Petunia Dursley can’t decide how to describe her day.
Unfortunately, she’s been able to say that quite a lot lately.
She can’t remember the last time she’s had a good day. Perhaps… Perhaps it was way back in the day, whenever she and Vernon only had one bouncing baby boy to worry about. One baby Dudley.
When had that been taken away from her?
She remembers hating her sister for abandoning her and the rest of the family.
She remembers hating her sister for hogging her ability. For only using it for her own convenience, not even trying to help the rest of the family.
She remembers that being the reason she and Vernon always pretended she never had a sister.
She leans back against the kitchen cabinets, letting out a breath and closing her eyes.
She remembers being startled by finding Harry on the doorstep. Frightened, perhaps.
She remembers being excited after she read the letter.
She remembers making plans. To treat the boy as her own, to nurture him, help him grow strong. Help him become part of her family, help him want to help her family, when he eventually graduates.
She remembers becoming angry. She doesn’t know why.
She remembers every single day since being a bad day, filled with anger and tension directed towards Harry.
She remembers being terrified when she read his first Hogwarts letter. She doesn’t know why.
Then, September first, nineteen ninety one, had arrived.
She remembers leaving him on the station.
She remembers glaring at him from a distance, daring him to find the platform on his own. She remembers how to get onto it; as a matter of fact, she’s the only one of her family that can actually enter it.
She remembers watching him enter the station, after talking to that clearly wizarding family.
She remembers driving home.
She remembers the anger fading.
Dudley wanders into the room. “Hi Mom,” he greets simply, before pulling out a pan and lighting the stove. “Eggs?”
She shrugs. He’s right; she really should eat. She’s already skinnier than is healthy.
But she can’t eat.
She… She remembers terrorizing her sister’s son.
Even Dudley was affected.
He’s flipped almost entirely around over that first month of school this year.
Vernon no longer has to bribe the teachers to give him good grades.
Most of the time, any more, he even makes breakfast. He’s becoming a halfway-decent cook, though he’s nowhere near as good as Harry was.
He doesn’t eat nearly as much as he used to. He’s losing weight as well- though, unlike her, he’s doing it at a safe rate.
Vernon has taken to binge eating, though.
Her home has been shrouded with sadness ever since Harry left for school.
Dudley’s gang has dissolved. The other members shifted first to being just friends, then faded from there. She’s pretty sure Dudley doesn’t even talk to them anymore.
What happened?
She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t know what forced her hand.
She doesn’t know what had taken her unawares, forced her to alienate her nephew.
“Mom? Breakfast?”
She lets out a breath, opening her eyes. Dudley is offering her a plate; the sausages are slightly burnt, the eggs are a bit runny, and the bacon is rather severely charred.
She sighs one more time, and puts on a smile. “Alright,” she answers, accepting the plate and sitting at the table.
She picks at her food.
She can’t eat.
Dudley has no such inability. He eats his food at a normal pace, pausing to enjoy each bite- or the opposite, occasionally, to analyze exactly what he got wrong.
She can see him becoming a professional chef someday.
He finishes long before she does.
“Mom?” he asks.
She doesn’t respond.
“Please don’t starve,” he continues. “It’s… It’s not like we can do anything about it right now. Maybe… Maybe when he gets back, before it… comes back, we can…” He sighs.
The doorbell rings.
He looks up, then back at her. “I got it,” he volunteers, before climbing out of his seat to go find the front door.
She sighs, staring at the sausage at the end of the fork. “What has my life come to?” she asks blankly.
Dudley’s voice comes wafting down the hall, from the front door. “What the-? Who are you?”
The response sounds like a girl, about his age, and waay too cheerful. “Hi! Is this the Dursley home?”
She closes her eyes, and stuffs the sausage into her mouth, chewing slowly.
Dudley’s voice is suddenly wary. “Yeah,” he mutters. “What do you need?”
“Huh… Interesting. Do you mind if I come in, and chat for a little bit?”
She groans, placing her fork down and rising from her seat. She’ll have to sort this one out herself.
“Um, just a minute,” Dudley’s voice comes. “Let me get my mom.” The door closes.
Her mouth twitches in a smile, briefly. Dudley has become extremely helpful lately- and also gained the wisdom to know when to get one of his parents, and when that’s not necessary.
Dudley meets her just outside the kitchen. “Strange girl at the door,” he informs her. “Weird hair. Never seen her before.”
Petunia walks up to the door, before pulling it open and looking down at the girl- correction, two girls and a boy- on her front step, all about Dudley’s age. All three are smiling up at her; the boy looks a little unsure of himself.
All three of them have strange hair.
The girl at the front of their triangle formation has wavy hair, split between white and light blue.
The girl behind and to her left has curly two-tone pink and dark blue hair.
And the boy, at the third corner of the triangle, has wavy hair like the first girl, though his shiny silver hair is split into thirds by navy blue stripes.
The hair of the girl in front seems to be crackling with energy.
“Wh-Who are you?” she stutters.
“My name’s Lyra Heartstrings,” the lead girl pipes cheerfully. “These are my good friends Bonbon and Draco Malfoy. Um…” She glances at the boy she’d introduced as Malfoy, then back up at her. “I’m guessing you’ve had, ah, anger issues around Harry?”
Her eyes harden. “That’s none of your business,” she declares.
“Actually, it might be,” Lyra answers. “I’m pretty sure I know what caused them, and how to keep them from returning.” She glances out towards the street, and back towards her again. “I… can’t discuss it out here, though. Statute of Secrecy and everything.”
Her eyes go wide.
They’re from the wizarding world.
She knows Harry’s famous in that world.
They’re probably here to hurt her. Or imprison her, or her son.
“Y-You’re not here to-!?” she demands.
Lyra shakes her head. “No, no. We’re here to help you. If the vibe I’m getting from out here is accurate, he would have enjoyed his last ten years here, if not for something that victimized you as well.”
She pulls the door open, stepping back.
Emma Granger knocks on her daughter’s bedroom door, before pushing it open to stick her head in. “Hermione?” she calls softly. It’s time for her to get up, on the day she returns to the school; they’ll have to leave for the station in a couple hours.
The lump in the blankets, despite not being nearly large enough to be her daughter, grumbles a little.
“Hermione?” she calls again.
The lump shifts again. “Huh? … Oh, is it time to get up?”
She nods. “Yes, yes it is.”
“Alright, coming.” Hermione’s strange, icy blue telekinetic aura surrounds the blankets, pulling them back- and her daughter fairly explodes from underneath them, yawning and stretching her wings as she goes.
“How…?” Emma mumbles, staring.
Hermione blinks. “What? How… Oh. Um, ever since I got wings, it’s been incredibly difficult to get comfortable as a human… so I transform and sleep as a pegasus. For some reason, not only am I much smaller that way, but it’s exponentially easier to get comfortable.” She grins. “And it’s kinda fun to hide under the sheets.”
Emma blinks. “So, you’re terminally afraid of being a pegasus, yet you regularly turn yourself into one every night?”
Hermione nods. “Yeah.” She shudders. “I do worry I won’t be able to change back in the morning, though.”
“Okay.”
“Though, if something does try to force me to stay a pegasus, it means I’ll be more experienced- and, in theory, more able to ignore it and transform anyways. Um, today is the day I go back to school, right?”
Nod. “Yeah.”
Her trunk floats over, surrounded by that same icy blue aura, and pops itself open, laying itself on the bed. “At least packing is easy.” Some of the various objects around her room- schoolbooks, robes, her wizard’s hat, and a couple other knicknacks- pack themselves under the influence of that aura.
Emma nods again, wishing she could do that. “... Yeah. Breakfast will be ready in about fifteen minutes.”