Canticum Novum

Chapter 1: Talk With Us, Lord

Talk with us, Lord, Thyself reveal,

While here o'er earth we rove;

Speak to our hearts, and let us feel

The kindling of Thy love.

"Mum?" Dudley bellowed, coming into the kitchen. "Mum!"

Petunia suppressed a sigh, forced a smile, and turned around. "What is it, popkin?"

"Mum, I'm going over to the Polkiesses for tea, and Piers asked if I could stay the night. Can I?"

Petunia nodded. "Of course, sweetums. Pack your pyjamas and a toothbrush and you can go over right now."

"Already did," Dudley told her. "Bye!"

"Good-bye, dear."

Petunia shook her head as Dudley banged the door open and left it partly open on his way out, returning to the dishes. Tea with the Polkiesses, indeed! As if she didn't know exactly what he was up to, lurking on the corners with his so-called friends. Smoking. Drinking. Cursing. Beating up smaller children. But if she let on that she knew, to either Dudley or Vernon--she knew Dudley would tell Vernon she knew--well...Petunia touched her right cheek gingerly. She was already using more makeup than usual this summer.

She glanced out the window. Vernon's car wasn't in the driveway--he was working late at the office. He'd already told her he wouldn't be home until well past midnight. He had been working later than usual these days, but this was the longest. She'd have wondered if she hadn't known that several staff members at Grunnings had died that summer under mysterious circumstances. Petunia suspected they were the same circumstances under which her own sister and brother-in-law had died, or at least very similar. She knew next to nothing about the workings of this person and had no way of knowing if he killed people himself or sent his minions to do the job for him.

The front door opened fully but slowly, and for half a second Petunia thought Dudley was returning. Sticking her head into the entrance hall, she saw that it was only Harry. There was a bruise blossoming on his right cheek, and she guessed that he'd run into Dudley's gang, which was probably why he was home so early. The sunset had only just begun to fade.

He was moving cautiously, nervously, and he kept one hand in his pocket, gripping something. Petunia couldn't figure out what it was.

"Hello."

Harry jumped, turned towards her, and had half-pulled something out of his pocket, a look of fright on his unusually pale face. He saw her and relaxed. "Oh...hello, Aunt Petunia. I thought you'd gone out."

Petunia shook her head. "No, Vernon's working late tonight and Dudley's at tea with the Polkiesses."

"I saw that." She noticed his hand unconsciously touch the bruise on his cheek. "I mean, I must've passed them on the way." Petunia nodded but didn't say anything, just turned and went back into the kitchen.

Harry followed her and slipped out the back door. Glancing out the window as she put the dishes away, Petunia saw him sit on the top step of the back porch and look up at the sky, hugging one of his knees to his chest. The way the light fell, it illuminated everything on the back porch and the surrounding area except for the spot where Harry sat. A breeze was blowing gently, ruffling his already wild hair, and making him look like a picture from the book of Edgar Allan Poe's works that Petunia had owned as a child...the illustration for a poem called Alone.

The teakettle on the stove whistled, and Petunia turned towards it, a thought beginning to form in her brain.

With Thee conversing, we forget

All time, and toil, and care;

Labour is rest, and pain is sweet,

If Thou, my God, art here.

Five minutes later, when Petunia next looked outside, Harry was sitting by himself in the twilight, scanning the sky.

"Harry?"

He jumped and turned to find Petunia standing next to him, holding two steaming mugs. "Oh...sorry, Aunt Petunia. I didn't see you there."

Petunia gave him a friendly smile. "Mind if I sit down?"

"No, go right ahead," Harry told her, indicating the step.

Petunia joined him and handed him one of the mugs. "Hot chocolate?"

Harry seemed surprised. "Thank you," he said, accepting the mug and cupping it in his hands. He returned his gaze to the sky.

Petunia turned her own pale blue eyes to the spangled heavens. "Lily and I used to do this all the time when she was home on holiday," she said in a quiet, almost reverent voice.

Harry blinked and looked over at her, green eyes wide. "Do what?"

Petunia smiled. "We used to sit out on the back porch and look up at the sky, with a cup of hot chocolate or tea, point out the constellations to each other, and talk about what had been going on at school." She chuckled. "Usually about your father, Harry."

Harry frowned. "My dad? Like what?"

Petunia chuckled again. "Oh, all sorts of horror stories she used to tell about him...he was a show-off, he was annoying, he was hyper, he was a jock...it seemed like everything he did annoyed her." A fond look came over her face. "Do you know, I only remember her saying one good thing about your father...before the summer we turned seventeen, that is. We were twins, your mother and I."

"What was that?" Harry asked, curious in spite of himself.

"Well, when we were about...oh, we must've been thirteen at the time...she hadn't made many friends, but she was quite intelligent and everyone brought their homework to her for proofing. She didn't do it for everybody...anyway, this boy in her year but another house, a boy by the name of Severus something..."

"Severus Snape?" Harry asked her.

Petunia nodded. "Yes, that was it. Severus Snape, that was the name. Anyway, he had asked her to proof his homework earlier in the day and said he'd bring it to her by the lake once he'd finished it. When he came over and dropped his homework on her lap, he found her reading one of our favourite books, called Over Sea, Under Stone. We were both reading it at the same time...we used to do that all the time when she was away as a way of keeping up with each other. Anyway, he looked at it and asked her what it was. She started telling him about it, and he asked why she read things like that--books that weren't written by or about witches and wizards. She said they were good. He told her that no self-respecting pureblood witch would read junk like that, and she told him that she was born into a non-magical family. According to Lily, he sneered at her, snatched his homework back, and said he didn't want...and I remember this clearly...he said that he 'didn't want a filthy Mudblood touching his homework.'"

"Snape called her a Mudblood?" Harry said incredulously. "I mean, I knew Snape was low, but that's really low."

"Well, Lily didn't know what it meant, so she asked him, and he told her exactly what it meant. She got upset that anyone would use bloodlines as an insult and ran off crying. A friend of hers found her and asked what was wrong, and she told him. Now this is where it gets interesting." Petunia took a deep breath. "Severus and a group of his friends were a little ways away, laughing at her. James Potter and one of his friends were there, too, plotting how to pick on the whole gang, when Lily's friend--who was also James's friend--went over and told him what was going on. Lily said that James's eyes flashed with anger. He marched right up to Snape and confronted him about it, and when he told him that he had, your father sailed into him worse than Lily had ever seen. His friends finally got him to let up, but as soon as he turned around Snape started snickering, so James turned around and pushed him into the lake. Lily used to say that the first thing that ran through her head was my champion."

Harry gave her a small smile. "Thanks for telling me all that, Aunt Petunia. That was a story I hadn't heard before."

Here, then, my God, vouchsafe to stay,

And bid my heart rejoice;

My bounding heart shall own Thy sway,

And echo to Thy voice.

The two sat in silence for a while, sipping their hot chocolate and studying the stars. After a few minutes, Petunia turned to her nephew. With Vernon at the office so much, she'd been desperate for companionship and felt that perhaps the boy wouldn't be so bad to talk to after all; she'd just never had the chance before. "So, Harry...did anything monumental happen this year?"

Harry didn't answer. He lowered his head and stared into his mug as though fascinated by its contents. Petunia saw a single tear wind its way down his cheek.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I didn't realise it would be painful to recall...you don't have to talk about it."

Harry shook his head. "No...Aunt Petunia, I think I need to talk about it. I feel like...I don't know, like I've been walking around with steel shoulder pads all summer. I think talking about it will help."

Petunia's eyes widened. "What happened?" she asked gently.

Harry looked up at her, hesitated, and then finally said, "It's...well, remember my godfather? Sirius Black?" Petunia nodded. "Well..." He hesitated again, then plunged on. "It all goes back to my scar...it somehow links me to Voldemort. Apart from transferring some of his powers to me--like being able to talk to snakes--I can sense when he has a particularly powerful emotion, or when he's close to me, because my scar hurts. Voldemort didn't know about it until the end of the school year, but when he found out he..." Harry swallowed. "He sent me a vision of Sirius being t-tortured in the Department of Mysteries, which is part of the Ministry of Magic. I went to save him, and five of my friends came with me. But when we got there...Sirius wasn't there at all. It was all a trap to get me to pick up this record of this prophecy--a prophecy that says, basically, that a baby boy, born at the end of July sixteen years ago, will have the power to defeat Voldemort for good. I picked it up without knowing what would happen, and unwittingly allowed all hell to break loose. A bunch of Death Eaters--Voldemort's supporters--came out of nowhere and tried to take the prophecy from me. I...I think that subconsciously I understood that my life depended on me not giving them the prophecy, but I almost got all five of my friends killed." He looked down at his battered trainers. "Hermione worst of all--I was so afraid she was dead...she got hit with this curse, I don't know what it was...but if Neville hadn't found her pulse, I think I might've handed over the prophecy then and there, because I wouldn't have survived anyway. Anyway...I know you remember those people who were at the train station when we got back. Well, they were the same people, along with a few others, who came to the Department of Mysteries to save my friends and me--all because I was too stupid to listen to Hermione," he added, sounding angry--not with the other people but with himself. "Anyway...Sirius was one of them. He was duelling with his cousin Bellatrix--she was a Death Eater--and she hit him with this curse...I don't think it would've normally been fatal, but he fell back through this veil and..." Harry swallowed, and his clear green eyes filled with tears. "He's gone, Aunt Petunia."

Petunia's mouth dropped slightly. "Oh, Harry...I had no idea." She racked her brain...she'd heard the name before Black showed up on television...and then she remembered. "He was one of your father's best friends, wasn't he?"

Harry nodded. He rested his head on his hands and began to cry.

Petunia was surprised for a minute, but then everything clicked into place. Sirius was one of Harry's last links to his parents--he had precious little left of them. And Sirius had probably meant the world to Harry...the poor boy. All of a sudden Harry became a real person to her--not a burden on the family, not a waste of oxygen, not a scab she had to endure, an actual living breathing creature with feelings and emotions and wants and needs. Things that needed to be nurtured, things that had been too long ignored, things he'd had to turn to other people for. Things she should have provided for him herself.

Without consciously realising what she was doing, she moved closer, reached over, and hugged him. There were tears in her eyes too. The two of them sat there for a while, Petunia rocking Harry as though he were a scared child and Harry crying unashamedly. Finally, he wiped his eyes and straightened up. "Thanks, Aunt Petunia," he said quietly. "That really helped...I feel a lot better now."

"I'm glad," Petunia answered, just as quietly. "I really am."

Thou callest me to seek Thy face,

'Tis all I wish to seek;

To attend the whispers of Thy grace,

And hear Thee inly speak.

They sat in silence for a minute or two, sipping their hot chocolate and studying the constellations. Draco the dragon caught Petunia's eye--it had always been her favourite constellation. As a child she had owned countless volumes on dragons. All boxed up and tucked neatly away in the attic after marrying Vernon...he didn't hold with magic. "Harry," she said out of the blue, "have you ever seen a dragon?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. Five, actually."

"Five?"

"My fourth year, during the Triwizard Tournament, the first task was to fly against a dragon, and there was one for each of the four champions. Then Hagrid had a pet Norwegian Ridgeback my first year...named it Norbert."

This was too much. "Wait. You can keep dragons as pets?"

"Technically, no, dragon eggs are Class A Non-Tradable items, and dragons themselves have a five-X Ministry of Magic rating--impossible to approach or domesticate." Unexpectedly, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "But Hagrid's never been adverse to bending a few rules to get a pet he wanted."

Petunia chuckled in spite of herself. "What's a...Norwegian Ridgeback, did you say?"

"Breed of dragon. There are ten."

"Ten what? Ten Ridgebacks?"

Harry smiled--sort of. "No, ten breeds of dragons. Norbert was a Norwegian Ridgeback, which are pretty venomous...and they're big, really big, and rather rare. How Quirrel--that's who gave Hagrid the egg--got hold of one of those is entirely beyond me. They're supposed to be hard to find."

Petunia's curiosity was aroused. She'd known dragons existed, but Lily had never discussed magical creatures--they'd always talked about everything else. "What other types of dragons are there? What are they like?"

"Well, the smallest breed is the Peruvian Vipertooth--they only get to be about ten feet long, which is still pretty big. They're South American and the second most deadly dragon in existence. Not that I've ever met one, thank God...that's just what I've read. The deadliest dragon in existence--also the largest--is the Hungarian Horntail. It's got all these bronze-coloured spikes on its tail...and it can shoot fire twenty feet."

"Have you ever met one of those?"

A strange grimace crossed Harry's face. "That's the one I had to fly against in the Triwizard Tournament."

Petunia gulped. "There aren't dragons in England, are there?"

"Oh, yeah. Common Welsh Greens," Harry answered. "Cedric Diggory--he was the other Hogwarts champion--had to fly against that one. He transfigured this rock into a dog--trying to get the dragon to go for the dog instead. According to my friend Ron, it was pretty cool, and it almost worked--dragon decided halfway through that it'd rather have him than the Labrador, he only just got away."

Petunia chuckled. "So, that's four. What about the other six?"

"Well, there's the Chinese Fireball, which is bright scarlet with gold fringe; the Antipodean Opaleye, which is supposed to be an iridescent white--it's from New Zealand; the Swedish Short-Snout--Krum had to go up against that one, it's kind of silvery-blue; the Romanian Longhorn, which gets its name from the long golden horn on its head; the Ukrainian Ironbelly, which is the biggest breed of dragon; and the Hebridean Black. That's the other one that's native to England."

"Sounds interesting. I'd like to see one sometime."

"Oh, yeah, they're beautiful creatures, especially if you see them from a distance," Harry nodded. "But trust me, up close they're very painful. Norbert bit Ron once...his hand swelled up and turned green, he was in the hospital wing for a week. Cedric got half his face burned by that Common Welsh Green...and the Horntail grazed my shoulder with her tail spikes."

This was the sort of conversation Petunia had always longed to have with Harry. She had to ask. "Harry, I have a silly question. Your second year...we got a letter from the Headmaster...some rubbish about a flying car...what was that all about?"

Harry actually snorted. "Oh, that. Yeah, my friend Ron's dad had this Ford Anglia he'd enchanted to fly. Ron and I couldn't get on to the platform--this maniacal house elf had sealed the barrier to keep me from going back to Hogwarts, it was trying to keep me safe, nearly ended up killing me three times--anyway, so Ron hit on the idea of 'borrowing' his dad's car and flying to Hogwarts. Only problem is that the car's invisibility booster shorted out. Seven Muggles saw us. To make matters worse, the steering went out as we approached Hogwarts and we crashed into this tree, the Whomping Willow. Apart from banging up the car--and us--we nearly got expelled."

Petunia bit her lip fiercely to keep from laughing. "Oh, dear," she said, trying to keep her giggles under control.

Harry gave her a crooked sort of half-grin, then tilted his head back and studied the stars again. Petunia returned her pale blue gaze to the heavens as well, and the two of them spent the next hour pointing out the constellations to one another.

Just before he went inside, Harry looked back at his aunt and flashed her a true, genuine, sincere, full smile. "Thanks again, Aunt Petunia. Good night."

"'Night, Harry."

Let this my every hour employ,

Till I Thy glory see;

Enter into my Master's joy,

And find my heaven in Thee.