"I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."- Maya Angelou
The silence was thick enough to cut with a knife, but not from calm, from something far more volatile brewing underneath. Petunia was boiling with rage, and she was, in fact, the only one in the room still unable to submit, unable to accept the situation for what it actually was. Her entire life, she'd only ever gotten her sister's leftovers. She knew perfectly well that the standard of living she'd reached was partly thanks to her sister's leniency, but she considered it something owed to her regardless, on top of everything she'd already given in by taking in an orphan. And now, more than the fear that the magical world was bigger than she'd ever imagined, what truly enraged her was learning that her niece had been sitting on this much money all along, while they have to practically beg on their hands and knees just to be thrown a scrap.
"I never should have taken you in at all. Better yet, I should have left you right there on the doorstep and come back the next morning to collect your frozen corpse, exactly like you were left." Petunia said, the least intelligent thing her rage could have possibly produced. Regret followed almost immediately after, not over the words themselves, she genuinely meant every one of them, but over having said them out loud to the very person now holding her entire future in her hands.
"Shut up, Petunia, this isn't the time to be an idiot!" Vernon said, standing up and striking her hard enough across the face that she toppled off her chair, hoping it would be enough to shut her up, Dudley shrinking even smaller in his seat.
Petunia stayed down for a moment, one hand pressed to her cheek, staring at the carpet instead of getting back up right away, something in her posture folding in on itself, not from the pain alone, but from being struck like that in front of an audience for the first time. "Don't listen to her, she's been out of her mind lately, saying whatever nonsense comes into her head." Vernon said, defensive.
At that, Harriet wasn't particularly surprised, unlike Yuna, whose jaw had tightened the second Vernon's hand connected, something colder than irritation settling behind her eyes. Watching a grown man strike a woman right in front of her, whatever Petunia had or hadn't done to deserve contempt, apparently crossed a line Yuna hadn't realized she had. Her hand drifted toward the gun almost on its own, quietly wondering whether it might just be simpler to finish him off right then and there, but Harriet caught her wrist and shook her head.
"I sort of expected that. I knew you couldn't hold your tongue, Petunia, so this doesn't surprise me in the slightest. And you know what?" Harriet said, watching with a resolute expression as Petunia struggled back up and sat herself back down, head bowed lower now, more subdued than before. "You're right. You really shouldn't have."
"Being with you never brought me anything good either, believe me, the resentment here doesn't just go one way, and I do hate you. But I hate you for who you are, specifically, the person sitting right in front of me, whereas you never hated me, you hated your sister, and everything I represent instead. That's the only real difference between us. If you hadn't taken me in, my magic might have carried me somewhere safer, or maybe it wouldn't have, we'll never know, but here we are regardless, this is the situation we ended up in." Harriet said, sighing. "I'm traumatized, and honestly, I needed a win somewhere in all this, which is why I made sure I'd hold every single card before coming here. Whether I let you keep the house or not, I win either way." Harriet said. It was never easy admitting to being traumatized, especially not to the very people responsible for it, but it was also, in its own way, a step forward.
Petunia said nothing for a moment, then asked, weakly, "What do you want us to do, then? You act like we're the only ones against you, but you're wrong. We hate magic." She paused. "Whether you're right about my jealousy or not, it doesn't change the fact that they, and I mean the people who left you on my doorstep with nothing but a note and no explanation, can do whatever they want to us without any consequences, and there's nothing we can do about it."
After that, Petunia looked coldly at the gun. "Just like your friend here, who walked into my house with a weapon, she can do whatever she wants to us, and no one will ever come after her, because you have enough money to make every problem disappear. It's not the same for them though, is it? Every single witch and wizard out there can do whatever they want, and they don't even need money for it. They don't have to play by society's rules. They have magic, they can bend anyone's mind however they please..." She hesitated. "Harriet," it was the first time she'd used her name, "your kind is a terrifying thing." She said it with a kind of grim finality.
Harriet looked at her, genuinely caught off guard by that. It made more sense than it had any right to, but... "I hate that kind of mental manipulation just as much as you do, if not more, but that doesn't change the fact that what you had under your roof wasn't some witch capable of killing you, it was just a child. Don't blame this on accidental magic either, it responds to emotion, and your fear of an entire world should never have had anything to do with me specifically. It's easy to be afraid of what you don't understand, but your own sister was a witch, and you were curious enough about her world to want to know more, so you were never actually scared enough for that to explain what you did to me. Don't look for excuses, Petunia. It was jealousy over my potential that got you here, plain and simple."
Petunia resigned herself to that. She knew it too, deep down, and she'd do it all again if given the chance, only harder this time. So she turned her mind toward something else instead. "They knew! Or at least he knew, your Dumbledore, the headmaster my idiot sister and her husband followed, and got themselves killed for. He knew exactly how you'd be treated here, and he left you with us anyway, on purpose. If what you're saying is true, if you actually matter more to that world than I ever gave you credit for, then this was manipulation on his part, plain and simple." She said it with the confidence of someone who'd just found solid ground.
Harriet nodded. "I'm well aware, you're not telling me anything new. He didn't even need to manipulate anyone's mind for it, really, in his own little play, he found himself some perfectly natural actors in you three, and with every reason in the world to leave me here, you were absolutely perfect for the part. It's honestly impressive you managed to piece that together, if nothing else."
Harriet continued. "Speaking of which, the cat lady who lives across the street, Arabella, was actually assigned to keep an eye on me too, presumably with some very specific instructions. And the fact that she never once intervened means certain conditions must have been met."
At that, the family of three across from her went pale, and it was Vernon who spoke first. "Arabella, you're telling me we've been living next to a witch!?" They were already running through every possible scenario in their heads, each one worse than the last, imagining everything she might have done to them over the years, with Harriet more than happy to let the misunderstanding sit for a little while longer, but it was Yuna who spoke up this time.
"Arabella Figg, a Squib, born to magical parents but unable to do magic herself... It's fairly amusing watching your faces right now. You didn't actually think they'd assign someone who could do magic to keep watch over you, did you? From what I gathered, this Dumbledore character won't waste his soldiers." Yuna said, clearly enjoying herself, toying with their emotions.
"I wonder what happened to her, actually..." Harriet mused.
"Oh, I have the answer to that one." Yuna said, glancing at Harriet with a small, crooked smile before looking coldly to the Dursleys. "I have no idea whether she's a genuine enemy or not, and honestly, I have no interest in finding out. She was still a participant in this whole farce, after all, so I made sure she won herself a lovely one year trip to New York, just so she wouldn't happen to notice anything unusual about your situation, in case the headmaster ever decided to step in and help you. Wouldn't want that, would we?"
At that, the Dursleys tried to say something, but Yuna cut them off before they could. "Oh, and by the way, she got arrested at customs with five kilos of cocaine in her luggage. I wonder how that got in there... Poor thing, they won't even let her send a message to anyone..." Yuna said, thoroughly amused with herself.
Harriet couldn't help but laugh at that. It was exactly why she liked Yuna so much, a real friend would go that far to help, purely on the suspicion that Arabella might not be sympathetic to their situation. "You really wanted to pull that classic move, didn't you, just admit it."
"Guilty as charged." Yuna said, smug now.
"Anyway, it's time to wrap this conversation up." Harriet said, turning serious again. At that, the Dursleys fell silent, waiting for the verdict.
"In the end, I never once heard it, you know..." Harriet said, sounding almost relieved by that conclusion.
Not understanding, it was Dudley, the quietest of the three, who finally asked, "Heard what?"
"An apology. Not once did any of you think to apologize. Not once did it cross your minds that you might have been wrong. From start to finish, all you did was defend yourselves, never once stopping to consider that what you did to me was actually wrong. That tells me quite a lot about you, doesn't it? Even after everything you've been through, you haven't changed at all. You're exactly the same freaks you always were, freaks who had no problem starving a young girl and 'trying' to beat her, after all. Like I already told you, your destination's pretty clearly marked out, and you're going straight to hell after this." Harriet responded.
At that, all three of them went pale, understanding that the "negotiation" had failed, and Harriet, worried these simpletons might not fully grasp the situation, continued. "So, you're going to end up on the street with absolutely nothing, no one, just the clothes on your backs. I'm seizing everything, and I'm even going to have this house torn down. You've lost absolutely everything. Congratulations, Dursleys, and I wish you a wonderful life after this, hoping that whatever misery follows shapes you into better human beings. And I'm sorry, Dudley, that you were born to parents like these."
"Sor—" all three of them tried to speak at once, but it was already too late. "No." Harriet said, and she and Yuna both stood up without a single glance back. Harriet even picked up the gun to fidget with it, as if what had just happened barely registered as important, just a conclusion she'd already arrived at long before walking through the door.
"Oh, and Vernon, you're fired too, by the way. Not entirely sure what's going on at the warehouse, but I'm sure someone in slightly better shape than you could handle it just fine." Harriet said, still not bothering to turn around.
And this time, it wasn't Petunia who snapped, it was Vernon, rising abruptly to his feet, fully aware he was about to lose everything regardless, and charging toward them in a fit of rage. Sensing the violence coming, the two of them finally turned back around, Harriet already pointing the gun his way. "Watch it, Vernon, I will shoot." But Vernon heard none of it, completely underestimating Harriet with a weapon in her hand. He was three meters away and showed no sign of stopping, so Harriet didn't hesitate for even a second before firing at his leg.
A wand responded to intent, to years of muscle memory built into her very magic. A gun, apparently, just responded to whatever the recoil felt like doing.
"Ahhhhh!" Vernon collapsed, with Petunia and Dudley rushing to his side to see how badly he was hurt, and... oh, what the bullet had actually hit wasn't his leg. It was, in fact, what was between them. Even Dudley winced in sympathetic pain just looking at it.
"Call an ambulance!" Petunia shrieked, and the family of three was far too consumed with Vernon's screaming and their frantic attempt to call for help to pay any attention to Harriet and Yuna watching them from across the room.
"I swear I didn't do that on purpose... I was aiming for the upper leg, and honestly, that's a pretty big target too..." Harriet said, raising an eyebrow.
"Are you sure you didn't do that on purpose?" Yuna asked, clearly skeptical.
"This is the first time I've ever used a gun, so yes, I'm sure. I'll do better next time, I'm certain of it." Harriet said, genuinely put out that her aim had been so far off.
With that, they wrapped up their little conversation and finally left for good this time, neither of them sparing a single glance back, and they climbed into the car.
"So, feeling any better?" Yuna asked, starting the engine.
"I couldn't really say... I don't exactly feel like I won, honestly, there weren't any clear conditions for winning in that whole mess to begin with, but I do feel lighter somehow... so maybe that counts as a victory." Harriet said, after thinking it over. And whether this chapter of her life ended well or badly, at least it was finally over, and that, more than anything else, was the most reassuring part.