Broken China Doll

Broken China Doll

by: pandorabox82

Prologue: But What is Man?

"Did you always hate my mother, Aunt Petunia?" Harry asked softly, his voice tight, controlled.

Petunia stared at him, unable to speak. Slowly, the moments ticked by, and she retreated into the past she had tried to forget for so long. 'How much do I tell him?' she thought. 'Can I even tell him?'

"Quit stalling, Auntie. I want an answer."

Her hands gripped the mug of tea more tightly, and she ignored the heat that was slowly bleeding into her hands. "No, it wasn't until she got her letter to that school..."

"So, you were jealous of her, then. Remus told me as much."

She shot him a look full of anger. "Remus Lupin wouldn't speak the truth if it bit him!"

Confusion warred with anger in his eyes, and her bit out a reply. "And just how do you know Remus? I thought you wanted nothing to do with our world."

"Your mother brought them home for the holidays her sixth year. Used them as her bodyguards, used them to protect her. But there was no one to protect me. Not one of her friends could be spared on the hateful younger sister." Her voice had lost its venomous tone, dropped to a whisper. "I was never good enough for their world and never strong enough to escape from mine." To her horror, tears began to fall from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. Letting go of the mug, she furiously wiped her cheeks, but was unable to stop the steady flow of tears.

As she went to replace her hands on the mug, suddenly desperate for the warmth it offered, she felt him take one of her hands in his own. Her first instinct was to pull away from him, but his hand was so warm against hers. She looked up from the table to stare into his eyes, eyes that were so much like Lily's.

"What happened, Aunt Petunia? Nothing so bad as to warrant all these tears, right?" he anxiously asked.

Abruptly, she yanked her hand back from his light grasp. "Forget I even said anything," she whispered. "You wouldn't understand, anyway, what with you large group of friends and protectors."

"Albus said you'd tell me the truth about Mum and you," he replied, grabbing back her hand. "I want to know."

"What do you want from me, Harry? I can't tell you this, you cannot understand, you're still so young..."

"I won't be coming back next summer. I graduate from Hogwarts, and if I make it out of the war alive, I'll be training for my job, whatever it might be. Once I'm out of the house, you know as well as I that Vernon won't let me return, not even for a visit. The only way I'll know about my family is if you tell me now, this summer."

She gave a sigh of resignation, knowing that the stubborn streak in him, inherited from Lily, would not let him leave this be. "You say now that you want truth, but I wonder if you'll still want this knowledge after I tell you."

"This is really serious, then?"

"Most likely it will make you run from us, into their waiting arms. I know that's what James would've wanted, after all."

"Merlin, Aunt Petunia! You're making no sense. I want the truth, not a bunch of riddles!"

Once more, she withdrew her hand from his. "Then the truth it shall be. Don't say I didn't warn you, though. Run up to my bedroom and grab the brown leather photo album that's on the nightstand next to my side of the bed. When you return, I'll begin to tell you."

She watched him run out of the kitchen, eager to have his answers. 'Can I really tell him this? Can he really begin to understand my choices, and Lily's?' she thought, her heart heavy in her chest.

He returned a few minutes later, just as she finished composing herself. "I've brought the album. What's so important about it?"

"Open the front cover, and you'll begin to understand a little."

Harry did as he was told and saw two photographs. "I thought you didn't keep any pictures of Mum and Dad," he slowly said.

"Look closer, Harry. Those people aren't who you think they are."

He took a second look and began to see the differences. The man wasn't wearing glasses and had blue eyes instead of the brown of his father. The woman, though at first glance looked much as his mother had, had more of the features of his aunt. "Are these?"

"Your grandparents? Yes, they are. Matthew and Marigold Evans, now deceased."

"What have they to do with this?"

"Everything, Harry, everything," she replied, sounding like a lost little girl. "I suppose, for you to really understand what happened between us, I should go back to the very beginning, before I was born, even before Lily was born."

"Then, you're the youngest? Bust your eyes have always looked so..." he trailed off, not wanting to be rude and have her not tell him the truth.

She finished his statement with a mirthless laugh. "Old? Is that the word you were going to say?" Flipping the pages of the album, she came to a page of her and Lily when they were four and six. "Look at the first picture on this page, and the last."

He drank in the sight of his mother, who looked so carefree playing with her sister, in the first picture. Looking at the last picture, though, shocked him. There was a hurt lying behind both their eyes, which their smiles couldn't erase. "How long between these pictures?" he asked.

"Two months. Harry, we don't have to do this," she whispered, a pleading tone in her voice.

"Yes, we do. Let me into your past, and my mother's. I need to understand."

"Then the beginning it is."