Chapter Text
Petunia doesn’t have time for this. She raps hard on the door a third time. “Harry! UP! NOW!” Exhaling through her nostrils in frustration, she listens to the tired groan on the other side of the door. “We’re going to be late! Get UP!” She jiggles the doorknob and throws the door open, stepping into the darkened room. Harry rolls over in bed, pulling the covers over his head.
She glowers in his general direction before striding over to the window and throwing open the curtains, bought when he was five and decorated with tiny, blinking owls. Morning sunlight streams into the room, and the sound of neighbors leaving for work and mowing their lawns can be heard. Harry mumbles something.
“It is,” Petunia checks the watch on her skinny wrist, squinting, “9:07 AM. We need to leave by ten, I want us there early- Harry!” He’s drifting off again. She flicks her wand at the bed, stripping the covers off. Harry blinks balefully up at her. “Get. Up,” she enunciates threateningly, before turning to his wardrobe. “You still have socks in here- really, Harry, you’ve got to learn to pack your own things, you’re not a little boy anymore-,”
“Mum,” he says. She hears him sit up from the creak of the mattress. Petunia has learned to tamper down on her reactions when he addresses her as his mother- it’s natural, he doesn’t remember his parents, her and Sirius are the only mother and father he’s ever known- But it still feels like a betrayal, of course, although she knows Lily would never hold it against her.
She glances back at him; Harry looks just like James at eleven, in terms of his hair and thin frame, but he as Lily’s eyes and smile. “It’s going to be fine.”
“Of course it is,” she says, scandalized he’d even insinuate otherwise. “So long as you get a move on!” She tosses a pair of socks at him; Harry catches them deftly, and grins at her.
“Get dressed quick, or there’ll be no breakfast for you,” she warns him, and leaves the room swiftly before she does something silly like hug him tightly or cry. This isn’t any surprise. He’s eleven, he’s going to school, just like every other witch and wizard in Britain. She just… it all seems to have gone by very quickly.
She marches downstairs, quickening her pace when she hears raised voices in the kitchen. “MUM! Ella’s teasing me again!” Sirius has improvised a human shield between the two combattants, one of whom is shrilly mocking the other: “Mummy, Ella’s teasing me,” but he can only do so much in the face of childish wrath.
“Both of you, sit down at the table,” Petunia snaps; Alfie is dripping bacon grease on the floor she just mopped yesterday, again. “Cedrella, how many times must I tell you to leave him alone?”
Ella curls her lip; she’s really rather good at it for a girl of eight, and tosses her blonde ringlets over her shoulders. “He’s being obnoxious, Mum.” Petunia thinks her daughter is a far prettier little girl than she ever was; she has Petunia’s light hair, only thicker and curlier, her father’s haughty face and grey eyes, and a certain imperious edge to her voice that brings to mind both Lily Evans and Regulus Black.
Alfie slumps into a chair, distraught. He’s a bit sensitive, which Petunia blames herself for; he’s obviously inherited her tendency to overreact and catastrophize, but he’s generally a bit more optimistic than she remembers ever being at seven. She thinks he looks just like Sirius, and Sirius thinks he looks just like James, which isn’t genetically possible, but…
The only non-Black feature Alfie possesses are his mother’s pale blue eyes, currently widened in outrage. “Ella said I was a baby,” he accuses, taking another vengeful bite of his bacon.
“You’re not acting like a baby,” Sirius says reasonably, “you’re acting like a seven year old, just like your sister.”
“I’m eight!” Ella snaps.
“Eight year olds don’t tease their brothers,” he lies easily, and heaps some eggs onto her plate. “They quietly eat their breakfast and give their stressed mothers a break.”
Petunia loves her children, and is glad she had them, because while she is not living the life of a docile homemaker that she envisioned as a little girl, she did always want to be a mother, but sometimes she regrets that they are only a year apart. It seems to have become a recipe for disaster ever since they learned to speak.
Ella huffs but doesn’t raise any more of a fuss, and Petunia busies herself with pouring both of them their orange juice while exchanging looks of ‘they’re only acting up this early because they’re upset Harry’s leaving’. Ella and Alfie are aware Harry is their cousin, not their biological brother, but they both treat him as the latter.
They were thrilled to help him pick out his school things a mere month ago, they are less thrilled at the prospect of him actually going to said school. There’s three years between Harry and Ella, and four between Harry and Alfie. Harry is a loving older brother, even if they sometimes irritate him, but it will be difficult for all of them to adjust to having just two children in the house.
“You should sit down,” Sirius tells her in a low voice, “you’ve been on your feet since seven.”
“If I sit down I’ll never get up again,” Petunia mutters back, but takes a fortifying sip of coffee. She blames Sirius for no longer being able to function without caffeine. He is off work for today, and she isn’t going into the office until this afternoon, so the children will be all his; they don’t start muggle school for another few days. Besides, they’re usually all over their father when he is home; he’s leaving on the 12th for ruins in Brazil.
Sirius is a good father, if a very indulgent one. Petunia finds it difficult to blame him, given his own childhood- of course he’d never want to forbid his own children anything, to never make them feel ashamed of who they are. It’s just that he has the luxury of being the relaxed parent, while she is the one who generally enforces the rules- and she has many.
It’s not that she’s worried about them being spoiled, although they do technically ‘come from money’. Sirius is the only remaining adult Black, and so everything has been inadvertently left to him, even that awful house in London, which Petunia refuses to set foot in. Their children- the new generation of Blacks, filthy half-bloods or not, will never want for money. Petunia kept her maiden name, not out of spite, but because she uses it for business and ‘Petunia Black’ sounds like a horrid perfume.
They named their children after some of Sirius’ only decent (disowned) family members- Petunia couldn’t bring herself to name her first child Lily, so it was Cedrella Violet, and then Alphard James a year later. She always wanted a son and a daughter, one each, a perfect little family behind a white picket fence. They don’t have a fence, they have hedges that could be trimmed better, and nothing is perfect, but it’s better than it was a decade ago.
No, Petunia is strict with the children because she’s afraid. She doesn’t want them out of her sight, doesn’t want them talking to strangers, doesn’t want them attracting attention. The majority of those who would wish them harm might be in Azkaban, but- better safe than sorry. They don’t realize, this new generation. They don’t understand what things were like not too long ago. They’ve only ever known peace. Is this what her parents felt like, raising her?
Harry finally comes downstairs, disheveled but dressed, and takes a seat between his cousins, who immediately start jockeying for his attention. “Is Uncle Remus still meeting us at the station?” Harry asks as Petunia hands him a plate full of food. Harry reminds Petunia of Remus a bit; he’s quieter, thoughtful, not as outgoing or attention-seeking as James always was.
“Yes,” she says, “and Marlene might drop by to see you off.” He brightens; Marlene has always been the fun aunt, acting more like a big sister than anything else, stealing him away for the day to do this or that, telling him outrageous stories about Petunia as a teenager.
She goes to look over his trunk one more time; his owl, Hedwig, is sleeping in the cage a-top it. He has all his textbooks, his cauldron, his uniform, his wand- she’s still unnerved by that Ollivander, truthfully- and no broom, as much as he protested it. Sirius and her were never mad for Quidditch, but Harry is, just like his father, and he’s been giving Petunia miniature heart attacks in the air for years now.
“Can we take the motorbike to London?” Alfie is asking eagerly in the other room, and Petunia rolls her eyes to herself as she finishes rummaging through the trunk- before her finger skim something. She picks up the album and flips through it, pausing at the first picture- Lily beams up at her, hands cradling her small pregnant bump. James steps in and out of the frame, waving. On the bottom of the page, in a child’s scrawl, Harry has written: Lily and James Potter, 1980.
Not ‘my parents’ or ‘Mum and Dad’. They must feel so distant to him; of course Petunia has told him all about them, but Harry always looks at her as if she is telling an interesting story, a fairy tale. For him, life has always been here, not at Godric’s Hollow, with them, not with his mother and father.
This life, with the people who taught him how to ride a bicycle (Petunia) and ride a broom (Sirius), who enrolled him in school and read to him at night, who sat up with him while he was sick and took him to the seashore in the summer. The people who let him put the star on the Christmas tree and watched him play outside.
But he is taking their pictures with him, so that’s something, at least. He must feel some attachment, however vague. Petunia sets the album back in the trunk, locks it, and stands up, ignoring the strain her back. For God’s sake, she’s only thirty one. The children aren’t even teenagers yet, thank Merlin. She doesn’t want to imagine what she’ll be like in three years, when Ella goes.
King’s Cross is packed, and Petunia insists that Ella hold Sirius’ hand and Alfie hold hers, as much as he wants to jerk away. Harry walks in front of them with his trolley, looking around curiously at the muggles staring at them and the other Hogwarts students approaching the barrier. “Come on, don’t slow down,” Petunia says quickly, as Platform 9 and ¾ draws closer. “We don’t want to look too odd.”
Sirius snorts at that, but it was his choice to wear a dragon-hide coat on today of all days. Vain man. Harry glances back at her as the metal barrier comes into view. “How do we get through?”
“You have to run it,” Petunia is steadfastly ignoring the scene playing out in her head, a little blonde girl watching a stringy, dark-haired boy and a beaming redheaded girl run through the barrier together.
Snape teaches Potions at Hogwarts now, through some machination of Dumbledore’s. Petunia has briefly warned Harry that one of his professors did not get along with his fathers (James and Sirius both) in school and will likely be cold. At best, Snape will be cold. If he so much as glances at Harry the wrong way, Petunia will be in Dumbledore’s office so fast-
Harry is picking up speed, and vanishes through the barrier. Sirius and Cedrella are right behind him. Alfie tugs impatiently on her hand. “Mum, come on!”
“Coming, darling,” she says, grateful for a small, warm, sticky child-hand in her own, grateful that he hasn’t let go yet, and dashes forward with her youngest. Then they are on the platform, and she instinctively pulls her son close, packed as it is, children laughing and yelling, parents fretting, animals rattling their cages. There’s a lightness to it that she doesn’t quite recall from when she was a girl; people are talking about the price of school supplies, not the latest attack or leaving the country.
She’s had more nightmares than usual, lately, and sometimes they send the children running in, startled by the sound of their mother’s shrieks. Sirius is always quick to reassure them; “Mum just had a bad dream, but it’s alright, I scared the monster away.” They don’t know, about the war. They can’t know. Harry knows his parents were killed by a dark wizard, but not the exact circumstances. It’s better that way, surely. He’s just a boy.
Remus is making his way over with a wave, and Marlene isn’t far behind. She’s been seeing someone seriously lately, a muggle. Petunia was surprised, not that the man wasn’t a wizard, but that Marlene seems to be taking this relationship… well, like it might be something more than a quick fling. He was a soldier too, apparently. In the Falklands.
“Now,” Sirius is telling Harry, to her alarm, “if you happen to see a little git by the name of Malfoy… tell him that I’ve got a few words for his father-,”
“Sirius,” she hisses, and narrows her eyes at Harry. “You just keep your head down, alright? Don’t go looking for trouble with anyone- honestly, Sirius-,”
“Don’t go looking for trouble,” Marlene echoes with a smirk. “Ah, from the mouth of Petunia ‘rapidfire hex’ Evans herself…”
“You hexed people?” Ella sounds suitably impressed. “Mum, I didn’t know you even knew any-,”
“What she’s trying to say,” Remus cuts in, although he’s clearly holding back a chuckle, “is that you should try to get along with all your classmates, Harry, regardless of… family history.”
“Well,” says Sirius, “maybe not all of them, eh?”
“Most of them,” Remus amends.
There’s a family chattering nearby, and Sirius nods in their direction, “How about those Weasleys, then? They look like they’ve got a boy your age, Harry. Don’t want to ride the train alone.” He grins at Petunia, and she knows he’s thinking of their first train ride. Prat.
Harry looks like he’s on the verge of hesitantly approaching the boy, a tall, lanky redhead, coated in freckles, arguing with his brothers. She realizes this is all happening far too quickly, and lets go of Alfie’s hand. She pulls Harry into a hug, pressing a neat kiss on top of his mussed hair, and tries to smooth said hair in vain before he jerks away. “Mum!”
“Be careful,” she tells him seriously, “and listen to the professors, d’you hear? Do all your homework, and make sure you eat. And do NOT go wandering around after curfew. Owl us when you get there.”
“Yeah, we’ll want proof of your Sorting as well,” Sirius jokes, “because if it’s not Gryffindor-,”
“If it’s not Gryffindor it won’t matter at all,” Petunia assures him, although she privately thinks it will be Gryffindor- Harry’s got a noble streak to him, just like his mother, and no amount of scolding could ever diminish that. “Just be safe.”
He has to be safe, he’ll be at Hogwarts, the safest place in Britain- but she can’t help but worry all the same. His scar is barely visible, hidden by his bangs, which is how she likes it. She wants him to be just Harry, not Harry Potter. Just Harry, who calls his aunt and uncle Mum and Dad, who loves his family very much, who is going to be fine, and normal, and hopefully bored.
Sirius pulls him in for a sound hug himself, and Marlene does the silly handshake she invented with him when he was seven. Remus puts a hand on his shoulder and tells him something Petunia doesn’t quite catch; she’s too busying trying to hold back tears. Then Harry is off, hands shoved in his pockets as she shyly approaches the Weasley boy.
“He’ll be alright,” Sirius says confidently. “He’s a good kid, Pet. He’ll do well.”
“Mum, don’t cry.” Ella is suddenly painfully sweet, burying her little head in Petunia’s coat. “We’ll send him loads of letters.”
“Yeah,” says Alfie excitedly, “Harry said he’d take pictures of his common room. And the lake! And the forest! And the dungeons, because there’s supposed to be secret treasure down there-,”
Petunia slipped her old camera in with his things at the last moment. She puts her hand on Ella’s head, stroking her ringlets, and squeezes Alfie’s shoulder with the other. Marlene is making some joke to Remus about a couple of older students dangling out of the train windows, and the sun is shining down through the glass ceiling, and everywhere Petunia looks, children are smiling.
The parents, of course, look less enthused, and for a split second she catches the eye of a clearly muggle woman, staring worriedly after her daughter as the girl climbs aboard the Hogwarts Express. “Bye, Mum!” The girl calls back, waving gleefully, and the woman schools her expression into a smile. “Goodbye, love!”
Petunia smiles through her watery eyes at the woman, as if to say ‘it will be alright, you’ll see’. After a moment, the woman smiles nervously back. The girl, of course, has disappeared aboard the train in a flash of red curls shining in the morning light.