Chapter 1
Petunia was almost positive she was hallucinating.
They’d been on the road for hours it seemed. Vernon was intent on moving them far far away from those so called freaks. Sometimes Petunia wanted to remind him that her sister had been the freak. And if her sister was a freak? What did that make her? What did that make Dudley?
After getting into an argument with her son, they’d decided to stop for food. She’d rather stuff both her husband and son with so much food, then listen to another one of Vernon’s bigoted rants about her nephew and sister again.
But there was someone watching them from across the street. And Petunia didn’t know why, but it was causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end. Her heart was pounding faster than it did when she went on her daily morning run and she was certainly not sweating because of how humid the crisp autumn air was.
“Dudley- darling lets follow daddy hmm?” She muses quietly, hand placed protectively behind her son’s back. He was so tall now. Much taller than Vernon- thank the lord for that small mercy.
“Are you sure we can’t take Harry with us mum?” Her son whispers, eyes a whirlpool of guilt and fear for his cousin. And once again, the self-loathing was back. Because she could’ve given her son a brother if she had raised Harry without any of her internalized fear, her absolute jealousy over having no magic and the guilt of loosing her parents and sister to a murderous dark lord who would strike down any and all those who oppose him. In the depths of her worst nightmares, in her fright-induced PTSD flashbacks, she saw appalling, musty, foul green skulls and slithering, scaly snakes in front of her.
“He’s chosen his path Dudley. We should respect that,” She whispers to her son, hoping her voice was quiet enough that her husband hadn’t heard her, and gentle enough that her son’s guilt could be absolved- just a tad. She had begun to have the inklings of a headache and would not be happy with Vernon’s irritating raging. Not now. Not when she had just given up the last connection she had to her sister.
And the stranger was still watching them.
Petunia swallows down the fear in her throat and ushers her son towards the restaurant, instantly unwinding when the next time she looks over- the stranger was not there.
It didn’t negate any of the anxiety coursing through her veins, but it did help settle the roar of her heart. It wasn’t thudding against her neck anymore and she wasn't nearly choking on her fear.
Petunia had always been the coward.
Lily had been brave. The Gryffindor. Red and gold- house of the courageous. And her son had taken after her.
She’d never be as strong as Lily was, as kind, as colourful, as full of life. After all Lily had taken all the colours and all the magic and left nothing for Petunia.
As Petunia watched over her small family, that had just gotten smaller, a steady weight settles permanently in her chest. She forces a smile at her son, as she neatly cuts into her medium-rare steak. It had to be perfectly medium rare for her to enjoy a steak. It was atypical when she would actually find a steak done to her extreme tendencies.
This meal wasn't one of those rare times.
Setting down the cutlery, Petunia felt an increasing urge to suddenly get up and check the car for something- almost certain she had forgotten something.
It was a dominating thought -one so strong she blanched. Petunia was already grabbing her purse and standing. Blinking rapidly in confusion, she flits a smile to her husband and son, mumbling about forgetting something.
They don’t look up from their meal.
Her feet were beginning to move towards the exit and with a start, she realizes that she must be under some sort of spell.
Magic.
A snarl escapes her curled up lips and her mind works quickly to deduce that the stranger wasn’t actually gone and they were most probably behind this happenstance. It was a fifty percent chance that the stranger was still out there and another fifty percent chance that they were magical and causing whatever this compulsion was. That gave Petunia a numbing twenty-five percentage chance of both happening. With her luck- it was more likely a guarantee.
Petunia snatches a knife from the corner of her eye, ignoring the disbelief in the eyes of the couple that had been dining, and marches towards her car. Like damn she’d let someone force her into doing something.
And if they wanted information on her nephew? Well, they were going to be highly disappointed.
She just hoped they wouldn’t read her mind. The last time a wizard had forced their way into her mind, she spent the night throwing up her stomach. Wizards had a skewed sense of morality. They didn’t think it was illegal if it was done on muggles. No- muggles were always going to be less than, not whole. Because who would care about a single rose, if you could have a bouquet?
The spell snaps when she reaches her car and suddenly the hooded figure from before is in front of her. Petunia doesn’t give them a second to think and is slamming the knife towards their neck. Petunia had found that most wizards knew nothing of hand-to-hand combat and if you threw a knife at them, all they could do was duck or get hit. Their silly magic shields only work on magic after all.
Her son’s safety was paramount. And if this person got through her- they’d move on to Dudley. And she would rather die.
A slim hand snaps up and grabs her wrist in a painful hold.
“I knew you’d do that,” A soft feminine voice says softly and Petunia is horrorstruck before the pale, pale blue almost grey eyes catch her entire soul and the woman is chanting, her voice ethereal and her looks even more so. It sounded like a song- meant to ensnare and meant to enchant…. meant to bewitch.
“I refuse to betray my family.” Petunia snarls. She might be a cold-hearted bitch, but she would rather be tortured inside-out than double-cross any old people she cared about. Because to sell out her nephew, she’d be betraying Lily. And she would never do that to her sister. She was not a rat.
Petunia struggles to be let go but the woman holds strong and there is a burning on her wrist, smoke ushering skyward and blood streaming down her arm. It's as if the woman is searing, scalding something into her skin, into her arm. The scent of roasted skin; blackened, smouldering and boiling, fills her nose and all she could do was gag.
“Save my sister, Petunia,” Her chilling voice slips into her mind and Petunia knows this will haunt her nightmares for days. She can’t even scream, she’s stunned silent, her throat dried from panic and her hands trembling in the woman’s grasp. Of course, when she's about to die, she goes out like a coward. She couldn’t even save her son. Not like Lily. Never like Lily.
The woman unhands her and steps back, and there's a drawing carved into her skin. It's bone deep and Petunia’s entire perspective goes fuzzy, nausea flooding in her body, when she actually sees the edges of her radius and ulna. The muscles surrounding her wrist pulse in protest and her entire axis spins. She is almost certain she is seconds from fainting.
“Save our sister. Save Lily.”
The words shake her from the chokehold her fainting spell had on her and she thinks she screams but she can’t be sure because everything is spinning and nothing is making sense and her arm aches something terrible.
The last thing she sees is a perfectly painted set of smiling lips and all she can think is that she knows that lipstick brand.
Because she wears it everyday.