Blindness

Chapter 1: Colours

1981

Fate.

Prophecy cannot be avoided. To try is to make it happen in unique and unexpected ways. It is knowing the end of the story before you have begun to read, and all that is left to know is how one gets to that set point. Fate and prophecy, spiderweb thin strands of future, mapped out and in patterns or tangled in knots.

That night, a wizard sought to change his future, and made it instead. That night, a rat ran and hid.

That night, two Potters died, and one lived.

But the boy who lived was changed, and his eyes that so resembled the color of the killing curse that should have shredded his soul were wide with the sight of new things.

-O-O-

Petunia was having a bad week, one filled with anger and resentment.

Her sister, dead. Her brat, in her house. Just like Lily, to go off and die, and leave her spawn behind. Little word for years, few letters, nothing but spurned invitations and devilish moving pictures of a wedding and an infant.

But at night, in the dark, she allowed herself to grieve, to unleash painful bursts of tears for lost time and opportunities, anger at herself and the world for tearing two sisters apart like a tree split down the middle.

She wanted to hate the boy. She wanted to turn her anger to the child who bore her sister's eyes.

But something was wrong.

It didn't take too long to notice. The boy was silent; compared to her tantrum-throwing son, he was like a statue, staying still in the middle of the room, not exploring, not getting into trouble.

And quiet, hardly a tear to give notice to a soiled nappy, hardly a whimper to betray hunger.

But all of that could be ignored. All of that could be brushed aside in favor of lavishing attention upon her own son, who so desired it with every scream and fat waving fist.

What could not be ignored was the innocent way his eyes looked upon her. Never focused in quite the right place, but peering at her with firm determination, as if seeking to understand a puzzle. His head would move; listening to sounds. But always those eyes, bright green with intelligence, never quite looking at her face, but following her form with the questing sway of his black haired head.

In a month's time, she knew, knew with a mother's intuition. Knew after a few easy tests of snapping her fingers to see his head turn; and yet seeing little reaction when waving her hands in front of his very face.

Lily's son was blind, or very near to it.

And every facet of coldness in her body melted away. The wizards would never want a blind boy; how could he possibly learn magic? They wanted perfection, like pretty little perfect Lily, not Petunia.

Harry was hers, now. Fate had given her back her sister, and in a way had given her a second chance.

She would not squander it.

1982

Lily's son was different, though.

In his first year with them, Petunia let herself admit as much. To her husband, in private, she shared her fears and speculations.

Magic still ran in the boy, ran in the way things came to him without his touch, in the way objects moved from his path before he could stumble upon them.

It was alarming, to say the least, to watch her table and chairs moved aside as the toddler slowly walked across the kitchen floor with unsteady legs.

The boy could not possibly go to daycare. A simple outing to a park was fraught with danger. She had to keep the boy inside, until he could learn to be more normal.