Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

On the doorstep.

For a war Petunia Evans knew nothing about, it has certainly torn her apart. 

Old Mrs Snape from down Spinner’s End went first. Bang, dead, just like that. When her parents dragged her to the funeral, she couldn’t look Severus or Lily in their eyes. But Lily had mentioned something about a war and dark things going on in her world. The world of freaks. 

Then it was her parents. Her mother first, never returned from her shift at the hospital, found dead with no signs of injury a few days later. Her father next, a large cloud that looked like a snake over where his body lay on the threshold of their house. Petunia blamed Lily. Why wouldn’t she? None of this would have happened if Lily wasn’t the way she was. 

But maybe it was a comfort to know that Lily - strong, sensitive, fierce, awful Lily - was still alive, still fighting. But now…

She stared down at the letter she had found on her doorstep, on top of a baby who had Lily’s eyes. The last reminder of Petunia’s lovely sister. Because Lily was dead. James too. This child - the boy, Harry, who laughed like his father and smiled like his mother - had no one. No one in the world - except Petunia. 

She had never expected to become a mother. Not since she had left Vernon, anyway. She knew it was probably for the best, the fact that she never had children, especially when Lily had been good at laughing and singing and seeing the best in people and Petunia was sour and panicked and never knew what to do.

She wasn’t Lily. That much was true. But she was all Harry had. She would have to do. 

***

Four years earlier.

Petunia hadn’t said anything in almost a minute. Neither had Vernon. He had been knelt there, eyes wide and hopeful, ring box opened in his large hands. He hadn’t even asked her properly. Just knelt down and hoped she would give an immediate yes. 

“So?” He asked. 

She gulped. “Vernon…” she was very aware of the fact that Vernon’s parents and his sister, Marge (bloody awful woman) were all watching her. Why was she even hesitating about this? Yes, Vernon was older than her and he was gruff and he would probably want her to leave her job once they got married, but she loved him. For some reason, deep down in her half-sized heart, she loved him and of course, she had to marry Vernon. Rich, sensible, oh-so normal Vernon Dursley. 

Because he was the normality in her life she had been looking for for seven years. He had a stable job, a nice flat overlooking a very normal road, had gone to a school that wasn’t in a castle and wore shirts and ties and plain, brown leather shoes. He wasn’t superstitious and he only watched the news and he hadn’t read a book in eight years. He was everything James Potter, who their parents loved like their own son, was not. Which was just as well, because Petunia was everything that Lily was not. 

“Yes,” Petunia finally said, and the words felt like a release and a regret all at once. As Vernon slipped the ring - a size too big and gold where she would want it to be silver - on to her finger, however, the happiness dwindled and all she felt was regret. 

Vernon smiled. Petunia could not. 

***

One month later.

Petunia knocked on the door of Vernon’s office, a letter clutched tightly in her left hand. He looked up and grunted for her to enter. It was always like this at work - at first, they ignored the subtle attraction between them, then ignored the fact they had gone for drinks twice in as many weeks, and now they were ignoring their engagement. Maybe Vernon was embarrassed about his fiancée being his twenty year old secretary, eighteen years his junior, but at Grunnings, where they had met, worked together and possibly loved each other, there was no mention of a bond beyond the professional between them. 

“Ah, Evans,” Vernon mumbled through a mouthful of his egg and cheese sandwich. Evans. The name hit her like a mallet. Soon, once they sorted out a wedding date, she wouldn’t be ‘Evans’ at all. Petunia Dursley. A damn sight more harsh, she thought, as names go. 

“I received a letter from my sister this morning,” she said. She had made sure this would wait until lunch, so he could use the excuse of work to duck out of the question she was about to ask. “She’s been seeing a boy for quite a while, and she’d like me to meet him, see if we’d allow him to come to the wedding.”

“Is this the sister you showed me a picture of?”

“I only have one sister, Vernon,” she said lightly.

“Yes, of course. What about this boy of hers then, school friend?” Vernon knew a few half-truths about Lily. He knew that she was at a boarding school, that she was feisty and outspoken and a little odd. 

“Yes.”

“What, another hippie like her?”

“No, apparently he’s quite posh.” Petunia didn’t know what her lot thought the definition of ‘posh’ was and whether that meant he was charming and a little wealthy or awful and stuck up. Frankly, Petunia didn’t quite care about whoever this Potter was, as long as she got to see Lily. Living down in London so far from Lily and her parents was freeing, but lonely, and she wanted her kind, whirlwind sister back, freak or not. 

“Are you saying you want me to come and meet this boy?”

“Only if you want to. Lily says she’d love to meet you before the wedding, as well.” She was half hoping that Vernon would say ‘no’ and she wouldn’t have to explain to her future husband what her sister was and who she hung around with. 

But Vernon said “Alright,” sucking his lip and tucking back into his sandwich. Petunia left, wondering whether Vernon would leave her on the spot once he met Lily Evans. 

***

Two weeks later.

Petunia had spent days and days making sure everything tonight would go off without a hitch. She had chosen the most ordinary restaurant in town – Italian, unassuming, not too expensive but not so affordable that it would be busy. She had chosen a Tuesday to hold this odd kind of meeting of two sides of a family – because a Monday is too early in the week, Wednesday Vernon played golf and Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday all encouraged excessive alcohol consumption. She had worn her most ‘smart casual’ dress – blue, button-down, knee-length, suitable enough to wear at the office where she would be coming straight from.

And, most importantly, she had briefed Vernon about the strangeness of Lily Evans and her dashing, over-charming boyfriend James Potter.

“They’re not like you and I,” Petunia had said, broaching the subject with uncharacteristic awkwardness and coyness.

“What, are they a bit mental or something?”

“I… I don’t know if that’s a fair term. But they’re not entirely normal. Their school… it is very particular, a specialist school.”

“For special nut cases?”

“No, for… gifted students.” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, couldn’t form the words properly on her tongue.

My sister is a witch and so is her perfect fiancé and all her wild little friends. She has a wand and a life and a world to escape to, away from me. She knows the taste of magic and the feel of freedom. She is everything I am not.

“What, you don’t think I’m going to be able to keep up with a pair of lovesick seventeen year olds?” Vernon spat. Petunia gulped. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Vernon was thirty-eight going on thirty-nine, a whole generation ahead of Petunia. But then there were moments like this, when his mid-life-crisis pride seeped into their conversations, when Petunia almost felt ashamed she was marrying a man like this.

“No!” Petunia insisted, scared now because Vernon’s knuckles were white around his whisky glass – that meant he was a few stages past simply angry . “No, of course not, pumpkin, of course not. I just don’t want you to get angry with them when they don’t want to talk about drills and office jobs. They’re more… bohemian.”

“Bohemian is just a word used by people to cover up the fact they’re too lazy to get off their arses and find a job!”

Petunia hesitated. “You are going to… try to like them, aren’t you?”

When Vernon hadn’t responded, Petunia’s stomach dropped a foot in her body.

But now, all seemed rather peaceful. Vernon was perusing the wine list, already set on a fine bottle of Merlot half-way down the list. Petunia had insisted on just one bottle between the four of them, as she knew Vernon always got more aggressive than usual when he’d had more than three drinks.

They were due to meet at seven – seven was a good time, not too early, not too late. When the time ticked to one-past-seven, Vernon heaved a great sigh and shook his head. “Late, late, late,” he grumbled. “See it here now, Petunia. They don’t care enough to be on time.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s just traffic…” Petunia assured him, though she didn’t know how Lily got around these days. Did her kind use cars? Trains? Aeroplanes or bicycles? Or did they fly, grow wings and take to the skies whenever they wished to be somewhere?

Just as Vernon was flagging down the waiter to order his much-anticipated bottle of Merlot, the bell above the door sounded and Petunia’s neck snapped up.

Lily had changed in the two years since Petunia had last seen her sister. Her hair was now more auburn than ginger, her eyes somehow brighter, her complexion lovelier and her smile wider. She wore the clothes Petunia knew her best in, not the long black robes she wore in the pictures of her at school, but a long red scarf and a brown tweed blazer, blue bell-bottom jeans and well-made black leather boots. Her lips were painted red, her eyes rimmed with brown eyeliner, accentuating her dazzling, jade-green eyes. She was everything Petunia remembered – devastatingly beautiful, amply curved, bright and brisk, the opposite of her milky-blonde, doe-eyed, awkwardly thin sister – but everything was augmented, distorted, misplaced. She looked to the man next to her, and she smiled at him like they were fifty and married for twenty years, not seventeen and in the throes of honeymoon passion.

And so, this was James Potter. The first thing Petunia noticed about him was that he was ever so slightly scruffy. His hair was a shock of black, his eyes a deep and soulful brown, wide and encouraging behind a pair of silver-rimmed, round glasses. There was the faintest hint of black stubble against his jaw, which he rubbed nervously with his free hand. He wore a brown jumper and green trousers and brown shoes, entirely inappropriate for a restaurant like this, Petunia thought.

But he was handsome and held himself well and he looked at Lily like she was everything .

“Strange, don’t you think,” Petunia heard James murmur to Lily. “how small these muggle places are?”

“James!” Lily scolded with a smile, batting his shoulder with a glove she’d just removed. “None of that tonight, come on.”

Petunia found herself standing up, waving at her sister. Vernon, she realised, hadn’t noticed they’d arrived.

“Lily,” Petunia said. She didn’t call it across the restaurant, but whispered. She’d barely said the word since she’d moved to London two years ago. It used to be a name she called across the house or shouted across fields – usually accompanied by ‘freak’ or ‘shut up’ or ‘I’m telling mummy.’

What would her sister think of her? And what would James – who would have only heard about Petunia through Lily – think too?

But Lily opened her arms as though Petunia was the best sister in the world. “God, Tuney, it’s been too long!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around Petunia. She found herself a little taken aback – by Lily’s warmth, by the hug, by the returning familiarity of her sister’s smell, flowers and rain and cinnamon.

“I’ve missed you,” Lily whispered into her ear, and then broke the hug. She looked down at Vernon, who hadn’t stood. “You must be Vernon! It’s so lovely to meet you!” Vernon didn’t even stick his hand out, but she wrapped an arm around his shoulders even when he was still sitting and gave him a quick, friendly squeeze.

“This is James!” Lily was now saying, her voice having gone up an octave. (That meant she was nervous.)

James gave a crooked smile and stuck out his hand to Petunia. “James,” he said. “It’s great to meet you! I’ve heard so much about you.” They shared a short but familiar handshake. Petunia turned to Vernon, who scowled at James like he was a schoolboy called to the headmaster’s office.

“Hullo, Vernon, it’s good to meet you. James Potter.” He stuck his hand out. At first, Vernon didn’t look like he wanted to shake it. Petunia raised her eyebrows at her fiancé expectantly, and finally, he relented, yet wiped his hand on his shirt once Lily and James were sat down.

“I’ve ordered a bottle of Merlot,” Vernon told the others gruffly. “I hope you don’t mind, I just felt as though I had to make an executive decision considering you were late…”

“Oh, we don’t mind,” Lily assured him graciously. “We can’t exactly drink anyway.” Petunia pursed her lips. She had forgotten her sister wouldn’t be eighteen for another month. “Besides, it’s probably best, considering we’re flying home.”

Vernon’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t realise you live so far away.”

Lily went white, like she had just realised what she’d said. “Oh, yes, it’s quite far back to Scotland. That’s where… school is.” Petunia glanced at her sister. It was a cheap lie, but Vernon seemed to buy it.

“Say, James,” Vernon said, reaching into his pocket. Something jingled. “Are you learning to drive?”

James’ eyes shifted to where Lily sat next to him and shook his head. “No, afraid I’m not.”

Vernon placed his car keys on the table. “Well, you should. Essential skill, might help you get a job. The key is to get a good car to learn in – obviously not one as good as mine, that cost me ten thousand pounds!”

Petunia gave an internal sigh. Vernon could go on for days about his beloved, beige Chrysler Avenger. With a small smile, she excused herself to the toilet, awkwardly pulling the sleeves of her blue dress down as she did. She nodded at Lily and James, and fled towards the bathrooms as quickly as she could.

She gripped the sides of the sink in front of her, staring at herself in the mirror. She hated that she was embarrassed of Vernon, hated that Lily, three years younger than her and a freak and too dazzling, had managed to find someone better than she ever could. They seemed so in love, so in-tune, so made-for-each-other, and they weren’t even adults . And who did Petunia have? Vernon, who insisted on the crusts being cut off his bread and drank too much and gripped her arms with too much force and tried to flaunt his car off to any young man who he could impress or any young woman whose skirt was nicely on show.

He was perfectly, terribly, awfully normal.

“I left them to talk about cars.”

Petunia lifted her head, worried Lily, who was standing in front of the now-closed bathroom door, could see the petty tears in her eyes.

“Does yours know much about cars?”

Lily laughed, a stupidly pretty sound. “No. It’s all a laugh, though, isn’t it?”

Petunia nodded thoughtfully. “Sorry, I won’t keep you from using the toilet,” she said, and stepped aside from the nearest stall.

“Oh, I don’t actually need to go,” Lily assured her. “But isn’t the rule that girls always go to the toilet in pairs?”

“I wouldn’t know.” It was true – Petunia never really had a second half of a pair to go to toilets with. Not since Lily left for school, anyway.

“Well, we’re here together now. I wanted a moment alone.”

Petunia blinked at her sister, hoping her silence was a question enough.

“Why him?” Lily asked. It wasn’t a malicious question. Petunia didn’t even think it was a joking one either. It was genuine, curious. Lily cocked her head, and waited for Petunia’s answer.

She didn’t really know what to say. “He’s just… he’s very normal. He’s a good, solid choice. He’s quite well off and he’s very experienced and he knows who he is and what he wants.”

Lily nodded and licked her lips. “Are those from him?” She gestured vaguely towards Petunia’s shoulders.

“Oh,” said Petunia, thinking Lily was asking about her earrings. “No, they’re mum’s, you know that.”

Lily’s face was a hurricane of pity. “No, Tune. I mean the bruises.”

Quick as she could muster, Petunia pulled the sleeves of her dress down again. It was why she had been doing it all night – because, if she pulled the sleeves down far enough, they hid the bruises made by Vernon’s fingers in the thin flesh of her upper arms.

“It was an accident,” Petunia lied. “I’ve always bruised easily.”

“Tuney!” Lily called as Petunia went to brush past her sister out of the bathroom.

She could feel Lily walking briskly behind her all the way back to the table, where Vernon and James were still sat, a three-quarters-full bottle of merlot now on the table. God , Petunia thought. He’s drunk a glass already . It was evident – Vernon was red-faced, glowing from the wine, but also seemingly from something else.

“That’s not possible! There aren’t even a million ships in the Royal Navy, let alone a million galleons !” Vernon insisted, pounding his fist against the table.

James looked a bit white. “No, no… It’s….”

“It’s slang, where we go to school,” Lily interjected swiftly, effortlessly, promptly taking her seat at the table again before Petunia had the chance to do it first. “For a pound. Like ‘quid’ or ‘buck,’ you know?”

“I don’t particularly appreciate the use of slang ,” sneered Vernon. “It’s rather rude, especially in company like ours.”

“Well, you haven’t been particularly pleasant either,” James retorted.

“James,” Lily said quietly.

“Why should I be? You turn up here, scruffy like you’ve been dragged out a bush backwards, go on about broomsticks like you’re a common street sweeper and then pull my legs by using slang! I don’t know what kind of freak school you go to, but I can quite frankly say I am not having you at my wedding, or this odd, she-wolf you call a girlfriend!”

James was immediately on his feet, as was Lily. Lily placed a hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder.

“You handle this one, Lil,” James offered, still glaring at Vernon. Petunia was now the only one sitting, dully aware of the fact that the rest of the restaurant was staring at them all in nosy amazement.

“Thanks, I think I will,” Lily muttered, and evened out her posture a little. “Listen, Vernon, we came here tonight because I wanted to get along. I hoped you made my sister happy, as she agreed to marry you, and I just want her to be happy. If we’re going to be family, you and I, I think we need to be a damn sight nicer to each other than this, but if you refuse to be civil, then I will be more than happy to give you a taste of your own medicine.”

“Why, you little-” Vernon began to roar.

But Lily held up a hand. “Incivility it is, then. Your tie is too long for your body, you have a terrible intolerance to alcohol despite the fact you’re obviously a functioning alcoholic, you refuse to be kind and civil to people you’ve decided you won’t like and if I had my way, I wouldn’t let you marry my sister. I see the bruises and sense the tension and see how your eyes have wandered to the chest of the waitress and my backside as I walked away from the table. I see you, Vernon Dursley. If only you’d seen me, and then you would have known I’d bite back.”

“I will not take this from a dizzy, silly little girl!” Vernon said, and grabbed Petunia’s hand with so much force she was dragged to her feet. “Come on, Petunia, we’re going. We’ll have nothing to do with these people.”

Somehow, Petunia managed to muster the courage and strength to pull herself to a halt. She looked up at Vernon, the man – by some stroke of madness – she had agreed to marry.

“We?” Petunia asked. “Vernon, you’re asking me to abandon my relationship with my sister.”

“No,” Vernon replied. “This is her fault, Petunia. Not mine, not yours. She is a freak .”

Both sisters flinched at the word. Lily, because it was something her sister had called her all her life. Petunia, because she finally saw how much of a terrible sister she was. Was she truly like this? Had she been like Vernon, too-normal, too-gruff, too-cruel, all her life. Was she destined to be a stain in the perfect tapestry Lily Evans had woven for herself?

She looked between Lily and Vernon – the two lives she could lead. The tainted, perfectly normal, nuclear existence with Vernon, and the life where she could let her family back in and relearn the definition of love.

There was only one answer. What was the point of being normal when you were deprived of the most normal thing of all – love?

“I wish I didn’t love you,” she said finally, and reached down to where her ring was still too-large on her finger. She didn’t need to pull it off, it fell out into her other palm. “But I do, and that means this is so much more difficult for me than it is for you. We’re through, Vernon. I’m so sorry.” And she was sorry, that was the worst part. She handed the ring back over to Vernon, and suddenly a weight lifted from her shoulders despite a heaviness settling over her heart.

“I’m going to make you regret this,” Vernon vowed.

“We’ll be waiting for you if you try,” Lily snapped back fiercely. Petunia wanted to cry as she turned back to Vernon.

He stormed out of the restaurant.

Petunia would never see Vernon Dursley again.

***

Six Months Later.

After realising that she didn’t want to marry Vernon, Petunia realised she didn’t want a lot of things she had previously tricked herself into believing were her most ardent desires. She had been living a lie for two years in pursuit of sheer, utter, perfect normality.

But she didn’t want to be a secretary, didn’t want to live in London in a two bedroom flat with four windows and barely half a bathroom. She didn’t want to never say that word: magic . She didn’t want to make her sister cry, she didn’t want to live alone and eat porridge with no sugar and work nine-to-five.

It took her six months to figure out what she wanted. And here is what she did want: she wanted to work in a bakery. She wanted to bake – she liked to bake. Little cakes and fondant fancies and loaves of well-baked bread. She wanted, one day, her own little shop with blue awning and white iron tables and chairs out the front. She wanted her family to visit every other day, and she wanted to see her sister.

And, when Lily finished school at the end of June, Petunia began to see more of her, to her delight. More of James, too. She only worked three days a week at the little bakery in their hometown of Cokeworth, so if Lily was travelling to see James at the weekend, sometimes Petunia would go with her.

She liked Euphemia and Fleamont Potter, James’ parents, who insisted everyone call them ‘Effie’ and ‘Monty,’ and even said Petunia could call them mum and dad if she really wanted, which made her laugh. She also liked James’ and Lily’s friends, other students from Hogwarts, who seemed to treat the Potters’ house as a kind of bed-and-breakfast. There was always a new face around the table if Petunia stayed for breakfast or dinner.

Usually, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin would be at the Potters’, and Petunia learnt not to question why they shared a room with just one bed in it or why Remus looked especially rough as it neared the full moon or why neither of them ever talked about their families. Sometimes, there would be a small, blonde boy who didn’t look eighteen, but was one of James’ friends, who called himself Peter, sat at the corner of the table, listening intently to the conversation around him.

Often, there were other girls. There was Marlene and Dorcas and Mary and Emmeline and Andromeda, who were all bubbly and more than happy to talk to the muggle who sometimes dined at the Potters’. Sometimes there would be a few couples, and Petunia liked Molly and Arthur, a few years older than Lily and James, but mostly because Arthur was fascinated by the fact a muggle was sitting next to him at breakfast. One week he wanted to know how bricklaying worked, the next week he insisted Petunia talk him through the mechanism of a typewriter. The others would always laugh at their enthusiastic conversations, but Arthur and Petunia would laugh with them.

It seemed odd, that the magical world came to treat Petunia as one of their own, just because Lily was. She remembered the pleading letter she had sent Professor Dumbledore at Hogwarts, begging to be let in, only being told she did not belong in the world of magic and freedom. But isn’t that what this – sitting around a table with a dozen people and laughing at nothing in particular – was? Wasn’t this belonging ?

“Hey, Sirius!” Petunia called after Sirius as he left the dining room after one particularly jolly dinner. “Make sure you’re here for breakfast, I’m making muffins.”

“Ah, you truly know the way to a man’s heart, Petunia.”

“They’ll be chocolate, so make sure to tell Remus too!”

“He’ll be touched you remembered chocolate is his favourite.”

“Well, it’s hard to ignore, he always has chocolate stains on his collar.” She raised a brow. “And you always have chocolate stains on the corners of your lips.”

“I couldn’t possibly comment,” Sirius insisted, and he hopped upstairs with a particular spring to his step which was rare for any of them these days – James, Lily, Remus, Sirius, even Peter, they all seemed over-tired, scared, on-edge.

Lily started to look tired. She wasn’t sleeping and she was burning the candle at both ends and she and James didn’t seem like they got enough time to spend with each other. She didn’t brush her hair and she never wore makeup anymore and she’d worn the same jumper seventeen days in a row.

“Why don’t you come back with me to mum and dad’s for a bit?” Petunia suggested when she found her sister in her and James’ bedroom, scribbling away at a desk with a large quill, ink-stains covering her dainty fingers.

“James can’t get out of work he’s doing for Dumbledore, he’s got to be close to London…” Lily replied.

“No, Lil, just you and me.”

Lily bit her lip. “I don’t want to be away from him.”

“Oh, it’ll be two days.”

“What if something happens?”

“What, he throws a mad party with his friends and gets drunk? What’s the worst that could happen?”

“He could be dead. I could be dead. If we’re out of each other’s sight, we could die and never see each other again.”

“Oh, Lily, don’t be so dramatic, I-”

“You don’t understand, Petunia!” Lily snapped. It was the first time her sister had properly raised her voice in months. She exhaled. “Sorry. It’s just… the war…”

Petunia knew very little about the ongoing wizarding war. She’d be cooking and overhear a hushed conversation between Andromeda and Effie about the movement of certain soldiers and whether the ‘ministry’ was ready and if they could feasibly win, or see some of the documents Lily was writing up or catch snippets of group conversations through walls. But she didn’t know why this war was happening, who they were fighting, how serious it was.

Petunia’s main question, though, was why a group of children – and they were just children – seemed to be the main warriors in this war. Lily was eighteen . She should be worried about her corner shop job and what to wear to an ABBA concert, not delivering war documents and preparing to fight in battles for a man five times her age.

“Mum and Dad are worried about you,” Petunia said. “Give them a few days. Then you can come straight back here.”

Lily thought on it for a moment. Eventually she nodded and said:

“Yeah. Okay.”

***

Four days later.

Petunia loaded her small, racing green mini with Lily’s things and glanced back at the Potters’ house. Lily was stood on the doorstep, locked in the tightest embrace imaginable with James, her head buried in James’ brown jumper.

“I don’t want to go,” Petunia heard Lily murmur.

“Lil, you need to rest, see your family,” James insisted. “We’ll be fine.”

Lily hugged James tighter, then gave Sirius and Remus a peck on their cheeks before embracing James once more, like she couldn’t let go.

“I’ll send you a patronus if anything goes wrong,” James promised.

Lily nodded. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

Petunia looked away, just as Sirius and Remus did, feeling like they were all intruding on a private, peaceful moment. Eventually, Lily pulled herself away from James and trudged over to Petunia and the car. There were tears in her eyes, and her knuckles were white over the strap of her brown leather satchel.

The car journey back to Cokeworth was mostly silent, until Petunia couldn’t take it anymore, and she finally started a conversation, using the excuse of keeping her eyes on the road so she could ignore the tears streaming down Lily’s cheeks.

“I want to know more about this war,” she said.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Then make me understand. Because, right now, I don’t understand why a gaggle of eighteen-year-olds, fresh out of school, are the frontline warriors in this battle. So, make me understand why you’re quivering in fear every time you see a shadow move and listening to the radio to make sure your friends haven’t been killed and you can’t go out and can’t come home and you can’t tell me anything.”

“It’s war, Petunia. It wounds everyone in whatever way it can.”

“You’re a kid, Lil.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You are a child , and you don’t deserve any of this. There is nothing stopping you from just turning around and walking back into a normal life, free from war and magic wands and-”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Petunia,” Lily said. Lily only ever called her Petunia when she was particularly angry.

“Lil, you saved me from my own little war – because marriage to Vernon would have been war, you know. Let me save you, too. You don’t have to go back.”

“How could you say that?”

“Because I don’t want you to die! I can’t lose you! Mum and dad can’t lose you!”

“What about James, Sirius, Remus, Peter? Marlene and Molly and Mary and Dorcas and Andromeda and Arthur? All the rest of them! I’m not a muggle, Tuney. I’m a witch, and I have to fight like one.” She didn’t sound determined, she sounded like a child , tired and fed up but forcing herself to go on.

“What about your family?”

“They are my family.”

“Not me?”

“Tuney…”

“No,” Petunia insisted, her eyes kept straight on the road. “I understand. It’s fine. I understand now.”

***

Three days later.

Petunia baked. She knocked on Lily’s bedroom door and offered her the first of her newest batch of biscuits. She sent a big box of cakes to Effie and Monty, making sure plenty of them were chocolate for Remus and fresh berry for Sirius. She made carrot cake – her mum’s favourite. She spent twelve hours a day in a kitchen – whether it was at home, or at work.

The pile of books Lily had read piled up next to her bed. It was all she did for three days, read and read and read, trying to keep the tears out of her eyes. Petunia made her promise to stay for four days, so her parents knew she was okay, and then she planned on going straight back to the Potters’. She read ‘muggle’ books – Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre and The Count of Monte Cristo . She cried silently and read some more and didn’t really leave her bedroom unless it was for dinner.

It was awkward, sitting around the dinner table with her sister and parents. Petunia made most of the conversation.

“How’s it at the hospital, mum?” she asked.

“Manic!” their mother replied. “Three people in the X-Ray department have all come down with a stomach bug, and so the waitlist for X-Rays is phenomenal!”

Petunia nodded. “It’s quite busy at the bakery, too.”

“That’s nice, dear,” her mother said, patting her hand. “But I want to hear from you , Lily. How are things?” It didn’t sting anymore, her parents’ complete and utter disinterest in everything she did. They wanted to know how Lily was doing at school and who was coming for easter and whether her friends were happy with the subjects they had chosen. When Petunia got an award for the fastest typist in her year, her parents forgot to come to the prizegiving. They bought Lily a broomstick, no bother. But when Petunia wanted a bike, she had to work to raise money for it herself. She suddenly remembered why she moved to London after all.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Lily murmured, pushing her roast potatoes around on her plate. “Petunia, do you know whether you’re going to stay in Cokeworth? Are you going to find a house or stay with mum and dad?”

It wasn’t a question Petunia had considered. But she was considering it now – and it sounded awfully nice, having a little house of her own or a flat where she didn’t have to see her parents every day and she had her own kitchen to cook what she pleased.

“I don’t know.”

“You know, I think it might be best that you all move away. Maybe to London. It’s a lot busier there.”

“Lily, I just left London,” Petunia reminded her.

“Lily, dear, we’re not moving on a whim, just like that!” their father said through a mouthful of food.

Lily sighed. “Just… think about it, okay? And if you notice anyone hanging around the house or trying to get in through the windows, you need to let me know immediately . And I’m going to put some protective charms on the house, so don’t worry if the windows shimmer a little funny.”

“Lily, what’s all this for?” their mother asked. Petunia glanced at Lily, realising that their parents obviously didn’t know anything about the war.

The nervous shake to Lily’s hands ebbed away. “Nothing. Just… apparently Cokeworth’s becoming a hotspot of crime. And we still don’t know who killed Mrs Snape.”

“Mrs Snape died from cardiac arrest, Lily,” their father reminded her.

“That’s what the police said.” Lily obviously knew something that the rest didn’t.

“Speaking of Snape,” said their mother. “Have you heard from Severus since you left school? You never mention him anymore, you two were thick as thieves when-”

“I don’t talk to Severus Snape anymore, mother,” Lily said, almost spitting. “He’s a dickhead.”

“Lily!”

“I mean it. I’d rather shake hands with a venomous tantactula than smile at Severus Snape.”

“I’m sure you don’t mean that.”

“Oh,” Lily assured them. “I do.” And, with that, Lily tore herself from her seat at the dinner table, drawing her wand immediately from her sleeve.

“ Protego maxima ,” she muttered, pointing the tip of her wand at the window. “ Salvia Hexia .” She repeated the same two spells over and over again, pointing her wand at every door and window in the kitchen and then moving into the hallway.

“Lily!” their mother called after her again. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing, I just… I just… I can’t take this anymore!” she screamed, dropping her wand and lifting her hands up to her head.

Just as Petunia went to stand to comfort her screaming sister, what looked like a blue bolt of lightning broke through the window. At first, Petunia thought it was Lily’s spells breaking down. But she and her parents found themselves floored by a wispy blue stag prancing around the kitchen. When the stag began to speak, Petunia recognised James’ voice, but she didn’t recognise the devastating fear he spoke with.

“Lils,” James rasped. “Lils, they’re coming for us. They’re coming for you.”

The stag withered away, the room glowing blue for a few moments before Lily launched herself from the house.

“Lily!” Petunia called.

“You’ll be safe without me here!” Lily called back, already halfway down their long driveway. “I’ll come back when I can!”

“Lily, you can’t just go!”

“James is in danger!”

Petunia knew it was no use trying to defy Lily where James was concerned. “Lily please don’t do anything stupid.”

“I can’t promise anything.”

Lily raised her wand. There was a crack, and she was gone.

***

One month later.

Petunia waited. And waited. She waited to hear from Lily. Waited for a letter, for her sister to knock on her front door. Anything. Any single sign of her sister.

It was only when she sat in the empty living room of her new flat on the other side of town from her parents did she finally crack, climbing into her green mini and driving all the way from Cokeworth to where the Potters lived in Surrey. It was midnight by the time she was knocking on the Potters’ front door.

It was Sirius who answered, and immediately Petunia was relieved. If Sirius – reckless, too-brave, cocky Sirius had survived whatever forces had come for them, surely Lily had too? She stepped towards Sirius, opening her arms for a hug.

But Sirius pulled his wand on her almost immediately.

“How many teaspoons of honey do you put in your carrot cake recipe?” he demanded.

“What?”

“Answer the damn question!” he urged, a strange, harsh roughness to his voice she didn’t understand.

“I don’t put honey in my carrot cake!” she insisted.

Sirius lowered his wand. “Sorry. Don’t know who you can trust these days. You’d best come in. I assume you’re here for Lily.”

She was led through the Potters’ house, which felt like a foreign labyrinth to her now, to the bedroom she knew belonged to James. Sirius paused outside the door, and knocked three times.

When Lily appeared in the doorway, Petunia didn’t recognise her. Her hair was matted and wild, dark circles ringed her eyes like a pair of dark moons and she wore a long flannel shirt – one that James had frequently sported.

“Petunia?” she questioned groggily. “Merlin, Tuney .” Next thing Petunia knew, Lily’s arms were around her neck and her sister was sobbing into her shoulder.

“Lily.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t come home. I’m so, so sorry. James and I got waylaid in Yorkshire and we were forced to split up… and I have eyes on me constantly and the Order hasn’t yet managed to track down the men who are following my movements and James…”

“What happened to James?” She feared the worst, of course she did.

“I don’t know! He could be dead, he could be captured, he could be wandering the country with his memory wiped, I just don’t know! He’s been missing for two weeks and I haven’t heard from him, haven’t been able to send owls and haven’t been able to leave! It’s killing me!”

“Is there anywhere he could have gone? Any safe houses? Friends?” She looked to Sirius when Lily couldn’t give her an answer. Sirius shook his head as well. “Who else is here, in the house?”

“Marlene and Dorcas. Effie and Monty are at St Mungo’s, the hospital, in London. They were taken ill a few days ago, probably exacerbated by James’ disappearance. Remus is…” Sirius trailed off, his eyes going glossy.

“Also missing?”

“We don’t know where he is, but that’s by design, so not missing . But he won’t be back until the end of the month.”

Petunia nodded. “And what have you been eating?”

“What’s left over from Effie’s cooking. Veg cooked down with what butter we have. Nothing at all. None of us can leave: we’re being followed.”

“Well, I can leave,” Petunia assured them. “When the shops open, I’ll go and make breakfast for the four of you.”

“You don’t have to do that, Tune,” Lily whispered.

“I want to,” Petunia insisted. It was odd, really, how every time she came back to the Potters’ or hurtled back into the world of magic and wands and freedom, she seemed to take a clear role, made herself a determined beacon of hope.

Well, to be honest, all she ever did was cook, but it would have to do.

***

Three weeks later.

Petunia cooked breakfast the morning after she arrived at the Potters’ for Marlene, Dorcas, Sirius and Lily. She made pancakes and bacon and chocolate muffins in case Remus came back and a big pot of soup and bought three loaves of bread, one of which she made them freeze for future use. She wanted to stay, but she had work in the morning. She forced herself to return to the world of muggles and normality and ease, despite the fact her sister was trapped in another world entirely. She popped a note through her parents’ door to tell them Lily was okay (a half-lie, but still enough of a truth that she didn’t feel guilt) and returned to baking for the builders and doctors and people she didn’t know, rather than bake for soldiers and children too quickly grown.

People kept resigning at the bakery, meaning that Petunia’s job was no longer part time, and she was working day and night to make sure everything was in order. Her managers didn’t praise her and she wasn’t given a raise, but it was a better distraction than sitting at home on her own. If she was baking cakes or serving customers or taking Chelsea buns out of the oven, she wasn’t thinking about Lily and worrying about James and wondering whether Remus was home yet.

But then, miraculously, Petunia came home one day to find a handsome black owl sitting on her door handle, a letter tied to its foot.

James is home, it read, in Lily’s perfect handwriting.

We’re getting married!

Thanks for everything.

Lil x

In the envelope there was also a handwritten invitation:

Lily Evans & James Potter

Invite you to join them on 31 st August 1978

To celebrate their marriage.

Knoxley House, Hollsworth, Surrey.

Arrival by apparition, floo powder or broomstick preferred.

***

Two months later.

Petunia was nervous, and she was never nervous. Not at things like this, anyway. This was her sister’s wedding. Not a battle, not a war.

But she hadn’t seen Lily since before James had come back, when she looked a wreck and had tears in her jade-green eyes. They were never destined to be particularly close. She felt as though she knew Sirius and Remus and Arthur and Molly better than she knew Lily. But that was probably because Petunia would never truly know Lily. She was the kind of girl who no one ever really knew . They met her and loved her and laughed with her, but no one knew Lily.

Petunia supposed she probably wouldn’t see very much of Lily today, considering she would be busy, you know, getting married. Married. Petunia’s sister, just eighteen, married before she was.

But Petunia couldn’t feel bitter. Because if she was the one to marry first, she would be Petunia Dursley by now, jobless, ambitionless, hopeless. Joyless. Ruthless.

Remus Lupin was wearing a sharp set of black robes, a red-and-gold bowtie tied around his neck. He had picked up a few more scars since Petunia saw him last, but today, he was all smiles.

“Are you with the bride or the groom?” he asked Petunia as she ambled up to the kissing-gate which led into the Potters’ walled garden. Their house was practically a stately home, and the garden was no exception to the splendour. Tonight, in the gentle darkness of the late summer, someone had enchanted lights to float like triple-size fireflies, and flowers bloomed and shivered in an almost undetectable breeze, a riot of blues and purples and greens.

“Bride,” Petunia murmured, not wanting to assume Remus recognised her.

“I’m pulling your leg, Petunia!” he said. Petunia forced herself to laugh. “To be honest, most people here know both Lily and James, so we just said sit wherever. Your mum saved a seat for you, I think.”

“Thanks, Remus,” she muttered, and wandered through into the garden. She felt like all eyes were on her, yet at the same time felt drowned and lost in the sea of witches and wizards in dress robes and beautiful dresses. Petunia was wearing her best – pale pink, off the shoulder, not too in-fashion. But everyone had gone really all-out.

Petunia found her mother at the front, and awkwardly took a seat next to her. “Hi, mum,” she murmured.

“Lovely evening,” her mother said in way of a greeting. They hadn’t been getting on well recently, not since Petunia moved out. To be honest, she hated living alone, couldn’t stand the weight of her own thoughts and silence. But every time she was with her parents, they fought about something or the other – the amount of sugar that should go in jam, the price of petrol, whether Lily and James would stay together. Mum and dad said it was just a teenage romance. Petunia was here today, being proved right.

The wedding was ridiculously beautiful. Everyone was crying, though that was probably made worse by the fact almost everyone here was in the middle of a war. Petunia and Lily’s father cried walking down the aisle, Lily cried when she saw James, James was already crying before Lily came into the garden. The bridesmaids, Marlene and Mary, were also crying, but their tears were pretty to go with their pretty green dresses. Petunia cried ugly, fat tears that dripped down her cheeks as Lily and James exchanged their vows.

“Do you promise to love one another, help one another, be true to one another until death comes to greet you as friends?” asked the wedding’s officiant, a tall, thin-nosed woman in long green robes and a large black hat. She had a Scottish accent and square, brown glasses. She seemed almost bemused by the fact that she was here, officiating the wedding of two eighteen-year-olds, but smiled all the same when Lily and James looked at each other once more.

They nodded and spoke together. “We do.” Petunia quite liked that – that wizard weddings were an agreement, not two separate promises from people on either side of an aisle.

Before the officiant had the chance to speak again, Sirius gave a loud sob from where he stood by James’ side as best man. He was crying the worst of all – he had sobbed, wept and wailed, and now he had a hand pressed to his eyes and was wiping the tears from his cheeks. Remus patted him on the back and the congregation laughed lightly.

The officiant chuckled under her breath too. “Well, then it seems I now happily pronounce you husband and wife! You may seal your union with a kiss.”

James and Lily took one another into their arms and pressed their lips together.

At least, Petunia thought darkly, if this war was to tear them apart, these vows would tie them together in death.

***

Eighteen months later.

The war only got worse.

Well, as far as Petunia was aware. She measured how dire the situation in the wizarding world based on how many letters she received from James and Lily. For a few months after their wedding, she probably got one once a week, as from what she had gathered from the reception, whatever forces they were fighting had been in a temporary retreat.

But then the letters came once a fortnight.

Then once a month.

Then they were rare – like messages in bottles, washed up on Petunia’s doorstep in a hand that became increasingly scrawling and deranged.

Now, they didn’t come at all.

It had been over a year since Petunia had seen her sister and brother in law, Lily’s friends and colleagues. James’ parents had died very shortly after the wedding, but the letter Lily had sent to share the sad news had assured Petunia that they went peacefully, and it was their time. What happened to the Potters’ beautiful house and gardens, Petunia didn’t know, but now she didn’t even have an address to reach Lily. She’d never been able to send a letter back, only get news, not send it.

Petunia didn’t officially know whether Lily was alive, but she took the lack of news as good news – surely, if Lily died, Petunia would be the first to know? Eventually, she became content with not hearing from Lily, not knowing anything about the war, not knowing if James and Sirius and Remus and Peter and all the people she’d learned to love were alright. She knew she was just a muggle, the girl who made vanilla biscuits and didn’t put honey in her carrot cake. She was content with just being a memory in the wizarding world, a name passed around at frantic dinners and solemn meetings.

But when Petunia and Lily’s mother went missing and was found dead days later, face down in the frost under a willow tree with no signs of struggle or injury, Petunia needed her sister more than ever. Their father was beside himself, of course he was, and Petunia couldn’t allow herself to show emotion. She had to be strong for her dad – the last member of her family she knew to be alive and somewhat well. But she had no way of reaching Lily. No way at all.

“Why hasn’t Lily come home?” their father questioned, hoarse from the sofa, an empty glass of brandy balanced on his chest.

“Lily is busy,” Petunia told him, knowing he wouldn’t remember her saying this in the morning.

In her childhood home, Petunia felt a little out of place. She felt like a stranger. All the pictures on the walls were of Lily – Lily with James, Lily with their now-dead mother, Lily with a scrawny, too-tall blonde girl, scowling at the camera.

How Petunia had changed from the figure who only showed up on photos behind doors and at the back of the mantelpiece.

As she ambled up the stairs, leaving her father to sleep with tears balancing on his cheeks and alcohol staining his breath, Petunia found herself gravitating towards Lily’s old bedroom. She rarely slept here – spending most of her weeks at Hogwarts. But during summer, she would sit at the desk and write letters to her friends, sit in bed and read book after book. And, two years ago, Lily had sat in this bedroom and read and read until she was mad, away from James and away from the life she was always meant to lead.

Petunia went through her desk first. Rolls of parchment and quills filled the top drawer. The next was full of old books. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was at the top of the pile. Petunia opened the book at the bookmarked page.

WEREWOLVES, the title read. CLASSIFICATION: XXXXX

On the piece of parchment which had bookmarked the page, two sentences had been written, one in handwriting that definitely wasn’t Lily’s, the other that definitely was.

Pads – it’s not just me that thinks this is bullshit, right? Said Lily’s handwriting.

Nah, Moony read this part the other day and you’re right: definitely bullshit.

Petunia, not knowing who ‘Pads’ and ‘Moony’ were, closed the book and slipped it back into the drawer.

The bottom drawer, however, intrigued Petunia beyond imagination. It was an entire drawer full of letters . Letter upon letter upon letter.

Petunia rifled through the drawer, pulling an old, tea-stained letter from the bottom. The envelope had been eagerly ripped open, the contents thumbed a hundred times over.

Miss Lily J. Evans

The Second Bedroom on the Right

34 Lock Lane

Cokeworth

Herefordshire

Petunia flipped the letter over, and stared down at the broken Hogwarts seal. She smiled fondly, remembering when her most ardent desire had been to attend the school Lily had. She was almost relieved now, that she wasn’t a witch. Would she be dead already, lost to this war fought by children and students?

She stuffed the letter back into the bottom of the drawer, and began to work her way from the top  downwards.

The first letter was from James.

Evans,

Three Broomsticks this weekend? I’ll buy you a butterbeer!

James xoxoxoxo

(I know you’ll say no – but keeping up traditions is important)

Petunia laughed. There were about seventeen almost identical letters like this, James’ handwriting varying from a thirteen-year-old scrawl to a more sensible cursive in later years.

It wasn’t until Petunia was almost at the bottom of the pile that she finally found a letter with an address.

It was from Molly.

Molly Weasley

The Burrow

Ottery-St-Catchpole

Devon

Petunia ran downstairs, past her sleeping father, to where she knew her parents had kept a large supply of Ordnance Survey maps.

Petunia pulled out the map for Devon, her eyes roving over the area for hours, looking at every name of every village and town. Until finally, in the corner, she found herself blinking at a tiny description next to a cluster of woodland.

Ottery-St-Catchpole.

***

One day later.

Lucy Groves, who worked at the bakery in Cokeworth, was overly stressed for a Monday morning. Petunia Evans, who was usually so punctual and helpful, baking and taking money and packaging cakes into white paper boxes, hadn’t turned up this morning. She’d asked Keith, who also worked in the kitchen and baked bread all day, to go and check if she was at her flat.

When Keith returned, he said that Petunia wasn’t at home. And her racing-green mini cooper wasn’t outside her block of flats either.

Had Petunia forgotten it was Monday? She never forgot to come to work. She was never ill, never late, never complained.

Lucy merely told Keith that Petunia would probably be along soon.

Little did they know, Petunia was already in Devon by now, pounding on the Weasley family’s door.

***

Petunia’s knuckles rapped against the splintering wood of the Burrow’s door. The moment she had driven up to the house, she had somehow known this house belonged to Molly and Arthur Weasley. It was higgledy-piggledy, the grass was a little long, and there was a makeshift garage attached to one side of the house that looked as though it was held together with nothing but a few nails and sheer willpower.

“Molly, are you there?” Petunia called. “Arthur?”

From within, a baby began to laugh. Then a second. A child began to cry, and a mother’s irritated voice shushed it.

“Arthur, who is it?” Molly whispered. “Arthur, do you know?”

“Take the kids upstairs, Molly,” Arthur murmured back.

“It’s me!” Petunia called. “It’s Petunia!”

The door flew open. Arthur had his wand pulled on Petunia.

“When I first learned you were a muggle, what did I ask you to explain to me?” Arthur demanded.

“What?”

“Tell me!”

“Bricklaying! You asked how the bricks stayed together!”

Arthur lowered his wand. “Molly!” he called up the stairs. “You might want to put the kettle on.”

She was ushered into the Burrow, tripping over toys and children. Molly came stumbling down the stairs, clearly heavily pregnant. She smiled, but her brows were still furrowed.

“Petunia?” she said when she saw Petunia sitting at the Burrow’s dining table. She lifted a small boy with glasses, the one who had been crying, from the sofa. “Hello! Sorry it’s a bit chaotic here, we haven’t really been able to leave.”

“Don’t apologise,” Petunia assured them. “But I’m afraid I have a favour to ask of you. I don’t know where Lily is, and I really need to find her.”

Arthur grimaced. “To be completely sure, we’re not sure either. Lily and James had to go into hiding.”

“What? Why? Are they okay?”

“Dumbledore told them they were in danger, and so they left.”

“Well, can I see them?”

“Sirius is the only person who can tell you where they are.”

“Sirius? Can I see him ?”

“He and Remus are in London at the moment.”

“Do you have an address?”

“No,” Molly admitted. “But if I tell you the address of a pub, one I know they frequent, within a few days, you’d be able to find them.”

Petunia was quiet for a long moment.

Arthur placed an arm around Molly’s shoulders. “It’s a lot of work, I know, just to find Lily.”

“I know,” Petunia replied. “But I need to find her.”

“Can I ask why?”

“Our mother was found dead, seven days ago.”

Molly and Arthur both went white. “No signs of injury? Seemingly untouched?” Arthur asked.

“How did you know?”

Molly and Arthur looked at each other. Arthur cleared his throat. “We can’t know for sure but…”

“This is because of the war, isn’t it? They can’t get to Lily, so they’re after her family instead?”

“Possibly,” Molly admitted.

“So I…”

“Need to be jolly careful. I can’t offer to take you to London, neither of us can, but if you are going to go, don’t go at night, and don’t go down any country lanes.”

“And where is this pub?”

“It’s called the Leaky Cauldron – it’s about one of the last places in the country that’s not controlled by… the other side. Remus and Sirius go there often, and if you wait outside, then you’ll see them.”

“Molls,” Arthur said. “What if they apparate straight into the pub?”

Molly sucked in a breath. “You’ll have to go in.”

“But I’m a… muggle!” Petunia said, realising she’d never actually said that word. Muggle. It was strange. Like non-magic folk were the odd ones, not the wizards and witches.

“If you go in, and tell Tom you’re waiting for Padfoot and Moony , he’ll know who you’re talking about. And give him this.” Molly stood and rifled around in the top drawer of a sideboard, before presenting Petunia with a small coin. Petunia took it gingerly, rubbing her fingers over the imprint of a phoenix bird on one side, before flipping it and staring down at the O and P interlocked on the other face.

“What is it?”

“An Order of the Phoenix coin. Basically, it’s a sign that you’re on our side. Our enemies, they have magical tattoos that tie them to their leader. But anyone with one of those tattoos cannot hold one of these coins. You can have that one to keep. Dumbledore gave us the job of giving the coins out, and we have a few left.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. You’re Lily’s sister. I’d do anything for Lily.”

“Thank you Molly. I won’t forget this.”

***

One day later.

Petunia sat at the bar at the Leaky Cauldron, feeling the heaviness of sleep pull her eyelids downwards. She’d been sat at this very bar, reading, chatting to the very lovely barkeep, Tom, for almost twelve hours now, but there was no sign of Sirius and Remus.

“How often do they come in here?” Petunia eventually asked Tom, flipping the Order coin in her hand.

“Oh, maybe once a week, Miss.”

“And when was the last time they came?”

“Why, about a week ago.”

“Good, good.”

It wasn’t until the afternoon that finally, after almost a year and a half, Petunia saw the faces of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin once more.

It was a tragic truth that every time Petunia saw her brother-in-law’s best friends, they each had new scars. Sirius had a new one under his eye, an angry, raw crescent moon that looked like it hadn’t healed properly. Remus had a scar across his nose, one running the length of his neck. Remus’ hair was shorter, Sirius’ hair was longer. Sirius was wearing a jumper Petunia knew belonged to Remus. Remus was wearing a necklace most commonly worn by Sirius. The men glanced at each other and heaved a sigh.

She watched them push their way through the door, Sirius shaking out a black umbrella and leaving it in an umbrella rack by the door, and scan the barroom, Sirius’ hand resting on his hip, where Petunia was sure he had his wand stored.

Remus’ eyes passed right over Petunia, as though she was just another non-hostile face, before he did a double take.

“Petunia?” Remus questioned, a hoarse panic to his voice. “What… this isn’t…”

Petunia held the order coin up. “I don’t put honey in my carrot cake,” she said, and smiled. “Can I buy you both a drink?”

After Remus and Sirius were settled, Petunia cleared her throat.

“A week ago,” she began. “My mother was found dead. No sign of injury, no visible struggle. I need to find Lily. I went to see Molly and Arthur, and they said that you, Sirius, are the only person who can tell me where to find her.”

Sirius dragged a hand over his face, a devastating tiredness to his grey eyes. “I can’t tell you,” he said, and glanced at Remus as he did. “I’m sorry.”

“You have to tell me!” Petunia insisted. “Sirius, please.”

“No, I physically can’t tell you.”

“What?”

Remus set his drink down abruptly. “Sirius…” He swallowed. “You changed the secret keeper.”

Sirius nodded shamefully. “James made me promise not to tell anyone. You can’t tell anyone . Neither of you.”

“Not like I have anyone but you to tell,” Remus grumbled, but placed his hand over Sirius’ all the same.

“I’m so lost,” Petunia said.

“I’m sorry, Petunia. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Can I at least get a letter to her? I… I think she would want to know about our mother.”

Remus opened his mouth and then closed it again. “She would blame herself,” he said eventually.

“She still needs to know.”

Sirius shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, she can’t know. She can’t take the stress right now. It’s not a good idea.”

“What, why?”

“She’s pregnant.”

Petunia was floored. “No.”

“Merlin, don’t say it like it’s a bad thing!” Sirius snapped.

“Of course it’s a bad thing!” Petunia retorted. “This kid will be born in the middle of a war! Its parents are being hunted, it will grow up in hiding! Do you lot not have contraception?”

“Petunia…”

“And Lily shouldn’t even have to cope with this war – none of you should! You’re all what, twenty-one? And you’re running around, fighting a war and worrying about the birth of children! For god’s sake, who authorised this?”

“Petunia, keep your voice down,” Remus urged her gently.

Petunia crossed her arms. Sirius finally ripped his furious gaze away from hers to where a shadowy figure was watching them with coal-black eyes. Petunia knew those eyes – she knew the face and the scowl, too.

“Severus?” she questioned.

At the sound of that name, Sirius bolted from his barstool, as did Remus.

“ Diffindo! ” Sirius yelled, pointing his wand at the chandelier above Severus’s head. The chains holding it up severed, and it went crashing into the tables in the middle of the room. Flames from the alight candles began to rise. Tom behind the bar gave a whimper, and ducked down behind the bar.

“ Expelliarmus !” Remus shouted.

Severus fled towards the back wall, keeping a firm grip on his wand. Ominously, he raised his wand, and it was pointed straight at Sirius’s chest.

“ Avada Kedavra. ” Severus’s voice was cold and unfeeling. He looked different too. His hair was longer and greasier, his eyes almost haunted, and he wore long, black robes, which exposed his forearm as he raised his arm. Inked into his skin was a symbol of a skull and a snake.

Darkly, Petunia remembered what Molly had said about the enemy forces being identified by a tattoo.

And then she remembered what Lily had said almost two years ago. If she remembered correctly, Lily’s exact words about Severus Snape were He’s a dickhead.

And yeah, right now, when Severus had his wand pointed at Sirius, a cold, calculating look on his face, Petunia agreed that he was a dickhead too.

Green sparks were being emitted from the end of Severus’ wand, but before they had the chance to collide with Sirius’ chest, Petunia had grabbed his shoulder and pulled him to the ground.

Sirius didn’t have time to thank her, just leap again to his feet and run over to where Remus was on the other side of the room.

“Moony!” Sirius yelled. It was one of the names Molly had told her to give to Tom, but Petunia suddenly remembered the names on the note in Lily’s book. It had spoken of Pads and Moony . Padfoot and Moony. Sirius and Remus.

Petunia watched helplessly, the only other person in the now chaos-submerged barroom, as Severus slung spells around with no effort and Remus and Sirius threw them back with similar ease. Severus seemed to be evenly matching them both, but he had the higher ground from where he stood on the table, and didn’t have the exhaustion Remus and Sirius had in their eyes.

“ Petrificus Totalus, ” Severus hissed, and the spell hit Remus squarely in the chest. He seized up and keeled over, his wand clattering to the floor like a bone.

Sirius roared at Severus, fury and terror ripping from his throat.

“Now, now, no need to get stroppy,” Severus sneered, looking down his nose. He cast another spell, which Sirius promptly blocked. “Dear me, we are feisty today, aren’t we?”

“You! You’re the reason James and Lily are being hunted! You’re the reason they could end up dead! I knew you’d stoop low in this war, Snape, but never as far as this.”

At the mention of Lily’s name, Severus faltered, and he gulped down a great mouthful of air. He raised his wand again.

“ Expelliarmus ,” he muttered, and Sirius’ wand went flying out of his own hand.

“No!” Petunia screamed, and did the only thing she could as she watched Severus raise his wand to kill Sirius. She lobbed the coin in her hand, the one Molly had given her, at Severus, and it hit him squarely in the jaw.

He screamed, low and agonised, and there was a sound of searing flesh. When Petunia dared to open her eyes, she saw a mangled burn appearing, red and raw, on Severus’ cheek. He had a hand pressed to his jaw, and he was staring at Petunia as though she had just killed a thousand people. Like she had just done the impossible, the unthinkable, the terrible.

Again, to her horror, he raised his wand. Sirius tried to scramble to his feet, but couldn’t.

The door behind her flew open. Petunia didn’t get time to see who was standing in the doorway, but she did see Severus’ face contort into an expression of shock, confusion, fear, and then he evaporated into a cloud of thick, black smoke. In a moment, he was gone, like he had never been there.

Petunia exhaled into her sweaty palms, pressing her fingertips against her damp eyes. Finally, she opened them from where she was still crouched by the bar, and saw two new people inside.

A man with a mangled face and a limp was stumbling towards the back wall, grumbling under his breath about evening calls. Sirius didn’t look up as the older wizard approached him, as he was focused on Remus, just released from whatever spell he had been under.

Sirius had his hands on either side of Remus’ face, their foreheads pressed together.

“I love you, I love you,” Sirius murmured, tears streaming down his face.

“I love you,” Remus muttered back, and pressed a longing but terrified kiss to Sirius’ lips. Despite herself, Petunia smiled.

Someone came and sat down next to her.

“Not even a war can tear those two apart,” said a voice from beside her.

Petunia looked up. “Marlene!”

“Hi, Petunia.” Marlene mustered a smile. “Looks like you got Snape good there.”

“It was luck.”

“It was quick-thinking. Doesn’t seem you need magic to overcome a wizard.” She smiled fondly and patted Petunia on the shoulder. She gestured at the limping wizard, now fiercely questioning Tom. “That’s Mad-Eye. He’s a softie really. But don’t tell him I said that.”

“Marlene, what the hell is this war?” Petunia asked after a while.

“I think it’s best, Petunia, if you didn’t know.”

“I want to know.”

Marlene sighed. “I wouldn’t know how to tell you if I tried.”

Petunia went to argue again, but Remus and Sirius came ambling over to where they were both crouched on the floor. Sirius had Remus supported with an arm, and they each sported a few new sets of scars and cuts.

“You saved my life, Tuney,” Sirius said. “I don’t think I can ever repay you.”

“Yes you can,” Petunia replied. “Protect Lily. To whatever end.”

***

Six months later.

Petunia still didn’t hear from Lily. But she had made Sirius and Remus promise that if Lily so much as sustained a scratch and they knew that she would be the first to know. She forced herself to take no news as good news.

Petunia baked and cooked herself dinner and planned her mother’s funeral. And then, when just a month after their mother had died, their father was found dead at the open door of Petunia and Lily’s childhood home, she planned his funeral too. She choked back her tears when people asked her where Lily was and she made herself tell them that she had moved out of the country and couldn’t afford flights back. They seemed to take the lie, if with a mutter under their breath about how Lily was a bad daughter. But did they know that Lily was the exact opposite?

Petunia managed her parents’ estate, and had a storm with the lawyers when she had to explain that no amount of legal pressure would get her sister to present herself and claim what was owed to her as inheritance. It all went into a trust, which Petunia told herself Lily would claim in due time when she came out of hiding and this war would be over. Then, finally, they could all be a proper family. Proper sisters. Petunia would be an aunt. She couldn’t wait to dote on her little niece or nephew.

And, it seemed, Petunia had a nephew. Because, when she got home one day from a particularly long shift at the bakery, she found a letter lying on her doorstep.

The name on the front was simply Tuney .

Petunia didn’t even wait to go inside to open the letter. Inside was a card with a picture of a baby boy inside, bright green eyes and a shock of black hair. He was asleep in the picture, and Lily was holding him, the proudest smile across her lips that Petunia had ever seen.

Lily and James Potter

Are proud to announce

The birth of their baby boy

Harry James Potter

On 31 st July 1980

There was a note at the bottom, written in Lily’s careful hand.

Tuney,

I miss you more than I can tell you. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write – it’s been almost two years, and the war isn’t getting any easier. But I hope life is all good for you.

I love you so, so much.

Harry loves you too.

I’m sending you every scrap of love,

Lily xxxx

It was the last Petunia would ever hear from her sister.

But she stood on her doorstep, one hand pressed against her heart, the other pressed against the picture, sobbing from joy and sorrow and everything in between.

***

Fifteen months later – still on the doorstep.

Now, Petunia stood on the other side of the door, staring down at her nephew for the second time in her life. But now, he was real, in the flesh. She had a letter too – another letter that made her cry.

But this one was not written by Lily.

She recognised the green ink and cursive from Dumbledore. The description of what had happened, the war, everything that Lily and James and Sirius hadn’t told her, was marked out on this page. The description of James and Lily’s deaths how, just as Petunia knew they would, they had died as a result of this war, out of love for their son, and love for one another.

And then, at the bottom, there was a plea.

He is a special child. He will be the one to save us all.

I entrust you to his care, until he comes of age.

I know that Lily would have wanted you to care for him as though he was your own. From what I have heard about you, I have no doubt that you will.

It will be difficult, but life has always been full of challenges.

Professor Albus P.W.B Dumbledore.

Harry opened his eyes and stared up at Petunia, his gaze wide and green. There was an ugly, raw scar on his forehead, but the boy smiled.

Petunia had never looked like Lily. Lily was every pretty part of their mother and handsome part of their father – auburn haired and green eyed, generously curved with a pretty smile. Petunia’s hair was a milky blonde, her eyes a watery blue. Her smile was too wide and she was awkwardly tall. She was not Lily.

But, all the same, Harry smiled and said, “Mama.”

Petunia sobbed and sobbed until Harry was crying too. She was not his mama .

But she scooped him into her arms, holding him close.

She would have to do.