Understanding

Understanding

"Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden..."

-Phaedrus

The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive.... The only person left outside was a teenage boy who was lying flat on his back in a flowerbed outside number four...

With a grunt, Harry heaved himself off the flowerbed and dusted off. He'd been pulling on some particularly bad weeds when one stubborn one had refused to give. When push came to shove and he had got it out alright....but had pulled so hard that he had landed flat on his back. For the hundredth time that summer, Harry Potter swore that the day could not come fast enough when he'd pack his trunks and leave for the Weasley's home, The Burrow, just before starting a new year at Hogwarts.

His wishful thinking stemmed from the fact that while his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and Cousin Dudley were all nice and comfortable in the air-conditioned house, he'd been stuck outside trying his hardest to get as many chores in the yard done in the stifling humidity. Normally, they wouldn't have pushed him so, but today was a particularly eventful day in the Dursley household

Uncle Vernon was having an important dinner party that night and his guests were people who, if he played his cards right, would be involved in the large sale of drills from Grunnings, where he was Director. Upon hearing this, Harry felt an undeniable (and very unpleasant) sense of déjà vu, since the last time Uncle Vernon planned a dinner party, it had ended disastrously. Unfortunately, Uncle Vernon also had apparently remembered as he had glared at Harry. The whole day he had spent mopping the floor, vacuuming the house, cutting the grass and currently weeding the front of the house. Harry's reasoning was that Uncle Vernon wanted him so exhausted that he'd sleep right through the dinner party.

The Dursley's had never known that it had been a rather anxious (and dangerously helpful) house-elf that had tried to keep Harry from going back to school and confronting the horror in the Chamber of Secrets. He paused in his weeding to wipe his sweaty brow with an already wet handkerchief. As he wiped salty grime from his eyes, he briefly wondered if history would repeat itself. Truth be told, he'd never bothered to tell his relatives the real reason the pudding had fallen on that poor woman. If they'd thought he'd committed the crime, that was enough for them. He looked up at the blinding sun and started to chuckle when he realized that if he had told them that a small magical creature had been pitter-pattering around the house, the Dursley's would have reacted in the extreme! Vernon would have grabbed his shotgun (now fixed) to hunt it, Petunia would (while screaming) throw down as many mouse-traps as she could find on the floor, and Dudley would huddle (heroically) underneath his bed covers. Shaking his head ruefully, Harry often wondered once again as he often did if he was truly related to these people. His musings were cut short when a door slammed.

"You! Boy! Aren't you done yet?" A voice growled behind Harry's back, causing him to jump a little. He turned to see his uncle frowning down at him, while Dudley smirked as he stood next to the family car. Harry was about to explain the tough weeds but was waved off.

"Never mind! Go inside and help your aunt. She has several boxes that need moving up to the attic, and once you're done there, you're to finish out here. Dudley and I have to pick up a cake at the bakers for tonight."

Harry idly wondered how much of the cake would be left what with Dudley in the car, but decided against saying anything in the name of self-preservation. He started to head inside but was stopped by Uncle Vernon who leaned so close to him that he could see that one vein throb in his temple.

"Now listen, you," he growled. "The Carpenters took a lot of talking to for them to make it tonight. A lot is riding on them having a good time tonight - more so than when the Mason's were here!" Uncle Vernon leaned closer until they were almost eye-to-eye, but that failed to intimidate Harry. He'd faced worse things like basilisks and gigantic three-headed dogs; a plump uncle with bad breath was easy compared to those.

"I'm only going to say this once," Uncle Vernon whispered vehemently. "NO.FUNNY.BUSINESS!"

"Not from me," Harry replied evenly. Vernon looked at him suspiciously, but couldn't find even a hint of mischievousness on Harry's face. With a grunt he pointed to the front door then headed to the car, where Dudley stuck his tongue out before getting in.

Oh, to have a Tongue Ton Toffee right now...

Harry sighed and headed inside.

---

"Wipe your feet before you get in here!" were the first words out of his aunt's mouth even before the door slammed behind Harry. She stood there glaring at him while pointing to a mat at his feet. With exaggerated care he proceeded to wipe every single square centimeter of the soles of his sneakers. Once done, she marched him to the main hallway where a ladder led up to the attic. Stifling a groan, Harry noticed many boxes - in all shapes and sizes - lying around the general area. Either not hearing or not bothering to care, Aunt Petunia told him to move all the boxes from one side of the attic to other in order to make room for the new ones on the main floor.

"Get to it!" she barked.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," murmured Harry as he went up the ladder. The attic itself was like a furnace, and in the span of a few minutes into the job, Harry was dripping sweat. It did not help that he was wearing some of Dudley's old clothing. He had to stop every now and then to take off his glasses and wipe the sweat off. For a brief moment, he almost wished he could get his wand and perform a levitation spell to move all the boxes at once and simply bring the ones in the hall up here, but had to shake his head. Although it was not his fault, he'd still gotten a letter just prior to his second year from the Ministry reprimanding him for the use of magic in a muggle home. There was already the dinner party tonight. He did not want to tempt fate. Another letter might mean expulsion from Hogwarts before he's start his 5^th year.

Finally finished he went down the ladder to start moving the boxes to the attic. Aunt Petunia was standing there drinking a glass of iced tea and frowning at some of the boxes. When she saw him come down, panting and sweating, she told him to get himself a glass of water before coming back. He was a bit surprised by this show of 'kindness', but reasoned that she probably didn't want him collapsing in the attic or else she'd have to go up there and get him herself. After quaffing down a big glass of water he came back and started to stack some boxes, and was about to take the first stack up when the phone rang.

"Finish this and then wait for me! And don't touch anything!" Aunt Petunia said as she grabbed the phone.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," came Harry's automatic reply. He swore he heard a snort as his aunt grabbed the phone and went to the living room. With Aunt Petunia occupied, Harry started to stack more and more boxes and bring them up the ladder, figuring that the quicker he could finish, the longer a break he could take. He'd gone up and down twice and unfortunately was sweating heavily again, but he still tried to carry more an more boxes. On his third trip, he was in the attic carrying a particularly tall stack of small boxes and almost had them on the floorboards when his hand, sweaty from the heat, slipped a bit, and several boxes on the top fell with a series of dull thuds. Harry winced and closed his eyes, waiting for the explosive tirade to come. After a few seconds, there was none. He opened his eyes and strained to hear, but there was only Aunt Petunia laughing and gushing loudly about tonight's party.

Taking advantage of his stroke of luck, Harry bent down, picked up a box and noticed an entire stack of old pictures had poured out. Nervously, he got on his knees and started to grab as many pictures as he could and put them back in. Curiosity got the better of him, and every so often he looked at the photos as he was putting them away. Unlike wizard photographs that were actually magically animated, there were simple Muggle ones that didn't move. Many of the pictures were of the Dursley's in various points in their lives: several of Dudley (was he always that big?) when he was an infant, a few of the Dursley's wedding (did they ever smile?), and even one of Aunt Petunia pregnant (shudder!). He noticed that as he got lower in the pile, the pictures went further and further back. However, he did notice that none of the older pictures had his mother, Lily, in them. The only pictures he'd seen of her were the ones that Hagrid had given to him at the end of his first year. Harry bitterly thought that it was simply because his aunt wanted to forget she ever had a sister, let alone one who had been a witch.

He placed the rest of the photos back, but noticed several pictures had fallen close to the edge of the ceiling entrance. Harry leaned over and was about to pick up these up as well, when he saw that a couple of pictures had fallen down the hole and landed at the foot of the ladder. Sweating now for a different reason altogether, Harry quickly - but quietly - climbed down and grabbed the photos. He was about to turn and climb right back up when his eyes caught one of the pictures and did a double-take.

The picture was one of those original color photos from some 30 some odd years ago, that, if not properly covered would fade after a period of time. From the looks of the photo in his hand, this one had been kept in the dark for a long time.

Standing in a very beautiful garden, were three women: two girls and one older woman. The girls were arm in arm, and the woman had her arms around them both. Although there was some obvious fading, there was enough color to see that one of the young girls had beautiful red hair and emerald blue eyes while the other girl had lustrous jet-black hair with warm, brown eyes. The way they had their arms on each other gave the impression that they were the best of friends. Harry's brow furrowed and he pushed his glasses up to his forehead to get a better look at the photo. The girls looked...related.

Could it be?

Harry kept staring at the photo, but no matter how much he stared, he kept coming back to one conclusion: he was looking at the younger versions of Aunt Petunia and his mother, Lily. He couldn't tell for sure, but he guessed their age to be around 9 to 10 years old. Harry swallowed when he then looked at the older woman between his aunt and mother. Auburn hair framed a round, friendly face. Although she was in the picture, you could definitely see the love in her soft, brown eyes for the two girls in her arms.

"Grandma?" he said quietly, a lump forming in his throat. It would be some time later before Harry would realize that the feeling he'd had, right then and there, was the same feeling that he'd had when he'd stumbled onto the Mirror of Erised and seen his mother and father for the first time.

As he ran a finger gently over the picture, he was struck at the contrast between seeing his aunt and mother so friendly towards each other, and now, when his aunt almost never acknowledged that she'd ever even had a sister.

Harry continued to stare at the photo for what felt like hours, but it could only have been a few minutes because, before he knew it, Aunt Petunia came into the living room, carrying the cordless phone in her hand. She was about to place it back in its cradle when she glanced over at Harry, noticed what he was doing and froze. She glanced from what was in his hands to the small pile of boxes that still hadn't been brought up to the attic.

"What are you - how dare you look at what doesn't belong to you!" she yelled.

Startled by the outburst, Harry scrambled to the opposite side of the room, his back pressed to the wall. He dropped all the other photos, except for the one still in his hand.

Petunia, livid with rage, stormed right up to him and snatched the photo out of his hand.

"Who do you think you are, looking -" And then her eyes fell on the photo and the rest of her protest died in her throat.

Harry waited there, eyes closed, expecting the inevitable tirade to continue. But a moment passed and nothing happened. Still waiting for the worst, he slowly opened his eyes. There stood Petunia, staring at the photo. Gone was the anger that normally graced her face when it came to Harry. Replacing it now was a gentle, innocent, nostalgic sadness. Her lips pressed together and she blinked several times while looking deeply into the photo. A single finger came up and caressed the three figures in it.

So taken aback was Harry, that he didn't want to do or say anything or else break the spell.

Still staring at the picture, Petunia said, "Go finish what you were doing." Then she turned and left the room. Harry stood there, rooted to the spot, even when he heard the sound of his aunt and uncle's bedroom door close. Slowly, he walked over and gazed down the hall. No outburst or yells came out of the bedroom. Not wanting to press his luck, Harry quickly gathered the last of the boxes and scurried up the ladder. Once the last one was put away, he climbed back down, closed the access to the attic and put away the ladder. Sighing he walked over to his room, opened the door and started to take off his sweaty shirt, when he groaned. He still had the weeding to finish up! More tired than anything else, not to mention confused at his aunt's reaction, he closed the door to his room and started down the hallway.

He stopped when he heard a noise to his right. He looked over and noticed the door to his aunt and uncle's room stood ajar and he could make out a sound coming from the bedroom.

Weeping.

Cautiously, he peered in. There, sitting on the bed with her back to him, was Aunt Petunia. Slightly hunched over, her shoulders shook as another sob wracked through her body. Harry felt vaguely embarrassed to witness such a display. He'd seen her sad, yes, but that was often due to something like Dudley's new diet and how she howled against it. This, however, was genuine grief.

Harry continued to stare for a moment or two. He thought about it for a bit longer and, screwing up his courage, gently knocked on the door, opening it a little more.

Petunia gasped and whirled on Harry. In one hand she had a handkerchief and in another, Harry noticed, was the picture. She opened her mouth, closed it, and for a moment he could the Petunia he knew in her eyes. The look quickly passed and after taking a breath, see seemed to age right in front of his eyes.

"What is it now?" she asked quietly.

Harry swallowed. "I just wanted to let you know, Aunt Petunia...the boxes are all put away. I was on my way back out to finish weeding."

Petunia merely looked at him for a long time, and seemed to be mulling something in her mind. Finally she looked from him back to the photo. Seeing this, Harry couldn't resist.

"That's - that's you in the picture, isn't it?"

Petunia turned sad eyes on him and nodded once. Thinking that he had overstepped his bounds, he started to head back out.

"Wait."

He stopped at that and looked back to see his aunt indicating the spot next to her on the bed.

"Sit down," she said quietly. Harry hesitantly walked over and sat down slowly next to his aunt.

Petunia, still looking intently at the photo said, "I don't know why I...feel the need to tell you what I'm about to tell you." She swallowed. "Maybe...maybe I want you to see my side of all this." She shrugged. "If it makes any sense to you, that is." She then gently placed the photo right between them and took a deep breath.

"Before Lily had you, before she met him, before she went to that school...she and I did everything together. We played together, did our homework together, comforted each other when a thunderstorm came...and we talked, Oh! We talked about so much!" Petunia looked out past the walls of the bedroom and into a past only she could see. "We talked about what we were going to do when we grew up, which boys we were interested in...anything that sisters would normally do or talk about." She sniffled a little. "And we promised each other that we'd be there for one another, no matter what." Her voice trailed off and she sighed deeply.

Harry was somewhat stunned to hear his aunt even speak about his mother at all. The only time she'd said anything was after he found out that his parents hadn't died from a car crash and she'd gone on a rant about how proud her parents had been that they had had a witch in their family. Now, she was talking more about her sister than she had ever done before.

"After she received her acceptance letter," Petunia continued, "things changed. She got more and more into being a witch. Where I...I thought it was abnormal, that it wasn't right. Looking back on it, I think I let down my mother and father when I turned it down. Maybe that's why they were so proud of Lily and why they...tolerated me."

Harry blinked at her words. What had she said?

"When you turned 'it' down?" he asked. "Turned what down?"

Petunia frowned slightly then closed her eyes. She opened her mouth, closed it, and then shook her head. Harry could tell she wanted to say something, but it seemed rather difficult for her to say it. Finally, licking her lips and swallowing hard she opened her eyes and looked away.

"I...I...also...received an acceptance letter to that school," she said reluctantly.

Harry's eyes popped out of his head and his jaw hit the ground. Now it was his turn to open and close his mouth like a fish.

"Wha - what?" he asked incredulously.

Petunia shrugged. "There was a...delay in the sending of the acceptance letter. So, I didn't get it until several weeks later."

Harry shook his head, still unbelieving. "But - but, why didn't you go, Aunt Petunia? You could have gone with your sister, could've seen so much, could've...could've..." But Harry couldn't think of anything else. No, that wasn't exactly true. One thought did creep up and, for once in his life, he feared for his aunt's life: if she had been as close as she said she had been to his mother, it would've been natural to assume she'd be with Lily and James when they had gone underground while Lord Voldemort looked for them. It would've also been natural to assume that she would've died with them. How would his life have been if that had happened? Would he then have been put in a foster home, or worse, an orphanage? Is it possible he could've wound up just like Tom Riddle? He shuddered slightly at the possibilities. It wouldn't take a great stretch of the imagination to see how close he had been to being sorted into Slytherin. He looked back to see Petunia looking intently at him.

"Why didn't I go?" she repeated quietly. "I didn't go to spite them. For those weeks when we all thought that it was only my sister who would be going, my parents fawned all over her. They didn't exactly ignore me, but I could tell whom they thought of as 'special'. I was given a taste of how my parents would react if I was only a 'normal' person." Petunia breathed heavily and put a hand to her chest. "And when I, to everyone else's surprise, did get the letter, Lily begged me to go along, with the same reasoning you just mentioned." Petunia straightened a bit. "But I said no. I wanted nothing to do with...with magic." Her lips twisted a bit at the word, but there was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice.

"You see, it was magic that tore your mother and I apart. Magic that made her meet your father. Magic that made her hide somewhere, not telling anyone where she was. Magic that...got her killed!" Petunia shuddered again as tears streamed down her face. "They said that there wasn't even a body to bury when the fire went out," she whispered miserably. "All we got was a letter from that Headmaster." Any self control Aunt Petunia had was lost as she hugged herself and soul wrenching sobs shook her as she rocked back and forth.

Harry, extremely embarrassed at being privy to such emotion, could only look away in shame. He had never known. In all the time that he missed his parents, he had never considered the remote possibility that Petunia might have missed her sister a little more. He'd only found out recently about his parents, but his Aunt had had to carry her grief, deep down, for longer then he'd been around.

Slowly, almost on its own, his hand came up and lay on Petunia's back. Awkwardly but gently, he slowly patted her and didn't even notice when his own tears flowed down his cheeks in sympathy.

They sat there, on the bed, for some time; one grief-stricken, another confused. Finally, Petunia wiped her eyes and spared a glance at Harry.

"Now do you see? Now do you understand?" he asked quietly.

Harry could only mutely nod, since he didn't know what else to say. Petunia had literally dropped an emotional bomb on him, and in so doing, had completely twisted what he had considered to be the truth. He was so tired, emotionally and physically, that he just wanted to curl in his bed and go to sleep. But...he had just one question to ask, one that he had wanted to ask for so many years.

"Aunt Petunia...there was a lot I just didn't know, a lot I wasn't told...and I hope you believe me when I say I'm so sorry." He looked back and noticed she was looking away from him. He plunged on. "But...even with all that...why - why treat me the way you've been treating me?"

There. It was out. What he'd always wanted - no, needed - to know.

Petunia stopped wiping her eyes and slowly turned to look at him. Harry swallowed, thinking he just might get it out now. Her eyes narrowed a bit, and before Harry could do anything, she brought up a hand and gently took off his glasses. Once off, her hand came back up and tenderly held his chin. Petunia leaned in a little to stare from one eye to another. Then she shook her head slightly and sighed.

"I...don't hate you, Ha - Harry," she said quietly. "I know you're your own person...but every time I look at you...every time I see you...I only see your father: the man who couldn't protect my sister when she really needed protecting. But then, when it almost gets too much to handle, I look into your eyes...and I can see Lily looking back at me."

Harry's eyes widened a bit in surprise. He'd been told on numerous occasions on how he looked like his father, but he never knew how his appearance would affect his aunt. Tentatively, he brought his own hand up to cover hers. They sat there, neither saying anything, since everything that had to be said, had been said. For the first time, Harry felt a slight sense of belonging, sitting there with his aunt.

A door slammed downstairs and the spell was broken as both jumped away from each other. Harry reached for his glasses just as voices could be heard coming up the stairs.

"Mum!"

"Petunia, we're home! And where is that blasted boy? He should've been done with the weeds!"

Harry and his Aunt looked at each other. The weeds! He was about to say something when his aunt put a finger to her mouth and simply jerked her head at the door, indicating that he follow her.

Both walked over to the kitchen and Harry was quick to see his uncle slap his cousin's hand away from a large cardboard box which he assumed carried the cake. Vernon turned and looked up as both came in.

"Ah, Petunia...what's the matter?" he said frowning at both of them.

Petunia brought her hand up and Harry noticed that her eyes were still puffy from crying, not to mention she was a bit flushed. Harry knew that he must look the same way.

"Oh...well," she began. "Well...the - the boy here couldn't tell which weeds to pull and I didn't want him pulling on any of my plants, so I had to go outside and show him what to pull. Needless to say, my allergies started acting up!"

Harry could only look up at his aunt in amazement and he briefly wondered if she had ever taken drama classes in school.

Vernon's frown deepened a bit and he looked from one to the other.

"Oh...well, then he's not finished yet! There's still the raking that needs to be done!" He rounded on Harry. "Go to it! You've only got half an hour before the Carpenters get here!

"Yes, Uncle Vernon!" Harry said, as he ran outside. With more zeal than he normally felt, he raked up as much as he could and placed what he had in plastic bags. Luckily, the sun had begun to set so he wasn't sweating as much as before. A door opened and closed and out walked Vernon resplendent in his finest suit and tie. He looked around and grudgingly nodded.

"It'll do for now. Get inside before the guests see you," Vernon said, indicating the door.

Harry nodded and walked in. The delicious smell of roast beef, puddings, cakes and wine wafted around him as he walked into the kitchen. He had to sigh since with all this, last time all he got was a plate with a small piece of bread and cheese. However, no plate with any food was on the counter. Aunt Petunia, already dressed, was cutting some of the roast when she saw him come in.

"It's getting a little late, so I put your dinner in your room," she said while checking a wall clock. "You've got a few minutes before the guests arrive so go wash up before eating." Harry nodded and turned around.

"Harry?"

He stopped and looked back at her curiously.

"There...won't be any problems this time, will there?" Aunt Petunia's eyes slid over to the large tray with the pudding and Harry couldn't help fighting a little embarrassment.

"No, there shouldn't be any." His aunt sighed in relief and went back to carving.

"Aunt Petunia?"

Now she looked up to see Harry take off his glasses. He looked down and then meaningfully back at her with his green eyes.

"Thank you."

Petunia had to blink a few times, but her lips twitched a little into something like a smile. She said nothing but jerked her head in the direction of his room. Putting his glasses back on, Harry went upstairs and straight to the bathroom. He took the quickest shower he could so as not to attract undue attention from Vernon or even Dudley. With a towel around his waist, he went into his room and closed the door behind him.

He was just about finished dressing when he heard voices carrying from downstairs. From the sounds of it, the party seemed to be doing well. On his desk he noticed a cloth covered tray with a glass of milk on it.

When he sat down, his eyes widened a bit when he pulled the napkin away. On the plate, still warm, wasn't a piece of cheese and slice of bread, but a hastily made roast beef sandwich. He leaned back on his chair and smiled. Then, with a hunger from all he went through today, he polished it off within a few minutes. He gulped down the glass of milk and placed it on the tray and was about to move it off his desk when he noticed something sticking out of bottom of the plate. He moved it and gasped.

There lay the picture of his aunt, mother and grandmother.

He picked it up and walked over to his bed and sat down on it, staring at the picture. He then smiled when he took out the photo album that Hagrid had given to him of his mother and father. He flipped all the way to the back and luckily found some unused pages. Gently, he slid the picture in and, after checking to make sure it wouldn't fall out, he closed it.

Carrying it back to his bed, he slid it underneath and then lay back on his pillow. Harry now knew that he would never really like the Dursley's; there were just too many differences between them. But he understood Aunt Petunia, and with everything that he'd seen and gone through, wasn't that enough? Any other child Harry's age would react differently, but not many children had experienced what he had. He had a different outlook in life. He might never like the Dursley's, but he understood and felt closer to his aunt.

Who could ask for more than that?

With a yawn, he leaned over, switched the light off, and went to bed.

~FIN~