Cleave

"Just don't expect me to talk to any of them." Petunia pursed her lips. Barely nineteen, and she already had the beginnings of tight lines around her mouth.

"They'll be perfect gentlemen," Lily said. Petunia wasn't reassured by her sister's worried expression.

"And they'd better leave my things alone."

"Everything will be all right," Lily said. "It's only for an evening. I want mum and dad to meet James, Sirius lives with James, so he's got to come along, and Remus and Peter are very nice boys."

She didn't say what kind of a boy this Sirius was. Petunia knew, though. They were all like Lily--freaks. Mum and dad were going to allow their house to be filled with freaks and degenerates. She twisted the end of her sleeve and looked around the room.

The crystal bowl she'd given mum for her birthday was on the mantel, filled with dried flowers. There was a matching set of candlesticks wrapped in thick silver and green paper under Petunia's bed, waiting for Christmas morning. One should always give quality gifts to one's parents; they'll come back to you in the end.

Not if Lily's friends did something foolish and broke them. Petunia remembered vividly how Lily had broken every piece of furniture in Petunia's dollhouse, just because Petunia wouldn't let her play with it.

Lily had done it from across the room.

She got the letter five weeks later.

Really, though, Lily had been too old to play with dolls, and Petunia kept the miniature house not because it was a toy, but because it was a beautiful thing. The tiny Queen Anne style chairs had legs that curved in a way that could be called sensual, if Petunia used such words. Miniscule cookery items filled the kitchen--balloon whisks, potato ricers, and mixing bowls that could fit on the end of Petunia's index finger. She liked to rearrange the furniture, imagining it was really her home, and she could have things precisely the way she wanted them.

She eyed the bowl again.

Christmas came, and mum oohed appreciatively over the candlesticks, and clapped her hands in delight over the shawl Lily gave her. It was silky, and seemed to subtly shift color to match whatever you were wearing with it.

Then it was afternoon, and there was a knock on the door. Petunia drew her back up straight and pressed her mouth into a thin line.

James Potter and his friends were everything Petunia expected: loud, scruffy, boisterous, joking. Mum and dad loved them. James at least tried to present himself properly--his hair was combed and his trousers were pressed--until after tea when Lily sat next to him on the overstuffed sofa. Then he grinned and ran his hand through his hair, mussing it up.

They chatted in the front room over tea and biscuits. James tried to explain the rules of some strange game to dad, and his friend, the black haired one with a glint in his eye that told Petunia he was nothing but trouble, kept interjecting comments about how deadly the game was.

"Don't forget that time you fell off your broom and broke both your legs," he said, taking another biscuit. "One leg stuck out this way--" he bent his wrist at a right angle. "--and the other like this. There was blood everywhere." Mum coughed.

James's other friends, the two quiet boys, looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

"Um, Lily says you work in manufacturing?" the taller of the two (Rufus?) said when Petunia perched herself on the edge of her straight-backed chair, commandeered from the dining room for extra seating.

"I'm a secretary," Petunia said flatly. Vernon Dursley, her boss, had asked her out for dinner next week. Petunia was going to say yes, but she wanted to make him wait a bit. Couldn't have him thinking she was that sort of girl.

"Oh," the boy said, nodding as if he understood.

"And then there was the time James practically threw himself off his broom to block the Quaffle--he was hanging on by a leg and a hand," the dark one continued, demonstrated this unlikely position by throwing his arm out and coming dangerously close to the crystal bowl. Petunia gasped.

"Sirius can be kind of loud," said the other quiet boy, the one with the soft face. "But he's a good sort, isn't he, Remus?"

Remus--the taller one--nodded again, but his expression was somewhat strained. It did not put Petunia at ease.

"Brooms aren't for me, though," Sirius declared to the room. James looked amused, while Lily kept glancing at mum and dad. Dad was eating it up; mum looked less enthused. "I want something more substantial betw--"

"Sirius," James said.

"What?" Sirius said, whipping around. His hand bumped the bowl and Petunia watched it wobble and then fall.

"Watch out," the soft-faced boy said, leaping up from his seat and diving for the bowl, just barely missing it. It landed with a loud crash.

"F-- um, sorry," Sirius said, looking down at the broken pieces.

"Oh, no." Petunia's eyes stung. She stood up and walked to the kitchen, just to get away from them.

"Peter can fix it," James said as she left the room. "He just had a birthday."

The remains of the Christmas turkey took up most of the kitchen table. Petunia leaned against the counter, staring at the pink and white curtains over the sink. This was exactly what she'd expected.

"Erm, Petunia?" She turned around to see the boy who'd tried to catch the vase, Peter, standing in the doorway, the bowl, whole and unmarked, in his hands. "I repaired it. It's all right."

"You-- it's..." Petunia stared at it; it was perfect.

"Sorry about Sirius. Sometimes he's a bit much. He's like a reverse-Dementor, you know? Gives everyone near him really strong emotions." He laughed.

"Dementor?" Petunia said, curious in spite of herself.

"Yeah. They guard Azkaban--the wizard prison." Peter shivered.

Petunia wrinkled her forehead. "There's a wiz-- a prison for your kind?" The idea of a wizard criminal made her feel ill.

"Sure. It's on this island, and it's just about the most awful place you can imagine." Peter put the bowl down on the table and frowned. "I used to have nightmares about it, when I was little."

His face was gentle and kind, Petunia thought.

"I had nightmares about hangings," she said suddenly. "Even though we don't do that anymore. I saw a program about it, once." As soon as she said it, she wanted to take it back. She didn't want to think about this boy having nightmares.

Peter smiled. "S'funny. I never thought about Muggle children getting scared or needing their mothers. I suppose I thought your kind didn't have much to be frightened of."

"Well, I never thought your kind existed," Petunia said. This made Peter laugh. He covered his mouth when he did it.

"Your hand is cut," Petunia said. "Here." She gestured for him to join her at the sink, where she turned the tap on and rinsed the bright blood from his palm. His skin was as soft as it looked, and she ran a thumb over his pink finger pads.

"Thanks," he said, sliding his own thumb over to touch hers. The kitchen got very quiet, save for the running tap. Petunia's face felt warm.

"There he is." Sirius's voice cut through the silence, and Petunia pulled her hand out of Peter's. "Our Peter might not be the sharpest quill, but he can think fast when he needs to, eh?" He wrapped an arm casually around Peter's neck. "Everything repaired?"

"Yeah," Peter said, grinning.

"C'mon, James is about to make a fool of himself." Sirius paused, considering. "Well, a bigger fool of himself than usual."

"Right," Peter said. He took out a long, thin stick and waved it over the cut on his hand, saying an odd word. The cut healed before Petunia's eyes.

They left, and Petunia was alone in the kitchen again. Her body was a tense band, pulled just short of its breaking point. She picked up the crystal bowl and examined it, smoothing her fingertips over its unmarred surface. You could never tell by looking that it had ever been damaged, let alone smashed into pieces.

In fact, if someone tried to tell Petunia exactly that, she'd never believe it.

She took the bowl outside and threw it in the rubbish bin, where it shattered into a thousand tiny shards.