Jealousy and Truth

Harry was so preoccupied with his dreams of studying magic that he didn't notice his aunt unlock his door and open it. He heard his aunt's horrified gasp at the sight of his letter and looked up at her pale face. Harry looked up at her, eyes expressionless, and asked her with a dead tone, "Good Morning, Aunt Petunia. I believe we have a lot to talk about, don't we?"

It took a long time and a lot of screaming for things to settle down in 4 Privet Drive. Petunia had completely freaked out at the letter in Harry's hand and started yelling at him just for opening it. After the woman finished ranting about freaks ruining her family, Harry stood there, completely immobile with a face that didn't even twitch at his aunt's temper tantrum.

After the woman was practically gasping in exertion, the young wizard raised an eyebrow, "Are you done?"

"I'm forbidding you from going to the freak school," Petunia screamed.

Her nephew did not scream back at her and instead spoke up with a very calm voice, "I don't really understand you, Aunt Petunia."

"What are you on about, boy?"

"You keep grumbling to yourself that I'm a waste of space, that I'm the reason you don't have a second child because you can't bear the expense, you don't even call me by my name, just 'boy' or 'freak' and yet when you have the opportunity to practically give me away and never see me again, you're forbidding me from leaving."

As Petunia started spluttering but her nephew didn't give her the opportunity to make a coherent sentence, "Because it's not about me, is it? It's about you, it was always about you. It's about how jealous you are that you're not like me, that you're not special. It wasn't enough for you to ignore me as you did, to pretend I don't exist, you hid my family's legacy from me ever since I was a child. I was never angry at you because I saw you as you always were, a jealous woman that would never amount to anything more than being a housewife, while I knew that even without my magic, I would rise far above you."

Petunia couldn't handle it and slapped her nephew in the face. The boy looked at her disbelievingly, "Are you seriously saying that what I said was untrue? Considering the way, you just reacted by hitting a child is proof enough of what your nature truly is. I am going to Hogwarts and that's final."

The elder woman glared at him, "I'm still not getting you to go to that school. Oh, my sister was just like you. She got her letter and disappeared, forgetting about us, about me, in favour of that freak boy. My parents were so proud to have a witch in the family, but I saw what she was, a freak. Then she met the Potter boy, got herself blown up, and we were saddled with you. And you were such a freak, even when you were a boy. Always too knowing, too smart, too freaky. The moment I laid my eyes on you, I knew that you were as much of a freak as your mother."

"So, all of this, was just because you were jealous of your sister? You knew that I was a wizard for so long, and you just thought that it would just disappear in time. You knew that this was coming, that my letter is coming, just like you know that I am leaving."

Petunia actually growled, "Like hell, I'm letting you."

"Well, it's not like I have to do anything. I have an idea that if I don't show up, the school will just send wizards to get me, adult ones that know what they're doing. Are you going to yell at them too?"

The woman paled in fear, realizing that she really wasn't going to get out of this, "But you can tell them that you refuse. You can tell them to go away."

"And why would I do that?"

"I'm your aunt, your guardian…"

Harry glared at her and raised his voice for the first time in this fight, "You are nothing to me, and you know it. Just like I am nothing to you. Oh, I would have taken your input if you so much as pretended to be slightly maternal towards me. But you're not, are you? You treated me like I was barely more than dirt, like an obligation, not a nephew. Is it that surprising that I am washing my hands of you the moment I could."

"I knew it," she bellowed, "I knew that the moment you would get your cursed letter, you would leave us behind as Lily left me behind."