Secrets She Kept » Harry Potter

Part 35

Comfortable, that's how Petunia felt. She had visits from hospice nurses and various doctors that monitored her each day, they wanted to make sure there was no pain. It felt rather packed in her home with the medical equipment that surrounded her as the living room had become her temporary bedroom. The Muggle woman didn't feel much physical pain, just emotional pain that there were merely days left on this earth and how she was leaving her children alone to fend for themselves. Watching each of them in different corners of the old country home made the emotional pain worse.

Slowly, deep down Petunia knew she had been a survivor of her circumstances gifted to her. Those were the choices and consequences she had to deal with throughout her life. Yet there was apart of her that felt like she had been running for so long. Running away from her sister that was capable of magical powers, running from her abusive husband, running from a potential happy ending and better yet, running from the truth that protected her family.

It was the small moments that she hoped there would be joy for the five children to look back on, set aside from the temporary pain of loosing her in their lives. The old board games that Harry had fetched from the attic and how they discovered how delicious British sweets were compared to those they were used to in Australia. Petunia smiled thinking about the sibling arguments they had when arguing about the rules of Monopoly when Beckham demanded to read the instructions. Perhaps even the simple hour she spent with Millie, braiding her long dark blonde hair while the sound of the fire cackled in the room. They would converse over small, nonimportant topics.

She held the same attention to George when he was reading more about his family heritage through Evans' side. Petunia would recall many happy memories she had with her sister when she was much younger and time spent with her parents before they passed themselves. Harry and Dudley would spend time with Petunia when the younger siblings would need space, beginning their grieving process early. They would take this opportunity to explore the land that had belonged to generations of families before they were brought into this world.

That would include exploring the attic of the old country house, a place not even Petunia had ventured to since she was a teenager. She knew there were a lot of belongings that belonged to Lily locked away up there, covered in dust waiting for curious children to open the hatch. George had discovered the hatch door hiding in his wardrobe and called his younger twin siblings to join him for the adventure. "Let's go find some flashlights!" Millie suggested before venturing up the aging wooden steps that led to the secret attic.

There wasn't a word response from her older brothers, only the pair getting their wands that hid in their coat pockets and chanting the Lumos spell. That emitted a small glow from the top of their wands. This action caused Millie to huff with anger, her own wand still locked away in a box that now sat in an empty bedroom. "Scared of the dark Mills?" George asked the youngest Evans sibling sarcastically. Millie didn't reply to George, merely following her brothers who were climbing the ladder. Once inside the large attic, the trio were surrounded by many boxes and belongings covered by old sheets. Every surface in there was covered in dust, something they had anticipated.

Millie got her own source of light from her cell phone as she brushed away the thick layer of dust from one of the boxes closest to the entrance they had come from. She read the label to contain old belongings from Lily Evans before she had married James Potter fresh out of Hogwarts. Her curiosity was ignored by her brothers who were looking over a stack of books placed in the corner of the room, they once belonged to George Sr, Petunia's father. Many were travel novels from Muggle writers or books about the local community they were in.

Little did Millie know she had come across a box that contained the belongings of her late aunt that had been put away on the eve of her graduation from Hogwarts. She had helped her father place the box in the attic before she was set to marry James Potter. The box was opened and on top of the box was a moving photograph, one of many she had seen in her time in the wizarding world. On it displayed a young, carefree Lily Potter dancing in front of Hogwarts castle with James Potter. Both appeared rather happy wearing their Gryffindor robes, causing the teenage girl to smile back at the figures before placing them down on the ground next to her. Other items in the box contained an old Hogwarts scarf and old Hogwarts textbooks. One which read 'Magical Spells and Healing Properties for Difficult Illnesses.'