Chapter Text
Miss Petunia Evans of number four, Privet Drive, was proud to say that she was perfectly normal, thank you very much. She was the last person you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious because she didn’t hold with such nonsense. She was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck.
Apart from her nonexistent love life, she had everything you could ever want. A lovely house, with an affordable mortgage in a very respectable neighbourhood. Lovely neighbours that she counted as friends and gossiped with on her days free from work and her job in an upscale shopping centre was putting her up for promotion. But she also had a secret, and her greatest fear was that somebody would discover it.
Petunia didn’t think she could bear it if anyone discovered the Potters. Mrs. Lily Potter was Miss Evans’s sister, but they hadn’t met for several years; in fact, Miss Evans pretended she didn’t have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unsavoury as it was possible to be. Petunia shuddered to think what the neighbours would say if the Potters arrived in her street. She knew that the Potters had a small son, but she had only ever seen the one picture of him. The picture was a framed portrait of her sister Lily in a hospital bed with her no-good husband at her side holding a small baby in her arms, and it had been brought round by her mother, it now lived in the cupboard under the stairs in a box of knick-knacks. The boy ostensibly thought of as her nephew was another good reason for keeping away from the Potters; she didn’t want to acknowledge a baby who would be just as unnatural as her sister.
When she thought about her sister’s life, which wasn’t often she would wonder what her life would have been like if she had settled down and had a child. The closest she had ever gotten to marriage was with an oafish man named Vernon. He had been a beastly man with hardly any neck and by the second date she had realized what kind of man he was by the attitude he gave the waitress. She declined the offer of any repeat dates thereafter, and she hadn’t really dated since.
Petunia was unaware how much her life would change on a dull and grey Tuesday which was much like any other day. Going to work as usual she had an eventful day filled with Customer service, Black Coffee, Freddy Mercury on the radio, and most importantly her interview for promotion which she had aced if she said so herself. She’d gotten home tired but happy, thrown herself something to eat in the microwave, and crashed in front of the television watching the evening news with a glass of wine before eventually going to bed.
She had been blissfully unaware of the strange occurrences of the day, including a disproportionate number of people in robes, large numbers of owls flying overhead in broad daylight, shooting stars, and the murmured whispers about the potters all over the place. She’d seemed to have put up a block in her mind that filtered out everything. In fact, even sitting in front of the news when the reporters mentioned these strange events, she had ignored them without even thinking about it, after all, she had been very tired, and it had been a very long day. The only event of the day that had even penetrated her blissful ignorance had been a cat sitting on her garden wall that she had thoroughly shood from her property, the bloody thing was probably the culprit for her now very squashed marigolds, that and she refused to be the lady in the street who took in strays.
As she had gone to bed early, she completely missed the peculiar meeting going on right outside her front door. The gathering consisted of an old man with a truly spectacular beard dressed in purple robes, an older woman whose demeanour could be described as positively feline, and a ginormous shaggy man straddling a motorcycle. Even if she had been awake, she would have had a hard time seeing this gathering in the pitch black that had descended on her street, an unnatural amount of darkness for a street that prided itself on how much they gave to the local council for streetlight maintenance.
Because she had not seen this gathering or the events that led up to it, when she woke up the next morning and descended the stairs, she could not help but gasp out loud in shock when she was greeted by a baby bassinet in her front sitting room with a note addressed to her in its hand.
Only moments later after she had read the letter Petunia found herself sitting down in her armchair staring at the face of the baby in front of her in utter shock. Harry her nephew a boy she had only ever seen a photo of was asleep in her living room and apparently her sister and her husband were dead. How? Why? What the hell was happening and more importantly how? Petunia asked herself all of this while she looked at the small boy, as the baby continued to sleep. He had not stirred at her approach nor at her taking the letter from his very small hands, and if it wasn’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest, she would have thought he was a doll.
She had no idea how long she stood there transfixed, her gaze going from the angelic face of the sleeping baby then back to the simple piece of paper that contained the worst news she’d ever been given. Slowly as the shock began to subside the letter fell from Petunia’s hands and the simple sound of the paper hitting the carpet snapped her back to reality, Petunia ran as quickly as she could from the room towards the hall telephone. She picked it up and dialed her parents’ number frantically. It dialed out for a few moments before clicking over to the answering machine. It carried on doing this for another four attempts and Petunia found herself truly begin to panic. She needed answers and her parents were always home, they were homebodies, they hardly went anywhere, and it was unlike her mother to leave a phone unanswered.
She slammed the phone down after her fifth attempt and took a deep breath. There was no need to panic, so her parents weren’t answering, and she had a baby in her sitting room with a letter from Lily. It didn’t mean it was true, she just needed to think this through and collect herself. This could just be her mother’s sick way of trying to get her to act like an auntie and a sister again. How many times had they had the same argument about ignoring Lily and her family? How many times had Petunia ignored her threats to do something to fix her relationship with Lily or her mom was taking matters into her own hands? What was it she said last time “By god if you two don’t talk to each other soon I will kick down both of your doors and bang your heads together! She’s your sister Petunia why can’t you just be happy for her?” That had been a particularly nasty argument and Petunia had demanded her spare key back from her mother and shouted things that she regretted now. Ever since her contact with her parents had been through her dad and she had rejected any mention of Lily and her new son whenever she had talked to them.
She was pulled out of her reverie by the doorbell. She looked quickly back towards the baby in the front room before heading towards the door and pulling it open. Standing on the front doorstep was an old man with a long white beard and deep blue eyes wearing a black pin-stripe suit, a battered black hat, and leaning on a cane with half-moon glasses held on the end of his crooked nose.
Her mind blanked when she saw him before she remembered her manners, “Can I help you?”
“Petunia, may I come in?” He said while staring intently into her eyes.
As he spoke realization dawned on her, she looked at him closer, his face was older, but she did recognize him. “Albus?” she murmured.
As he forced a weak smile at her he nodded. She slammed the door in his face and held herself against it as if her body could keep him out of her house and out of her life for good.
The doorbell rang again, and she squinted her eyes closed as if willing it to stop and for the old man to go away.
After the third ring of the bell, she yanked the door open once more and practically pulled Albus Dumbledore into her home.
“What do you want?” Petunia yelled at him as he made his way to the sitting room, “Turning up here in the middle of the day when anyone could see you at my door. I will not have it, I just won’t. Lily has always known that I have never wanted her sort at my door.”
He remained standing as he turned to her with his eyebrows raised, “I’m sure you can guess why I’m here Petunia, and I’m sure you understand the necessity for such things” he stated while pointing quickly towards the baby bassinet, “now are you going to offer me a seat and a cup of tea? Or are we dispensing with such formalities?”
Petunia stood shocked for a moment looking between Albus and the bassinet holding her nephew before she realized he’d asked her a question. She had woken to a child in her living room she had never expected to meet, with a letter she had been horrified to read, and now the most hated man she had ever known in her life was standing in her house asking for a cup of tea.
“You dare to ask me for anything, turning up here after all these years. You ruined my life! I am not doing anything for you and no you may not sit you can get the hell out of my house right this instant,” She pulled herself up to her not inconsiderable height until she was glaring into Albus’s eyes as she towered over him while pointing at the baby, “If this is your doing Albus, how dare you just leave him here. My god who just leaves a baby and a note. If you were any more callous, you’d have left him on the front doorstep. Lily and her husband are dead, and you just leave him here? Why not leave him with someone who wants him? Why not leave him with my parents I’m sure they’d look after him?”
Albus looked down at the floor, “I’m sorry I must inform you in this way Petunia, I really think you might want to take a seat.”
He waited to see if Petunia would listen but she seemed content to just stand in front of him with her arms folded as he sighed and continued “It was not just Lily and James who died last night. Your parents are gone. They died at the hands of a man named Voldemort just moments before he killed the Potters. They had been staying with Lily for a few weeks, I had authorized the visit myself. They tried to save your sister but unfortunately, Harry was the only one to survive.”
Petunia recoiled as if she could dodge his words and they wouldn’t be true. She found herself falling back and slumping into a chair as she went numb. How could this be happening? She’d talked to her dad just two days ago and now he was telling her that she was an orphan. “How?” she heard the question asked and it took her a while to realize it had been her to speak.
“The man who killed them had unspeakable power. I will not go into the details, suffice to say it was quick and painless.”
Her whole world collapsed in that one uttered description; Petunia couldn’t even begin to process that from this instant forward she was utterly alone in the world. A lump caught in her throat, the fist that had lodged itself in her chest released just enough for her to let out the second most sorrowful moan Albus Dumbledore had heard in his entire life.
It momentarily took him off guard as Petunia suddenly sobbed louder and held her head in her hands. He didn’t know what to do and it made him feel utterly useless. He had done all he could to protect the potters and now he would do all he could to protect their son. This had to be the right thing to do to ensure the boys' safety, he just hoped he was right about his Aunt Petunia.
“This is your fault” Petunia whispered as her sobbing calmed somewhat and she looked back up at Albus with a tear-stained face, “How dare you, I will never forgive you for this! Never!” She suddenly lurched up from her seat on shaking legs, “Lily was in trouble and you didn’t bother to even let me know? Not one person even bothered to tell the non-magical Evans sister that anything was going on. I have been the outsider all my life, of your stupid school, of my own family and now I don’t even have any family left, because of you! I asked you, Albus. I begged you to let me be a part of that world and you refused me! You stopped me from being there for my sister, for my parents. They’re all gone now because of you. You shunned me and she’s dead. The talented sister is dead, and I’m left here, I am the only one left. You left me orphaned. You say this Voldemart, or however you pronounce his name killed them, but it’s your fault. The great Dumbledore couldn’t protect my sister? Lily always said you were the greatest wizard who ever lived, and you couldn’t protect them? Instead, you get them killed and then bring their son here as what? Bait? Are you trying to kill the last of the Evans’s off now? Are you hoping the man comes back and finishes the job? You have killed my parents already, and my sister. You have left me ORPHANED! YOU KILLED THEM! IT’S YOUR FAULT!” She found herself screaming through her tears at him.
Albus looked at the floor and avoided eye contact with the enraged woman before him as he tried to push back the guilt and failure within himself, “Voldemort is gone, Petunia. When he tried to harm your Nephew, he was vanquished, it would seem.”
“It would seem?” Petunia said in a calm voice once more as she squared up to the old man in front of her, “So you’ve brought him here without knowing if this man is gone or not? You the great Albus Dumbledore. The man who got my entire family killed is unsure about something? GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”
Silence descended for a moment to be replaced by the wailing sound of a baby crying. It took them both a moment to realize that while Petunia screamed at Albus the baby had stirred in his bassinet and was now making his presence known in the way all baby’s do. Petunia stared daggers at the old man for a few seconds more before furiously wiping at the tears pouring down her face and walking over to Harry and gently picking him up to comfort him.
It was a distraction in that instant. She was needed and it kept her hands busy, so she wasn’t tempted to wrap them around the old wizard’s throat and throttle him. She made soft soothing noises as Harry cried and she held him close kissing the top of his head and stroking the unruly black hair without looking at the boy. Petunia was angry and confused, she didn’t know what to do. She held onto the baby as if he was a lifeline.
Her sister had been killed by a man named Voldemort and he had taken her husband and Petunia’s parents alongside Lily, but he had been unable to kill this small baby she currently held in her arms. They were the only ones left of the Evans and she didn’t know how to carry on now. Could she move on from this? As the baby calmed down, she found her tears flowing freely and the baby’s hands began clutching onto the side of her neck. She hugged the small boy closer for a moment before pulling back and found herself looking down into his eyes.
They were Lily’s eyes….no they were her mothers’ eyes.
She stared into them as Harry stopped crying and looked back at her. It felt like she was looking at those eyes for hours before she heard Albus clear his throat and she pulled away to look up at Dumbledore in confusion.
“We need to talk about the boy’s future, Petunia. We need to talk about his protection and care. May I suggest we have a cup of tea after all?” He said in a much quieter voice as he looked at her now cradling the infant.
She slowly nodded her head as she numbly headed towards the kitchen with Harry held securely in her arms. She sat down at the dining room table as she watched Albus take a piece of wood out of his sleeve and flick it at her kitchen. She barely even registered the kettle and cups moving of their own accord. She had abhorred the use of magic ever since her childhood, feeling jealousy every time Lily had come home from school. Her sister would prattle on about the latest spells she had learned, and Petunia found joy in the fact that she could not use them at home so she wouldn’t have to deal with the crushing evidence of just how normal she was in comparison. Over the years she had learned to accept her own mundanity and had put the petty fantasies she had once harboured behind herself, but she would still not have allowed the overt touch of magic to be displayed in her own home.
Now however she just sat in her chair looking down at her nephew once more and bouncing him on her knee. She had always found it easier to ignore things when she was busy. When Lily had attended Hogwarts and she was denied access by the very man currently moving her kitchen around like he was auditioning for the sorcerer’s apprentice she had busied herself in her schoolwork and gardening at home. When she had found herself at odds with her mother over yet another argument about the favourite daughter, she had thrust herself first into work and then onto the fast track to management. She had developed most of her interests in gardening and fashion through sheer bloody-mindedness even if these now lifelong hobbies were once nothing more than a distraction.
Once the tea had finished making itself and the cups had floated over to the table Albus sat down across from Petunia and looked on as she continued to bounce Harry in her lap. She had gone back once more to staring into his green eyes. Albus knew they looked so much like his mother's and he found himself wondering what effect it was having on Petunia right now. He had thought about the course of action needed now the Potters were gone and when he had dropped harry off the night before to an unmarried aunt with no family who had seemingly cut herself off from the rest of the Evans household, he had been unsure that he was doing the right thing. Looking at Harry in his Aunt’s hands now he was sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the right thing to do. Harry hadn’t made a peep since she had calmed him down earlier and Albus could tell that she didn’t want to let him go.
“The boy will need to stay with you for his own protection,” Dumbledore said interrupting the small moment directly across from him.
Petunia scowled “Protection? Protection from what? I thought you said Voldemart was gone?”
Albus smiled at the mispronunciation. He had met many wizards and witches who were afraid even to say the man’s name and here sat across from him was a woman who said the name of the most feared wizard in the last fifty years as if he was a supermarket brand.
“Many of his supporters still remain, and I would rather the boy grow up separate from what his name means. He will be famous in our world before he can even talk. He will be the Boy Who Lived, a child who survived magic that has killed many skilled wizards over the years, including his own parents. The blood running through your veins can provide him protection I cannot find anywhere else. If you will agree to protect him and love him the way Lily would have wanted, He will be safe.” Albus picked up his tea and took a sip while he waited for this to sink in.
She took a few moments of unblinking wonder to think about Albus’s words. Her nephew had survived something that had killed her mother, father, sister, and her brother-in-law.
She looked down into Harry’s eyes one more time before she replied, “What do you need me to do?”
They talked over everything for the rest of the day while Petunia looked after Harry, feeding him when Dumbledore had transfigured a cup into a baby bottle and settled him into a crib transfigured from one of her side tables. After they had settled the majority of the details they had enforced the protection around Harry, with an oath. Petunia had recited the words Dumbledore had provided for the protection and safeguarding of her nephew in which she had promised to protect him and keep him safe from harm, and more importantly to love him as much as her sister would have wanted. As Petunia had said these words, she couldn’t help it when tears began to fall once more. She didn’t think it would ever stop hurting to pick at the new wound that had been created within her in less than a day.
The ritual Dumbledore had performed had required waving his wand over each of their hands while they grasped each other’s forearms. As he did so bands of light had shot out the end of the piece of gnarled wood enveloping them both in a glowing light that had according to the old wizard sealed her word in a form of magic forming the basis of a formal magical contract, which he told her would ensure the protection she provided was stronger than it would have otherwise been.
They sorted out arrangements for the boy to be raised with Albus telling her she would have access to the boys’ fortune inherited from the potter estates and vaults at the wizarding bank known as Gringotts. She had been overwhelmed with the information, but she wasn’t interested in the money. She would arrange for as much as was needed to look after Harry and make sure he remained provided for and the estates of the potters would stay untouched while she still had her house, she had made that very clear. She had no desire to take anything from the wizarding world while she still had her perfectly normal house in her perfectly normal street.
“I will leave you now, I have imposed on your hospitality for too long already,” Albus said as he got up and made for the fireplace, turning back to see Petunia had a look of confusion on her face.
“Before I leave, I have something I need to give you,” he stated as he pulled a small parcel out of his inside pocket and waved his wand over it. As he did so it expanded into a brown paper-wrapped parcel that looked like it could be a neatly wrapped bundle of blankets. He placed it on Petunia’s coffee table and looked back up at her.
“As I said I will arrange for the deeds and account details for the Potters estates and holdings to be owled to you later this week….however there is the small matter of a family heirloom that was entrusted to my care, I now must hand the responsibility of its care over to your hands in the hopes that when the boy is ready you will gift it back to him, as his father would have wanted. I will depart now.”
He turned to the fireplace as Petunia enquired, “If you’re leaving the door, is this way.”
He turned back to her as he reached the hearth and lifted his wand, “My dear, I have taken the liberty of adding your hearth to the ministry’s floo registry for emergencies of course. You will not need to worry about unwanted guests. I have warded the hearth myself, and once I leave, I may not enter again unless you wish me to.” He gave her a wan smile as he waved his wand and flames erupted out of the fireplace. Taking a scoop of green dust from his pocket he stepped into the hearth and dropped it sending the flames up around him in an emerald glow, “Hogwart’s, Headmaster’s office,” he stated, and as the flames rose up around him, he disappeared in the flame.
As Albus had promised a week later the Owl arrived with the deeds and account information and Petunia had gone on an extended leave of absence from work. She spent most of her time over the next month getting everything she would need to look after a small baby who wasn’t even a year old, getting her neighbours help, and dodging the inevitable questions of what had happened to suddenly drop motherhood into her lap.
That was until the next owl arrived. The letter it delivered had much worse news, but she’d been expecting it.
Which is how she found herself dressed in black with Harry held in her arms standing at the gravesides of her family at the joint funeral being held in Godric’s Hollow. A ministry car had been arranged for her and she was given a cordially wide berth by the other attendees, as she made her way to the open-sky pavilion that was acting as the location for the funeral. For the most part, she was ignored. She was a muggle after all, yet she held the revered Boy Who Lived who they apparently already treated as if he was the second coming. She wanted to mourn her family, but she found herself mired in the sideways looks and whispers of the other mourners when they looked at Harry in her arms. She had been escorted by a tall man with dark brown skin who introduced himself as Kingsley Shacklebolt and told her he would keep the worst of the attention away from her and Harry and he was good to his word. The attendees didn’t hassle her as she and Harry were seated in front of the four coffins of their only family.
Dumbledore was seated on the other side of the aisle next to a severe-looking woman who wore horn-rimmed glasses and a pout on her face whenever she looked over at Petunia. She’d never met the woman, but it was evident that the woman didn’t like her that much, and Petunia attempted to ignore her as much as possible. Many of the other mourners were strangers to her but Petunia found herself staring at a lanky-looking thin and gaunt face sitting in the same aisle as Dumbledore. His hair was long and greasy, and his face looked dull and grey with black circles under his eyes and the man looked like he hadn’t slept well in years.
It wasn’t difficult to match up this man to the boy who had befriended Lily in her childhood. Petunia had always thought he was a freak and he unnerved her whenever she had seen him. Seeing him now however didn’t bring up those same feelings as it once did, the pain in his eyes mirrored her own and as the service turned to talk of Lily, she couldn’t help herself but look over at the man.
She found herself making eye contact with him as he looked over at her, and she could see the look of confusion cross his face for a moment. Petunia unlike Severus had changed a great deal since her childhood. Unlike the other children, she had not grown into her features. It was almost as if every time her features tried to adjust to her new frame it propelled the rest of her on to grow another inch.
Once the coffins were lowered into the ground, the wake was commenced at the Potters residence within the small cul-de-sac and Petunia found herself sitting in a corner of Lily’s living room cradling a photo of her sister and her husband James holding Harry in their arms. The figures in the picture were moving and kept waving in the direction of the camera while they beamed at the small baby in their arms, and they looked happy and content.
Petunia fought back her feelings of remorse and anger at being this close to her sister but so far away from her. She had just seen her laid to rest in the ground and now she sat in her living room while Harry slept in his crib which had been brought downstairs. The wake was attended by a small gathering of whom she knew nothing about other than Severus. Dumbledore had told her that they had all belonged to the same order as her sister, but she had hardly heard him when he was explaining, being drawn instead to the small cottage that her sister had lived in.
It was a lovely little home, with no sign of the catastrophic event that had taken place just a month before. They had apparently had to mend the roof after it had collapsed in on itself and they were planning on making it into a monument to the potters and keeping it maintained until Harry became old enough to inherit it. Petunia could hardly absorb the information, only being able to think of the place where all her family had died.
She had never repaired her relationship with her sister and now while she looked at her sister’s happy family captured in a now lost moment of time, she realized that she never would.
She didn’t know how long she sat in the corner ignoring the other mourners in her sisters’ home before she heard the sound of someone clearing their throat above her.
She wiped away her tears and placed the photo down on the table in front of her before looking up at Severus.
“Tunia,” he greeted her, and Petunia found herself wincing at the nickname.
“Don’t call me that!” She murmured, “You don’t get to call me that.”
Snape nodded his head awkwardly at her, “Sorry, I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”
Petunia thought about staying silent as the man she once knew as a sniveling little boy started to awkwardly walk away but found herself talking before, she could mentally stop herself.
“Wait……. why are you here? I thought you and Lily lost contact?” Petunia remembered her sister’s abject indifference to the man stood before her when she had come home from her fifth year at Hogwarts and how she had become indifferent and almost cold whenever they had seen him around Cokeworth, it was one of the only times her sister had ever been so standoffish with anyone, “She said you’d fallen out at school, and she was never going to speak to you again?”
He stopped at her words and she could feel his shoulders tense up as he turned back to her with a cold look set in his eyes, “I had not talked to Lily in many years, but it does not mean I will not miss her…. nor does it mean I would not come and pay my respects.”
Petunia couldn’t help but laugh as she heard Severus’s words, and she edged on hysterical at the look of confusion and disgust that crossed Severus’s face at her reaction.
“I am glad I could amuse you at your sister’s funeral if you’ll excuse me!” Severus stated before turning in a swish of cloak to stalk away from her, but Petunia found herself not wanting to end the interaction and found herself lunging up and grabbing his arm before she could stop herself.
“Wait, I’m sorry,” She quickly let go of Severus’s arm as they stood awkwardly next to each other, “I just never thought we’d have anything in common, but now it seems we always have. We’re the eternal outsiders in Lily’s life, huh?” She tentatively smiled at Severus as he scowled back at her.
“We were outsiders of our own making Petunia,” He stated quietly with his lips barely moving to form the words.
Petunia deflated slightly as she realized how right he was and found her eyes wandering to the crib she had placed Harry in when they had arrived. A ginger-haired woman was currently smiling down at him and Kingsley stood to the side firmly making sure that no one overcrowded the boy.
She looked back at Snape and saw that his sneer was gone, but his face was now impassive waiting for her response.
“Your right Severus,” She stated calmly, “but we still have time to change that don’t we? Have you met Lily’s son yet?”
Severus’s head shot in the direction of Harry’s crib and then back to Petunia with a look of panic on his face but before he could stop her she had grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the sleeping baby giving a small nod to Kingsley who returned the gesture with a small smile. He looked down on the child and the sneer started to form once more, but at that moment Harry opened his eyes.
Snape gasped and looked back at Petunia who knowing smiled, “Yes they’re Lily’s eyes!”
Snape looked back at the boy for a moment before straightening up once more, “If you’ll excuse me Petunia, I must….” He let the sentence trail off and then turned and walked briskly away.
Petunia watched him go before looking back down at her Nephew in his crib.
She reached her hand down and stroked his cheek as he sleepily closed his eyes again.
She’d already started the adoption process and she now had a crazy idea to ask the surly young man she had once known as little more than an annoyance to be his godfather. She was sure that Lily would approve, she was always the forgiving sort, unlike Petunia. She needed to be a little bit more like Lily and she thought that this was a start.
She stroked his cheek once more as she watched him sleep and she made a silent promise to her sister. She would look after her nephew, no…. her son The Boy who Lived, Harry James Evans.