Chapter Text
The Baby In a Basket
Petunia Dursley was very proud of the normal life she had managed to achieve. Growing up, Petunia had been a very happy child, when she was younger at least. She will admit it was sometimes hard growing up being compared to her perfect little sister. Petunia was always average looking, she had thin, wispy blond hair, and a too-skinny and too-tall figure that even to this day never filled out.
Lily on the other hand seemed to naturally attract people, like a beacon of light and happiness. She was easily the prettiest person in the room with her long bright red hair that she inherited from their grandmother and her bright green eyes that shone like emeralds. Yes, Petunia will admit it was hard not to be jealous of her little sister at times, but it was easily forgotten when the younger would look up to her with a big toothy smile calling her “Tuney”. Petunia could get over the jealousy, they were sisters after all and despite their two-year age gap, they were always extremely close. The neighbours always greeted them with a smile, their whole little town could recognise them. The Evans sisters – always attached at the hip.
That all changed of course when her sister learned she could do things others could not. She could grow flowers from when they were nothing but a seedling in the ground and float gently to the floor when she jumped from the swings. Petunia had been wary at first but then she quickly came to find the amazement of it all. It all just seemed so wondrous, like a fairytale book came to life, beautiful and magical. It was after that poor boy from a few streets away confronted them one day at the park that the truth was revealed. Her sister had magic – she was a witch.
It also happened to be the day that everything started to fall apart.
She and the boy never quite got along. Petunia didn’t see what Lily saw in the other boy. He lived in the rough area of Cokesworth, the part that always smelled of marijuana and the backstreets smelled of piss. It was the part of town that their parents had warned them not to walk through. When they were out playing and it got dark early in the winter months, it was unsafe to be near and they should avoid it at all costs, even if they were together.
The boy wasn’t anything special, he wasn’t a diamond among the rough, he was just the rough. He stuttered nearly all of his words and he was always awkward and fumbling about like some creep. His hair was greasy and long and Petunia lost count of how many times she nearly gagged watching him rake his hands through it.
She put up with the boy, all of Lily of course. She never saw what Lily saw in him. Lily probably pitied him. The boy in the ill-fitting handi-downs that looked like they were taken out of a donation box or the lost and found, the greasy hair and the constant broodiness. Lily always tried to defend him with the common phrases,” You can’t judge people on appearance alone,” and “You never know the full extent of someone’s homelife,” but Petunia could never get along with him, even when she attempted to listen to her sister. He was just an annoying, greasy little boy and Lily was just too nice to say it.
It was probably the magic, he was just too depressing and boorish to be around for it to be anything else. Lily always had a thing for helping things that reminded her of kicked puppies after all.
The grimey boy’s growing closeness with her sister eventually put some strain on their previous relationship but Petunia wasn’t too upset. She had started at secondary school and made some friends that she would spend her time with when Lily was with the boy. At the end of the day, it was home that Lily returned to every night. Even after a day with the other boy, off exploring their little fantasy world, it would always be her that Lily talked to at the end of the day. It was her that she would tell every little detail of her day to, confess her little secrets too, tell her little stories too.
Turns out, magic had to ruin that for her too.
She had written to them, the magic school, begging to be able to go. She could handle not being able to do magic, but surely there was something she could learn. She didn’t want to be parted with her sister, her best friend in the whole wide world but all she got was rejection – the start of many.
Her parents, always optimistic and happy, were thrilled to have a witch as a daughter. It made Petunia’s jealousy spike. Not only was Lily the pretty one, the smart one, the nice one, the one with a smile that lit up the room, the one who everyone loved she was now their little witch. Something Petunia now knew she could never become. Her parents never actively said it, they too were too kind, like Lily always had been, but she could tell they were comparing them. How could they not? Perfect little Lily and average in every way Petunia.
Her sister changed as the years passed, as to be expected, but the changes were quite jarring when you don’t see each other nine months out of the year. The daily letters became weekly and then by her fifth year they were at once a month. When Petunia finally went to university, they had become non-existent.
The more Lily learned and shared with her, the more disturbed Petunia became. Magic wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, it was dangerous and Petunia wanted nothing to do with it. Turning beetles into buttons, making potions and poisons, learning about creatures and man-eating plants — it was unnatural. Petunia would never have a place in that world, in that world she was powerless and nothing. Her lack of control over it all made her hate it. She grew to despise it. Her definition of normal had nothing to do with that freakishness. If she was destined to be average in every way then she would have to embrace it and find happiness in it.
Petunia wanted to be normal. She wanted to have control of the world around her. She worked hard at university and when she met an ambitious young man named Vernon Dursley, she quickly fell in love. He provided her with everything she wanted in her normal life. He had attended a private school down in Surrey and had a job lined up at a local drilling company in a small town called Little Whining after they graduated. The town was perfect in every way. It was the epitome of middle class and normalcy, her dream, and when Vernon’s parents offered to put down a deposit on a new house for them to move into, she was thrilled.
Everything was turning out perfectly. By 22 she was married and a year later she had a baby on the way. Vernon’s salary meant she didn’t have to work meaning when her precious baby boy came along she could spend every minute of her time doting on him like he deserved. He would never feel less than, he would be perfect just as he is, he would know it too.
It was everything she wanted, the perfect life. Her little Dudley grew bigger each day, a husband who cherished her and accepted her in her perfectly average ways. He knew of her sister and their relationship and supported her fully with her need to disregard it. When Lily and her boyfriend came to her wedding, he too had been appalled at their little magic tricks making her feel that acceptance she had been craving for so long. He too saw it as an abomination, a freakishness that should not exist. She was no longer so alone in her fear.
Petunia felt as if all of her dreams had come true. She could see her future now like a perfect storybook. It was the perfect movie of peaceful blissfulness. The happy ever after in the story books.
It is why when she opened the door that chilly November morning to get the milk and instead found a little sleeping baby wrapped in a blanket, Petunia's mind froze. She felt her heart drop to her stomach and her breathing go shallow. This wasn’t in the plan. This wasn’t meant to be a part of her happy story.
The baby had pale skin, highly contrasting with its pink cheeks that were flushed due to the cold weather, as well as an unusually shaped, almost like a lightning bolt, fresh wound on its head.
Slightly tucked under the little head of raven curls, she noticed what appeared to be a folded-up piece of parchment with her name written across the front of it in large loopy letters.
Her vision started to darken around the edges. A panic started to grab hold of her breathing.
As she turned the page over and started reading, Petunia found her panic ascending to new levels with each further word she processed.
She felt herself unable to breathe, her hand reaching up to grasp at her throat. As if sensing her shock, the little boy slowly began to open his eyes. Even while being two different colours, one grey as if almost shining like silver and the other a bright alarming shade of emerald green, the stark colour difference almost seeming them to stand out more, Petunia could only stare at that one bright green eye, the same colour as a redheaded girl she once knew.
Time seemed to stand still as memories of her sister flooded her mind. The happy childhood and loving parents eventually became corrupted by the freakishness and unnaturalness called magic. The life that she had fought so hard to achieve didn’t include this.
As she gazed into that green eye and saw her freak sister looking back Petunia realised that she had failed. Even in death, her sister had found a way to taint and ruin her perfect little life.
Suddenly, all of her emotions of building panic, resentment and anger seemed to hit her all at once, the lack of control over the whole situation. She stood still gasping for air, tears falling down her face as the underlying feelings of grief over losing her happy little Lily who made her daisy chains and danced around the bedroom singing nursery rhymes began to hit her. Her sister was dead. Lily was dead. The girl she hadn’t talked to in years because they had grown apart and changed had died that night. The girl she had always justified not talking to was never coming back.
Petunia wouldn’t grieve for her, she wouldn’t mourn over the woman she didn’t know, but as she stared down at that bright green eye on the little baby Petunia knew she would mourn for her sister. The little sister she once knew. The secondary member of the little Evans sisters. The one who used to run around the streets of Cokesworth with her and always be covered in grass stains because she loved boring outdoors. The girl who liked to sing and dance around the living room dance to their dads old records and the girl who refused to eat garden peas because they tasted too ‘green’. Her little innocent sister was gone, and she was never coming back. That little girl was dead.
And just like that she knew her perfect movie was over. She was an idiot for believing fairytales were real. She forgot that true fairy tales never had a happily ever after, they were changed so people could have hope that there was a chance for happiness. She was an idiot for falling for them too.
She couldn’t give away the child. Maybe she could, if that eye wasn’t that exact shade of green – if it wasn’t the exact colour of her little happy sister who looked at her with a big toothy grin and eyes full of love and admiration for her big sister. But she couldn’t, so she did the only thing she could do in her state. She reached down and grabbed the baby, her nephew, Lily’s baby – Lily’s newly orphaned baby because Lily was dead.
Lily was dead and she had left her baby to her. She was holding her dead sister's baby. Oh god, her sister was dead and she had to raise her baby.
"VERNON!"
Laid out on his old and worn mattress, not that there would be enough room to stand up straight in his ‘room’, Harry finds himself doing one of his usual pastimes of counting the spiders that are perched in the corners of his ceiling. There wasn’t an awful lot to do in a shoe cupboard , especially one without a light. He couldn’t read because it was too dark, he couldn’t move about because it was too small, he couldn’t even talk to himself as it could wake up his family and god forbid he did that.
Harry stopped wondering years ago why his relatives kept him locked in a cupboard the majority of the time — it was just how things were. Logically, he knew there had to be a reason. His Aunt and Uncle were many things but they were not half-mad creatures that kept children locked away Hansel and Gretal style for no reason. Maybe if they did, he would get a little bit more food.
It probably had something to do with why his aunt and uncle called him a freak. It was too specific of a word. There was something that made him freakish and unnormal, something that his family hated.
Maybe it was his unusual eyes, heterochromia was quite rare, that was unusual in itself. It didn’t help that Harry’s eyes were two unnatural shades either. His right eye was green — not a grass green, not a bluey green, not hazel or that colour that only looks green in the sun— his right eye was emerald green. It was a startling colour that he could only relate to a precious gemstone. His left eye on the other hand was the total opposite, it was silver. He didn’t mean grey either, his other eye literally shone and reflected light like silver. It was the total opposite colour to his right eye and it made each of them stand out more. It was the first thing a person noticed when they saw him but how could they not. An eye that absorbed light and shone bright like an emerald and the other that reflected light and made it seem like it was twinkling like a star in the night sky. Sometimes, if the light hit it right, it was like you could see the full spectrum of colours within his iris.
There were other things that made him different too. Sometimes strange and unusual things happened around him, like that one annoying teacher's wig turning blue, or him being able to have a nice chat with a snake at the zoo last week when he had been dragged for Dudley's birthday.
There were many reasons that someone might find Harry unnatural, but at the end of the day, Harry just couldn't find it within himself to care to figure it out. It’s just how it was, he couldn’t change it. He just had to accept it and get on with his life.
He knew it was currently some point in the early morning by the way light shone through the little grating of the cupboard door. He had learned ways to keep a general track of time after so long living in his cupboard. He knew that when it suddenly began to get colder at night it was around 11pm and the heating had been switched off. Every night around 3am his Aunt would wake to go to the toilet and you could hear her shuffling along the floorboards. Petunia's alarm would go off at 5:30 so she would have time to take out her hair rollers before Vernon woke up at 6. It would be at exactly 6:30 that she would ‘wake’ him up by rapidly knocking on his cupboard door to make breakfast. Everything was timed to the minute, a set routine that Petunia become stressed if broken.
It was why when Uncle Vernon's latest threat of ‘keeping him locked in his cupboard till Christmas’, Harry found himself in barely two days before he was let out to do his chores. Although tedious to do, Harry found it much more enjoyable to do chores all day than his current situation of trying to make friends with this rather large spider that was currently hanging down from his shelf. His days too had found themselves adapting to a boring and dull routine. He hated it. Where was the chaos? Where was the life? The spirit?
He would go to school and spend hours reading at the local library before returning home and to spend every minute he could doing chores. The longer he made himself look useful, the longer time he was out of that damn cupboard. I’f he could get time outside, he would take it. It’s one thing he and the Durlseys agreed upon. If he was out the house, they could pretend he didn’t exist and he in turn could pretend they didn’t either.
Almost like clockwork, the sound of a shrieking Petunia demanding he cooks breakfast while she violently rattles the cupboard door signifies the start of a new day. He can only sigh tiredly as he begins pulling himself together and heading out to start making an extremely large, fatty and rich breakfast daydreaming that one day their arteries will become clogged leading his Uncle and cousin to have a sudden and early onset heart attack and kill them both.
As he serves out the last of the eggs, his cousin enters the room in his new Smeltings uniform.
“Oh, look at my handsome little boy,” Aunt Petunia gushed while tightly pinching Dudley's cheeks while he smiled and playfully dodged.
“Very respectable,” proclaimed Uncle Vernon over the top of the daily paper.
Personally, Harry decided that whoever made the design decisions for Smeltings never imagined the horrifying image of Dudley in a pair of knickerbockers.
Just as Harry started to bite into a slice of toast that he left to one side when he prepared breakfast, the customary sound of letters being pushed through the letter box and flopping onto the floor sounded throughout the house.
“Get the mail, Dudley,” said Uncle Vernon as he took a long sip of his usual cup of tea.
“Make Harry get it,”
“Get the mail boy,”
“Make Dudley get it,”
“Hit him with your Smelting Stick Dudley,”
Harry quickly dodged the Smelting Stick and sighed, the uniform designer clearly wasn't the smartest person either, not only does Harry have to look at the awful and ugly sight of his cousin squeezed into too small stripy shorts and blazer, he also now had to deal with the fact his dim-witted, think with his fists cousin would now come with a stick that he would have to carry at all times! Seriously, who thought giving a bunch of teenage boys a stick to carry around would be a good idea?
On the front door mat, there were three things, an envelope from Vernon's sister, Aunt Marge, someone Harry very much despised; a bill from the bank and a large thick envelope with green swirly writing across the front addressed to himself.
Mr H Potter
The cupboard under the stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
As he read the words over and over again in confusion, Harry was jump-started out of his thoughts by his uncles bellowing across the house.
“Boy! What's taking so long, HURRY UP!”
As he then began to shuffle his way back to the kitchen, going slowly in hopes to piss off his Uncle as much as possible, he quickly stuffed the letter up his overly large clothes. At least his cousin's old handi-downs were good for something.
“BOY!”
Harry chose that moment to step into the kitchen and dally on over to his uncle before handing him the letters.
Vernon's eyes twitched in anger at the sight of the boy fluttering around the room. Harry tended to do it alot, flitter and flutter about as if nothing was an issue. Truthfully, Harry didn’t take many things seriously. It royally pissed his Aunt and Uncle off because it was quite difficult to effectively punish such an aloof child. Harry found it funny. His uncle was so easy to wind up, even now he could see a large vein protruding from his uncle's temple. It gave him entertainment — how much could he wind the man up before he snaps. It’s why when he saw the signs of his uncle’s temper about to flair, he simply decided that the best course of action was to simply reply as if scolding a child,
“Tsk, Tsk, Tsk Uncle Vernon. The doctors have already told you that you have to watch your blood pressure. Getting angry over silly little old me isn't very productive,”
Harry shook his head and closed his eyes as if he had been explaining a very simple concept to an oblivious young child. This action seemed to be a breaking point for Vernon. With a sudden bang of his fist against the table and his face seeming to be turning an even deeper shade of red, he suddenly stood up and leant across the table as if to reach out to grab him,
“OUT! WAIT TILL I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, YOU USELESS FREAK!”
Taking that as a sign, Harry quickly scampered out of the house, cackling about the chaos he just created. Although his Uncle often threatened him with violence, he had only ever hit Harry once when he caught him adding rat poisoning to his Aunt Marge's dog, Ripper’s food, when he was eight and both Harry and Vernon knew he only did it because Marge was there and he felt the need to prove himself to her. Now, Harry usually loved animals but that dog was nothing but a foul creature. Its owner was no better either. It all worked out in the end anyways, he may have failed to kill the little fucker, but it had scared Marge off from bringing it around as much.
Although early, the sun was starting to rise and Harry decided to try and find a nice bench to sit at in the shade. He found one in the rundown park between Privet Drive and Wisteria Walk. It was probably a peculiar sight to see for anyone who would pass as they would have found a young, scrawny boy sitting upside down with his legs over the back of the backrest, humming the tune to a random song.
With his head still hanging over the seat of the bench, Harry took out the mysterious letter that was addressed to him. It was slightly heavier than a normal letter and sealed with wax. The wax had an insignia that appeared to be four animals, a lion, a badger, an eagle and a snake, surrounding a large letter H.
After a few seconds of staring at the envelope, Harry decided to just tear it open and see if it was one of the weird pranks his cousin keeps trying to pull in revenge for that black eye Harry gave him last year.
Dudley and his gang used to try and ‘play’ a game called ‘Harry Hunting’ when they were younger but fortunately, Harry, always getting into some sort of trouble, had learnt the need to be a quick runner, and his friends soon found it boring when they could never catch him. Even the bullying about Harry being a freak with no friends died out when one of them realised Harry just wasn't bothered by it and preferred to be a bit of a loner anyway.
When walking home from the library one night last year, Dudley had been in the park on his way home from one of his friend's houses and managed to corner Harry on his own. When he demanded Harry give him the money that he knew he somehow had gotten a hold of, Harry had simply looked him straight in the eye and told him he could royally “fuck off” in his usual blunt manner.
It led to a short scuffle between the boys and although Dudley was much larger, probably as wide as Harry was long, Harry had been able to avoid the majority of his fists and get in a good shot at Dudley's face. Too embarrassed that he got a black eye from Harry, Dudley never spoke of the situation again and just told his parents it happened when playing footy with his friends. That didn't stop him trying to figure out ways to get back at Harry for it though. He failed nearly every time, Harry couldn’t be chased down and he couldn’t simply beat him up in the front room. The worst consequences Harry ever faced was a lack of a few meals when Dudley liked to get him in trouble with his parents.
Dear Mr Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all the necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1st. We await your owl by no later than July 31st.
Yours Sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
(Deputy Headmistress)
Well, in all honesty, Harry didn't know what he expected when he opened the letter, but it certainly wasn't that. With a sudden clap of his hands, scaring away the pigeons that were gathered nearby, Harry swung his legs around and quickly sat up. Maybe he read it wrong and it was just the fact that the blood had all run to his head but after staring at it for another couple of minutes, reading it both upside down, right way up and backwards to be sure, Harry realised he read it right.
Alrighty then… A school that claims that magic exists has sent him a letter to attend. It wasn't impossible that magic may be real considering all the weird stuff that happened around him and the Durley’s aversion to the m-word.
Now he wondered how he could reply. Maybe he shouldn't have scared all the pigeons away. As if sensing his train of thoughts a large grey owl suddenly swooped down and landed on Harry’s shoulder, its beak clicking together almost impatiently next to his ear. Well, that answers that.
After a minute of walking around the park, with a bird still perched on his arm, he found an old pen under a picnic bench and wrote out his reply.
Dear Whoever Gets This Letter,
I would be happy to attend this magic school provided you do exist and not some elaborate prank. If it is, I applaud you for your efforts :)
If it is true, I'm really happy about it but can you send something back to explain stuff better?
Where even is this Hogwarts cause I've never heard of it before.
Also, where do I get the robes and wand thingies cause I haven’t seen it in my local Sainsbury’s.
Thanks,
I hope this owl knows where to go cause I've never heard of carrier owls before, but oh well, I really can’t be bothered to chase down pigeons right now. If you reading this then it obviously worked out alright,
Harry Potter
Xx
When he looked up again, the bird was no longer on his shoulder but instead stood in front of him with one of its legs out as if trying to tell him something.
Receiving the message Harry quickly tied the letter around its leg with a piece of string that was already wrapped around its leg and then watched as it soared into the sky and flew out of sight.
After staring at the sky for several minutes Harry quickly jumped off the bench he was sitting on deciding that he was still hungry and he should take a hike to the nearest rich kid hang-out area and scam some money out of them with his amazing poker skills to buy a nice lunch.
Meanwhile, at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall was sitting in her office sorting the last of her work before the term started. She had already hand-delivered any new incoming muggle-borns letters a few weeks before introducing them to Diagon Alley and also to give them enough time to process that magic does indeed exist.
Suddenly, an owl flew in and landed on her desk, replies had been slowly returning all morning so feeling no need to rush she took the time to finish her current task before reaching out and exchanging the letter for a few owl treats. As she took the letter to check at the bottom for the name and tick them off the list of incoming names, she suddenly faltered when she read the name, Harry Potter.
Although she loved all of her students, McGonnagal would admit she was quite good friends with both James and Lily even after they left. She had often seen Harry as a baby when the Order had gathered and after James’ parents had both died of dragon pox shortly before Harry was born, she often went round for tea and checked he was coping with his grief. Charlus had been quite a few years older than her at school but he was a fellow Gryffindor quidditch player and had saved her backside from a good few bludgers in the day.
As she drifted from her memories and back to reality, she began to read through the letter in her hands.
When she got to the bottom of the page she was shocked. Harry Potter, although Albus had said he needed to be hidden from the wizarding world to be kept safe, Minerva would have never agreed for him to be left totally in the dark like he so clearly has been. She may not have liked the Dursley couple, especially since Vernon had gone to kick her once while she was a cat, but she would have thought at least Petunia would have told him about his mother and at least mentioned magic to him. She can still see it clearly in her memories to this day even twenty years later, Petenia's face of wonder and amazement when she learnt that a magic school existed.
How could she have left him so ignorant of his world, of his magic? Where had that bright-eyed little girl gone who begged to come to Hogwarts herself?
Still, in a slight state of shock, she scanned the letter again and chuckled under her breath about his use of smiley faces and little sarcastic comments, much like his father used to make on his homework to annoy her.
She took in a deep breath to calm herself and stop any tears from spilling from her eyes. Gathering a piece of parchment and a quill she began to pen out a reply to send to the boy informing him that she would be visiting his home at 9 a.m. the next morning to fully explain everything he needed to know.
As she sealed it with ink and called over an owl to send it away, she thought of the last few happy memories she had of James and Lily and how even in the dark times of war they would light up and have beaming smiles at a mention of their son.
She leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes, getting lost in the memories before opening the cabinet behind her and grabbing a full bottle of fire whisky. She took a quick swig to calm her thoughts before rushing out of her office toward dungeons, bottle still at hand, going to grab her usual drinking partner.
“SEVERUS,”