Work Text:
E for Evans
Evans. Ever since her parents had died, the name had held a bitter taste. She hadn’t held on to it much longer, having married Vernon soon after, but the remnants of it reminded her of who she was, and what she had lost. Her childhood - and in some ways, her innocence - when her sister went off with them.
Now she was living a peaceful, ordinary life, away from them and their kind and their nonsense. She was normal to a fault, now, out of spite. It was her silent, private war. Her own form of revenge. She reveled in it - it brought her sweet satisfaction, almost joy. The boring, mundane, day in and out. It was predictable. She could handle it. She could control it.
And control it she did, until Halloween 1981, when a pale, trembling Lily pounded at her door in the middle of the night, clutching her one-year-old son.
“Please, Tuney,” she had whispered, “I don’t have anywhere to go. They killed him, they killed James.”
Against her better judgment, Petunia let Lily into her home. She put Harry in Dudley’s old crib - thank goodness they’d upgraded him to a brand new toddler-bed just last weekend - and bandaged her sister’s bloody feet and sprained ankle.
In a hoarse voice, Lily talked. She told her about Voldemort, the Death Eaters, the Dementors, the war they were losing. She told her about the Fidelius charm, how Peter was the secret keeper, and how he had betrayed their trust. Now she didn’t know if she could trust either Peter or Sirius. Perhaps Sirius had put Peter up to it - he had been the one to suggest it, after all.
“How did you escape a wizard that powerful?” Petunia had whispered, just as pale as her sister was now.
“J...James tried to hold him off downstairs. I was already upstairs - I grabbed Harry and jumped out the window. That’s how I sprained my ankle….but...but I think my magic cushioned some of the fall. I ran as fast as I could. We walked all the way here - it took us hours.”
Petunia shook her head. “Why didn’t you, you know, fly or use your wand or something?”
Lily took a moment before responding. “You know, I was never really one of them, ” she said. Petunia blinked: her sister was using the same tone of disdain she used to describe them. “That’s what this whole war is about - keeping people like me out of their society. There are some things a Muggleborn - someone like me - never learns. At home, I never kept my wand on me at all times. I guess I should have.” There was a deep, growing bitterness in her voice. “But instead, I’d left it downstairs when I went to put Harry to bed. Guess I never was much of a witch.”
They slept - poorly, but still slept. The next morning, one Evans turned to another. “What happens now?”
Lily looked off into the distance, but not really seeing anything. “I’d like a normal life. I want what you have, Tuney. I want to get away from the war and this madness. Bring Harry up in a stable environment, without worrying about a madman chasing him, or trying to belong in a world that never really wanted me to be part of it in the first place.”
Petunia and Vernon spoke, then agreed: Lily and Harry could live with them. Lily put down her wand and picked up a job in the local primary school library, teaching children to read as much as she did. She died her hair black, whether to match her son's or hide her appearance, she couldn't say. Lily didn’t speak to anyone from the wizarding world - nor did anyone try to contact her. Perhaps they thought she, too, was dead. In a way, she was.
Harry and Dudley shared a room, growing up more as brothers than cousins. Lily didn’t tell them about magic. Nor did Petunia, or Vernon. They agreed: none of this funny business anymore. It was safer - and easier - that way. But both Evans sisters agreed that this was the perfect sort of revenge against that sort, who had torn their family apart in the first place.
This payback - this spite - against the wizarding world was wonderful. Living freely, happily, and in peace was their perfect retaliation. They rejoiced in their normality and rejected abnormalities. Harry and Dudley were well adjusted - decent in school, great in sports, and their home always bustled with their friends. Everything was perfect.
Until one morning, shortly before Harry’s eleventh birthday, when an old gray owl crashed into the kitchen window, causing Petunia to shriek and drop her teapot, which shattered and sprayed her with boiling hot tea.
Lily rushed to the owl and grabbed the letter. Shaking, she read: “Mr H. Evans, The Shared Bedroom, 4. Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.”
She looked up at her sister, who grabbed her hand resolutely. “We’ll get through this together. After all, we’re the Evanses. Nothing can stop us.”
So much for spite.