Work Text
The morning silence in the painfully normal neighborhood of Privet Drive is split by a horrendous screech from the Dursley’s doorway, where Mrs. Dursley is staring in shock at the bundle on her doorstep. “Vernon!” She screams again, trying to wake the man from upstairs, but only succeeding in waking the baby in her arms, who begins to cry.“Shh, shh, Delphina.” Petunia puts the milk bottles on the step next to the baby there, before leaving him while she takes her daughter back inside, placing her next to Dudley at the table. Her brother is kicking and fussing over his breakfast of sugared bananas.Delphina, at the age of 14 months, stops crying and tastes the similar bowl of banana in front of her while her parents begin to fight over the other baby they found on the porch. It was the beginning of ten very long years.*********At age four, Harry and Delphina were closer than Delphina and Dudley. She was so quiet that she slipped into the background while her parents were fussing over her brother. Harry’s room was small and dark, but she loved to play in there with him, until one of her parents would find them and drag her upstairs to her room, telling her again not to play with “that boy.”Harry was so thin, his elbows were dangerously pointy. Whenever she could, the little girl would share the sickeningly sweet food she was given with her cousin. It was as if her parents never fed him.She was pretty sure that they didn’t.Dudley is starting Year 1, and on the way to school he’s scaring them with tales of all the horrible things that happen to the babies in Reception. Delphina tries not to show that she’s afraid, and from the way Harry is clutching her arm, he feels much the same way.But Mr. Frank is kind to them, and when he sees Harry’s poor excuse for a lunch, he buys him some actual food to eat, instead of the mostly cleaned off chicken bones he’d been given. At the end of the day, he even tells the Dursley’s that they need to take better care of the boy, which makes him even better in Delphina’s point of view.That night at dinner, Harry actually gets a plate of food. It’s a bit of stale bread and the gristle from the roast, but it’s food, and he eats it quickly before it is taken away from him.Delphina sneaks him some of her dessert, too. They play in the cupboard until it’s time for bed. Things are looking up for Harry, in her childlike opinion.
So this chapter is pretty short, but I think that overall the chapters will be shortest in this book, because it's more of me getting used to writing this character and her perspective. Anyway, welcome to my Delphina AU!