to the sink. “And stop filling my kitchen with clutter!”

Harry stood still for a moment longer, the silence roaring in his ears.

Then he nodded, once, as if to no one in particular, and turned to leave the kitchen. His other hand was still clenched around the second card, now creased and crumpled at the edges from being held too tightly for too long. He pressed it to his side and slipped out of the room without a word.

His head was bowed. His eyes shimmered, but he wouldn’t let the tears fall. Not here. Not where they could be mocked or punished. The green in them seemed to glow, bright and burning, like light behind glass just before it shatters.

And in his silence, in the quiet collapse of a child’s fragile hope, something broke- not loudly, not with fury, but with the slow, aching sound of something once tender being turned away.

For a brief moment, so brief it could have been a passing shadow, Petunia felt something stir. Not annoyance, not disdain, but something quieter, more unfamiliar. A thin thread of regret wound its way through her ribs, tightening before she could name it.

She tried to dismiss it. She had no need for crumpled scraps of coloured paper cluttering her countertops. The boy was already enough of a disruption- loud in his silence, persistent in his presence even when he was absent. She didn’t need more reminders of him lingering in her kitchen like the smell of something burned.

And yet, after Harry had gone, shuffled away without protest, card unacknowledged, she glanced back at the counter, almost against her will. The paper lay exactly where she had thrown it, a small, folded thing, innocent and waiting. It hadn’t moved, but it seemed suddenly louder in its stillness, as though it were humming in the quiet.

Her eyes settled on it. Watching the tulip on the cover and what was clearly her on the very front to the card. She reached out. And when she opened it, her breath caught mid-motion.

It was simple inside- drawn with the care of a child trying very hard to do something right. Pencil lines formed a shaky picture of three familiar faces. Vernon, round and ruddy. Herself, with her hair tied back the way she always wore it. And Dudley, grinning from ear to ear. They stood close together, arms looped around each other in a neat little family tableau.

But Harry was not in it. He hadn’t drawn himself.

Something in her chest shifted painfully, a strange pressure building behind her breastbone. Her throat tightened, and before she could stop it, her eyes blurred. A tear slipped down her cheek, catching on her jaw. Then another. Then more.

She hadn’t cried like this in years, not since the letter arrived, the one that told her Lily was dead. That her sister was gone. That there was a boy left behind.

She remembered the feeling even now: the way her knees had gone weak, the way the world had tilted. But she also remembered what had followed, what she’d let take root instead of mourning- envy, cold and sharp, growing like ivy around her grief tainted with anger and rage.

And now, standing in her quiet kitchen, holding a card from the child she’d spent so many years trying not to see, the past returned with the weight of a thousand unsaid things.

When Harry returned with Dudley’s dishes, she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t meet those green eyes- not when they were Lily’s, and certainly not now, when they might be full of hurt.

She didn’t speak, only reached for a cracker, spread it with margarine and placed it in his small hand with an awkwardness that felt foreign to her fingers.

“Go to your cupboard,” she said, voice stiff. “Stay there for the rest of the day.”

Harry blinked at her, surprised. He looked down at the cracker as though it might vanish. Then, quietly, almost too softly to hear, he said, “Thank you.”

He turned and left the room, his head bowed. His other hand still held the second card, crumpled slightly now from how tightly he’d been holding it. He didn’t ask questions. He never did.

Petunia stood there, card still open in her hand. Her eyes lingered on the words he had written- shaky, misspelled, heartbreakingly polite:

Dear Aunt Petunia,
Happy Mother’s Day. Thank you for looking after me.
Love, Harry

P.S. I didn’t draw me because I didn’t want to ruin your family picture. I’m sorry for always being a bother.

Inside, pressed flat and pale as snow, was a single dried white lily.

A flower for the sister she had lost. A flower for the boy she had tried not to love. A flower she would never be able to throw away.

She kept the card. She kept the flower. She didn’t speak of it- not to Vernon, not to Dudley, not to anyone. She placed it in a box at the back of the wardrobe, beneath old scarves and broken jewellery and she never touched it again.

But she knew it was there. Every year, she knew. And every Mother’s Day that followed, she would see Harry out in the garden, a card in hand, kneeling in the soil. He would bury it gently, like something sacred, and walk away without a word. She never asked where the card went. She never interrupted.

He never made her another.

Years later, after Petunia’s death, Dudley was sorting through her things when he found the box. Inside was the card- still folded, still tender. He read it slowly, as if afraid of what it might stir. And when he reached the end, his throat tightened in the same place hers once had.

He didn’t return it to Harry. He couldn’t. It wasn’t just a card- it was a wound, a memory, a confession. To give it back would be to open something Harry had long since closed. So Dudley kept it. Quietly. Like a stone in his pocket. Like a weight he knew he’d carry for the rest of his life.

Not because he deserved it. But because, once, when they were only children, Harry had given them all something far greater than they ever gave him.

Love and forgiveness, offered freely, even when it was never returned.

The other card lay in the garden.

Harry had made one more that day, folding it with the utmost care, as though even creasing the paper too harshly might fracture the feelings held within. Before burying it, he pressed a kiss to its surface, gentle and shy, and tucked it into the soil behind the hydrangeas. He was only allowed one flower to take from school, but he hoped his mummy wouldn’t mind.

He wasn’t sure where she was buried. No one had ever told him.

Once, long ago, he had asked Aunt Petunia. Her response had come not with words, but with the back of her hand swatting the back of his head, sharp and dismissive- like brushing away a fly.

“Don’t ask questions, boy.”

And so, instead of seeking her in some faraway cemetery, he placed his card here, in this patch of dirt that he could reach. He had learned that people were buried in the ground when they died. Maybe, he thought, this card would find her there. Maybe, if the earth knew how to cradle the dead, it knew how to carry messages too.

He’d drawn a picture on the front- stick figures, as always, but full of life. There was a woman with bright, flowing red hair, the kind he imagined his mother had. Beside her, a man with unruly dark hair like his own. And in between them, a small boy. Himself.

They were smiling. All of them.

Their hands were linked, their faces radiant with a happiness Harry had never experienced, but dreamed of often. He even added two more figures, men with dark hair like his father's, standing beside his parents. He wasn’t sure if he had uncles, but it seemed like the kind of thing a family should have.

This , Harry decided, was his family.

Dear Mummy,
Happy Mother’s Day.
I love you and I miss you.
I hope you love me too.
Love, Harry

No one would ever find that card. It would lie hidden beneath the soil, slowly breaking down, surrendering its colour and shape to the earth that Harry had entrusted with his hope. In time, it would vanish entirely- returning to dust, like everything else.

But something would remain.

A flower would sprout from the very spot he had chosen. Small, delicate and impossibly persistent. Every spring, it would bloom again. Even when Petunia tore it up by the roots. Even when she replaced the soil. Even when she muttered beneath her breath that she was done with this nonsense.

It always came back.

Eventually, she stopped fighting it. Some part of her understood, though she would never say it aloud, that this was not a weed. This was a message. A presence. A quiet defiance. It was something that belonged not to her world, but to the one she had spent so long denying.

And so, Petunia began to visit the flower. Not often. Not regularly. But when she did, she would stand still beside it, sometimes whispering things she could never bring herself to say aloud when someone might hear.

I’m sorry.

It was easier to speak apologies into the silence. Easier when no one answered. When the flower simply nodded gently in the breeze, as though listening without judgement.

Petunia would carry her regrets quietly. She would wonder if things could have been different. If they should have been. She would think of Harry as a boy with too-large eyes and too-small a voice, who had offered her a heart she never deserved.

And when her own time came, when her breath grew shallow and her hands cold, she would be buried beneath the same earth that once held Harry’s card.

No one would send her a flower.

But in one corner of the garden, a single bloom would still grow. Year after year.

And though it bore no name, it belonged not to her, but to the boy who had asked for nothing, and given her everything.

Forgiveness and a chance to grieve.

And Petunia, haunted by a garden of forgotten blooms and unspoken apologies, would carry her regrets like stones in her chest, heavy, painful, until the day she too was buried beside the silence she had sown.