Look
(The Train to Nowhere)
This drabble contains spoilers.
–
She recognizes him instantly.
Even through the rain, she can see him clearly. He’s shorter than Dudley, and very, very skinny. Doesn’t Lily feed her child enough? The boy’s hair is just as black and unruly as his father’s, and when he turns, Petunia sees a familiar pair of green eyes.
The child – well, he’s Dudley’s age, isn’t he? Hardly a child anymore – looks lost. He’s dressed in a black suit with a green tie, and looks like a wealthy, respectable young man.
Wealthy he might be, Petunia thinks, but respectable? He’s one of them. The other folk.
It’s no coincidence that the boy is in Surrey. Is he looking for her? Why? Does Petunia want to be found by him? The boy hasn’t seen her yet, and she really should stop staring, but that child right there is her nephew, and it feels so strange.
He looks tired. Exhausted. And not particularly happy. And then he sees her.
Maybe he would have turned away and went to look somewhere else, had it not been obvious that Petunia was staring at him. After a few moments of hesitation, he walks towards her. He’s nervous, it’s clear. He isn’t sure if Petunia is his aunt or not, and Petunia knows that she could, should, lie.
“Excuse me,” he says, and his voice is hoarse and tired and miserable, and Petunia says:
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
He swallows, his green eyes looking at her with too many emotions for her to name. He gives her a quivering, tearful smile.
“A long time ago,” he says.
“I’m not surprised,” Petunia tells him, and moves the umbrella to cover them both. The words tumble out of her mouth, as if she waited for years to say them aloud. “I told her, before she went off with your father. I told her that a fish may love a bird, but where would they live? She told me she’d learn to fly for him, but how long can a fish be out of water before it dies?”
Petunia then takes in a deep breath and pulls her nephew towards the car she had parked nearby. The boy comes with no resistance, and once again Petunia wonders if she should be doing this.
Only today. Vernon is on a trip anyway, he won’t even know about this. She’d take this boy home, feed him, see what his business is and then send him on his merry way.
And then forget about him, for good.
marlowfication 