Disclaimer #1: I do not own Harry Potter. I'm just a writer wannabe and I have too much fun doing this to stop now. ILY, J.K. Rowling! Thanks for this amazing world you created and for letting us play with it.

Disclaimer #2: I'm a brazilian gal, so please excuse any spelling mistakes. Feel free to point them out to me, tho! :D

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When Petunia Evans met Vernon Dursley, she thought he was perfect. For her, that is. He had just graduated from University, already had a junior position in a promising company, wasn't really that handsome (just ordinary enough not to attract the attention of women prettier than her) and, above all, he was normal.

For Petunia craved normalcy above else.

Ever since discovering that her sister was a witch, and worse, that she wasn't as special and couldn't be one, her life had irrevocably changed. She watched Lily grow up in a strange world, were creatures from her nightmares really existed and a frog's spleen was something ordinary to handle on a daily basis in school. She watched as Lily gradually grew apart from her family, spending more and more time with those abnormal friends of hers, and watched her parents struggle to accept that they were way losing their little girl to something neither of them could truly understand. Lily tried, she had to acknowledge that, but it just wasn't the same. How were they suppose to understand what being a Charms Mistress was? Or worse, doing something so fundamentally weird that the job position was actually called Unspeakable?

Petunia hated Lily. Before the event (as she called the arrival of the Hogwarts letter in her mind), she was a kind, funny little girl who adored her older sister Tuney and always tried her best to emulate her. No, that Lily she loved, and she believed that she would love her to her dying day. The Lily she hated was the one she became after going to that place. She was fierce, witty and beautiful, everything Petunia had not grown up to be. But, worst of all, she was part of something that her older sister could never be, a member of a secret society that frowned upon her, and that she could not accept. She had come to terms about losing her baby sister to the other world, but she would never come to terms with the fact that she couldn't be a part of it, if she so desired.

And she had desperately desired it. She had wanted to go to Scotland with Lily, to have adventures with magic, to explore a side of her she never knew existed. But that wasn't possible. As that dreadful Snape boy once pointed out, she wasn't special as they were. She was just a Muggle. And then, right after she and her parents said goodbye to Lily in King's Cross for the first time, she decided to embrace who she was. She was normal. Normal was good. Normal was the best thing in the world, and nobody was taking that assurance from her. Ever.

And that's why she thought Vernon Dursley was a brilliant match for her. When, two weeks after they first met, he asked her to go on a date with him, she had happily agreed. Even if he was rather pompous, held her arm a little bit too tight, and never seemed to consider her opinions worth more than a "oh, certainly", she had agreed. Because, once again, he was as normal as she would ever find a man to be.

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As the months passed by, she began to carefully test Vernon to see what his reaction to the truth about her sister would be. She had told him the story every family of a muggleborn was coached to tell: Lily attended a school for the gifted, away in Scotland, and Petunia had declined to attend because she hadn't want to leave their parents alone. He believed her, and made no further comments. When he first met her sister in the summer, though, she could tell he figured something was off with her. She didn't know "basic" things like who had won the previous election or what scientific advances the newspeople were talking on the TV as of late. She had smiled and nodded every time he made a comment about these things, but had quickly changed the subject by asking her parents something. Petunia was tense during the whole affair, so she wasn't exactly surprised when he grabed her arm on the way out and asked for a kick word.

"She's a bit weird, isn't she, darling?" He said, narrowing his eyes in the direction of the sitting room.

"Yes, that's why she's off in a school for the gifted. Sometimes she just doesn't pay attention to the things that are happening around here, being away for so long and with all those weird things her school must have." She believed it was a sound lie, but with just enough truth in it so that she could sense Vernon's reaction.

"Yes… Not quite normal, don't you think? I am ever so glad you chose not to go with her. Imagine if you acted that way, I am not sure if we could ever date, then!" He laughed, but it sound more like a snort, and Petunia knew then and there that Vernon would not take well the existence of the Wizarding World. And she was more than happy about it.

So she smiled, gave him a chaste kiss and said good night. All with her heart beating real, real fast, for she could see that they had a future. Because Vernon would never want anything but normal in their lifes, and Petunia loved him for it.

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But she also noticed little things about her man that didn't quite fit well with her notion of normalcy. He often complained about new employees, saying that they were stealing his promotions, but she never got the feeling that he actively worked to achieve better things at the company. It was as if he simply expected his boss to hand him a promotion, just for being the great Vernon Dursley. Those thoughts she dismissed as merely inconvenient, after all everyone had flaws. Surely she could help him see that this wasn't the best behavior, and everything would be well.

Or when he would always comment that certain things weren't "right", and some people "should be in prison for the way they dress", and when he kept saying that he "could do better that any other guy I know in most sports, even most jobs". She believed it was his way of trying to impress her, even if she was not that impressed by the attitude.

Except that was not all. She always stood by silently when he got angry for no reason with every single person in the room.

"Really, Petunia, that man did not put all the popcorn that was supposed to be in our bag. He was robbing us! What would you have me do, if not go all the way there and yell at his face that I wasn't going to accept it?! It's not MY FAULT if they threw us out!"

And Petunia would quietly agree, saying "Yes, Vernon", while noticing that his cheeks were red and his grip on her was firmer, and there was a vein in his forehead that seemed to be about to explode. In those times, she had to admit to being a little afraid of him, but she never thought he would get violent. Not really.

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So, despite her parents' careful objections, and Lily's quite vocal protests that "the man was a pig, Tuney, you could do loads better than that", she accepted Vernon's proposal after a year of dating him. In part because she didn't like anyone, much less her sister, telling her what to do, and in part because she truly believed they could make a good couple. Sure, he had some irritating traits, but that was nothing she couldn't change after their marriage, right?

So, a few months later she found herself on her way to their honeymoon (Vernon had picked Majorca), very happy about her decision. Best of all was that her annoying sister had chosen not to attend, "in protest that Tuney is making the biggest of her life and won't listen to me". She couldn't care less. In a few days, she would tell Vernon the truth, and as they were moving to Surrey, far away from her childhood home, she hoped that they would never hear from Lily again.

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But, as she had once feared, Vernon had not taken the news all too well. First, he laughed like a crazy man, thinking she was playing a prank on him. Then, when she stood there and didn't say a thing, he got really mad, really fast, and started shaking her, yelling at her.

"YOU NEVER SAID NONE OF THIS NONSENSE TO ME BEFORE! HOW COME YOU DO SO AFTER WE'RE MARRIED? YOU'RE JUST LIKE HER, AREN'T YOU? A FREAK, AND NOW YOU'RE GONNA DO SOME FREAKISH THING TO TAKE AWAY ALL THAT I HAVE! TELL ME THE TRUTH!"

And she had never been so scared her whole life, but somehow she got him to listen, and told him that no, she was as normal as he was, thank you very much. She told him that she disliked her sister and her kind, that she never wanted anything to do with that world, but had waited until he was officially part of the family to tell the truth, just in case. All this while sobbing her heart out.

He belived her, as last, but hotly declared that he never wanted to hear another word about the affair ever again, and that he was forbidding her to have any contact with her freak sister. He apologized for the earlier outburst, wiped her tears and proposed that they forget all about it and move on with their lifes. After all, it was not likely that anything abnormal would happen in their household.

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So, she never told him when Lily mailed her a letter with an invitation to her wedding, to some scion of some wizarding House named James Potter.

She never told him when Lily wrote to say that she missed her, and that she was really upset when their parents told her and James that she would not be coming to their wedding.

She never told him that Lily had gotten pregnant around the same time that she had.

She never told him that Lily sent a card, half mad with grief, explaining that she was sorry that she couldn't attend their parents' funeral, as she suspected they had been killed in a magic-induced car accident.

She never told him that the last letter she got from Lily was stating that her boy was named Harry James Potter, born on July 31st, 1980, and asking if she wanted to come and meet her nephew.

So, life went on.

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Until that fateful morning in November, 1981, when she went out to pick up the newspaper and discovered a bundle that contained a sleepy baby and a letter. She let out a little scream, and when the child's eyes popped open, she knew something was very very wrong. For that was Lily's son, and Lily was as likely to leave her baby in her doorstep as she was to start doing magic.

"Petunia? Petunia, what's wrong? I heard you scream, and…" He stopped mid-sentence, just as she was entering the house with a baby on her arms.

"Vernon. Vernon, this is my sister's boy, I'm sure of it. I know I never told you she was pregnant, but something is wrong! Why is the baby here? Where is she?" She was so preoccupied with putting Harry somewhat comfortably in ther couch, that she never saw his face turn a sickening shade of red.

"WHAT? WHAT IS THIS LITTLE FREAK DOING HERE? YOU TELL ME RIGHT NOW!"

"Vernon, please calm down! You'll wake Dudley! This one is calm and I don't know why, but you know how Dudley is when he wakes! There's a letter, let's read it."

"Well, what are you waiting for? I haven't got all day! Read this damn thing now!"

With trembling hands, she tore the envelope open and started reading out loud. It said that Lily and James had died a tragic death, that some crazy wizard was hunting people and had come for her sister's family. It said that baby Harry somehow escaped and, as he had to be protected at all costs, the best option would be that they take the boy in, for it would also offer them a degree of protection, and they were his family after all.

She was so shocked that Lily, her sister, her 21 year old sister, was dead and some person had thought it was fine that she was told about it in a bloody letter, besides leaving a baby in a cold doorstep in November, that she missed all the signs that Vernon was about to explode. Again.

"NO. NO, I REFUSE! Petunia, we will not raise this… this thing alongside our Dudley. You hear me? Dudley is a perfectly normal little boy, and I will not have him twisted up by the likes of your sister's spawn! So what that she and that good-for-nothing husband of hers went and got themselves killed? I will NOT be responsible for one of their kind!"

By now, she felt the tears of grief streaming down her face, and she could her Dudley cry upstairs, and maybe Harry was crying a little too. But she was too heartbroken to notice. She had not expected this from Vernon at all. Yes, she knew he despised what was not normal, but this… to dismiss Lily's death that way, to talk about a baby that way… She had to do something.

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So, she talked. She made it seem that she agreed with him, of course it was Lily's fault they were now in this situation, but can't you see that they could benefit from this? This Dumbledore person said they would get some money to pay for the boy's expenses, and as those freaks had ways of entering their house, wasn't it good to have a little protection? Slowly, she convinced him that keeping Harry was the right thing to do. She cried a little for the first nights, but decided to ignore the things Vernon said, and try to raise the boys the best she could.

That is, until she saw Vernon hitting Harry for the first time.

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It was a normal January morning. She had been awake for a while, taken a shower, and started on breakfast. She heard Vernon coming down the stairs, and she knew he would stop by the living room to ruffle Dud's hair before entering the kitchen. But she wanted to know if he wanted boiled eggs, so she also went that way. And how she wished she could erase the site that greeted her now. Dudley was playing with all the toys, including Harry's, and Vernon was slapping her nephew's face, his own strangely reddened, while saying "this is for you to learn never to touch these toys again. They are Dudleys, and a little freak like you doesn't deserve them".

She paled and ran to the kitchen. In a daze, she served her husband breakfast, waved him goodbye and sat in a chair. Was this who Vernon really was? A hateful man who would hit a toddler just because he was different? Sure, she had hated Lily and all that she represented, but she had never raised her hand to her sister. And in no circumstance she would do something like that to an innocent baby like Harry.

She thought back to all the bad things Vernon had done since they met, and she was faced with the truth she had been avoiding all along: he was horrible. Had she been so desperate for someone normal that she had ignored all the signs? What would she do? Petunia had some money saved from the various jobs she had worked before getting pregnant, and some inheritance that her parents had left behind. It wasn't much, but it was something.

So, she started planning.

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A/N: Hello, is there anybody out there? I'm back!

I must confess that I have no idea of what I am doing. I have never written a fic that wasn't purely Harmony, so this is a bit of a challenge to me. I also have no idea how long this will be, or how often I'll be able to update. Sorry about that! But, that said, I hope you like it. This idea has been bugging me and I wanted to get it out of the way. See you soon!

Bee.