Chapter Text
Vernon Dursley left on a Wednesday.
It was Harry’s sixteenth birthday, not that anyone had acknowledged it as such.
Harry had been back from Hogwarts for exactly nineteen days when Vernon stormed down the stairs, face red, puffy fingers wrapped around a hastily packed suitcase.
“--absolutely DONE with this circus! Should’ve left the night you got us mixed up in this nonsense !” He gestured in Harry’s direction. “I should have trusted my gut!”
Harry held back a snicker as he wondered how Uncle Vernon could have ignored something that large, especially when it grumbled so often .
“Ungrateful, nosy little parasite!” He spat as he pushed past Harry.
Vernon swung out his free hand, knocking over the coat rack just before flinging open the door. He turned, one last time. His brow coated in sweat, his mustache shaking.
“You’re a disgrace, Petunia. I should have known. Always pretending to be so bloody proper. You’re just a two-faced whore.”
Spittle coated his angry lips, and he wiped them with the back of his hand.
“I am a respectable man, Petunia! I will not be made a fool of. Not by you. And especially not by him.”
With that, the door slammed and Petunia’s husband of seventeen years was gone.
Harry looked from his aunt to the door then back to his aunt.
“Uhh… what?”
Petunia turned her gaze on him. Her expression could have turned milk.
“None of your business you awful boy!”
“Right… So that wasn’t about me?”
“Despite what that school is teaching you, not everything is about you.” She bit out. “Although I suppose that you could drive a man to breakdown eventually.”
She turned heel and walked into the kitchen without another word. Against his better judgement, Harry followed. Something about her seemed… off. She hadn’t hoovered in a week, there was a half eaten bowl of gherkins and marmalade on the counter, and she was leaning against the sink, sobbing quietly.
“Are you okay?” Harry asked.
“Perfectly fine.”
“It doesn’t seem like–”
“Just leave me be!” She snapped. Harry got the message, threw his palms in the air, and backed out of the kitchen and headed back to his bedroom.
For the next twelve days, the air in the house felt tense, frigid.
Petunia never explained Vernon’s departure to Harry, and Harry didn’t ask, but he was fairly certain of two things. Vernon’s anger wasn’t about him for once, and he wasn’t coming back.
Something was… off with Aunt Petunia. Harry figured it had something to do with his uncle ( former Uncle? He gleefully wondered). She cleaned everything twice. Then once more to be sure. She cooked as if an army of guests would arrive any minute then picked at her meals like a distracted bird. Harry thought maybe she would have more of an appetite if she stopped nibbling on water biscuits all day long.
On top of that, he had caught her sitting at the kitchen table several nights in a row, writing page after page before crumbling them up in frustration.
He kept his distance. He wasn’t fully sure of what was going on, but so far Aunt Petunia was leaving him alone and he wasn’t going to risk upsetting that particular apple cart.
Dudley, too, unusually kept to himself, not that Harry minded in the least, preferring to keep to his bedroom. He would emerge only at mealtimes, but then retreat with his plate back from whence he came.
It was easily the best time Harry ever had at the Dursleys house.
Vernon showed up only once, eight days later, sitting in the car outside like a stakeout. He honked twice but didn’t get out. Dudley thudded downstairs carrying a duffle bag, muttered a goodbye to his mother, told her he’d see her in a few days, then left, all without meeting her eye.
Whatever happened miraculously seemed to have nothing to do with Harry, yet he couldn’t help but feel on edge.
Two weeks later, Dumbledore arrived.
He knocked on the front door, which, to Harry, felt absurd.
“Good evening, Petunia.” He said when she opened the door. “You’re looking…” He searched for a polite lie. “...well.”
She pursed her lips and did not offer a response.
“May I come in?” Dumbledore asked.
“Never feels like I have much of a choice.”
“Thank you,” he said, ignoring her tone and stepping over the threshold. Harry appeared in the hallway, holding his trunk. Dumbledore gave the room a once over, his eyes pausing on the family photos, all of which showed a family of three.
He turned to Petunia as Harry moved to stand by his side.
“You may remember, Petunia, I wrote to you a few years ago regarding Harry’s safety. I must remind you again that you are bound by a promise.” His face folded into a stern frown. “You were entrusted with a responsibility. One that goes beyond grudges and petty cruelty. I warned you once–”
Petunia let out a tight sob. She bit her lip trying to contain it, but her face quickly fell before she could stop it and she burst into tears.
Dumbledore froze, visibly startled. He looked at Harry, who only offered a shrug in return as if to say ‘I’ve no idea what’s going on with her.’
“Yes, well,” Albus cleared his throat, “perhaps… there are things I am not aware of…”
Petunia turned away, waving her hand at the door, shooing them both out. “Just go.”
Harry exchanged a baffled glance with Dumbledore as they both turned for the door. Just as a hand reached out for the knob, her voice came sharply:
“Wait!”
They turned.
Petunia took a breath, collected herself, and raised her chin. “I need you to give a message to someone.”
Harry was taken aback. “Me?”
“No,” she said, nodding toward Dumbledore. “Him. I need you to tell someone to get in contact with me.”
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. His posture shifted, he was alert. On edge.
“Who?”
She hesitated. “I need you to tell Severus to contact me.”
Albus’s concern only deepened. “Severus? May I ask why?”
“It’s personal,” she snipped.
His eyes narrowed. “Has someone asked you to speak to him? Pass a message? Contacted you in any way regarding Severus?”
“No.”
“Are you certain.”
“I said no. ”
“You must tell me, Petunia, this is a very serious matter. Because if anyone–”
“Fine!” She snapped, voice cracking. “I’m pregnant!”
Based on the face he made, that was not among any of the possible answers he had suspected.
Harry made a noise that could only be described as confused, shocked, and sick.
“I beg your pardon?” Albus finally spoke.
Petunia had suddenly become very interested in the floor tile beneath their feet. She paused, seemingly calculating how little she could reveal to the two wizards before her.
Harry frowned. “What does that mean, exactly?”
She inhaled, blew it out. Instead of speaking, she brushed her hands over the floral apron she wore, choosing instead to do as she always did, pretend she couldn’t hear the boy. Dumbledore continued anyway.
“You are referring to Severus Snape? ”
“Do you know another?” She snipped.
Harry stared, open-mouthed. “No. No, this isn’t real. You’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”
Petunia sneered at Harry, but before she could admonish him, Dumbledore spoke. “Petunia. I need you to be absolutely clear. Are you telling us that you have conceived a child with Severus Snape?”
Her posture stiffened, but she gave a single, barely noticeable nod.
“Yes.”
Harry took a step back, as if physical distance would move him emotionally away from the news he just heard.
“Merlin.”
She turned her back on them again.
“And he is not aware?” Dumbledore asked. Harry could not discern his temperament.
“No. He’s not. It’s not like I keep disgusting birds around, and you lot don’t make it easy to use normal means of contact, do you?”
“And… Mr. Dursley?”
“Gone. He’d know it’s not his, wouldn't he. Not possible .” She crossed her arms.
Harry swallowed a retching noise, covering it with the fakest of coughs, before he spoke.
“This is the weirdest, most horrifying thing that has ever happened to me.”
Petunia’s eyes narrowed at her nephew. “Nothing has happened to you, you self-centered idiot.”
“Now, Petunia, there’s no need for that.” Dumbledore stepped closer to her. “You do understand the risk this creates? For you? For Severus. There are those who would use this against him. Those who would target the child.”
“I know!” She said sharply before her voice broke again, tears returning to the corners of her eyes as her voice dropped to a whisper. “ I know. ”
Harry crossed his arms, trying hard not to imagine anything and failing. “Are you two… like, romantic?” he asked without thinking, and immediately regretted it.
Petunia's eyes flew up from the floor and met Harry's, flashing with anger.
“Right. Don’t answer that.” He said. “I don’t want to know. I wish I didn’t know this.”
“I’ll make Severus aware.” Dumbledore stepped in, sensing the tension that was rising. Petunia nodded, although her arms remained tightly crossed. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, she looked straight ahead, but as if she was looking through them, not at them. The silence pulsed awkwardly around them. Dumbledore cleared his throat.
“Harry. Time to go.”
Harry moved toward the fireplace, but Albus tugged at his robe, it appeared they would be leaving the way Dumbledore had come in, through the front door. As his long fingers rested on the knob, he turned back.
“Whatever he may appear to be, Severus is a good man. He will contact you.”
Harry scoffed but Petunia ignored it. Tears were gathering in her eyes once more, and she turned and left the room.
They stepped out into the warm night, the door clicking behind them. Harry walked a few paces, dragging his trunk, before stopping short in the middle of the drive.
“What the hell just happened?”
Dumbledore paused, his gaze fixed on the twilight covered suburban street, searching for the right words.
“Professor Snape knew your mother. And your aunt. They were children together once.”
“Wait… What!?”
Dumbledore nodded. “They lived in the same neighborhood. There was a time when he and Lily were very close.”
Harry stared at him. “Snape? And my mum?”
“Yes.”
“And my aunt?”
“Well…” Dumbledore trailed off, but the meaning was clear.
Harry looked as though he had swallowed a dungbomb. “That makes no sense! She hates magic! Hates me just for having it!”
“Hatred,” Dumbledore smiled softly, “is not always born from ignorance. Sometimes it is born from pain and regret.”
They began walking again, but the discomfort on Harry’s face didn’t ease. If anything it intensified the more they walked.
“She’s in a precarious position, Harry. A housewife, soon to be divorced, no career to fall back on. Dudley is nearly grown, whatever support Vernon Dursley provides it’s likely to be limited and temporary. With a child on the way, her resentment will matter less than her survival. And that’s without the considerations that will need to be made to ensure her protection and survival from those who will mean to do Severus harm. Especially if it’s discovered that he has fathered a half-blood with a Muggle.”
“You really think that he’ll be involved? Snape?”
“I think he will protect her, and the child.”
Harry didn’t respond, just kept walking, the weight of the new reality of his family ties slumping his shoulders.
“Wait. If I’m going to have another cousin, and Snape is the father… Ugh, is Snape… like… my uncle now?”
Dumbledore chuckled, his eyes twinkling behind his half-moon spectacles. “Not by blood, but I suppose, in a way–”
Harry held up a hand. “Nope. No. Don’t finish that sentence. I’m sorry I asked.”
Dumbledore put his hand on Harry’s shoulder and nodded as they continued their journey away from Privet drive.