The Confessions of Petunia Dursley

Tuney

Dear Harry,

You came to our doorstep, on the 1st of November, 1980, with a letter.

In the letter in the handwriting which reminds me of humiliation told me my sister is dead, but the blood protection of hers remains if you stay in my house. I did not understand, and I still don't.

I do not understand the reason my is sister dead if she was always sweet and kind to everyone. I do not understand why she could die if she was staying, as she had told me, in a house no one could enter. I do not understand why she could die if there were no wounds on her wild and fierce form, not even a drop of blood spilled.

Yet I was told, she had given her blood protection to you against the murderer, an English man with a French name which few spoke of- why did he have to, among all people, target my sister? I knew a war was at its height, in the same universe that my sister and I lived in- together. I had so much trouble believing that. I was raised to learn, that the laws of physics and biology cannot be defied. There is no point of plane we cannot travel upon theoretically unless of different dimension. There is nothing such as a wooden stick killing nor emitting light by itself, nor it being unable to kill because of love.

You cannot imagine then, the shock pulsing in my veins as I read letter by letter- magic, as they call it, comes to you so naturally. You made your hair regrow and your teacher's wig turn blue. Any loving parent should be delighted and proud of you. But I was not loving. Because I saw not your extraordinary talent rather your dangerous ability that would draw you one day, like my sister had, to your demise. Any sensible parent would stop their children from ruining their own lives. I am sensible.

You blame me, yes, I know, for not telling you about your parents and your magic. But I do not regret it. I tried to keep you from the life my sister had led as she would have wanted me to, I was sure. I do not like nor understand magic. I simply do not want you to die at age 20 because of it. I simply wished you could live as long as Dudley, as Vernon and I, who cannot do magic and have no wars to fight, can live. I do not want you to be spectacular and die early. I want you to be ordinary and safe.

So I was angry, when at age 11, you were whisked away to the place my sister and you both call school, and did not return until the next summer. I see my attempts to keep you safe had been in vain. For seven years, I waved my sister goodbye off the train platform, knowing she would be gone for ten months, and no amount of letters in old-fashioned parchment or jumping chocolate frogs I never could eat would ease the longing to have her on our bed, whispering secrets only sisters would share. She was gone year after year, and when she finally graduated, when we had but become very different, she was gone, forever, she would not return even for summer.

I could only guess over the years your school had become a more and more dangerous place to be, each summer you return tired, haunted- and yet I still could not possibly understand what was going on, and yet each year you were keener and keener to return to the ghastly place- you could not hear my silent pleas as you packed your trunk happily and stepped out of the house. If you had looked back, even for a glance, you would see the tears on my face.

In Dudley's and your summer to fifth year you let out anguished cries often at night, begging someone to run, not to kill a boy called Cedric Diggory. Just like in my dreams I begged my 11-year-old sister not to go, because 9 years later she would be killed. I wondered how your world sounded so wonderful to you lot. For all I know, people in our world do not die without cause, murderers get punished by law, and psychiatric options are always available for every traumatized child. The fright then, when you towed a shaken and deathly white Dudley into the house, was beyond me to comprehend. You would laugh later, at my ignorance when I shook his body and asked if his soul was intact. Laugh all you please. I am a mother, however an ignorant one.

Death numbers are on the toll on your side. Suddenly your godfather whom you said was an murderer, is dead. When Vernon suggested he deserved it, why were you so angry? Murder is wrong, or your morals have been rubbed off by his pretentious care and love for you? What, I ask myself, have your world instilled into your head? What good has it done on you except making you sob softly, behind the closed door that would never open to your living aunt and uncle?

I will call you by the name now, Harry. From your name I can find no remains of Lily Evans. Two weeks ago someone came to fetch us to another house they said no one can enter. Harry, when I expressed my discontent you did not catch the my wish for us to stay together. You said the blood protection is gone well I said, we can give you the protection of a family. Do not ask me how are us, the audience, can save you from deadly enemies in a stage far too disconnected from our reality. Three days ago you went away for a mission no one else is aware of with two friends of yours. Harry. The news-bearer said you can always make it, said you are the Chosen One. Chosen by whom? I thought, why a child? Why Lily Evans and Harry Potter?

I dread the day when the news of your death comes in a letter through a doorstep.

Sorrowfully,

Petunia Dursley.

4th August, 1997.