No Man
“Hey Auntie, I met the groundskeeper Hagrid today!”
“Mama, Hagrid can’t bake, please send me a cookbook I can give him.”
“I made a new friend today, his name is Ron and he’s so good at chess! Maybe even better than Uncle Sev.”
“There’s this redheaded boy called Ronald in Harry’s dorm, he was mean to me and I don’t like him but I don’t want to tell Harry.”
“I found out Ron’s really mean, he called Draco a death-eater and Dudley fat so I yelled at him.”
“They’re not friends anymore. But I met this nice Gryffindor girl called Hermione. She’s got really pretty curly hair, like your friend Marlene. Can you teach me how to braid?”
“The Defence professor smells like garlic and his room gives me a headache. Should I tell Madame Pomfrey?”
“Harry’s scar was bleeding today in Defence, so I took him to the nurse. She said it was nothing but I don’t believe her.”
“I learnt how to fly! It was so fun and I want a broom but we’re not allowed one because we’re too young. Dudley got into a fight with Draco, but they’re better friends now which doesn’t make sense to me but I’m glad!”
“Draco stole Neville’s gift from his grandmother and hit me when I tried to stop him, so I punched him and his nose was bleeding. Madam Hooch took points from both of us but he hugged me and we’re still friends!”
“Auntie, there’s a huge three-headed dog in the school and it made Hermione cry. I don’t like it here anymore.”
“Mama, I want to go home. I’m sure Harry’s told you already but we got lost and ran into a three-headed dog and Hermione’s really scared of dogs and it made her panic.”
Petunia blinked and cursed under her breath, waving Remus’s questioning glance away as she reread her children’s last letters. They had arrived five minutes apart, which Petunia initially thought nothing of, but now she was realising why.
She had read it right. A cerberus, a guard dog, was in a school full of magical children. What could possibly be worth that much stupidity? It had been five weeks, for Circe’s sake. Why couldn’t her boys catch a break? “Remus?”
“What did they do?” Remus asked, not even looking up from his book.
Petunia snorted, shooting him a tight smile. “Funnily enough, they haven’t done anything. The headmaster, however…”
He turned to face her and frowned, putting his book down. “What’s happened?”
“They found a cerberus behind a door three first-years could unlock.”
“You’re kidding.”
Petunia wasn’t one to get angry, normally, but one old man was destroying the peace that she had worked so hard to get for her boys, and that was worth getting angry over. It helped that Moony realised his pups were in danger, so before she knew it, she was standing in an opulent office with a growling werewolf, not quite transformed but eyes so yellow that she was sure they were glowing.
How Remus had managed to convince Petunia to come with him, she would never know, but she would also never regret it. Tearing Albus Dumbledore a new one did something for her that therapy never could.
Remus didn’t know how he had managed to convince her either, but the wolf was too close to the surface for him to wonder about it for more than a moment. In any other situation, Moony growling at the man who had granted him an education would have been Remus’s worst nightmare, but seeing his former headmaster’s face when Petunia yelled so loudly that he collapsed into his chair made it all worth it.
And Albus?
His former best warrior’s Squib sister had stormed through his floo without so much as a warning and proceeded to verbally throw him against the walls of his office.
“I was a fool,” Dumbledore said, bowing his head.
Petunia looked down at him and sneered. “That’s certainly one way to put it.”
“An overconfident bastard would be more accurate,” Remus agreed, wiping dust out of his hair. Moony had done quite a number on the man’s gaudy rug, and he couldn’t say he was sorry.
Dumbledore had no response for this. Petunia took some twisted satisfaction from the lack of infuriating sparkle in the man’s eyes, and whirled around to face the Floo. “You will remove the beast and make sure this school is safe.”
It was not a question, but Dumbledore agreed anyway.
“Good. Remus?”
Remus grinned at her. “Time to go?”
“It was time to go twenty minutes ago, we should never have had a reason to come in the first place,” Petunia spat. A flash of green flames left the headmaster sitting alone in his office with a newfound twitch in his face.
They said that Albus Dumbledore was scared of no man, not even You-Know-Who.
Petunia Evans was no man.