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Petunia stared. The baby stared back.
Petunia blinked. The baby slowly blinked as well.
"Vernon!" Petunia hissed urgently into the house so that neighbors wouldn't be able to hear and snoop, her face starting to show the panic she was feeling.
The baby's face screwed up in the same instant.
"Oh for heaven's-" she muttered, picking up the bassinet, trying to produce an expression pleasant enough for the baby to copy. "Stop that! This instant."
. . .
Petunia Dursley did not hate her nephew. That was absurd. Especially as the aforementioned nephew was only an infant.
But there was something to be said about the bitter feelings that stirred in her gut and brewed in the back of her throat at the sight of him.
The way his green eyes stared at her behind too-big glasses.
"Stop looking at me, boy," she scolded, glaring at her nephew.
Those eyes, green as a lush forest in the middle of spring, stayed fixed on her.
She was changing his diaper, Dudley only a few feet away, playing in his pen.
Her nephew continued to stare at her, even as she set him down and picked Dudley up.
His eyes- so, so round, the bottom and top of his eyes coming together at the corners to give him a permanently innocent, deer-in-headlights look- never left her. Petunia knew the shape of those eyes, that shade of green.
"Petunia," a kind voice with gentle hands.
"Yes, mum?"
"Lily's your younger sister. You have to help take of her because you're the oldest. You have to set a good example for her. Keep her safe and out of harm's way. Yes?"
"Of course," Petunia nodded vigorously, transfixed with the little baby held in her arms, partially supported by her mother. Lily's eyes never left hers, staring up at her with a gummy smile and adoration already shining in her eyes.
Knew what it meant.
"Please Tuney," red hair, like fresh blood, "you must understand."
Hands clasped and lips pleading.
"No," she sneered, "you chose your life. Why must I sacrifice mine to serve yours?"
"I just want you to be safe, you-"
"Keep her safe and out of harm's way."
"I don't need you to keep me safe!"
"Of course not, but- He is targeting muggleborn families. And He has seen me before. Fought me. I couldn't live with myself if I knew you were killed because of me."
"Oh, so this is what that's about."
"I- what?"
"Perfect Lily, always has to be the saviour, don't you?"
"That's not what I'm-"
"I understand perfectly fine. You think you're better than me because you can use magic. Because you're a freak-"
"Will you listen to me, for once!?"
"Get out."
"Tuney, I didn't mean-"
"Don't call me that."
A shove against shoulders, pushing a sister out of a door and heart.
The burden it carried.
There was a letter shaking in her fists, paper already crumpled from her shaky hands.
'Your sister and brother-in-law fought valiantly, but unfortunately they were unsuccessful in their fight against You-Know-Who. Harry Potter has been made to...'
And that was all she got. Barely an explanation, a sliver of hope to hang onto that was crushed a sentence later when the boy was explicitly stated to be an orphan. Petunia knew nothing but pain and sorrow.
Was Lily scared when it had happened? Had it hurt? Did she have time to scream or perhaps run away? Did she stay to protect- protect- Was Lily thinking of Petunia in her last moments? Did she regret never reconciling?
Did she stay to protect Harr-?
. . .
Petunia set the two infants in their highchairs and collapsed onto a chair next to them. She didn't cry, that wasn't a luxury she had nor wanted these days. Crying meant caring. Crying meant accepting. Crying meant forgiveness.
Petunia didn't cry. But, as she held her face in her hands and took raggedy breaths, it was a near thing.
. . .
Petunia locked the door to the cupboard, seeing glimpses of green through the slats in the metal in the door. Bushy, untameable hair that flooded most of her vision of Har- her nephew. Hair that she had cut off not minutes ago. Hair that was still on the backyard ground.
"I don't know," he sniffled. "I just wanted my hair and it came back. Like magi-"
"No!" Petunia screeched. "Magic isn't real!"
"Please," she could hear him muttering minutes later from her spot in the kitchen. "I wanted my hair and I got it. Now I want- I want out. Please. Just- I'm not a freak," he sobbed quietly. "You can let me out."
Petunia didn't know who he was pleading to, and she suspected that neither did he. This was backed up when she walked past the cupboard and saw his red-rimmed eyes widen with panic when they made contact with hers. How he backed up into a corner, lips forming words she couldn't hear.
. . .
"Tuney," Lily whined. "You haf'ta share. Mum said so."
Petunia barely looked up from where she was styling the dolly's hair.
"Five minutes and then you'll get it."
"You just said that. And it's been five minutes and I don't have Dolly."
"Five more minutes."
"This isn't fair! You never share with me."
"You don't even style Dolly, you just play pretend. You can play pretend with a rock."
"But- but I want a person to pretend. Not a rock!"
And, suddenly Dolly was zipping out of Petunia's hands and into Lily's.
"How did you do that?" Petunia asked, shocked and miffed simultaneously.
"I- I just wanted her and I got it."
. . .
Petunia saw the way her nephew would chew the eraser of a pencil, how he would click a pen endlessly, how his fingertips forever tapped an unheard melody along every available and empty surface.
And Petunia's heart ached.
Lily had had a horrible tendency to chew the nub of her pencil eraser until it fell right off. She would click her pen until Petunia grabbed it out of her hands and threw it away out of annoyance. She would always be tapping her fingers or her foot. Always restless.
Petunia didn't know how her nephew did all the same things with no memory of her sister, his mum, but... he did. He did and it pained Petunia endlessly. So she would hit the back of his head when he chewed his eraser, and slap the pen out of his hands when he clicked it, and sent him disapproving looks when he couldn't sit still.
When green eyes stared at her with concealed hurt and childlike innocence, she realised none of it made her feel any better. So she had to keep doing it. Just because.
She had to deserve some of Lily's pain, shoulder the burden of her death. Feel even a fraction of what she had felt before she died. And what better way to do it than through her son?
. . .
So, no. Petunia didn't hate her nephew. But there were some things worse than hate.