There was a thick, unsavory haze clouding Dania's eyes. She squinted, trying to see through the grey shroud of smoke.

Dania held up her hand in front of her face. At least she thought she did. Nothing in her field of view changed. She had no visual confirmation that she'd moved at all.

And she was acutely aware that she couldn't hear anything either. Nothing at all.

However, in her peripheral vision, Dania thought she could see some shadows flicker and dance, like desaturated flames. The movement captured her attention, and she whirled her head around to get a better look.

Nothing. Just the same grey haze.

She turned her head in the opposite direction. Nothing there too.

Dania felt numb.

She should be panicking more. Be worried. Scared out of her mind. But all she could feel was nothing.

She didn't feel on edge like something was about to jump out at her from the shadows and attack her. Yet she couldn't say that she was tranquil, nor did she hold any semblance of calm. Just on the borderline between caring and not caring about her unexplainable plunge into this haze.

What was she doing here anyway?

Dania tried to think back to the last thing she could remember. She raked, rummaged, kneaded her mind. Nothing. Dania couldn't remember anything before the haze.

And she was having a hard time convincing herself that this was a cause for concern. All Dannia wanted to do is lay down and sleep.

That sounded nice. A peaceful, uninterrupted nap. How many of those had she had the last couple of days? Weeks? Months? Years?

She closed her eyes. The grey world turned black. Dania sunk into her subconscious like a skipping stone descending to the bottom of a lake.

She didn't know how long she stayed like that. It could have been a couple of seconds, it could have been a couple of years. But suddenly-

Dania heard voices.

The muscle in her cheek twitches. Then she heaved her bleary eyes open.

She blinked once. Twice. Three times.

There were shapes. Moving through the swirls of fog.

It was something undeniably new out there, but for the life of her she couldn't make out what.

Dania rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands.

The shapes became clearer.

And Just like that, vibrant colors exploded to life in her vision. The fuzzy outlines of the odd shapes disappeared, replaced by crisp contours complete with rigged lines and smooth curves. The haze was gone.

Completely.

Dania was left standing in the middle of a living room. An ancient and outdated living room.

There was a small, boxy television in the corner with long bunny ear antennas stick out the top. A floral couch and a reclining chair were arranged around a single coffee table with a bouquet of an assortment of paper flowers stuck in a vase. Sky blue curtains that complimented the yellow and white striped wallpapers framed the large, rectangular window.

And there was a man in front of Dania. Down on one knee. Holding an open box with a ring nestled in it.

He silently stared up at Dania with a huge smile plastered on his face and a sparkle in his eye.

It took a moment before Dania connected the dots.

"...What…?" Dania croaked out. She felt a sharp pain in her chest. As if a woodpecker had decided that her heart was a perfect meal, and her ribcage was standing in its way.

The smile on the man's face slipped for a fraction of a second before it returned at full force.

"Petunia Evans, would you do me the pleasure of marrying me?" The man said slowly as to ensure that Dannia could hear every word he said.

Dania stared at him blankly. The man started to shift uncomfortably under her gaze.

"Vernon," The name popped into Dania's head out of nowhere. "I- I don't…" she trailed off.

What. Was. Happening.

The smile on Vernon's face disappeared entirely.

"I'm sorry- I can't, I don't know-" Dania didn't know what was going on. She wanted to go back to the haze. The haze was quiet and warm. The outside world was loud and harsh. Why was this person proposing to her? Who was this person? Why did she know his name?

Dania was jerked out of her thoughts by a loud snap that echoed throughout the room.

Vernon shut the box and lowered his hand. He stayed there in a kneeling position. Glaring a hole in the carpet.

Dania felt herself freeze stiff. She couldn't move.

"That's it?" The man said, pouring venom into every breath. Dania took a step back. "THAT'S IT?!" Vernon roared, springing up to his feet. "AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE DONE FOR YOU, THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?"

"Vernon, please," Dania pleaded, although she really didn't know why.

"No, Petunia!" He said, face twisting in anger. "I am done with this. I am done with you. I am done with all of you freaks!" he sneered.

Dania shrank back.

"I thought you were different! Different from all of the other girls! I Thought YOU were NORMAL, but NO! Vernon growled as he continued on his tirade, "You're just as bad as your sister!" He spat.

Before Dania could open her mouth to say something or do anything, Vernon hurled the box into the vase of paper flowers. The glass shattered on impact, sending shards flying across the table and scattered onto the floor.

The flowers themselves though were sprawled on the oak wood of the tabletop. A halo of sprinkled glass surrounded them. The tiny, rigid pieces glistened in the light as the rays of the sun filtered through the only window of the room.

Dania stared at the mess. Her hand gripped her chest as if she was trying to keep her beating heart from falling out. In the back of her mind, she made a note to herself to dig out the vacuum from the broom closet in the kitchen and clean up the shards before someone got hurt.

"Goodbye Petunia," Vernon snarled as he wrenched open the front door. "I hope you rot in hell like your freak of a family."

The door slammed shut.

Dania was left standing all alone in the middle of the living room. Surrounded by shattered glass.

She balled the hand that rested on her chest, wrapping the beige fabric around her fingers.

What. The. Hell. Just. Happened.

Dania stood, inhaling and exhaling at an unhealthily rapid pace. Her blood beat through her veins like a herd of stampeding rhinos. Her vision tunneled, leaving white and grey static fluttering in her eyesight.

She stared at the door that Vernon had just stormed through. Her legs wobbled underneath her weight as if she would crumble into an unresponsive heap on the floor if a slight breeze so much as jostled her flyaway hairs.

Something wet rolled down her cheek before dripping off of her chin.

She was crying.

Why was she crying?

She just escaped an abusive relationship.

He was her one true love, though. And now he was gone.

A shaky breath escaped Dania's lips. Slowly, Dania lifted her free hand up and pressed the palm of her hand against the stone cold, wooden wall. She inched her hand forward, guiding her trembling form into the kitchen where she dug out a broom and a dustpan.

The glass shards weren't going to clean themselves. That dumbass had the nerve to ruin her mother's favorite vase.

But Dania could not bring herself to begin sweeping away the destruction that Vernon had left behind. She stood on the threshold between the kitchen and the living room with a straw broom in one hand and a worn out plastic dustpan in the other, poised and ready to clear out the remains of the vase.

The remains of their relationship.

Dania bit down on her lip hard enough to draw a sliver of blood.

Vernon was gone. She had messed up. She had messed up big time, and there was no way she was ever going to get back into the good graces of the one man who'd ever shown any interest in her.

Dania furrowed her eyebrows. But then again, did she really give a damn? She didn't even know that human personification of a five-week-old burrito. And from what little Dania had seen of him, Dursley seemed like a downright asshole. How dare he propose to a woman he'd never met before and then destroy her living room.

That douche canoe.

That was a stupid thought, of course, Dania knew who Vernon was. He was the endearing junior executive who had come to work with a bouquet of flowers every Monday morning just for her.

He was a perfectly ordinary man, she was a perfectly average woman. A perfect match. They were made for each other.

Dania repressed a snort. Yeah, right. Made for each other. Like oil and water.

But… she loved him.

No, She most certainly did not.

Dania felt a shiver run down her spine as if a phantom hand was sewing snowflakes into her back.

The broom and dustpan clattered to the ground.

"Who the hell are you?" The woman whispered in terror so quietly she could barely hear her own words.

That was the moment her legs finally gave out, and she crumpled to the floor like a discarded paper doll.

Mr. and Mrs. Evans returned to their home almost ten minutes later to find their daughter's body strewn on the hardwood floors with a scattering of broken glass and lotus flowers surrounding her.

Mrs. Evans's light and jovial mood after finishing her shopping disintegrated into hysteria as she threw her two heavy bags of groceries to the side and dropped down to her knees beside her daughter and did everything she could to try and rouse the young woman. A shroud of blurry tears formed around the older woman's eyes.

The excited air that had followed Mr. Evans all the way home from the grocery store evaporated the moment he heard his wife screech in agony and saw his little girl laying on the ground completely unresponsive.

He raced to the landline and called for help.

Vernon Dursley glowered as he pulled his car to the side of the road to make room for an ambulance that went speeding in the opposite direction.

How dare Pe- that woman treat him like that.

After all of those dates, all of that money spent buying stupid girly things, all of the time Vernon had devoted to her when he could have spent it better at a bar or at a sporting event.

He'd even put aside the fact that her sister was a circus freak because that's what good boyfriends do, they accept their girlfriends even if they're from an unnatural family.

And yet, none of that seemed to matter.

The ambulance passed, and Vernon steered the car back onto the road. He slammed on the gas pedal without bothering to ensure that he was going under the speed limit.

Then, in a fit of rage, he rammed his fist against the car horn, releasing a long, loud honk as he drove past rows and rows of identical houses.

Vernon thought he'd done everything right. He had everything prepared.

He asked the parents first if he could marry their daughter, and his request was met with happy smiles and laughs. He thought up of the perfect place to propose to her, the sitting room of her childhood home in Cokeworth. Vernon thought it was rather clever to do it there.

He called Mr. and Mrs. Evans in advance to get Petunia to take a few days off from work to come home. He then drove to the house himself and arrived at the front door at the specified time when Mr. and Mrs. Evans had told him that they'd be off doing some shopping so he could be alone with their daughter.

Vernon could still remember the look on her face when he rang the doorbell. Bewilderment, and excitement. She welcomed him into her parent's home with a quick hug before Vernon took her hand and lead her to the middle of the living room. He got down on one knee and presented the ring.

And that's when his grand plan of getting the perfect housewife who would always have dinner ready and waiting for him when he came home from work evaporated.

He thought she was just experiencing a bit of shock. After all, it wasn't every day that a woman gets the opportunity of a lifetime to become Mrs. Dursley. But that blank and uncomprehending look on her face never morphed into joy or happiness or anything. Her eyes didn't light up. The word 'yes' never even graced her lips. She didn't even have the decency to smile.

Instead, she started yapping at him in the most condescending tone of voice that Vernon had ever heard her use.

She said no.

That woman told him no.

The scene played out over and over in Vernon's head as his grip on the steering wheel tightened.

How dare she deny him.

How dare she make a fool of him.

How dare she waste all of his efforts.

How dare she, how dare she, how dare she.

Under the cloudless, late afternoon sky Vernon pulled into a gas station. He lolled his head from side to side as he waited for his car to fill up. There was no one else around save for a couple of employees lazing around the station listening to revolting American country music on the radio.

Vernon leaned against his car and tucked his hands into his jean pockets.

He was going to make that woman pay for refusing to marry him. He will have his revenge. One way or another.

Miles away from that little back road gas station in the heartland of Great Britain, in the waiting room of a relatively small hospital just on the outskirts of Cokesworth, Mrs. Evans paced back and forth, tugging nervously at her loose strands of hair in between anxious glances at the doors to the ER.

Oh, she tried to go in with her. Mrs. Evans was first and foremost a mother. She stayed by her daughter's side in those first few agonizing moments when she found her daughter lying on the ground after that horrid man who she'd been dating left. And Mrs. Evans continued to be with her during the ambulance ride. She held her daughter's ice cold hand as the paramedics twittered around them, trying to resurrect the young woman.

But when they arrived at the hospital, they were told that they could go no further. They'd just get in the way of the medical professionals and hinder the doctor's work.

Mrs. Evans had very nearly ripped the receptionist's head clean off of his shoulders when he told her she couldn't go, if not for her husband physically holding her back.

Every so often Mrs. Evans whipped her head around to glare at that incredibly rude receptionist. The receptionist in turn shrunk into their seat and made an attempt to hide behind his paperwork.

Mrs. Evans released a small if a bit restrained smirk. If she couldn't be with her baby girl when she was walking the fine line between life and death, Mrs. Evans was going to make everyone else as uncomfortable as she could.

On the other side of the room, Mr. Evans had positioned himself in a chair near the poor, terrified receptionist's desk so that he could watch the clock and keep an eye on his irked wife.

His right leg jiggled in place, his fingers tapped against the armrests, his eyes were glued to the ticking second hand on the clock. In his head, he counted every second. Every minute. And eventually, every hour.

Mr. Evans let out a long sigh as he reclined in his seat.

This was not how he envisioned spending his Saturday afternoon.

He was supposed come home with his lovely wife to find his happy little girl about to embark on the next phase of her life in the arms of a decent fellow who was already on his way to securing a sound financial future for himself and Petunia.

Turns out that 'decent' fellow wasn't so decent after all.

Mr. Evans stopped drumming his fingers and balled his hand into a fist.

If he never saw that two-faced Vernon Dursley again it would be too soon.

The moment he opened his front door and found his daughter half dead on the ground would forever be burned into Mr. Evans's memory, and he had no intention of letting the perpetrator of this heinous crime get away.

Mr. Evans swore that he would get justice for his daughter, even if it meant taking things to court.

Under blinding white lights and surrounded by medical equipment and machines of all shapes and sizes, lay a deathly pale woman. Her face was locked in an everlasting contortion of pain. A whirlwind of activity swept around her. Nurses and Doctors ran to and fro, barking orders, gathering needed supplies, doing everything they could to stabilize their patient.

The woman barely responded to any of the poking and prodding. An involuntary twitch of the muscles here and there, but not much else.

Her body, as it was clear to everyone, was unresponsive.

And yet, if one were to take a look at her brainwave activity, they'd find that they were off the charts. Something highly unusual in a comatose patient. The activity in the brain was double the usual amount of any human being when it should have been dampened and slow for someone in her state.

It was almost as if she wasn't in a coma at all despite her unresponsiveness. It was almost as if two entities were occupying the same space… the same mind...

This was a significant cause of concern for the doctors. No one had ever seen anything like it before.

Her condition didn't seem to be deteriorating, but she didn't seem to be improving either.

But after hours of work, hours of nurses tearing their hair out, hours of doctors doing everything they could to stabilize their patient, her brainwave activity returned to normal. She took a long, shaky breath much to the relief of the ER doctors.

Petunia Evans retreated.

Dania Møller prevailed.

Disclaimer:

I, Lost-In-The-Muse, do not own the rights to the Harry Potter franchise. This is a fan work meant to entertain those who would like to read it. I am not, nor will I ever receive any sort of payment for writing this fanfiction.

Author's note:

This Chapter was written while listening to Ophelia by The Lumineers

Hello everyone, this is my first fic of 2019 and it's a Harry Potter self insert! This plot bunny has been bouncing around in my head for a solid year now and I actually got started on writing this fic way back in February 2018, but then I lost interest in the actual 'Writing' part of it and spent way more time on imagining what this fic was going to be. Then about a month ago I came back to it and started working and reworking what I had written and managed to churn out over 10,000 words so far of this story and I figured now is a good time to start posting.

This is not going to be like a lot of self inserts you find out there. Trust me, I've never found a self insert in the Harry Potter fandom that comes close to what I'm trying to do here (but if someone does find a fic similar to this one, please let me know I want to read it). Namely, I've never seen anyone have a self insert in the body of Petunia, and I've never seen a self insert already changing so much of the game (even if it is rather unwittingly) so early in the time line either, so I figured that someone needed to write a fic like this.

And as we conclude this first chapter in what I hope will become a multichapter epic, please leave a review or comment on your thoughts so far. Tell me what I did well and what I did wrong, I'm very open to constructive criticism (however no flames please).

But in the event you don't have anything to say about my writing, I want to ask you guys one question: If you woke up as a Harry Potter character for one day, who would you want to be and why?

For me personally, I'd like to be Tonks because I love her and her Metamorphmagus abilities are amaaaazing!

That's all for now, see you guys next week for the next installment of Cursed Reality!

~ Lost-In-The-Muse