Don't Ask Questions

Don’t Ask Questions

Petunia Dursley opened the front door, intending to place the milk bottles on the doorstep and hurry back to the kitchen to make coffee before her precious baby, Dudley, awoke. She looked down, and her whole life changed.

Lying on the doorstep, wrapped in a blanket, was a baby. A common-looking baby with entirely too much dark black hair. The baby was sleeping peacefully. As Petunia looked closer she saw that the baby was gripping an envelope — an envelope made of heavy parchment, which was addressed to her in emerald-green ink.

Petunia gently pulled the letter from the baby’s hand without waking him. She looked up and down the street to see if anyone was watching, but it was too early for anyone else to be up and about. The milkman wasn’t even due for another half an hour. She opened the letter and read:

Dear Mrs. Dursley,

I regret to inform you that your sister, Lily Evans Potter, and her husband, James Potter, are dead. As you are the sole remaining relative of their now-orphaned son, Harry, I am leaving Harry in your care. He will be too young to remember his parents or to understand what it means to be a wizard. I trust that you will explain it all to him when he gets older.

Harry will be famous in the wizarding world because of what happened when his parents died. As you may know, a Dark Wizard named Lord Voldemort has been terrorizing folk for eleven years. He is the one who killed James and Lily. He tried to kill Harry, but Harry survived, and Lord Voldemort seems to have disappeared. No one knows how exactly, but Harry seems to have defeated him. The scar on his forehead is the only mark left on him by the encounter.

I will be in touch with you again when the time is right.

Sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

Petunia quickly read the letter. Then she dropped it as if it were made of fire, and screamed.

The scream woke up Harry, who began to cry. The scream and the cries of the baby also caught the attention of her husband, Vernon Dursley. Vernon was shaving, and couldn’t understand why he could hear a baby crying downstairs when his infant son, Dudley, was fast asleep in his crib. He checked Dudley’s room just to be sure. Dudley was definitely stirring now — he’d heard the scream as well — but he wasn’t crying. Vernon hurried down the stairs, shaving cream still covering the left-hand side of his face.

Petunia was backing away from the front door, a look of terror in her eyes. The object of the terror seemed to be a small baby lying on the doorstep, crying. Vernon roughly picked up the baby and shut the door.

“What’s wrong, Petunia? And whose baby is this?”

It took Petunia a few minutes before she could speak.

“It’s Lily’s baby,” she said slowly. “Lily and James are dead.”

Vernon didn’t much like Lily and James, though he’d only met them a couple of times. “Serves them right,” he said. “How did they die?”

“Don’t ask questions!” Petunia snapped, hurrying toward the kitchen to make the coffee.

* * *

Two years had passed. Vernon and Petunia had reluctantly accepted the responsibility of raising Petunia’s nephew. The first year was especially rough on Petunia. Having two babies in diapers at the same time was hard enough, but it was made especially hard by Dudley’s jealousy — he could not be left alone with Harry. Harry was poked, prodded and pinched by Dudley. Petunia was worried they’d be accused of abuse, so she kept the two boys apart as much as possible.

But now, just when things should be getting a bit easier, a new problem had arisen. Harry was asking questions. Even at this age, he knew he wasn’t their own child. He wanted to know where his parents were, who they were, why they weren’t here. He especially wanted to know about the scar on his forehead. Petunia’s stories about a car accident just didn’t seem to satisfy him. Other people were starting to ask, too. Harry had realised Petunia and Vernon wouldn’t tell him anything when they were in their own home, so Harry was starting to ask the questions when they were with other people, people who also wondered what had happened to Harry’s parents.

Petunia couldn’t stand it. Her quiet, normal life was being threatened yet again. She’d tried so hard to get away from all of this, and it had followed her here to Privet Drive.

Petunia sat drinking her coffee one early morning, pondering the problem. She remembered how she’d sought help from one of those freaks that Lily had corresponded with, and how he’d helped her to make that unnatural thing go away. She hasn’t thought about that in years. But how could that help her now?

She’d learned to focus her thoughts, to keep that unnatural thing from happening when she didn’t want it to. Maybe she could focus that energy on Harry, and make his unnatural nature go away as well. Vernon was so determined he could stamp it out with the sheer force of his will. Petunia knew Vernon’s will wasn’t strong enough. But maybe hers was!

A few minutes later, Harry toddled into the kitchen. “Aunt ‘Tunia,” he began. “I dreamt ‘bout a flying motorcycle. Can motorcycles fly?”

“Don’t ask questions!” she said, speaking each word firmly and looking straight into Harry’s eyes. The little tyke looked puzzled for a moment, but quickly turned and toddled away.

* * *

Many years later, Harry lay in the hospital wing at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He now knew he was a wizard, and he knew how his parents had really died and how he’d got his scar. But there was still a lot he didn’t know.

Professor Dumbledore had just left. He’d answered several of Harry’s questions about Quirrell and the Philosopher’s Stone, but the most important questions still remained unanswered. Harry wondered how he could find the answers if Dumbledore refused to tell him. But his head hurt. And then a strange thing happened. Although he was miles and miles from Privet Drive, he felt as though he could hear Aunt Petunia’s voice echoing inside his head: “Don’t ask questions! Don’t ask questions!”

Harry rubbed his eyes and burrowed his face into the pillow. The only way to make the voice stop, as Harry knew from experience, was to think of something else. Harry started thinking about Quidditch, and slowly drifted off to sleep.