Genuflection

Far too many capitalisations. Post-HBP. Religious abuse of a young child, possibly not completely true to Catholic tradition, but I point out that Peturnia is a Protestant. Oh, and I'm Catholic, so don't come bitching to me about how horrible the portrayal of this is. Religious squick is one of the few I write, and I am intimately aware of all the ramifications of religious abuse, tyvm. So fuck off.

It was enough for him to enter the church, kneel quickly beside the pew, and slide into his seat five minutes before the Antiphon. Enough to lower himself slowly onto the kneeler, salute the Crucifix suspended from the ceiling, and forget.

He liked to lose himself in the service, to let the words slide over and through him, lyrics and verses long memorised and so recently forgotten. He did not know how he had gone so long without it, only the summers between his first and sixth years had been spent in mass and the company of the parish. ...the peace of the Holy Spirit...and also with you... The hand motions were familiar, the cant, the priest and the Eucharist.

He remembered his aunt, dragging him here every Sunday for the first eleven years of his life, and Tuesdays after school, entrusting him to the nuns and begging the priests to spare a prayer for him. He did not know why she did it. She always sat stonily on the bench during prayers and hymns, but if he failed to kneel or stand or sing, it would be a sharp pinch then and a beating later.

She would have him read his Catechism aloud, everyday, ten pages from the time he learned to recognise letters. Who made the world? she would ask him from the kitchen table as he washed the dishes, and he would answer, lips tucked tightly between his teeth in concentration, God made the world.

She bought him a Rosary, hung it around his neck and told him that if he ever took it off it was to pray to Mary, and at no other time. He bent his head obediently and let the beads slide click-click-click through his fingers.

What are the Commandments? she would ask, and he would list them. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill...love they neighbour as thyself... He occasionally would wonder why she never made his cousin recite the Commandments, as he certainly didn't obey any of them. Dudley didn't love anybody, and he swore and stole and never went to Confession, ever. Harry had to go once a week.

When Petunia brought him home from his first Communion, all dressed up in starched white trousers and shirt, the only new clothes he'd ever owned, she took him to a religious supply store and bought him his first Icon, a small statue of Saint Jerome Emiliani, patron of orphans and abandoned children. That evening he cleared a spot for it in the corner of his cupboard and reverently placed it in the dirt. He thumbed through his little dog-eared index of the saints until he came to him. February 8, he noted, and taking out a stub of a pencil he inscribed that date above his door so as not to forget it.

He was precocious and helpful, and all the nuns at the school would pinch his cheeks and offer him sweets or pray the rosary for him. Because Dudley went to a public school, there was no one to bother the small boy or push him down or take his candy. If Petunia would forget to pick him up in time he would sweep and dust. When the Father asked him if he would become an altar boy, he confided his dream of becoming a priest. The Father smiled and tousled his hair, saying what a fine priest he would undoubtedly make some day.

Eventually, he had to go to the public school with Dudley as the nuns could teach him no more, but he would always be waiting for the Sundays when Petunia would don her best hat and dress and take him to church. He always chose a seat near the front, nearly pulling Petunia along in his excitement, the better to see the priest prepare the Eucharist. He would quickly drop to his knee, cross himself, and slide into the pew before Petunia would sidle in after him, no more comfortable for years of attendance.