Chapter 1
The London School of Economics and Political Science was an odd place to meet the one person who will single-handedly destroy, mould, and rebuild the life you live. Yet here she was, at the campus coffee shop, about to make the most significant mistake of her life. Not that she knows that yet.
“ Yeah, sure, Vernon, I’d love to go on a date with you.”
They got married four months later because Petunia was pregnant. Her whole world was uprooted and flipped on its side at that time. Lily first noticed at her wedding that her sister wasn’t quite the energetic, self-confident woman that Lily knew she was. Maybe it was just wedding jitters and the looming pregnancy… or perhaps it was something nobody else had seen yet. Lily did not like her new brother-in-law or his dastardly sister, but if he somehow made her sister happy, then who was she to interfere? After all, Lily was welcomed back with open arms after the passing of Lily and Petunia's parents, just before Lily entered her sixth year at Hogwarts. Petunia was her constant, and now she was starting a family of her own; what was there to be upset or cautious about?
Lily next heard of an abnormality in her sister’s life shortly after Petunia and Vernon returned from a week-long honeymoon. Her sister was dropping out of college, one she worked very hard to attend and pay for, and moving to Surrey with her new husband. In a quaint town called Little Whinging. That was all the information she got, nothing else. She had no idea where her sister’s house was but knew that she and James would never be welcomed there. Petunia said so on a postcard, the last time she heard from her beloved sister. After everything they went through together, Petunia had finally cut her “ freaky” sister from her life. “Freaky,” that’s what Petunia said on that little postcard. There was no other emotion in that postcard, but the word… “freak” held such venom that it made Lily puke. Lily was just about to send Petunia an invitation to her wedding and a muggle scan of her soon-to-be niece or nephew.
It’s ironic a similar reason for getting married, yet such different circumstances.
Petunia was scared and struck into submission.
Lily was celebrated and loved into happiness. Yet neither knew of the other’s situation. Lily would die without ever knowing her big sister’s pain. Petunia would live the rest of her life knowing the last thing she said to her baby sister was that Lily was a freak and would never be welcomed into her new home. Over the years after Lily’s death, Petunia Evans would question her choice of going on that date with Vernon Dursley or her choice to keep her son. Or maybe things would have been different if she hadn’t let Vernon convince her to drop out of her dream school. Or perhaps, leaving him the first time he struck her… her nephew… or her son. She would never know what would have happened had she made different or better choices in a moment of weakness. She would live with that twang of guilt and resentment for her former self for the rest of her life.
However, this is not a Petunia Evans or Lily Evans story…this is about a little boy who challenges life and wins despite everything he goes through. It’s about a scared teenager with a target on his back and barely a flame of trust in his bones. It's the story of a man who takes the rest of the world by storm and never looks back. This story is about Harry Potter and all the magic he comes to know.