Chapter Text
There were four things Holly knew to be true. One, their parents had died in a car crash. Two, she would always have Harry as her brother. Three, the Durlseys’ were technically the only family they had but she didn’t consider them as her “family”. And four… the cupboard under the stairs was so small that it was a wonder that both of them could sleep there.
Since the cupboard was so small they even had to share a mattress, which of course didn’t give them any space to move. Today was no different as her foot hit Harry’s knee while her elbow hit him in the ribs, which in turn made him groan and wake up with a jolt.
“Holly… stop moving so much…” Harry mumbled half awake.
The sound she made in response wasn’t exactly understandable and hard to describe. She reached out to grab her pillow, if it could even be called that, it was pretty flat at this point. She put it over her face to muffle the sounds around them.
“It’s not my fault… you take up too much space…” she mumbled quietly, her voice slightly muffled by the pillow.
Then two hands shot out, grabbing her pillow and pulling it off her face, making me groan in protest.
“Are you calling me fat, Holly?”
The smile she gave him was just as playful as the glare she gave him over her shoulder.
“Fat? Never. I’m saying that your limbs are in the way. Perhaps we can cut off an arm or a leg?”
Harry immediately responded by hitting her with the pillow, she laughed and quickly grabbed his pillow to defend herself. Their fun was cut short though by Aunt Petunia knocking on the door followed by her shrill voice that always grated on Holly's ears.
“Up! Both of you get up now! And quit playing!”
Both of them scrambled to sit up while they heard her walk out to the kitchen followed by the sound of a frying pan being put on the cooker. Holly reached out to pull on her socks, while Harry did the same after pulling off a spider from one of them. Just a few minutes had passed before their aunt was back outside of the door, clearly impatient.
“Well? Are the both of you up yet?”
Holly had just begun to pull on a black hoodie over her light pink t-shirt as both she and Harry answered their aunt in unison.
“Nearly, Aunt Petunia.”
“Well, get a move on, I want one of you to look after the bacon. And you better make sure that it doesn’t get burnt to a crisp. In the meantime one of you can set the table.”
We heard her walk away to the kitchen again, as soon as she was gone Holly and Harry groaned at the same time. She met his gaze and whispered, while quickly gathering her jet black hair into a ponytail.
“She’s awful…” she mumbled.
Her brother simply gave her a sympathetic smile.
“At least they are not mad at you after the zoo incident,” Harry replied.
“That’s because I was by the frogs and spiders when the snake got loose. Looking cute and innocent.” she joked.
The next thing she knew was getting hit by the pillow in the face again.
“Mmph! Hey!” she laughed and pulled the pillow from his hands. “Oh! I’ll get you for that later Harry!”
She had just picked up the pillow and prepared to swing when the door to the cupboard opened to reveal our Aunt Petunia, standing with a hand on her hip and looking at us angrily.
“Kitchen! Now!”
Both of them dropped their pillows and hurried to help out in the kitchen.
After breakfast Aunt Petunia headed to the nearest supermarket and brought Holly with her. It was often Holly got the chance to join Aunt Petunia at the supermarket, simply because her aunt wanted help carrying the groceries. Well, that was one reason. The second reason was that if she happened to run into someone she knew, she could complain about Holly and Hally, or brag about Dudley.
She generally chose to complain about Holly when she was with her. “Oh, how awful it is. The girl has no manners and is quite slow, unlike my perfect and wonderful Diddy-dums! They are so lucky we took them in when they had no one else!”
Holly sighed softly as she picked up some tomatoes to inspect them, she could vaguely hear her aunt talking behind her by the watermelons with another woman. Honestly it was tiring to watch and listen to it all sometimes. Today was one of those days when Holly simply stopped listening and imagined being at home and reading a book she had borrowed from the library.
Then Aunt Petunia's shrill voice cut through her thoughts while Holly was staring absentmindedly at the fruits and vegetables.
“Go find some decent apples! Make sure that they aren’t bruised!”
“Yes, Aunt Petunia…” Holly said with a small sigh as she walked over to grab the apples.
“Not those one’s! Duddy doesn’t like those!” Aunt Petunia screeched.
Making Holly sigh again and move to get the other sort of apples. Weren’t they the same at the end of the day? She was only going to make a pie with them anyways. Or most likely Holly would have to bake the pie, not that she minded baking. It was better than cleaning at least, it might be because of her aunt wanting it exceptionally clean.
“In my opinion they probably have it better with us. With the life their parents lead… they would probably follow in their path,” Aunt Petuina sighed.
She heard the words clearly, in fact that was the only sentence she paid any attention to. Her hand froze right as her hand closed around an apple and she felt… cold. Probably from the shock, the words had rattled her more than she would like to admit. But then came the anger and humiliation. She hated when they spoke about their parents like that, even though she and Harry couldn’t remember them. She hated it. And the anger grew and grew. Turning into a hot, burning inferno inside of Holly while tears pricked her eyes. She bit her lower lip and forced her body to keep picking out apples, though her movements were stiff and slow. She was angry about the situation she and Harry were stuck in, for the unfairness of not remembering her parents, for being treated like they weren’t worth the time… for everything really. Her eyes blinked rapidly to keep her from crying but that didn’t change the fact that her vision was blurring and she had a difficult time seeing the apple she was holding. Suddenly a loud POP could be heard behind her, close to where her aunt had been standing, she quickly spun around only to see that a watermelon seemed to have exploded out of nowhere. She blinked, her gaze darting around from the exploding watermelon and then to her aunt and the woman she had been talking with. Both of them were now covered in red mush, green bits and seeds.
If Holly hadn’t already been so close to crying she would probably have found the scene amusing. Instead she left out a small sniffle and reached up to rub her eyes. Then her aunt gave out a seemingly unnatural screech and a store clerk quickly hurried over to check what the commotion was about. After her aunt had received several apologies and a towel to dry herself off with, she hurried to usher Holly out of the store and to their car. Holly was walking a few steps behind, a bit worried about her aunt after everything.
“Aunt Petunia?” she said.
Her aunt seemed to realise that Holly was there as well and turned to simply stare at her, hissing.
“Not one word from you.”
The ride home was quiet, the air filled with the anger radiating from Aunt Petunia. Once they were back home Harry and Holly were forced to stay in their cupboard under the stairs, as punishment. Although she wasn’t completely sure why they were punished, she did know that this was nothing new. Whenever something strange happened around them, Harry and Holly were immediately blamed for it. All they could do was wait for the others to fall asleep before they could sneak out to the kitchen for something to eat.
When the house was finally dark and quiet, they sneaked into the kitchen. Holly carefully opened the fridge to grab bread, butter, raspberry jam and a carton of milk. Meanwhile Harry opened the overhead cabinets to grab the peanut butter and two glasses. Both of them settled on the floor, leaning against the cabinets while preparing their sandwiches in silence. The moonlight seeped through the window and lit up the kitchen.
“What happened in the store today, Holly? Why was Aunt Petunia covered in watermelon mush?” Harry whispered before taking a bite of his sandwich.
She shrugged while chewing her food.
“I don’t know, I heard a loud sound, turned around and a watermelon had exploded.”
“Exploded? Just like that?” he whispered with wide, surprised eyes.
She nodded. “Just like that.”
Her brother simply stared at her with a small, concerned frown.
“Something happened at the store, Holly.”
“Isn’t that obvious? A watermelon explo–” she whispered.
“I’m not talking about that!” he whispered angrily. “You’re not acting like yourself. What happened?”
She couldn’t look at him and kept her gaze lowered, while tears pricked my eyes again.
“She… talked badly about our parents…” she whispered hoarsely.
She didn’t need to say more, Harry understood. He moved a bit closer and wrapped an arm around her, steadying her. Harry was her safe haven and she was his. Pros and cons of being twins she guessed. She would always have Harry as her brother, no matter what happened he would be there for her and she would be there for him.
That night Holly’s dreams were filled and fractured. First it was a blinding green light followed by a woman's scream. Then it was a pale, blond boy standing in front of her in an alley. Lastly it was the same boy but older. If she had to guess he was probably sixteen. He was so close, his lips almost touching hers. She stared up in his eyes, they were a beautiful grey that made her think of molten silver, mirrors and the light when the sun hit the water. Beautiful. And capable of drawing her in. He pulled back, raised a hand up and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear before leaning in and whispering.
“You’re a menace, Holly Potter. And I love you for it.”
His hair was a platinum blonde she noticed then, right as he pressed a kiss behind her ear.
“My beautiful, brave and reckless Gryffindor,” he whispered in her ear.
She woke up with a jolt, her body sitting up abruptly, her breathing a bit hitched as she gasped. Feeling a bit disoriented she looked around her surroundings. It was dark, cramped and she could hear Harry breathing next to her. It was the cupboard under the stairs. The boy wasn’t here. It had been a dream. She could feel the blush on her cheeks as she shook her head and placed a hand over her heart, willing it to calm down..
“It was just a dream…” she whispered.
Careful, as to not wake up Harry, she laid down again and closed her eyes. Assuring herself that it was just a dream about a boy her mind had conjured. A boy that didn’t exist. A boy she would never, ever meet.
She didn’t mention the dream to Harry. How could she? Telling her brother that she had a dream about kissing an older boy that her mind had conjured? He would probably not want to hear it anyways, if he had told her something like that she would find it gross. Another reason was that she knew he would have questions. Holly had been having vivid dreams for several years, strangely enough most of the dreams became reality. It was eerie in a sense. The last vivid dream she had had was about Mrs Figg stumbling over one of her cats and hurting herself. Which had come true. A couple of days later Mrs Figg had indeed tripped over one of her many cats and broken her leg. Poor woman. But it wasn’t as if Holly could warn her about it. Going up to someone and saying that you dreamt about them tripping over a cat and hurting themselves? They would just say that she had a lively imagination or something similar. The best course of action was to not mention it, bury it and never think of the Boy-That-Didn’t-Exist ever again!
… no matter how beautiful his eyes were.