Chapter Text
July 24, 1991, 9:07 A.M.
Petunia Evans sat at the kitchen table in her house on Privet Drive, absently sipping her morning cup of tea even though it had gone lukewarm twenty minutes ago. Each time she took a less-than-pleasant sip she would remember this fact, then promptly forget it again a few moments later. She was distracted watching her sons as they sat on the couch in the living room watching bad daytime television. Technically only one of them was her biological child: Dudley took up most of the space on their small sofa by himself, his frame already broad and muscled like his father’s had been when Petunia first met the budding businessman.
Petunia had gotten the house in the divorce; Vernon hadn’t contested it, had just been happy to get away. The fact that by that point he didn’t quite know why anymore hadn’t been much comfort to Petunia. Despite his shortcomings in many ways, he had been a good husband to her and she had loved him as much as she had been able to love anything in those days. Vernon was an eminently suitable suitor for the person she had wanted to be: ambitious, successful, very conscious of things like status and respectability. She had even tolerated his boorish sister and her dogs for his sake. It was no surprise that he had not been able to adapt to the news that what he thought he knew about the world wasn’t quite the whole story.
She’d forced herself to watch as a member of the Ministry of Magic Obliviated him when it became clear he would never accept their new circumstances, nor keep his mouth forever closed on the subject. The sympathetic official had left him with the vague notion that he had developed nonspecific ‘irreconcilable differences’ with his wife, which was true enough, and that he would prefer a quick, quiet legal proceeding so he could leave all of the unpleasantness behind. Petunia felt bad about asking for sole custody of Dudley, but she couldn’t bear the thought of giving him up, and sharing anything with stolidly-Muggle Vernon Dursley had become impossible. The Obliviator had even convinced him that he truly yearned for the big city, and so he’d moved to London. She hadn’t seen him in nearly half a decade, not since they’d awkwardly run into each other at Harrod’s.
The reason for the sudden upheaval in her life was sitting on the couch next to his cousin, chatting, occasionally laughing at whatever mindless drivel was on or elbowing for a little more room. Harry Potter (known legally to the Muggle world as Harry Evans) was perhaps a third the size of Dudley, and at nearly eleven years old showed no signs yet of filling out. Petunia had to replace clothes for Dudley it seemed almost by the month, while Harry still swam in what she’d bought him a couple of years before in anticipation of his potential growth. Despite their almost cartoonish physical differences, she had raised the two like brothers and they had weathered a few sibling disputes to emerge as close in friendship as they were in age.
Harry at least was lean, rather than skinny, as she plied him with as much food as he would eat and he had worked hard to keep up with Dudley physically. She had both boys in football from an early age, to train their endurance and reflexes, and as soon as they’d reached the requisite age she’d started them at the local boxing gym. Dudley was a behemoth, already training with fighters several years older, while Harry could barely make the lowest youth weight class but at least excelled in the ‘bob and weave’ portion of the exercise. He had developed a rugged mentality, always getting back up when someone did manage to land a punch, while Dudley was impervious to all but the heaviest blows. Petunia died a little inside every time she saw either one of them get hit, but she knew what might be required of Harry in the future: dark forces had marred his earliest years, and she’d been warned that fate was not done with him. It went without saying that Dudley would be involved as well. The two had grown too close for anything else.
Petunia and her own sibling, Harry’s mother Lily, had a typically tumultuous sibling relationship as young children, but the day Lily got her Hogwarts letter and discovered she was a witch, the ice had begun to form around Petunia’s heart. It hardened further when Petunia had gotten Dumbledore’s kind but final declination of Petunia’s desperate request to be included in the wizarding world. The two girls had little to do with one another while Lily was at Hogwarts, even during the summer holidays, despite Lily’s efforts to bridge the divide. After they had graduated and Lily had gone on to marry James Potter, fully integrating into the wizarding world, Petunia had cut her off completely, married the most Muggle man she could find, and prepared herself to live a life pretending that magic did not exist.
Harry had arrived on their doorstep as a baby not long after Dudley himself was born, with a note attached to his bassinet addressed to Petunia. It was a horrible way to find out that your sister and brother-in-law had died, and she’d never quite forgiven Albus Dumbledore for the insensitivity of it, no matter what his reasons had been and how much help he’d given her over the ensuing years (mostly from a distance). The faint silver lining of the tragedy, as much as she felt strange calling it that, was that Harry’s arrival and the shock of Lily’s murder had shattered Petunia’s carefully curated armor of anger and disdain. Despair had consumed her at first, and if not for her duty to her children guilt and bitter regrets might have crushed her.
After a good bit of therapy and self-reflection, Petunia was able to admit that her jealousy at Lily’s abilities had quickly darkened into a level of spite that had drained the joy out of Petunia’s life and turned her into a shallow, small person for many years. Slowly but surely, her grief had given way to determination. She couldn’t make up for lost time or bring her sister back, but she could fill her nephew’s life with the love his mother would have. Later, when she had managed to get Dumbledore to come and explain things to her (with the vociferous advocacy of Minerva McGonagall, for which Petunia would be forever grateful), that resolution had expanded to include protecting Harry, to ensure the Boy Who Lived could go on doing so in present and future tenses as well.
It was these revelations and her newfound determination in the face of them that had finally driven Vernon away. He was never much interested in Harry and had preferred to leave all interactions with the boy beyond the perfunctory to Petunia. His reaction to what Dumbledore had told them was to demand they get rid of Harry and the weird, dangerous world that came with him. Petunia wouldn’t hear of it, even before Dumbledore’s warning about the requirements of Harry’s magical protection, and it took less than a week for Vernon’s threats to go public to bring the Obliviator who took his memories and changed their lives forever.
Without Vernon’s presence, except for the support checks with his name on them that came regularly, Petunia’s life was consumed with her two boys. She’d regained her maiden name to represent to herself a clean break between the past and who she meant to be, throwing herself headlong into the many tasks and expectations of a loving parent. Dudley had a strong protective streak in him that she actively encouraged, and with the much larger boy at Harry’s side most of the issues the bespectacled, always-small-for-his-age boy might have had with other children at school were forestalled. The rest of them had been…handled. She’d worried whenever Dudley came home with schoolyard battle scars, but from the time he was six and lost a tooth over someone smashing Harry’s glasses, Dudley had taken pride in his self-appointed role.
On the precipice of Harry’s eleventh birthday, Petunia was waxing nostalgic as memory after memory of the last decade flooded her mind when a knock on the door startled her out of her reverie. She dashed a hand across her face to prohibit the wateriness in her eyes from running down her maudlin cheeks. Both of the boys jumped off the couch in excitement as Harry muted the volume. Petunia rose from her seat slowly, feeling at least twenty years older than she was. She’d known this day would come and had been half-dreading and half looking forward to it for most of the past decade.
Harry, ever quick, got to the door first and yanked it open to reveal a smiling, red-cheeked, red-haired, vaguely potato-shaped face atop a tall, gangly frame that had all combined to remind Petunia of the claymation man from Wallace and Grommet. Though she’d turned over a new leaf as a person long ago and would never have actually made the comment, Petunia couldn’t help having it run through her head every time they’d seen each other.
“All right, boys?” said Arthur Weasley, catching Harry’s slight weight up off the ground in a quick hug and then putting him down to greet Dudley and Petunia in turn.
“Hi, Uncle Arty!” came nearly in unison from the children. Arthur, despite being a solid, capable parent and a long-tenured Ministry official, was also in many ways a large child himself and much-beloved by children in general, his own and Petunia’s in particular. Some years ago, feeling isolated and alone in her Muggle house in her Muggle village, estranged from family and neighbors by her sudden divorce and with her secretly magical child, Petunia had hesitantly asked Minerva during one of their check-ins if there were a way to connect the Evanses to anyone in the magical world. It was understood that they must keep the knowledge of Harry’s whereabouts under wraps until the inevitable reveal when he went to school, but eventually Harry’s tiny conclave of secret-keepers had decided on an expansion to include the Weasleys, former members of the Order of the Phoenix who had fought with the Potters in the last war.
Arthur had become the primary male role model in the boys’ lives, and the horde of Weasley children - especially Ron, who was their same age, Ginny, who was a year younger, and the slightly older twins, Fred and George - had become Harry and Dudley’s closest circle of friends. For Petunia, the true treasure was Molly. As still a relatively new mother, and a newly single mother of two to boot, Petunia had been holding onto her sanity for dear life. Molly had taken Petunia under her wing and was now her dearest friend - they spoke regularly, using Muggle mail so as not to draw attention, and visited as often as they could. The Weasleys’ home, known charmingly as the Burrow, had become a second home for Petunia and her sons - one she loved as much as her own, despite the constant chaos and clutter.
Petunia knew Arthur had likely skipped breakfast, so she overrode his protestations and busied herself making tea and warming up a pastry while Harry and Dudley enthusiastically answered Arthur’s questions about their TV show. When the kettle whistled, they all sat down at the table. After Arthur had taken a few bites of his pastry and sipped his tea, they shared a look and Arthur turned to Harry. “Well, I expect you’re waiting for some news, eh, Harry?” Petunia had taken Harry and Dudley to the local zoo for Dudley’s recent birthday celebration, where Harry had amazed his family by accidentally discovering he could speak to snakes. For Harry’s upcoming birthday though, there was only one present he wanted.
The not-quite-eleven-year-old threw a guilty glance at his cousin, but Dudley gave him a smile of encouragement. Petunia’s heart tightened; for she knew (few better!) how Dudley must be feeling but only the slight tightness of his lips spoke of anything but happiness. “Yes, Uncle Arthur,” said Harry. “Have you got a letter for me?”
“I certainly do! Fresh from the desk of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore himself, ink barely dry. Why don’t you have a look?” He took a large white envelope from his robe and handed it to Harry, who tore it open with barely-contained glee. Only when his focus was caught by the letter did Dudley look at his mother, his face wearing the chagrin he refused to show his brother, for fear of dampening his joy. There would be no such letter for him - like his father, he had not a spark of magic. She caught him up in a one-armed hug and they leaned into each other, though she had to be careful to brace herself against his weight, and watched Harry eagerly read the words written on the fine parchment:
Dear Mr. Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…