Petunia didn't know what to do. While there hadn't been any gossip over the past week because the entire neighborhood had rather strangely found it completely natural that her nephew would be speeding around the neighborhood in a police car, she kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and the tide to turn against her and her family. The fear of how people would perceive her perfectly normal family because of The Boy's actions wasn't the only thing that had her at her wit's end though.

Less than 24 hours after she and Vernon had locked The Boy in his cupboard for what was sure to be his longest punishment yet considering they hadn't forgotten that The Boy had stolen a patrol car, even if the rest of the neighborhood and even the police had, she had received a phone call from the police station over in Greater Whinging. Rather than it being over Harry's misbehavior which the police had suddenly remembered as she'd been expecting and completely dreading, the call had come from one of the Police Sergeants who had inquired as to why Harry wasn't at work. Not knowing what else to do, she lamely blurted out something about Harry being sick.

That hadn't been the last call. Two days later, there had been another call. This time from the Police Inspector who ran the station. The day after that, there had been another. Each time, panicking because she didn't know what to do if someone actually came over and saw that the Harry they were inquiring after was a ten year old boy, a ten year old boy who was being kept in a cupboard, Petunia blurted out the same excuse that Harry was sick.

She knew that the excuse wouldn't hold for very much longer however. Someday soon, someone was going to come by, if only to fire Harry and demand the return of his badge, and Petunia's family was going to come crashing down.

Every day, as she waited for the knock on the door that would signal the end, she nervously watched out the window, trying not to be obvious about it, almost compulsively twitching the curtains aside every five minutes or so during her every waking hour. Despite the fact that she usually did so, she did not enjoy her spying on the goings-on of the street, as she fully expected to spot the hard suspicious eyes of a Police Constable, or a gaggle of gossiping neighbors staring up at her house every time she did so.

Finally, after a week of walking on eggshells waiting for her world to crash down around her as her comeuppance for how horribly she'd treated the boy she had been forced to care for by those awful wizards, there was a knock at the door. After jumping, screaming, and dropping her cup of tea which shattered on the kitchen floor, Petunia found that her legs refused to cooperate the first three times she started towards the door. Finally, she managed to find her resolve and went to meet the impatiently knocking doom that awaited her.

Trying not to look too nervous or act too suspicious, Petunia opened the door and found a Police Constable standing on the doorstep holding what looked like a gift basket.

"Is Harry well enough to see anybody?" the earnest looking young PC asked. "The guys at the station had a whip round and we got him a fruit basket."

"I'll...I'll g-go check and see." Petunia stammered out.

Not seeing any other way out of the situation but through, Petunia shut the door in the young Constable's face, went over to the cupboard where Harry was being held, and opened it.

"Harry, there's someone here to see you." Petunia said. "If you act sick and don't tell him about the cupboard, I'll...I'll let you stay in the Guest Room."

Harry stared at Petunia with wide eyes as if he'd never seen her before.

"Okay Aunt Petunia." Harry finally replied after about a minute's silence, sounding slightly freaked out as he did so.

Petunia herded Harry out of the cupboard and onto the sitting room couch, and then she ran upstairs, grabbed a blanket off of Dudley's bed and threw it over the boy. Once the boy was situated on the couch, Petunia went back to the front door where the Police Constable was still waiting despite her hopes otherwise.

"Harry, you look awful!" the Constable exclaimed when he came into the sitting room and spotted the boy whose ratty pyjamas were currently being hidden by Dudley's Transformers blanket.

Throughout the visit during which the Police Constable delivered the gift basket and Get Well Card from "the boys at the station" and inquired as to whether Harry would be up to getting back to work soon, the facts that Harry was A) a small boy, and B) had never been a police officer in the first place never once came up.

Eventually, PC Smith departed and Petunia was left with a massive problem on her hands. It was obvious that some magical trickery had been used to convince the police that Harry was one of them. If Petunia kept Harry here and didn't send him "to work" more police would be coming round and asking inconvenient questions and wouldn't take "Harry isn't a PC " for an answer. If she did send Harry down to the station however, there was the chance that certain facts would slip and she and her family would be in very deep trouble. Very deep trouble with the sort of people who didn't take too kindly to one of their own being mistreated and had the power to do something about it despite the fact that they were mere muggles.

She would have to do something to keep Harry from blabbing to the police somehow. But what?

Perhaps the first thing would be to let Harry keep the gift basket. And then, maybe...maybe keeping the deal she'd made with the boy in order to keep him silent about the cupboard under the stairs.

She didn't know what she was going to do when Vernon's sister came to visit next week, but she had a week to figure it out. Of more immediate concern was how she was going to explain this all to Vernon though.

"Boy," Petunia said after finally gathering herself upon deciding upon a course of action. "Gather your stuff and take it up to the guest room."

Harry, looking like his world had been flipped on its head, automatically complied.

As Harry brought his belongings up to the guest room, wondering why he'd been given such strange orders, he'd reflected on the recent visit he'd had. Contrary to what Uncle Vernon had told him, the police weren't mean or scary and wouldn't beat you up as soon as look at you if you stepped out of line even once. They were nice. They visited him despite the fact that nobody EVER visited him and gave him a gift despite the fact that nobody ever gave him presents. On top of that, they wanted him to work for them!

They wanted him to be a real live, actual, honest to god Police Constable with a badge and a uniform and everything!

To make things even better, thanks to the Constable's visit, Aunt Petunia was letting him stay in the Guest Bedroom tonight instead of the cupboard under the stairs. If only for that and that alone, Harry would be happy to spend an entire month scrubbing down everyting in the station and polishing everyone's shoes and fetching things for people.

That evening, when Vernon came home to find Harry at the dinner table eating off of a plateful of sandwiches, the first thing that came out of his mouth was "What are you doing out of your cupboard Boy!" despite the fact taht the answer should've been patently obvious considering the fact that the sandwiches on the plate were those cucumber sandwiches that Petunia always made Just So, and Harry could never get right.

"I..." Petunia started, coming into the kitchen and placing herself between him and the boy. "I let him out Vernon."

"You what?!" Vernon exclaimed.

"Boy," Petunia said in a tone Vernon had never heard Petunia use with the freak. "Why don't you take those sandwiches up to the guest room and finish them there. Your uncle and I need to talk."

Watching his wife be uncharacteristically kind to the boy and putting it together with how his wife had been unusually stressed the entire week prior, pieces started sliding into place.

"Boy! You will undo whatever it is you've done to my wife!" Vernon yelled as he lunged at the monster that had used his...used his FREAKISHNESS on Petunia.

"Vernon! He didn't do anything! Vernon!" Petunia yelled as Vernon's hands, which had gotten a firm grip on the boy started burning, reminding him exactly why he'd never actually given the boy the proper beating he'd threatened him with a million times before.

After herding the frightened boy up to the guest room which was to be his room for now, Petunia explained to Vernon exactly what was going on and why she was being nice to the boy. For a given value of nice.

"We can't allow this to continue Petunia! You know what this was caused by! If we allow this nonsense to continue..." Vernon said as he looked down at his hands which Petunia had bandaged during their conversation.

"We don't have a choice dear," Petunia sighed. "We can't afford to have police coming by and poking around considering...And they will. They won't stop poking until they get what they've been charmed into wanting."

"Well, at least he's gainfully employed." Vernon conceded since there was literally noting else that could be done about the situation. "I'll drop him by the Police Station on my way to work tomorrow."