The Dursleys

I rose at seven that morning as I did every morning.

Seven was a normal time to rise, my mother and father had taught me that; not that she listened to that, and there was no reason why the first of November 1981 was no exception.

Of course I didn't know that the first of November in the year 1981 would in fact be the first of many days that broke my life away from everyday normality.

I'd come downstairs from the bedroom I shared with my husband and had gone into the kitchen to put the kettle on. I'd always loved a brew in the morning, almost everyone had a brew in the morning.

While the kettle boiled I went to check the post. I really wasn't expecting much, maybe some bills or a postcard from my still childless friends gloating about the freedom they still enjoyed.

Unsurprisingly, there was a letter from British gas no doubt saying that they had a payment due in a couple of weeks, a postcard from Ann who'd planned on taking a gap year before on going to university, I still thought she should have settled down with a husband, but she'd never really come back from her gap year and had kept traveling.

But unfortunately that wasn't all that had arrived at my doorstep that morning.

I'd heard crying, a baby's cry. At first I thought it was Dudley but it couldn't be as it was coming from the other side of the door.

I opened the door to find a child.

A small child maybe a year or so old.

And there was a note tucked into the swaddlings.

Petunia Dursley

I write to you with the saddest of news. Last night your sister, Lily, and her husband, James, were attacked and murdered in their house in Godric's Hollow.

Miraculously their young child survived this attack.

I am asking you, as the only relative of James or Lily, to accept the great responsibility of raising your nephew as I'm sure Lily would have done if your places were reversed.

There is also one more reason I am asking you to do such a thing. The protections your sister set in motion will only take hold if her son lives with a blood relative of hers. As I'm sure you're aware that list is limited to you and your own son. These protections will be extended to you and your close family provides a home for Lily's boy. As long as he calls your house home no wizard will be able to grievously hurt you or your family.

Look after the boy Petunia, look after Harry James Potter

Yours sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

So this was my nephew, in my arms after being dumped on my doorstep after my sister and her no good husband got themselves murdered.

Harry was such a common name, really did Lily have no taste? Why didn't she pick a better, stronger name like I'd done for my Dudders.

But the Dumbledore man was right. For as insufferable as Lily was she would have taken Dudley in if anything had happened to Vernon or myself. And no matter how much I… disagreed with Lily she was by far the better choice when compared to her sister-in-law. Marge Dursley was an abomination among women. Not that would I tell my precious Vernon that.

And the protection was a nice bonus, I certainly wouldn't want any of those freaks coming after me. I still had nightmares about what that Black character did to me at Lily's wedding.

I guess that would have to be how I sold it to Vernon, he wasn't going to like this.

Harry James Potter.

God what a ghastly name.

It was the thirty first of July 1982. The brat's birthday, not that he knew it.

To him it was just another normal day and I intended to keep it that way. I'd discussed it with Vernon and we'd both agreed that the boy was too young to know what he was missing anyway. Vernon thought it would be better if he knew what was happening but still didn't receive any presents: letting him know how much we didn't care about him.

No to Harry Potter the thirty first of July was a very normal day.

That was not to say that the twenty third of june was a normal day for Dudley. No it was not everyday that your only son turned two!

He had more presents than he could count.

Well Dudley couldn't count yet so that wasn't a hard milestone to pass but the point stands.

He'd thoroughly enjoyed himself, particularly with the cake I'd made. By the time Dudley had finished eating he had cake smeared all over his face and he'd even thrown some at Harry.

Of course Vernon had laughed loudly at this saying that Dudley was "putting the boy in his place!" I wasn't sure that encouraging that kind of behaviour was a good idea, but Dudley was still young; he was definitely too young to start thinking that that kind of bad behaviour was a good thing, I was sure of it.

Though Lily wouldn't have allowed it, if our situations had been in reverse, not even when Harry and Dudley were this young. Lily had never been one to allow bullies to get away with whatever they did. Whether they were picking on the small ginger girl herself or that Snape boy or even when they made fun of me.

But then I guess that's what got her killed in the end. Should have left things as they were.

It was a normal weekday evening. And as usual we were sitting down at the table for our evening. The boy, now three, was still too young to help in the kitchen but Vernon and I got our own back by not giving him as much food as we did Dudley. He wasn't ours, he was just boarding and he didn't contribute anything to the household. Vernon was the breadwinner, I kept the house in order and Dudley was my little prince. Harry didn't do anything: he didn't bring any money, I should have known that Lily's husband was destitute leaving their brat with nothing to inherit; he hardly helped me around house, really a couple of chores everyday meant almost nothing; and it wasn't like Harry was my own child I didn't owe him anything.

I'd never been a blessed cook but I managed and thankfully Vernon didn't complain much anymore and Dudley was too young to have an opinion about such things, all he really cared about was quantity, and Harry didn't matter.

Tonight I'd served up sausages, oven chips and peas that I'll admit I'd boiled too long.

It all happened I wasn't really sure what had happened at first but looking back on it I knew I should have expected something like this to happen sometime soon.

I'd given Harry only one sausage, two less than both Vernon and Dudley as well as myself, and a smaller portion of chips and only a couple of peas but really the boy was small anyway he didn't need as much food as the rest of us. Though this might have been because I'd continuously used this as an excuse to feed him. I had been able to clearly see each of his ribs last time I'd given him a bath.

Vernon was about to stab a sausage when is shot out from beneath his fork as if shot from a gun. Only to appear in Harry's hand.

The boy didn't look surprised.

No.

In fact he looked rather proud of himself.

"BOY!" Vernon shouted, visibly angry as he stood up. "I'll have none of that freakishness in my house!" He roared at the small child.

Harry looked scared now, sausage forgotten and un-nibbled in his small hands.

"I SWEAR I'll stamp out that unnaturalness out of you, boy!" My giant husband growled out. Vernon was moving now, faster than I'd ever seen before. "I'll show you! I'm going to get it out of you!" He shouted in to Harry's face. The boy now looked like he was about to cry.

Vernon grabbed Harry's neck, lifting the small boy from where he had been sat before throwing him into the floor. I knew I should try to stop him but I didn't.

I didn't move.

I didn't shout.

I didn't stop my husband.

Not when he kicked my small nephew in his exposed stomach causing the small boy to slide across the slippery vinyl floor of the kitchen.

Not when the man I had married five years previously punched the small boy making the echoes of snapping bones rattled around the small house.

Not when Vernon started to choke the child.

No, I didn't stop it. And as I watched all I could think of was all the times Lily had been better than me. All the times when our parents had given her more attention than me. All the times when she'd got a better score than I had at her age. All the times when she'd been praised for doing something I'd done just before. When she'd got that blasted letter. All the times when I'd been denied in going to the same stupid castle. All the times when she'd come home with tales of wonder and magic. When she'd brought that equally freakish boy home.

And I couldn't help but smile slightly.

Vernon had picked up Harry by his neck holding him as high as his arms would allow. "Freaks like you don't deserve a room to themselves." His piggy features distorting into a smirk as he carried Harry into the hallway. He threw open the door to the cupboard under the stairs. "Take a good look, boy! This is where you'll live from now on!" He was hysterical now, almost screaming at the small child.

He all but catapulted Harry into the cupboard before slamming the small door.

When Vernon looked up, my own smile was met by one equally as large on my husbands face.

Harry was now eight. Not much had changed in five years.

The boy had got taller, though he was almost no wider than five years previous. His hair was still a mess, his eyes still had Lily glaring out of his young face and that ugly scar still marred his forehead. He was now useful enough to help around the house properly. Cooking, cleaning and gardening were his main jobs. None too difficult for the simple child but they were time consuming. Time that I was now able to use more usefully, finding out the lastest neighborhood gossip, making sure my Dudders had everything he wanted and reading the newest housekeeping magazines.

Unfortunately in term time the boy had to go to school. This cut into the time I could spend doing the important things, instead having to cover the boys chores so that the house would be perfect for when Vernon got back from another busy day at work.

Speaking of school, it was now half past three in the afternoon and that meant that Dudley and Harry's school had ended fifteen minutes ago: they should have been home.

Slipping my feet back into my slippers I got up from sofa, my magazine and mug of tea could wait a couple of minutes while I checked where Dudley was.

I opened the front door and was shocked to see the freak sprint passed me and the house, going passed number two next door before turning into the footpath at the end of the road.

I looked the other way to see what he could be running from only to see Dudley and his friends. They were also running, though slower than the freak, Dudley was at the back panting quite a bit.

"Hi, mum!" He shouted as they went passed. "We're just… er going to the park. See you in a bit!"

I wasn't sure if what he'd said was the truth or at least the whole truth but at least whatever he was doing was making him active.

Dudley came back around thirty minutes later a smile on his face. He brushed of my questions about the park instead asking about what would be for tea that evening.

The boy came back five minutes later. He limped through the front door, cradling his right arm. He tried to duck into his cupboard but I wouldn't allow it. I needed him to cook. The lasagna I'd planned for this evening was way out of my cooking abilities. Really it made me glad I'd made the boy learn how to cook and follow a recipe as soon as he'd been able to read.

His efforts tonight were subpar to say the least.

At first I'd thought it was going to be a normal monday morning in the summer holidays but it wasn't. This was the day I'd been dreading.

The letter had come for the boy.

The letter.

Thankfully Vernon had taken the letter before they freak had managed to read it.

I didn't really want to imagine the fallout that could happen when he realised what we'd hidden from him all these years.

Vernon was worried. Very worried, to the point of paranoia. Or at least I thought that. But I humoured him as a proper wife. Really we were dealing with the people who thought it was normal to leave child of less than eighteen months on a doorstep in november the day after it's parents were murdered by a terrorist. Really they were idiots.

The boy spent the rest of the day in his cupboard only to come out to cook dinner. After dinner he was moved into Dudley's second bedroom. The address on the letter was so specific and it worried both myself and Vernon that the freaks might have known what we were doing.

The next day more letters arrived.

Dudley had seen the freak trying to smuggle the two letters that had come through the letter box into his cupboard. Dudley being the perfect boy he is, alerted both myself and Vernon as soon as he knew what was happening.

The freak was then sent out into the garden while his cupboard was searched, just in case he'd managed to stash any more letters. No letters came up in the search but we did manage to find and old transformers toy of Dudleys that the boy had obviously tried to fix and a scary amount of spiders.

The days passed and more and more of the same letters made there way into the house.

Vernon was going mad.

He'd tried boarding up each and every entrance and exit from the house but still the letters persisted. Everyday the number of letters doubled and the ways they made their way into the house got increasingly ridiculous. Really when a letter appeared when the boy cracked open an egg at breakfast I almost had a heart attack.

Almost a week later and Vernons paranoia had given him a manic look in his eye. He looked smug as the boy worked on breakfast, like he'd won something. I couldn't figure out what Vernon was so pleased about but I didn't want him to think me unintelligent so I didn't raise my query.

As the boy brought breakfast to the table Vernon said, "No post on sundays." He sounded like he wanted to laugh aloud. "None of those damn letters." A flash of sadness flashed across the boys face before he hid it. But I saw it and I can't deny that it felt good to deny the boy the thing I'd wanted more than anything in my own childhood.

The boy was tidying up breakfast when it happened.

Letters started flying from all sorts of directions. They broke down all of Vernon's boards he'd put over the letter box and around the door frames. The boy tried to grab one but Vernon managed to grab, keeping him away from the flying letters.

And it was then that Vernon snapped.

"That's it. We're going away."

It was september first.

The boy had come back from his day out with the giant savage with a trunk of magical garbage much like Lily had done twenty years earlier.

He told us that to get to his freak school he needed to go to platform nine and three quarters on september first at eleven o'clock. Vernon thought it was a tremendous joke to play on the boy. There was no platform nine and three quarters in his mind. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it existed and that you had to walk through a solid wall to get there. I'd done so myself when I'd gone with my parents when Lily had gone for her first year.

We drove the boy to Kings Cross on the way to the hospital for Dudleys surgery to remove the tail the savage had given him.

Vernon walked the boy into the station while Dudley and I waited in the car.

God that boy looked ridiculous with that good forsaken owl.

Vernon came back not five minutes later a grin on his face.

"Nine and three quarters!" He chuckled to himself, shaking his head as he started up the car.

He didn't look back

Dudley's surgery went off without a hitch and we managed to avoid the awkward questions from the private surgeon. Though Vernon had to greece the man's pockets to ensure that it didn't go on Dudley's permanent medical record.

Vernon stopped outside King's Cross Station on the way back. Obviously he seemed to think that the boy wouldn't have been able to catch a train from a station that didn't exist.

The boy was not there. JUst like I'd thought, not that I'd mentioned that. Vernon insisted asking security at the station if there'd been a black haired boy been reported missing. There had not. The boy had gone to the freak school.

Christmas Day.

A joyous occasion for all. And for the first time in a decade there was no nephew ruining everything.

Dudley was pleased to be receiving his mountain of presents, Vernon had bought more than we'd planned in his own private celebration that the freak wasn't here to disrupt and intrude on our festivities.

They'd sent the boy a present. Not much just a fifty pence piece. It would be good to be seen giving the boy much even if it wasn't much. Vernon had asked if he could stay at school over the school holidays as well as the bottom of the card we'd sent.

The down side to the boy staying at his school for the holidays was that I had to cook christmas dinner. I hadn't done so since the boy was five. Granted those first two years hadn't been very good but with practice and incentives from Vernons beatings they've improved greatly in the years since.

God I'd forgotten how difficult it was to get everything together.

We all went to kings cross in late June to pick up the boy from up from school. Dudley looked worried to be surrounded by so many witches and wizards. He kept his hands clasped to his bottom while we stood on the platform. I would of chastised him if I didn't know he was terrified of one of these freaks making him grow a tail once again.

Once the boy had left the train his similarities to Lily once again hit me. He was smiling at who I presumed were his friends, his eyes seemingly glowing that hypnotic green that he'd inherited from my sister and my father before her.

Vernon quicky bundled us and all of the freaks possessions into the car and we quickly went home. The journey went in silence and felt slower because of it. Vernon hated the inane prattling of the radio and I couldn't think of anything to say that didn't seem awkward. Vernon, Dudley and the freak didn't offer anything either.

Once we were home, Vernon quickly threw all of the boys magical possessions into the cupboard under the stairs not even pausing to let the boy get any of his clothes out of his trunk. Only his owl was allowed in his room. Though that was only because Vernon didn't want to deal with a dead animal.

The boy was sent to his room for the rest of the day. I went through some of the clothes that Dudley had outgrown in the past year, seeing what was appropriate to give to the freak now that his other clothes were locked in a cupboard down stairs.

I threw them into the freaks room the next morning in time for him to start cooking breakfast.

He might be away at that freak school but when he was back under my roof, he'd play by my rules.

And so the freak got back into the habit of doing chores from the moment he woke up to the moment I said he could go to bed.

The freak cooked both breakfast and dinner for us as well as preparing lunch. On top of that he had to clean every room in the house every three days. Once a week he had to wash Vernon's car. Every other day the freak was required to do all the laundry that the household created. In any spare time he had I made him go into the garden. Weeding was always the basic task I gave him if I couldn't think of anything but usually there was something that usually a plant that needed repotting or a piece of garden furniture that needed repainting or fixing.

Every few days I sent him out into the neighborhood. This was mainly so he'd be seen and the neighbors wouldn't think that we'd locked him inside or that we were mistreating him.

And we weren't mistreating him. He was getting what a freak like him deserved.

Our carefully worked out system soon went out the window and of course it was all the freaks fault.

We were entertaining the Masons. They were a childless couple that Vernon's company wanted us to sweet talk so that Mr Mason's construction company would make a Vernons drill company that would hopefully make Vernon's company much richer than they already were. And they'd given all this responsibility to Vernon.

This worried me.

It wasn't that I thought Vernon was incapable. No, I was worried because the freak was here.

The freak always managed to ruin everything.

Dinner had gone smoothly and we'd moved into the sitting room when things started to go wrong.

First there was a banging noise from upstairs, I couldn't be certain but I would have been willing to put money on it coming from the freaks room. Vernon went up to deal with it and thankfully it stopped. Though when he came back downstairs he seemed angry and when he was angry, even when you weren't the focus of his anger, he was liable to lash out at the people around him both verbally and physically.

So I tried to take over conversation. I spoke with Mrs Mason about where she got her haircut and the kind of makeup she was using. Even though I had to pretend I couldn't see the large pimple through her substandard conceasler.

All in all I thought I did a good job. I'd manage to sidetrack the conversation for long enough that Vernon had calmed down enough so that he wasn't at risk of hitting of hitting his potential customer and the disturbances from upstairs were all but forgotten.

Vernon had turned the conversation back to drills and the men began talking business. Myself and Mrs Mason both tried to keep up with the conversation but I was sure she was just as lost as I was just as lost as I was and was only pretending to be interested in all this boring business talk. Dudley, bless him, was simply day dream and staring at the space between Mr and Mrs Mason.

This was when the beginning of the end happened.

The pudding I'd planned on serving after the business had been settled was dropped on to the head of Mrs Mason. The freak stood just behind her, his arms outstretched. He clearly had dropped that pudding to sabotage Vernon's business deal. The pudding had gone everywhere, landing on not just myself but on Vernon, Mr Mason and Dudley. Dudley seemed the least bothered, he was using his finger to scoop the pudding off of his clothes and put it into his mouth.

Vernon said, "Just our nephew, he's very disturbed. It's just meeting strangers upsets him, so we kept him upstairs." All considered it was a fairly believable lie, it even fit in with what we'd told the neighbors. I was very proud of Vernon for thinking so quickly under pressure.

I helped usher Mr and Mrs Mason into the kitchen in the hopes that we'd be able to clean them up and save the night. I heard Vernon threaten the boy as we went passed him and was worried that the Masons may have heard. No doubt that it would harm Vernon's business deal if they heard him threatening a minor.

Luckily they seemed oblivious of the interaction between uncle and nephew.

The final nail in the coffin then flew through an open window.

Though it wasn't a nail as such.

It was an owl.

And it was just our luck that Mrs Mason just so happened to be deathly afraid of birds.

It would safe to say that Vernon didn't get to close his business deal that evening.

Once the Mason's had left, they'd left quickly a bit too quick to be polite but I didn't bring that up, the boy took the letter from the owls leg and it left. Once the boy appeared to have read it Vernon snatched it out of his hand.

He quickly scanned through it. A grin appeared on his still angered face.

"You're not allowed to use magic out of school?" Vernon said. "Did it slip your mind?" Vernon looked vindictive now. "I'm going to lock you up, boy. You'll never see that freak school again! And if you try to use magic… they'll expell you!"

Vernon seemed almost ridiculously happy.

The next day Vernon went out to a nearby hardware store. He bought around a dozen bolts and chains as well as a cat flap to go on the freaks door and some bars to go over the freaks window.

I was slightly worried about how the bars would go down with the neighbors but Vernon assured me that it'd be fine and that any gossip would just enforce the story we'd been telling about St. Brutus's.

It went on for about four weeks before it went wrong.

Every morning and every evening I'd put a bowl of soup, normally cold from the night before, through the cat flap while collecting the bowl from the previous meal. Around five each afternoon I'd open the door and let the freak go to the bathroom. And it went on like that for days. Day after day I had to do all the housework. I did not like this, I had been so sure I had just under two months of free labor but now my laborer was locked in his room under Vernon's orders and I wasn't about to cross him.

And then suddenly we were awoken in the night.

There were multiple people running passed our door towards the freaks room. Vernon jumped out of bed, moving faster than I'd ever seen. He threw open his door as I tried to keep up. I managed to round the corner just in time to see the boy jump from the window into a car that was hovering. It was flying one story from the ground.

I was frozen. That car was flying. Lily had never mentioned flying cars. Why was the car flying.

Vernon raged at the hole in the wall that the was now left after the freak had escaped. Whatever he'd done to escape had obviously torn the bars from the wall and with the bars came a lot of brick work as well as the window.

It had been almost an entire year since we'd seen him and it was still too soon for both Vernon and myself.

After the bar incident the previous year Vernon was more cautious around the boy. The locks on his door remained but were never really used. Though I wasn't sure if the boy knew that. For all I knew the boy could be creeping around the house at night.

Though nothing seemed out of place when I came down in the morning.

That being said, the boy had spent more time tidying in here than I had so he'd probably know better than anyone else alive where things proper place was. And with the boy doing all the cooking and meal prep I'd be unlikely to miss any food going missing.

Never mind, the boy cooking and the possibility of the boy taking a little on top was a better deal than having to cook myself.

And this worked out very well. The boy did the chores I assigned him, cooking, cleaning and gardening; and in return he was allowed a certain amount of freedom, no locks on his doors and when he finished his chores he was allowed out into the neighborhood to do as he pleased.

The perfect system we'd carefully crafted collapsed when Vernon's sister, Marge, arrived.

This, looking back, shouldn't have been surprising.

Marge loved to antagonise the boy and she always brought her god forsaken dog along as well. I was fairly certain that she knew I hated her horrible dog but still she brought it into my house time and time again despite knowing my own dislike for the horrific mutt.

The boy took all of two days before he snapped.

First Marge kept going on and on about how his father must have been an unemployed drunk. And while I had no evidence of James Potter's employment I was fairly sure I knew Lily well enough not to settle for a drunken layabout. But I didn't argue this point; it would have annoyed Vernon for his sister to see that his wife had differing opinion to him.

I chanced a look away from Marge as she was speaking to look at the boy. His was close to lashing out. I'd seen this look when he tried to fight back against Vernon when he was receiving his punishments for disobeying Vernon or myself when he was younger.

And then the final screw was turned.

"Actually, it's in the basics of breeding." Marge said, so sure of herself, never thinking for a moment that her words may have coming. "You see it all the time with dogs, you see. If there's a problem with the bitch, there'll be something wrong with the pup."

Marge's brandy tumbler shattered.

"Enough!" Harry shouted from the kitchen where he'd previously been washing up. "My dad was not a drunk and there was nothing wrong with my mother."

Marge seemed pleased that she'd got a rise out of the boy. "Is that true, boy?" She asked, a sadistic smile on her fat face. "How do you know this? Oh wait a minute, you don't because the stupid drunks got themselves killed in a crash!"

Harry looked like he was about to commit murder but he didn't say anything only staring intensely at Marge.

Marge herself seemed to take his silence as a victory as she puffed out her chest with pride. But it didn't stop puffing out, in fact her whole body was inflating. It was almost like someone was inflating her with helium like a party balloon.

This was only made more likely as she started floating off of the floor. She kept getting larger and larger and floating higher and higher as a consequence.

The boy left as soon as Marge hit ceiling for the first time. I didn't say anything as I was more worried about dragging my sister-in-law back to the floor.

Marge's flailing arms started pushing her into the conservatory and then out of the doors I'd originally left open so that we'd have the warm summer breeze going through the house.

Vernon tried to drag Marge down as she started to drift higher and high into the night sky. Eventually Vernon had to let go and he fell back to earth.

I tried to comfort him, but Vernon wasn't interested in my words. As soon as he managed to get back to his feet he rushed into the house. The boy had been pulling his trunk down the stairs but Vernon managed to get there before he managed to get to the bottom.

"Turn her back!" Vernon demanded. "Turn her back!"

"No!" The boy replied. This was one of the first times I'd seen the boy stand up to Vernon. "She deserved it. Let me go." The boy had his wand in his hand now, I hadn't seen it before.

"You're not allowed to use magic outside of school." Vernon reminded him, getting closer to the boy.

"Oh yeah? Try me!" The boy said stepping towards Vernon. Vernon retreated a couple of steps.

It only occured to me then that the boy had broken the law that evening.

Neither Vernon or myself stopped the boy as he left the house and disappeared from view.

Another year passed.

This summer was about to be different. Though I didn't know that as I waited with my husband and son in the normal section of King's Cross.

We took the boy home from the station, at least that bit was normal.

But then Vernon tried to crack down and take the boys magical possessions after last year's incident with Marge but the boy had a threat of his own.

"Do you remember the murderer Sirius Black?" Vernon and I nodded. I for one didn't know where this was going. The boy just smiled. "He's my god father, and he broke out of prison to protect me. If he doesn't get a letter from me every couple of days he's going to come round here, to Privat Drive, to check up on me."

Vernon just grunted and turned to stalked further into the house. I turned to follow him as I heard the boy dragging his trunk up the stairs.

The boy consented to doing his usual chores. Though I tried to be less demanding. I didn't want any visits from Sirius Black. I remembered her from my sisters wedding and that was before he became a murderer.

This all went by happily until the eleventh of august. When we received a letter for Harry. This was odd before you even looked at the envelope which was covered in stamps. There must have been at least fifty on there. It was so odd that the postman rang the doorbell to ask about it. I'd never been mortified in my life.

The letter ended up being an invitation for the boy to leave early and go and stay with the Weasley family which I thought would be great. The boy being here tended to stress Vernon out more than it had in previous years and the sooner we were rid of him the better.

But then the problem reared its ugly head. These Weasley's tried to get here through the fire place.

In a process that including blowing the electric fireplace up, four red headed Weasleys extracted themselves from the fireplace. Thankfully they all left quite quickly taking the boy and all his possessions with him. One of them dropped a sweet that my sweet Duddems picked up and ate. It made his tongue swell up until it was around a meter long. Thankfully that was fixed by the older redhead, Mr Weasley I assumed, before he fixed the fireplace and popped out of existence.

It was very weird.

I was standing at Kings Cross once again waiting for my nephew thanking god that I only had to wait here once a year.

Like last year the boy once more took all his things up to his room, though this year Vernon didn't even try to protest.

Once more the boy did his chores without complaint, he was even getting more and more efficient giving him more time to walk around the neighborhood in the sullen mood he's been in since he got here.

The only thing out of the normal for a summer with the boy were the nightmares.

He often woke up screaming and that had a habit of waking up the rest of the household.

I didn't know what to do and Vernon just chose to ignore it, choosing instead to get some ear plugs so that he could no longer hear his screaming nephew. I didn't follow his lead instead choosing to listen to Harry's inane mutterings after his screams. The only understandable words being 'Cedric'.

I didn't know who Cedric was, or even if Harry even knew a Cedric. All I knew was that something had happened at that cursed school that had terrified Harry. And I knew Harry wasn't a child that was easily scared. Even when he was younger he wouldn't fall in line for the same threats I used on Dudley; the possibility of no desert had never made Harry stop doing what he thought he should. No I'd seen a seven year old try to stand up to a fully grown Vernon and I couldn't even imagine what had made Harry scream out in his sleep.

It had been a quiet day when it happened. Harry had finished his chores and had left to go wherever he went in his free time, Vernon had just got back from work and Dudley was still out with his friends.

Storm clouds had formed around ten minutes when the door burst open to reveal a very small Harry carrying a much larger Dudley over the premises. Dudley looked sick. He was deathly pale and looked like it only a matter of time before he threw up.

"What have you done to him?" Vernon demanded as he busseled passed me. He took Dudley from the boy's shoulders and helped him into the lounge so he could sit in one of the chairs.

"I saved his life!" Harry said. He seemed sincere.

"Yea bloody right! It looks like you bloody tried to kill him!" Vernon was turning a dangerous shade of purple as he swore at the boy.

"I didn't try to kill Dudley, there were Dementors. I was trying to protect him!"

Vernon was about to respond when an owl swooped in through the window. The boy took the note off the owl's leg before it flew back out of the window back to wherever it had come from.

"What's that about?" Vernon asked and I'd have to admit I was curious.

"I've been expelled." The boy said quietly. "Because I used magic."

"So you did try to kill him!" Vernon must have taken the boys words as a confession.

"No you idiot!" Harry protested, he had his wand out and he was pointing it at Vernon. "I used magic to save your idiot sons life. The dementors were about to suck the life out of his fat body."

"What even are these Demander?" Vernon asked.

Harry went to reply but I got there first.

'They're the guards of Azkaban."

"How do you know that?" Harry challenged.

"Lil… she mentioned them."

"Oh." Harry looked rather down cast. "Well they suck the soul out of their victims. So I guess Dudley is welcome." Dudley still wasn't responding. "But anyway I'm currently on the run from the law so I'll be going."

He'd began to go towards the stairs when a second swooped in to the kitchen. Harry read the note quickly and afterwards he didn't continue going towards the stairs.

"Who are these ruddy owls from!" Vernon asked.

Harry sighed. "The first one was from the ministry expelling me for underage magic. The second one was from Arthur Weasley telling me that Dumbledore was going to sort it and that I should stay here." He seemed annoyed that other people were doing everything for him. "If you want Dudley to feel better give him some chocolate." He said before stalking off and up to his room.

The next day we received a letter saying that we'd been shortlisted for All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn competition and a couple of days after we left for the award ceremony. Only it was a joke and there was no awards. We went home and it was only the next morning that we discovered the boy had left.

This time it was just me waiting for Harry.

Vernon was at work and Dudley's school was still on for one more day.

The journey back was quiet. I didn't know what to say to him and he didn't offer anything in return.

When back at Privet Drive I noticed that Harry had begun to do less and less of the chores I was assigning him. Sure he was still cooking meals for everyone but any of the less noticable things that he would normally have gotten away with he had stopped doing. I'd only noticed when he maybe pushed it a bit too far with not cleaning the bathroom when he was supposed to. But it was done the next day so I didn't complain.

With all the extra time he was taking off from working around the house he was spending at the local park. To be honest I thought sixteen was too old to be going to the park but again I didn't say anything.

I saw Dudley trying to be nicer to Harry. Though Harry didn't seem to notice. He was very wrapped up in himself.

Nothing else really happened until Dumbledore arrived on our doorstep.

He looked ridiculous. Honestly do all wizards wear capes and pointy hats?

There was a knock at the door and Vernon went to open it, I followed just to see what was going on.

"Good evening, you must be Mr Dursley. I'm here to pick up Harry, I trust he informed you of this." It was then that Harry appeared on the stairs. "Judging by your expression of stunned disbelief, Harry did not warn you that I would be coming. Let us assume you, most politely, invited me into your home. It is unsafe to linger on doorsteps in these dark times after all." The aged man said before gracefully stepping over the threshold.

He commented on my agapanthus and had started addressing Harry when Vernon rudely interrupted. "I don't mean to be rude-"

"But sadly accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often." Dumbledore spoke over Vernon. "Best to say nothing at all, my dear man. Ah, and this must be Petunia."

Harry soon disappeared to pack his trunk. It seemed he was about to leave with Headmaster.

Vernon, Dudley, Dumbledore and I all ended up in the sitting room. Dumbledore sat in an armchair while the rest of us remained standing. Dumbledore did most of the talking while we waited for Harry to finish packing. Vernon tried to interject rudely fairly often but was time and again shut down by the wizard.

When Harry finally reappeared Dumbledore flicked his wand forcing the sofa under myself, my husband and my son, before saying "We may as well be comfortable."

He tried to offer us some refreshments in floating glasses and although Harry freely drank his, I didn't touch mine.

They talked about Sirius Black's will, which must mean he'd died, and then some small monster appeared in front of us. It screamed and screamed until Harry told it to shut up. I could see the benefits of an animal that followed you're every order even as I watched this particular one try to speak without making a sound.

The monster soon disappeared and then so did Harry and the headmaster.

The next year Harry hardly stayed at Privet Drive at all.

We picked him up from Kings Cross near the end of June and he was gone by the twenty second of July.

This summer I didn't really ask him to do anything other than cook. It was still a skill I'd yet to learn and Harry had always been very good.

When the day to move out came, Harry stood on the doorstep to see us off. Dudley didn't seem to understand why Harry wasn't coming with us and while I'd excepted that my son was the quickest many years ago Vernon still tried to hurry him up.

Harry had been talking to the witch that was in charge of our safety when Dudley interrupted them.

"I don't think you're a waste of space."

Harry seemed just as shocked as everyone else.

"Well… er… thanks, Dudley."

"You saved my life."

And as Harry tried to talk his way out of any credit I had a flash of what could have been. These two boys having each others back, like friends, best friends, like brothers. And I realised what we'd missed out on, on what could have been if we'd behaved differently. I couldn't help but hug my boy as tears began to form in my eyes. I would have tried to hug Harry but he didn't like human contact after… well after his first punishment.

"So sweat, Dudders… Such a lovely boy… saying thank you." I managed to get out between sobs.

The witch commented but Harry just laughed it off.

Soon we were in the car and traveling away from Privet Drive. I looked back but Harry had already gone back inside.

It was the third of may the following year when we finally got some news.

Dedalus Diggle, the wizard who'd helped us move from Privet Drive, came to us and said it was safe to move back to Privet Drive and that Harry had defeated Voldemort.

He didn't say anything about Harry himself.

Harry never tried to contact us.

And, to be honest, I understood.

We received a wedding invitation in the autumn of 2000.

Vernon had died the previous winter, though judging from the invitation Harry didn't know. Though he'd been kind enough to give Dudley a plus one.

The wedding happened on August the fifth the next year. I attended with Dudley and his girlfriend Abigail. An usher showed them to there seats. They weren't put near the front like family were normally seated but after all we'd put Harry through I did understand why he'd chosen to put us nearer the back than the middle.

The ceremony was beautiful though not quite as beautiful as the redhead who'd walked down the aisle towards my nephew in her flowing white gown.

Soon the reception started. Luckily we'd briefed Abigail on magic before we got there or she may have freaked out and I didn't want to embarrass Harry more than I already had. They'd just magiced all the chairs to we'd been sitting on to be around tabes that I could have sworn hadn't there before.

We ate and listened to the toasts. I listened to all the amazing things that Harry had apparently done while at school and had done since, I couldn't help but think I'd held him back with my despicable behaviour throughout his childhood.

Soon the dancing began. Harry and his bride, Ginny, reminded me so much of James and Lily at their wedding that it brought a tear to my eye.

One they'd danced their first dance the couple started to mingle with their guests and soon enough they made it to Dudley, Abigail and I.

"Aunt Petunia, Dudley, it's a great to see you again." Harry said, he seemed much more confident than when I'd last seen him. "And I'm sorry, but I don't think I've had the pleasure of meeting you." He addressed Abigail, quite charmingly I might add.

"I'm Abigail, Dudley's girlfriend." She said, "It was a beautiful ceremony."

"Thank you, Abigail." Harry replied. "I've got to say Big D, I'd never think you'd be with someone this pretty." Dudley laughed with Harry as Ginny and Abigail smiled at them. I was too busy thinking about what could have been if Vernon and I had raised the two boys as siblings.

"Aunt Petunia, is Vernon not here?" Harry asked and I winced.

Thankfully Dudley answered for me. "Dad died about eighteen months ago, Harry." It appeared that no one knew what to say. "We, er, tried to tell you but we weren't sure how to get in touch with you."

Harry took a second to absorb the new information. "Well, I'm sorry for your loss and I'm sorry for not being there."

"Lay off Harry!" Dudley exclaimed. "We both know that Dad treated you like shit." Everyone was surprised that Dudley would say such a thing, though none as much as Abigail who apparently hadn't been told about how we'd treated Harry. Ginny smirked slightly so I guessed that Harry had told her.

"Looks like you've grown up, Big D." Harry said after a too long pause.

Dudley smiled shyly. "Well you can blame Abigail for that. She's whipped me into shape."

"Is that so? Well I have to get to know this miracle worker better! Abigail, may I have this dance?"

Abigail laughed a little. "You may, sir." And with that Harry took her hand and guided her onto the dance floor.

I watched my nephew twirl my son's girlfriend around the dance floor with Dudley and Ginny for a while before Ginny caught my attention.

"Listen here you two and listen well." She said. "It took a lot for Harry to let you back into his life after how much you've hurt him. If you ever hurt him again I will wipe all evidence of you from this earth!" And with that she left with a swish of her wedding dress.

I hope you enjoyed reading this.
I'm currently just trying out an idea where in each chapter it tells the story of Harry being raised by different people from the Harry Potter universe.
I've got a couple of people picked out but if there's anyone you want to see in particular leave your thoughts in the comments.
Thanks

An Average White Writer