Only two years after that fateful afternoon at Smeltings, Vernon asked Petunia to marry him. In a last, desperate attempt to be rid of this man whom she had never envisioned her life with, she told him of her past. Not all of it, of course. She didn't even mention that she herself had been a witch. Or speak of all she had gone through with James and everything else at Hogwarts. Perhaps he would have left her, but she couldn't stand to see the revulsion on his face become more intense.
At least that was what she told herself. The fact was that it would have hurt too much. Telling this man of all people about James.
She had hoped that in his own version of the wizarding fervor for pure-blood (though he, of course, didn’t care about the purity of magical blood, but about such trivial things as race, wealth and social status) he would not want anything to do with wizards. Especially, of course, because they were obviously so much more powerful than he and his rich family could ever hope to be, no matter how many influential politicians they had to supper.
All her confessions did not help, though. Maybe he hoped to squash magic in some way by uniting with someone who hated it as much as he immediately did. But whatever the reason, Vernon still insisted he loved her. So the two were wed that same year.
It was very hard, pretending to be a docile, loving housewife, thrilled to have a chance to be married to such a rich, promising young man.
Life after the ridiculously extravagant wedding was even worse. Two years after the wedding (Petunia was not yet 20 years old) she gave birth to a boy. He looked so much like his father it was painful. So painful. It hurt even more to see how Vernon ruined the boy. And to not be able to do anything, for now, more than ever, she was dependent on this loathesome man she was forced to call husband. She loved the boy, of course, he was her baby, her son. But Vernon would never let her raise him to have values and morals, and if she was honest with herself, she didn't know if she would have been able to raise him properly even given the chance. She didn't know if she herself had any of the morals or values she had once prized.
For somewhere along the way she had changed. Petunia was no longer the stubborn, strong girl Hogwarts had known. She was a broken shell of what she had once been.
It wasn't until Dudley, her son, was one year old that the hardest thing of all came along. A baby, wrapped in blankets left on her porch. Harry Potter. The son of James and Lily. They were dead. Petunia couldn't help but cry for James, even though she tried desperately not to care. She even cried for her sister, because she knew that they could have had more than they did. But that was all over and long ago, and still Petunia couldn't suppress the tears.
Looking at the boy was so hard: he looked just like his father and her feelings were very different. Part of her wanted to love the boy as her own son, just as she had wanted to love James.
A bigger part of her loathed him. Loathed him for what James had done to her.
And an even huger part, the biggest of all, the part that ate away at her heart, was so jealous. Harry should have been her child. His eyes should be not green as Lily's had been but the soft brown, once bright with excitement and a wish to live life to the fullest, of her own.
Also, with Harry came the prospect of facing the magical world once more. Letters from Dumbledore came regularly, and every time she saw the owl coming it was all Petunia could do not to just strangle the bird right then and there.
But if living with that had been hard, it became unbearable when Harry got his letter from Hogwarts.
She joined Vernon in trying to stop him, for Petunia didn't think she would be able to stand him getting what she had lost. But, as she had known it would, the magical world won.
It was awful when Hagrid found them. He looked with such warmth at Harry, and with such disgust at the girl he had once comforted, when she had mourned for her friend.
This was undoubtedly part of the reason she had such a breakdown. Everyone was shocked as she shouted about Lily. Petunia was barely able to stop herself from revealing too much about herself in the process.
Harry's look of shock and anger were disgustingly satisfying, then.
But the continued letters from Dumbledore were terrible. Dumbledore sounded so disappointed that she had not been able to move on. So upset that a bright, determined Hufflepuff had given in and become an intolerant monster. And then there was the actual content. Hearing of Harry's adventures at Hogwarts.
Not to mention Sirius's escape.
Petunia knew he would try to contact Harry the second after she saw him on TV. Part of her desperately hoped she would see him. Perhaps if she had, she would have left Vernon for good. Maybe she could have recovered what she had left behind.
But all her hopes were in vain, for she saw and heard neither hide nor hair of Sirius; not until he died.
It was hard for Petunia to sit still, act indifferent when Dumbledore spoke to Harry of Sirius's death, right there in her immaculate living room. She wanted to cry at the loss of yet another friend, but she was able to hold the tears back. After all, in reality, she had lost Sirius a long time ago.
Still, fathoming that he was gone was harder yet than it had been for her to realize that Voldemort, the man who had killed her parents, who had killed James was at large once more. She was terrified, not only for herself but also (and she hated to admit it) for Harry.
And Dumbledore's accusations of her neglect of Harry hurt, too, much more than she would have thought. How could she have done it, she wondered every night, just before she fell to sleep, after that meeting in her living room with Dumbledore.
How could she, who had been the 'other' child, as she had told Sirius so long ago, have treated any innocent being that way? But maybe she had not learned anything different, she told herself. Was not Harry's growing up reminiscent of her own childhood?
The greatest challenge was yet to come, however.
After his sixth year at Hogwarts, Harry returned with terrible news. Voldemort was at large, killing and waging war, and Harry was going to fight him. The Death Eaters would surely go after the Dursleys, and so they were being relocated for their own protection.
Vernon and Petunia had had no choice. And in some ways, Petunia had been expecting this from the day she read that letter left by Dumbledore years ago, anyway.
They had been bustled from their house, and Petunia had almost held onto Harry and begged to go with him and return to her world when her son - her Dudley, whom Vernon had spoiled so horribly for so long - had thanked him. Petunia wanted to stay with Harry, though she knew it was impossible. She hugged Dudley instead and vowed to teach him what was right and not what Vernon believed.
What Petunia had not expected, though, was for the war to end so quickly. In her day it had lasted so long and been so hard. Now it barely reached them as they lived, secluded and alone, but safe, as well. What Petunia had not expected either was the horrible guilt that built up inside of her every time she thought of Harry Potter, her nephew. He couldn't help what Lily and James had done, she knew. And she decided she would find him and apologize, for what it was worth. Even if it was worth less than nothing.
Finding Harry was hard work, terribly hard, but at long last she managed it. By pure luck she walked in when he was sitting in the Leaky Cauldron. He was not alone, however. A pretty redhead was sitting at his side, next to her was a blond girl. Across from the blond was a young man with longish hair and a round face, next to him what appeared to be a couple: a tall, red-haired man and a petite brunette.
Petunia felt awkward walking up to them, but she did. This was her chance. As she drew nearer, Petunia thought the blond girl looked horribly familiar, somehow. When she was within hearing distance, Petunia paused.
"I saw the latest edition, Luna, it was really good. I think more people are buying The Quibbler than the Prophet, now, actually," the girl brunette was saying.
"Yes, Daddy says circulation's sky high. He prints the truth," the blond stated proudly.
Petunia's heart almost stopped at this. The Quibbler? Her father?
Petunia couldn't help herself; she rushed over, throwing caution to the winds.
"Your father? Xeno? Are you...? You are, aren't you? You're her daughter? Right?" Either answer, Petunia knew, would be devastating.
Everyone at the table was staring at her, but Petunia didn't even hear the protests and exclamations of surprise from Harry and his other friends. The blond just smiled serenely and nodded.
"Yes, I am. My name's Luna. Mum told me quite a lot about you, you know. She was so distraught, she told me, when she found out that you had decided to leave our world. It was terrible, she said. You were the only friend she had, you see. "
"Luisa? She's alive? But the Healers... they said..."
"She's not alive anymore. It was a rather horrible accident, actually... But she was alive then. Daddy found the cure for her. The Crumplehorned Snorkack's venom was what saved her."
Petunia couldn’t bear it. The world faded, the edges of the furniture in the dingy pub became blurry. She had completely forgotten that she had come here to speak to her nephew, she could hardly stop herself from fainting. She had not lost everything then after all. Luisa had lived. Her best friend, her Luisa, had been alive all this time. And she had wasted her life with Vernon. She had given up magic and power and happiness. Why? Just because of a failed teenage romance, a bit of angst in an otherwise wonderful life, hadn't that been all? And now, when she had the chance to go back, she couldn’t. Luisa was dead now. But she hadn’t been then.
And she, Petunia, had given up just when Luisa had needed her most.
Life always had been cruel to her, hadn’t it? And this was the last proof she needed. The irony of it was too much. And this time she knew she couldn't bring herself to go back to Vernon, and she couldn't speak to Harry, not now. She didn't even remember where she was or why she was here. It was all Petunia could do to stumble out of the pub and back towards her car.
That night, before she went to bed, Petunia went to her medicine cabinet as usual. Every night she took a sleeping pill or two to help her get to sleep. Watching her large husband stretch on the bed, she decided.
Tonight she would take a few more than she usually did…