One Hell Of A Storm
May. 17th, 2005 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
featherxquillWritten as virgin story post for my community ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
celebrate_fic. Thanks a million to elemental_fey and minerva_fan for beta reading and pushing me to actually post this. :)
First ever crossover, first ever femmeslash, and all that. Concrit is welcome and appreciated.
Title: One Hell Of A Storm
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Petunia Dursley/Chase Phillips
Fandoms: Harry Potter/Losing Chase
Warnings: Character death
It was one hell of a storm.
One hell of a storm, when the Death Eaters came to Privet Drive that night, and it happened. She’d been in the kitchen, washing the dishes, when Vernon cried out in alarm, shortly followed by an anguished cry from Dudley. Magic, destroying her family, all over again. A whip crack, and The Old Man was there, grabbing her by the arm as she tried to run to them.
“Petunia, no!” His voice was alarmed, then grave. “Petunia, they’re already dead.” He gathered her into his arms, thick and soft from the ridiculously cheery purple robe, then another whip crack, and the world dissolved around them.
“The Headquarters of the Order Of The Phoenix is located at number 12, Grimmauld Place, London.” For a moment, she thought she’d imagined it, but he’d spoken, and he was leading her up some stairs, into a house, and there was a woman screaming about get that muggle out of my house, and everything was spinning.
She was first aware of softness, and of warmth then of voices talking. “Just be kind on her, Molly, she’s been through a lot. Magic…unnerves her. Try and do things the other way.”
“I will, Albus.” The second voice was feminine, earthy, tight. “Merlin knows I understand how she’s feeling. And what does the past matter anymore? Have you told her about Harry?”
Something caught in the Old Man’s voice, then. “No. No, not yet. I don’t think that’s… a good idea… under the circumstances.” Silence following, then the door was being opened, and an orange light illuminated the room. It seemed to come from candle flame, the way it danced upon the door and set the hair of the woman silhouetted by it ablaze with colour.
She must have been able to see more than Petunia could, because she paused in the doorway. There was something in her hands. “Oh, you’re already awake.” Her voice was kind, if a little tight. “I’ve brought you a cup of tea.”
A cup of tea. For some reason, that brought the reality of the situation crashing back down, and something colossal landed on her shoulders. Her husband and son were dead. It didn’t sound right. Shouldn’t it have been thought with a wave of emotion and tears, not this strange, hollow numbness?
The woman moved around the room lighting candles with something she was trying hard to conceal, and Petunia snorted. God, she knew what magic was. “You don’t have to hide it from me.”
She turned, then, and there was something sharp in her eyes. Eyes that Petunia could finally see. “Don’t I?”
It stung, for some reason, and Petunia looked away. She recognised the woman. Weasel, wasn’t it? Some kind of rodent. The ones that had been friends with Harry and had blown up the fireplace. They all had red hair. She’d seen this woman on the train platform, talking to Harry. She must know all about the cupboard under the stairs, the locking him in his bedroom, and she wouldn’t understand any of it. The words stung because they were true. She did hate magic. Harry… what had they been talking about?
“I heard you talking outside the door. What happened to Harry?” Not that she cared, of course. She didn’t care about The Boy, at all. The Boy who was now the only family she had left, unless one counted Marge, which she didn’t.
If there was accusation in the woman’s eyes, this time, it was well hidden beneath the liquid swirl of despair. When she spoke, her voice was husky with tears unshed. “He and… L…Lord V…Voldemort (she shivered, lightly)… they killed each other. Both of them are gone.”
So Harry was gone, too. They were all gone. Her parents, Lily, Harry, and her own husband and child, though she’s had nothing to do with that world at all.
The red haired woman pushed the mug into her hands, and took a seat beside the bed. She said nothing, but her eyes said everything – appraisal, thinly masked dislike, empathy. Petunia could find no words either, simply raised the mug to her lips and took a sip. It warmed her, but tasted of nothing. Everything was bland. She wondered if she’d ever taste anything the same way again.
All gone. She had spent her entire life surrounding herself with people, cloaking herself in that life so the magic could not reach out and touch her, but it had. Reached out and ripped away the life she had built, collapsed the wall, and her entire existence had coalesced into something that she now only held inside her. She was the only one left.
This island, Martha’s Vineyard, it had storms, but nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. She was only one woman, The Old Man had said, and a muggle at that. There was no need for a Fidelius charm. Relocation would be enough. Even for the only remaining blood relative of Harry Potter. There was a whole world out there, and the Death Eaters would never find one muggle woman on an island.
And so Massachusetts, Martha’s Vineyard – quiet, picturesque, far away from the troubles of Grimmauld Place, Death Eaters and magic in general. In the past, it would have been everything she had ever dreamed of. Heaven. As it was, it was just bleak. All of that comfort was gone, the normal family, the home – content, if not happy. She had no idea what she wanted anymore.
I found her just staring up at the lighthouse, like I was watching a one-time version of myself. I could see it in the lines of her back, the way she stood. Someone bereft, drifting. I’d been like that once, like a bird in a cage, so used to the bars that I didn’t even realise I was trapped, that I was supposed to be able to fly.
She didn’t even hear me come up behind her.
“You look lost.”
She jumped, then, and whirled around, staring at me with the wide eyes of a startled gazelle. It gave me pause, the look in her eyes that said I had caught her doing something she was ashamed of. I remembered Elizabeth, and her asking me whether I ever felt like I wanted to kill myself. I never had, but I understood the despair that might make one want to, and I saw it then, in the blonde woman’s eyes.
She seemed well accustomed to acting, though, and after a moment I was forced to wonder whether I’d imagined it, because there was a mask of composure on her face. “No… I know where I am.”
I smiled, then, just lightly. “That’s not the same as not being lost.”
“There’s going to be a storm. You should take cover, or you’ll be caught in it.” The woman looked at the sky, at the movent of the waves on the distant horizon, breathed deeply. “It’s going to be a rough one.”
Petunia stared. “How can you know that?” It was all a bit too much like magic, for her. Every time she looked over her shoulder she saw phantoms, people following her, hunting her, ready to pull their wands on her and kill her. They never did, of course, but without magical protection she felt vulnerable. Ironic that she now felt unsafe without the very thing she had run from her whole life.
She smiled. “I’ve lived here my whole life.” Well, that sounded normal, at least. Not a Death Eater in disguise. “I live up on the hill. The clouds are going to open soon. Would you like to come up and have tea; sit it out?”
Petunia almost said no, almost turned and walked away. But she looked at the woman’s face, kind, with delicate creases around her eyes – the line etched story of a life with its own ups and downs. This woman was the first person on the island to have said more than two words to her. What had she been thinking, earlier? That she had nothing? How could she turn away from someone who was throwing her a lifeline?
“That would be lovely, actually.” She felt herself smile. “My name’s Petunia Dursley.”
“Chase Phillips. Now we really need to hurry.”
By the time we reached the house the clouds had broken open, and we were running, but it was making no difference. When I took the last step up onto the veranda and she appeared beside me, we were both soaked to the skin and panting. Her white blouse clung to her slim frame in a way that gave me pause, for a moment. I shoved the thought away. With one damp hand, I flicked a clump of hair from my face.
I looked at her. She was raking her fingers back through her hair. “God, this is going to sound ridiculous, but that was wonderful.”
That gave me pause again, and I studied her. “No…” I heard something hoarse in my voice, then. Minute, she probably hadn’t noticed. “It doesn’t sound ridiculous at all.”
The rain was heavy on the roof, and it made the conversation a shouted one, but Chase didn’t seem to notice the noise at all. She was staring at Petunia in a way that made her feel like she was being assessed, and it both puzzled and unnerved the younger woman.
“I’ll go and get some towels!”
“I’ll wait here!”
Another one of those enquiring looks, then she disappeared. Petunia turned to look back the way they’d come. The storm had misted over everything, so all she could see were some trees poking up from the grey shroud, but she could smell the sea in the air. Smell the electricity in the air, actually. When she was a girl, she’d always known when storms were coming. When Lily cowered under the covers and hid from the thunder and the lightening, Petunia sat at the window, watching as it tore the sky apart. When the days had been rainy, and they were supposed to play inside, she’d taken every opportunity she could to run out into the storm, stand in it, and feel the rain beat against her skin.
Petunia ran back down the steps and into the storm.
She was just standing there in the storm, eyes closed, head tilted back, lips parted just enough so that the rain could hit them, and she looked serene, like she was somewhere else entirely. Perhaps she was. Perhaps whatever had made her look up at the lighthouse with suicide in her mind had gone away, at least for a time. Her palms were tilted up to face the sky, and I could see the rain flowing in rivulets down her throat.
“Petunia,” I called, “I thought the whole point was to get dry!”
She jumped as though I had woken her from a dream, and bounded up onto the steps beside me. I didn’t ask her what she had been doing or thinking, and she offered me no explanation. I simply thrust one of the towels into her hands and smiled.
Petunia almost regretted her actions. As she covered her head in the towel and rubbed vigorously at her hair, she was struck with just how odd that would have looked, to see her just standing there like that. But Chase didn’t seem to care, she had smiled. She seemed to understand, somehow. She pressed the towel against her clothes, briefly, but it made no difference.
Chase laughed at her, a warm, bubbling sound. “I don’t think you’re going to dry off like that. Come upstairs, I’m sure I’ve got something to fit you.”
Petunia was much taller than the other woman, so pants were out of the question, and the sleeves of her shirts would have been much to short. They settled on a thick woolly bathrobe, and Petunia was pointed in the direction of the bathroom to change.
Peeling the sodden clothes from herself, she realised she was still happy, still smiling. How long had it been since she’d smiled, really smiled? Long before the Death Eaters had come for her family. Shrugging the robe over her shoulders, she tied the belt at the waist and peered at herself in the mirror. Her hair hung, limp and wet, in a scraggly mess. The makeup had washed from her face, and she looked very much her age, but felt wonderful. How had she gotten here? In a stranger’s house, damp from standing in a thunderstorm. This wasn’t like her. But what was?
There was something other than coffee in this coffee. Brandy? Scotch? Petunia had no idea, Vernon had always hated having hard liquor in the house. But whatever this was, it was warming her more than any coffee could. It was quite delicious.
The rain had turned the outside scenery into a blue and grey impressionist blur, and the warmth inside, by comparison, was like a blanket of comfort. Both women were silent, for a time, fingers wrapped about mugs, revelling in the warmth.
It was strange, Petunia thought, how this had happened. She was not the kind of woman who usually allowed others to comfort her.
As I sat, I mused on how strange this was. Here was a woman I didn’t know at all, sitting in my living room with a coffee. I had always avoided such clichés, but there was something different about this one – intelligence burning in her eyes, but flighty; moving like a bird that had been set free from its cage. I didn’t know why I’d invited her into my home. Like called to like, perhaps.
Perhaps it was also because she didn’t look at me like the others on the island did. Freak, pervert, dyke, I’d heard them all. It may have been the twentieth century, but it was still a small town.
“I haven’t seen you around before.” I broke the spell of silence, and she looked up at me as though she’d almost forgotten I was there. “You don’t look like a tourist. Are you new to the island?” She nodded. “What brought you here?”
Another sip before she answered. “Escape.”
When she didn’t elaborate, I didn’t press. If she wanted to explain what she’d escaped from, she’d do it in her own time. Pressing someone into something – speaking when they didn’t want to, a mould that didn’t fit – was something I’d learned to be a very bad idea.
How could she ever explain to this woman what she had escaped from? It was something she didn’t even understand herself. Dark wizards, curse scars, magic. All she knew was death. Death, and more death. Her parents, Lily, Vernon, Dudley. Was magic the only thing she had run from? Was it not still chasing her, this other thing; this shame?
Shame that in the quiet, unguarded moments she was kind of glad. Shame that she had never had the courage to end that marriage, and now it had been ended for her, and she was relieved. Was that wrong? Was it wrong to grieve for your lost family, but be happy to have an oppressive husband removed from your life?
They had descended into silence again, for some reason knowing that idle chat would be mere prattle, and not wanting to descend to it because by their meeting, through this storm, they seemed to have somehow bypassed all the false pretences of society.
But it was the only thing Petunia knew.
“Do you… have this house all to yourself?”
Chase smiled. “For the most part. Except when my sons come to stay.”
She turned away from me, then, and I had no idea why. It was a few moments before I realised that her shoulders were shaking. Tears. What had I said?
“Petunia…?”
Her voice was choked. She still would not look at me, as if she refused to let me see the tears in her eyes. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, I… my son, my husband… that’s why I’m here. They were killed… in a car crash.”
“Oh, Petunia…” And I didn’t know her at all, but I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms about her. She collapsed into me, melted against me, and her tears shook both of us. Fists wrapped tightly around my clothes. She clung to me like she was drowning.
And so she told the old lie.
It was the first time she had cried for them, the very first time, and it was horrible and wonderful. Her son, oh, Dudley had been a huge, beautiful, flawed boy. He hadn’t even begun to live. And Vernon – God, he didn’t deserve to be dead. It was her fault, her fault he was gone. If she’d had the courage to leave him – she had wanted to many times, as she washed dishes or tried on this dress or those shoes for the next damn dinner party, and wondered where her life had gone – he wouldn’t have even registered on the Death Eater’s radar. It had been her they’d been after, Dudley too, but mostly her. The very last in the line, ensuring that there could be no more Harry Potters to trouble them.
And so she sunk into the arms of this woman she hardly knew at all, and for the first time in many, many years, allowed herself to be comforted.
She was beautiful, beautiful in her grief, and I was ashamed of myself for even thinking it, for wanting it at all. This woman had lost a husband and a son, and was grieving for them, and how could I even begin to entertain the notion of thinking her beautiful? How could I do that? What kind of person was I for that? I just wanted to hold her, to kiss the tears from her cheeks and show her that there were things in the world that weren’t cruel and unfair. But how could I take advantage of her like that?
I think I tensed, perhaps even pushed her away a little, ashamed of myself, and then she turned those eyes on me, and they were red and swollen and in them was hurt, and confusion, and the grief. She pulled away, recoiled into herself, and curled back into the chair, glancing at the rain that was still lashing the windows as though it were a trap, this time. I was before her, separated from her, and I found myself sinking to my knees, wanting to explain, but not sure how I could.
“I’m pathetic.” Her voice was a whisper.
“No,” I replied, in a voice even smaller than hers. “No, you’re not.”
Her eyes were up in mine again, and this time there was anger in them, whether directed at me or herself, I wasn’t sure. “Yes.” Her voice grated. “Yes, it’s pathetic. Because I’m crying for them, I miss them, but I don’t. I stayed in that marriage only because it was easier than thinking about the alternative, and now he’s gone, and I’m free, and I’m glad, and I don’t want to be, but I am.”
Oh, sweet Jesus. She was so much like me it was painful. I wanted to tell her my story, to show her what could come of her, but I couldn’t do it in words, and I wouldn’t do it any other way. I’d made those mistakes before.
“And even you can see I’m pathetic.”
Petunia hated herself, despised herself at that moment. She was a traitor, a hypocrite, being glad to be rid of the burden, then crying for the loss. What right did she have to tears? And Chase had pulled away, Chase had tensed up and pushed her away, and that was the worst blow of all, that without saying anything, this woman berated her tears, seemed to know it was wrong to shed them.
But the woman had changed colours at those words, and reached out, then pulled back. She was on her knees on the carpet. “No…” There was an exquisite pain in her voice.
Petunia wanted to go. She wanted to leave. It was all too hard, this was too much. She wanted to run out into the storm again, perhaps throw this robe from her body and just sprint naked through the rain. She wanted it to cleanse her again. But she didn’t. Chase’s fingers grasped at hers, and she didn’t.
“Petunia I… I didn’t pull away because of you. I’m… I’m… You need to understand it wasn’t because of you. Don’t think that. God, if anyone is pathetic it’s me.” She turned away then, rose to her feet and paced across the room to stare out the window at the relentless grey. Petunia had no idea what was going on, what she was thinking, what she was leading up to.
She raked fingers back through her hair, and seemed to sigh heavily. “I can’t say it.” And there were words on Petunia’s lips to protest that of course she could, but then Chase turned, and the look on her face made all the thoughts in Petunia’s mind die. The older woman swept forward, fingers twined in Petunia’s hair, and then there were lips on hers, strong and passionate and fierce, and everything left Petunia, all breath, all thought, everything.
And so I made the old mistake.
I had no idea what I was going to do after that moment, when she would turn away from me and her eyes would turn to ice like everyone else on the island, and she would call me freak, pervert, dyke. I had no doubt that was what was going to happen, and I had no idea how I was going to cope with it.
As soon as the kiss was broken, before I even opened my eyes, I turned away, not wanting to have to see her as the onslaught began. But a hand caught my wrist, and she pulled me back around.
Her gaze was intense, and her eyes wet with fresh tears, but there was no ice there, no hatred. “Don’t turn away like that.” She shook her head a little. “Don’t upend my world and then turn away.” She swallowed, and I could see the ball of emotion that went down her throat with that action. “I have no idea what just happened, or how I’m supposed to react – how I want to react, but please, don’t turn away.”
So I didn’t. We remained there like that for many minutes, me standing and her seated, just staring at each other. I could see her working things over in her mind, trying to understand what she was feeling. She seemed, eventually, to come to a decision.
She stood, and I thought she was going to leave. That she wasn’t going to hate me or call me names, but just leave, and that would be okay. But she stepped toward me, her hand lifted to cup the back of my neck, and she pulled me against her for a second kiss.
celebrate_fic. Thanks a million to elemental_fey and minerva_fan for beta reading and pushing me to actually post this. :)First ever crossover, first ever femmeslash, and all that. Concrit is welcome and appreciated.
Title: One Hell Of A Storm
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Petunia Dursley/Chase Phillips
Fandoms: Harry Potter/Losing Chase
Warnings: Character death
It was one hell of a storm.
One hell of a storm, when the Death Eaters came to Privet Drive that night, and it happened. She’d been in the kitchen, washing the dishes, when Vernon cried out in alarm, shortly followed by an anguished cry from Dudley. Magic, destroying her family, all over again. A whip crack, and The Old Man was there, grabbing her by the arm as she tried to run to them.
“Petunia, no!” His voice was alarmed, then grave. “Petunia, they’re already dead.” He gathered her into his arms, thick and soft from the ridiculously cheery purple robe, then another whip crack, and the world dissolved around them.
“The Headquarters of the Order Of The Phoenix is located at number 12, Grimmauld Place, London.” For a moment, she thought she’d imagined it, but he’d spoken, and he was leading her up some stairs, into a house, and there was a woman screaming about get that muggle out of my house, and everything was spinning.
She was first aware of softness, and of warmth then of voices talking. “Just be kind on her, Molly, she’s been through a lot. Magic…unnerves her. Try and do things the other way.”
“I will, Albus.” The second voice was feminine, earthy, tight. “Merlin knows I understand how she’s feeling. And what does the past matter anymore? Have you told her about Harry?”
Something caught in the Old Man’s voice, then. “No. No, not yet. I don’t think that’s… a good idea… under the circumstances.” Silence following, then the door was being opened, and an orange light illuminated the room. It seemed to come from candle flame, the way it danced upon the door and set the hair of the woman silhouetted by it ablaze with colour.
She must have been able to see more than Petunia could, because she paused in the doorway. There was something in her hands. “Oh, you’re already awake.” Her voice was kind, if a little tight. “I’ve brought you a cup of tea.”
A cup of tea. For some reason, that brought the reality of the situation crashing back down, and something colossal landed on her shoulders. Her husband and son were dead. It didn’t sound right. Shouldn’t it have been thought with a wave of emotion and tears, not this strange, hollow numbness?
The woman moved around the room lighting candles with something she was trying hard to conceal, and Petunia snorted. God, she knew what magic was. “You don’t have to hide it from me.”
She turned, then, and there was something sharp in her eyes. Eyes that Petunia could finally see. “Don’t I?”
It stung, for some reason, and Petunia looked away. She recognised the woman. Weasel, wasn’t it? Some kind of rodent. The ones that had been friends with Harry and had blown up the fireplace. They all had red hair. She’d seen this woman on the train platform, talking to Harry. She must know all about the cupboard under the stairs, the locking him in his bedroom, and she wouldn’t understand any of it. The words stung because they were true. She did hate magic. Harry… what had they been talking about?
“I heard you talking outside the door. What happened to Harry?” Not that she cared, of course. She didn’t care about The Boy, at all. The Boy who was now the only family she had left, unless one counted Marge, which she didn’t.
If there was accusation in the woman’s eyes, this time, it was well hidden beneath the liquid swirl of despair. When she spoke, her voice was husky with tears unshed. “He and… L…Lord V…Voldemort (she shivered, lightly)… they killed each other. Both of them are gone.”
So Harry was gone, too. They were all gone. Her parents, Lily, Harry, and her own husband and child, though she’s had nothing to do with that world at all.
The red haired woman pushed the mug into her hands, and took a seat beside the bed. She said nothing, but her eyes said everything – appraisal, thinly masked dislike, empathy. Petunia could find no words either, simply raised the mug to her lips and took a sip. It warmed her, but tasted of nothing. Everything was bland. She wondered if she’d ever taste anything the same way again.
All gone. She had spent her entire life surrounding herself with people, cloaking herself in that life so the magic could not reach out and touch her, but it had. Reached out and ripped away the life she had built, collapsed the wall, and her entire existence had coalesced into something that she now only held inside her. She was the only one left.
This island, Martha’s Vineyard, it had storms, but nothing like that. Nothing like that at all. She was only one woman, The Old Man had said, and a muggle at that. There was no need for a Fidelius charm. Relocation would be enough. Even for the only remaining blood relative of Harry Potter. There was a whole world out there, and the Death Eaters would never find one muggle woman on an island.
And so Massachusetts, Martha’s Vineyard – quiet, picturesque, far away from the troubles of Grimmauld Place, Death Eaters and magic in general. In the past, it would have been everything she had ever dreamed of. Heaven. As it was, it was just bleak. All of that comfort was gone, the normal family, the home – content, if not happy. She had no idea what she wanted anymore.
I found her just staring up at the lighthouse, like I was watching a one-time version of myself. I could see it in the lines of her back, the way she stood. Someone bereft, drifting. I’d been like that once, like a bird in a cage, so used to the bars that I didn’t even realise I was trapped, that I was supposed to be able to fly.
She didn’t even hear me come up behind her.
“You look lost.”
She jumped, then, and whirled around, staring at me with the wide eyes of a startled gazelle. It gave me pause, the look in her eyes that said I had caught her doing something she was ashamed of. I remembered Elizabeth, and her asking me whether I ever felt like I wanted to kill myself. I never had, but I understood the despair that might make one want to, and I saw it then, in the blonde woman’s eyes.
She seemed well accustomed to acting, though, and after a moment I was forced to wonder whether I’d imagined it, because there was a mask of composure on her face. “No… I know where I am.”
I smiled, then, just lightly. “That’s not the same as not being lost.”
“There’s going to be a storm. You should take cover, or you’ll be caught in it.” The woman looked at the sky, at the movent of the waves on the distant horizon, breathed deeply. “It’s going to be a rough one.”
Petunia stared. “How can you know that?” It was all a bit too much like magic, for her. Every time she looked over her shoulder she saw phantoms, people following her, hunting her, ready to pull their wands on her and kill her. They never did, of course, but without magical protection she felt vulnerable. Ironic that she now felt unsafe without the very thing she had run from her whole life.
She smiled. “I’ve lived here my whole life.” Well, that sounded normal, at least. Not a Death Eater in disguise. “I live up on the hill. The clouds are going to open soon. Would you like to come up and have tea; sit it out?”
Petunia almost said no, almost turned and walked away. But she looked at the woman’s face, kind, with delicate creases around her eyes – the line etched story of a life with its own ups and downs. This woman was the first person on the island to have said more than two words to her. What had she been thinking, earlier? That she had nothing? How could she turn away from someone who was throwing her a lifeline?
“That would be lovely, actually.” She felt herself smile. “My name’s Petunia Dursley.”
“Chase Phillips. Now we really need to hurry.”
By the time we reached the house the clouds had broken open, and we were running, but it was making no difference. When I took the last step up onto the veranda and she appeared beside me, we were both soaked to the skin and panting. Her white blouse clung to her slim frame in a way that gave me pause, for a moment. I shoved the thought away. With one damp hand, I flicked a clump of hair from my face.
I looked at her. She was raking her fingers back through her hair. “God, this is going to sound ridiculous, but that was wonderful.”
That gave me pause again, and I studied her. “No…” I heard something hoarse in my voice, then. Minute, she probably hadn’t noticed. “It doesn’t sound ridiculous at all.”
The rain was heavy on the roof, and it made the conversation a shouted one, but Chase didn’t seem to notice the noise at all. She was staring at Petunia in a way that made her feel like she was being assessed, and it both puzzled and unnerved the younger woman.
“I’ll go and get some towels!”
“I’ll wait here!”
Another one of those enquiring looks, then she disappeared. Petunia turned to look back the way they’d come. The storm had misted over everything, so all she could see were some trees poking up from the grey shroud, but she could smell the sea in the air. Smell the electricity in the air, actually. When she was a girl, she’d always known when storms were coming. When Lily cowered under the covers and hid from the thunder and the lightening, Petunia sat at the window, watching as it tore the sky apart. When the days had been rainy, and they were supposed to play inside, she’d taken every opportunity she could to run out into the storm, stand in it, and feel the rain beat against her skin.
Petunia ran back down the steps and into the storm.
She was just standing there in the storm, eyes closed, head tilted back, lips parted just enough so that the rain could hit them, and she looked serene, like she was somewhere else entirely. Perhaps she was. Perhaps whatever had made her look up at the lighthouse with suicide in her mind had gone away, at least for a time. Her palms were tilted up to face the sky, and I could see the rain flowing in rivulets down her throat.
“Petunia,” I called, “I thought the whole point was to get dry!”
She jumped as though I had woken her from a dream, and bounded up onto the steps beside me. I didn’t ask her what she had been doing or thinking, and she offered me no explanation. I simply thrust one of the towels into her hands and smiled.
Petunia almost regretted her actions. As she covered her head in the towel and rubbed vigorously at her hair, she was struck with just how odd that would have looked, to see her just standing there like that. But Chase didn’t seem to care, she had smiled. She seemed to understand, somehow. She pressed the towel against her clothes, briefly, but it made no difference.
Chase laughed at her, a warm, bubbling sound. “I don’t think you’re going to dry off like that. Come upstairs, I’m sure I’ve got something to fit you.”
Petunia was much taller than the other woman, so pants were out of the question, and the sleeves of her shirts would have been much to short. They settled on a thick woolly bathrobe, and Petunia was pointed in the direction of the bathroom to change.
Peeling the sodden clothes from herself, she realised she was still happy, still smiling. How long had it been since she’d smiled, really smiled? Long before the Death Eaters had come for her family. Shrugging the robe over her shoulders, she tied the belt at the waist and peered at herself in the mirror. Her hair hung, limp and wet, in a scraggly mess. The makeup had washed from her face, and she looked very much her age, but felt wonderful. How had she gotten here? In a stranger’s house, damp from standing in a thunderstorm. This wasn’t like her. But what was?
There was something other than coffee in this coffee. Brandy? Scotch? Petunia had no idea, Vernon had always hated having hard liquor in the house. But whatever this was, it was warming her more than any coffee could. It was quite delicious.
The rain had turned the outside scenery into a blue and grey impressionist blur, and the warmth inside, by comparison, was like a blanket of comfort. Both women were silent, for a time, fingers wrapped about mugs, revelling in the warmth.
It was strange, Petunia thought, how this had happened. She was not the kind of woman who usually allowed others to comfort her.
As I sat, I mused on how strange this was. Here was a woman I didn’t know at all, sitting in my living room with a coffee. I had always avoided such clichés, but there was something different about this one – intelligence burning in her eyes, but flighty; moving like a bird that had been set free from its cage. I didn’t know why I’d invited her into my home. Like called to like, perhaps.
Perhaps it was also because she didn’t look at me like the others on the island did. Freak, pervert, dyke, I’d heard them all. It may have been the twentieth century, but it was still a small town.
“I haven’t seen you around before.” I broke the spell of silence, and she looked up at me as though she’d almost forgotten I was there. “You don’t look like a tourist. Are you new to the island?” She nodded. “What brought you here?”
Another sip before she answered. “Escape.”
When she didn’t elaborate, I didn’t press. If she wanted to explain what she’d escaped from, she’d do it in her own time. Pressing someone into something – speaking when they didn’t want to, a mould that didn’t fit – was something I’d learned to be a very bad idea.
How could she ever explain to this woman what she had escaped from? It was something she didn’t even understand herself. Dark wizards, curse scars, magic. All she knew was death. Death, and more death. Her parents, Lily, Vernon, Dudley. Was magic the only thing she had run from? Was it not still chasing her, this other thing; this shame?
Shame that in the quiet, unguarded moments she was kind of glad. Shame that she had never had the courage to end that marriage, and now it had been ended for her, and she was relieved. Was that wrong? Was it wrong to grieve for your lost family, but be happy to have an oppressive husband removed from your life?
They had descended into silence again, for some reason knowing that idle chat would be mere prattle, and not wanting to descend to it because by their meeting, through this storm, they seemed to have somehow bypassed all the false pretences of society.
But it was the only thing Petunia knew.
“Do you… have this house all to yourself?”
Chase smiled. “For the most part. Except when my sons come to stay.”
She turned away from me, then, and I had no idea why. It was a few moments before I realised that her shoulders were shaking. Tears. What had I said?
“Petunia…?”
Her voice was choked. She still would not look at me, as if she refused to let me see the tears in her eyes. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, I… my son, my husband… that’s why I’m here. They were killed… in a car crash.”
“Oh, Petunia…” And I didn’t know her at all, but I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms about her. She collapsed into me, melted against me, and her tears shook both of us. Fists wrapped tightly around my clothes. She clung to me like she was drowning.
And so she told the old lie.
It was the first time she had cried for them, the very first time, and it was horrible and wonderful. Her son, oh, Dudley had been a huge, beautiful, flawed boy. He hadn’t even begun to live. And Vernon – God, he didn’t deserve to be dead. It was her fault, her fault he was gone. If she’d had the courage to leave him – she had wanted to many times, as she washed dishes or tried on this dress or those shoes for the next damn dinner party, and wondered where her life had gone – he wouldn’t have even registered on the Death Eater’s radar. It had been her they’d been after, Dudley too, but mostly her. The very last in the line, ensuring that there could be no more Harry Potters to trouble them.
And so she sunk into the arms of this woman she hardly knew at all, and for the first time in many, many years, allowed herself to be comforted.
She was beautiful, beautiful in her grief, and I was ashamed of myself for even thinking it, for wanting it at all. This woman had lost a husband and a son, and was grieving for them, and how could I even begin to entertain the notion of thinking her beautiful? How could I do that? What kind of person was I for that? I just wanted to hold her, to kiss the tears from her cheeks and show her that there were things in the world that weren’t cruel and unfair. But how could I take advantage of her like that?
I think I tensed, perhaps even pushed her away a little, ashamed of myself, and then she turned those eyes on me, and they were red and swollen and in them was hurt, and confusion, and the grief. She pulled away, recoiled into herself, and curled back into the chair, glancing at the rain that was still lashing the windows as though it were a trap, this time. I was before her, separated from her, and I found myself sinking to my knees, wanting to explain, but not sure how I could.
“I’m pathetic.” Her voice was a whisper.
“No,” I replied, in a voice even smaller than hers. “No, you’re not.”
Her eyes were up in mine again, and this time there was anger in them, whether directed at me or herself, I wasn’t sure. “Yes.” Her voice grated. “Yes, it’s pathetic. Because I’m crying for them, I miss them, but I don’t. I stayed in that marriage only because it was easier than thinking about the alternative, and now he’s gone, and I’m free, and I’m glad, and I don’t want to be, but I am.”
Oh, sweet Jesus. She was so much like me it was painful. I wanted to tell her my story, to show her what could come of her, but I couldn’t do it in words, and I wouldn’t do it any other way. I’d made those mistakes before.
“And even you can see I’m pathetic.”
Petunia hated herself, despised herself at that moment. She was a traitor, a hypocrite, being glad to be rid of the burden, then crying for the loss. What right did she have to tears? And Chase had pulled away, Chase had tensed up and pushed her away, and that was the worst blow of all, that without saying anything, this woman berated her tears, seemed to know it was wrong to shed them.
But the woman had changed colours at those words, and reached out, then pulled back. She was on her knees on the carpet. “No…” There was an exquisite pain in her voice.
Petunia wanted to go. She wanted to leave. It was all too hard, this was too much. She wanted to run out into the storm again, perhaps throw this robe from her body and just sprint naked through the rain. She wanted it to cleanse her again. But she didn’t. Chase’s fingers grasped at hers, and she didn’t.
“Petunia I… I didn’t pull away because of you. I’m… I’m… You need to understand it wasn’t because of you. Don’t think that. God, if anyone is pathetic it’s me.” She turned away then, rose to her feet and paced across the room to stare out the window at the relentless grey. Petunia had no idea what was going on, what she was thinking, what she was leading up to.
She raked fingers back through her hair, and seemed to sigh heavily. “I can’t say it.” And there were words on Petunia’s lips to protest that of course she could, but then Chase turned, and the look on her face made all the thoughts in Petunia’s mind die. The older woman swept forward, fingers twined in Petunia’s hair, and then there were lips on hers, strong and passionate and fierce, and everything left Petunia, all breath, all thought, everything.
And so I made the old mistake.
I had no idea what I was going to do after that moment, when she would turn away from me and her eyes would turn to ice like everyone else on the island, and she would call me freak, pervert, dyke. I had no doubt that was what was going to happen, and I had no idea how I was going to cope with it.
As soon as the kiss was broken, before I even opened my eyes, I turned away, not wanting to have to see her as the onslaught began. But a hand caught my wrist, and she pulled me back around.
Her gaze was intense, and her eyes wet with fresh tears, but there was no ice there, no hatred. “Don’t turn away like that.” She shook her head a little. “Don’t upend my world and then turn away.” She swallowed, and I could see the ball of emotion that went down her throat with that action. “I have no idea what just happened, or how I’m supposed to react – how I want to react, but please, don’t turn away.”
So I didn’t. We remained there like that for many minutes, me standing and her seated, just staring at each other. I could see her working things over in her mind, trying to understand what she was feeling. She seemed, eventually, to come to a decision.
She stood, and I thought she was going to leave. That she wasn’t going to hate me or call me names, but just leave, and that would be okay. But she stepped toward me, her hand lifted to cup the back of my neck, and she pulled me against her for a second kiss.
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Date: 2005-05-18 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-18 02:13 pm (UTC)My other fiction is scattered all over the place... there are some links in fairly recent posts, if you're interested. I suppose I should compile a masterlist.
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Date: 2005-12-07 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-08 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-25 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-27 07:38 pm (UTC)yesterday I read the dark one with the dememtors (*OMG* but she could not see them after all/ at least...), today this one (I love the movie): it is absolutely amazing! I will bookmark it for sure; and so very well written with the alternating view from outside and Chase POV !
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Date: 2010-07-28 11:40 am (UTC)Fair enough on the Harry/Minerva. Imagining Minerva that way is kind of the problem I have with it now, too - the way I see Minerva has changed considerably since I wrote that. Maybe I'll try the pairing again sometime, and see if I can get it to work in my head with Minerva as I understand her now.
And yay! I'm glad you enjoy the Petunia! It's so awesome to find other people who have seen Losing Chase! It's such a wonderful film.
I believe 'Invisble Lover' remains the most twisted HP fic I've written. I have no idea what part of my brain it came from.
Thanks again! ♥
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Date: 2010-10-01 03:45 pm (UTC)Spectacular. The way Petunia both misses Vernon, regrets his death and the unfairness of that death, and is still glad that she's free.
And Chase! What a wonderful idea to combine these two.
I also love the way Lily is afraid of storms and lightning, and Petunia isn't.