It all started when I stole the baby.
Actually, it started a bit earlier than that. It really began when that nasty family moved onto Privet Drive. Horrible people. Of course, I didn't know they were horrible at the time. They seemed perfectly nice, didn't they? At first it was just the couple, I remember, very normal people. They had their baby (what an adorable baby!) and I never really paid much attention to them. I mean, I visited them politely and cooed over their boy. They loved that. They spoiled that baby rotten. I should have seen the signs then. I could have saved that child from that fate, and maybe things would have been different. But no, I thought it was just a young couple enjoying their first child. Oh, I remember being so jealous, but I knew -how sadly I knew- that it wasn't my place.
Then the new baby came.
The woman's sister's, apparently. She and her husband had died in a car crash, and left their baby to the Dursleys. I was curious when I found out that there was a new baby living at No. 4. Who wouldn't be? But when I went over to offer my apologies for the loss of the sister and welcome to new baby into the house, that's the first time, the first I knew.
They were treating it horribly. Never paid any attention to it, and when I tried to coo over it and play with it just as I had their other child, they snapped that it didn't need any more attention than it was already getting. They claimed it was retarded, "Not right in the head" the uncle said. When I said it looked perfectly fine to me, they got snappy. I learned my lesson that day. I still went over and visited, of course, but I pretended not to notice the baby. But whenever the mother wasn't looking, or was busy, I went to check on the other baby. It was thin, so tiny! It had to have been the same age as their own son, but it was thin. Weak. Uncared for.
I gave them their chance, just so you know. I waited a year to see if they would start taking better care for it. They didn't. I even asked! I said I had a relative who was adopting and said I could 'take it off their hands.' They still said no!
How dare they? How dare they mistreat that baby! It was a beautiful baby! How could they abuse such a privilege, when some people didn't have any children at all! Some people who would have killed to have one of their own. How many miscarriages, how many times have I seen babies knowing I would never have the chance to have one of my own! Any baby!
My baby.
I don't really think of it as 'stealing' the baby. I simply gave it a good home. I had already moved to London, and had been staying there a month while I got everything ready. Then, when everything was ready, I went back to Privet drive. I waited until dusk. I waited behind a shrub where the two toddlers were playing. When the mother wasn't looking, I threw a stone at the fat one, their spoiled brat son. I heard him scream. The mother immediately came out and yelled at her nephew (stupid cow) and she took the son back inside, leaving the baby alone.
I don't think they ever noticed he was gone for hours. I read in a letter from one of my other neighbors that they didn't even call the police until the next day. Horrid people. They didn't deserve the baby. Didn't want it. Didn't even care.
Of course, by the time the police bothered to ask any of the neighbors about me, my son and I were at Heathrow. I had made him a brand new passport, just for that day. These were days when security was much more lax, and miraculously no one noticed it wasn't real. I forget what his old name was now, but I remember naming him the first day I saw him. Andrew. It's a beautiful name, isn't it? It was my uncle's, but that's not why I chose it. I chose it because he deserved it, deserved a beautiful name with a beautiful mother and a brand new life.
I deserved it.
So you know, he took to me immediately. He must have known I already loved him; he was such a good baby. He was hardly a baby by then, he was reaching two. Still, he called me mummy like I told him to, and after a while, forgot that I wasn't his real mummy. I took care of him better than those wicked people back at Privet Drive did. We moved to Canada. A big large country, a good place to hide. I came up with various excuses to explain why I didn't have all of Andrew's papers. Some documents, of course, I had to have, excuses or no, and they cost a pretty penny to have forged by characters I wouldn't want Andrew to associate with but I did, because that's what a good mother should.
He and I live quietly in our little town. Some of the people think me strange here, say I'm overprotective, overbearing. They say nasty things about Andrew. They say he and his friends get into loads of trouble. Odd things: glass shattering by itself when he's around, book pages turning, you know the rubbish the superstitious say. A teacher suggested I punish him after a classmate's hair turned pink after he pulled on it. Punish him? For what? How can you suggest he turned someone's hair pink? It's preposterous. They whisper he set another student's desk on fire just by saying something about burning in hell. I think that student just had some matches in his desk and blamed it on my poor boy. They say somehow he set a snake on Mrs. Wong and gave her that heart attack. Rubbish! How on earth could he have done that? They never proved anything. How on earth could they think such a thing! He's rambunctious, but he wouldn't hurt a fly! Those people who spread lies are just jealous, that's all.
Maybe I do spoil him a little, but what good mother doesn't? He turns eleven in July. He's got lots of little friends and loves playing in the forest. He loves his little pet snake (I hate snakes, but he loves them so, I couldn't not get him one), he named Jen for some reason. Sometimes he might be a little upset with me, but I'm only being a protective mother. I've never told him about his other family. They're not really family at all, are they? I'm sure his real mother would be glad to know that her son's being well taken care of, rather than abused by those horrid people. He's happy.
I'm happy.