Current mood:	creative
Entry tags:	harry potter, lily evans, master list, petunia dursley, severus snape, vernon dursley

The Alchemist - Chapter 81
Sorry this took so long:

Chapter 81

The platform was riotous with the crush of nearly a hundred students all trying to disembark the train, find their luggage, and haul their various pets toward their respective guardians.  Lily craned her neck over the swarm of students in an attempt to find Harry.  It was the small cluster of red heads halfway down the platform that finally guided her in the right direction.  Harry stood in the middle of the small group, Molly Weasley enfolding him in a crushing hug.

“But you will come up for the wedding for a few days, won’t you Harry?  And of course, your mother too.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course, Mrs. Weasley.”

With a mighty effort she finally broke free of the crowd and strode up beside Harry.  She nodded in greeting.  “Molly.”

“Lily.”  The woman’s voice was still a tad cold, and she was reminded again that she didn’t really seem to measure up in the woman’s estimation, or perhaps it was the Severus issue now compounded with her maternal failings that was contributing to the woman’s tone.  She didn’t really have the energy to care.

“Harry, we should try and find your Uncle Vernon.  I doubt he will be pleased to be kept waiting.”

“Oh yeah…”  He glanced around him, until his eyes fell on his trunk piled beside the rest of the Weasley’s and then he and Fred lugged it onto the trolley on top of hers.  Harry gave everyone a last round of good-byes and then took the trolley from her and began to push it through the thinning crowds.  “I wonder if they ever got the owl.  Uncle Vernon is sort of weird about those sorts of things.  Aunt Petunia might have read it if he ever let the thing in, but it’s possible they don’t even know you’re coming.  I guess they’ll be in for a big surprise.”

She rubbed a hand wearily across her eyes.  “I don’t think that’s the sort of surprise you really want to dump on someone.  Petunia has thought me dead for the last sixteen years, after all.  I would hate to just show up on her doorstep.  She might have a fit.”

They passed through the portal to the main station beyond.  Platforms nine and ten weren’t nearly so crowded, and Harry pointed toward the end of platform nine the moment they emerged.  “There he is.  I don’t see Aunt Petunia or Dudley with him either.  Come on.”

“My god, he’s gotten fat.”

Harry laughed beside her.  “Was he ever thin?”

“Well not really, but…”

As they approached, Vernon squinted and then scowled.  She was starting to get the rather sick feeling that the Dursleys had indeed not received her owl.  Harry picked up his pace and she couldn’t help but notice that his somber mood had suddenly vastly improved.  Apparently the impending chance of seeing his uncle squirm with discomfort was more joy than he could contain.

“Hello Uncle Vernon.”

The man kept glancing back and forth from him to her and back again.  Finally he nodded toward her, a suspicious look in his eye.  “Who’s this?”

Harry smiled sweetly.  “Oh didn’t you get our owl?  It appears not.  Of course I would have thought that you would have recognized your own sister-in-law.”

His eyes snapped back to her, and they she watched with fascination as his face drained completely of color only to flush a brilliant purple a moment later.  She smiled weakly.  “Hello, Vernon.  Sorry for the surprise.  You really should read your owl post you know.” 

He stared at her, mouth agape, and then glared back at Harry.  “What sort of nonsense is this?  You’re mother and father died years ago!”

Harry opened his mouth to respond but she cut across him.  “Well actually, Vernon, that’s not exactly true.  James was killed, but I’ve been stashed away as it were – for my own protection.  The current political climate necessitated that I return.  Come to think about it, it might necessitate a move for you as well.  I’ll have to contact Kingsley about that.  One can’t be too careful…but for the time being, I was hoping that I might rely on your hospitality for a few weeks.”

Vernon’s mouth was opening and closing like a dying fish and his face continued to get more and more purple.  She was rather afraid he might be getting ready to have a coronary right there on the platform.  “Are you quite alright, Vernon?”

“You sent an owl you say?”  He finally managed to sputter.

“Yes.  Three weeks ago.”

“Never got it.” He mumbled.

“Hmmm… That’s funny because she never came back.  I can only assume that she is still sitting on your window sill, tapping at the glass, poor dear.  She is such a faithful creature.  Oh well, we had best be on our way I suppose…”

The poor man looked more confused and ill by the minute, but there was really nothing more he could say, so he turned on his heel and headed out of the station to a vehicle waiting outside on the curb.  The drive from the station was conducted in complete silence, and though it was a little uncomfortable at least Vernon had recovered some of his color by the time they pulled into the drive at 4 Privet Drive.

The house was impeccably kept and identical to every other house on the street - the sort of house that screamed Petunia.  She imagined that the inside would look just as pristine.  She made a mental note to tidy up after herself.  No doubt her sister would already be less than pleased at the surprise of her arrival.  Then again, perhaps the shock of discovering she was alive after assuming she was not for almost sixteen years might soften her a little.

The house was quiet when they entered, but there were some sounds of life emanating from what she assumed was the kitchen near the back of the house.  She looked around her curiously.  The house was exactly as she had imagined.  One could have eaten of the floor if they were so inclined.  Harry dropped his trunk to the floor with a clunk and Vernon glared at him before doing the same with hers.  “You stay here,” he said, eyes narrowed, and then disappeared down the hallway to the kitchen.

“You’ve fetched Harry then?  It certainly took long enough.  I suppose he kept you waiting while he chatted up those insufferable friends of his…”

“Shhh…”  She heard Vernon shush her and then their voices dropped to a low murmur.

“What?!”  A small cry from Petunia.  “That’s impossible.”

Something else unintelligible from Vernon, before there was the clatter of heeled shoes across linoleum, and her sister appeared, framed in the same doorway through which her husband had just disappeared.  Her eyes looked suspiciously full.  She looked old, drawn – tired.

“Hello, Petunia.”

“Lily…?”  There was utter disbelief in her voice.

“I’m sorry Petunia.  I didn’t have a choice.  It was for my own protection.  No one could know.”

Her sister’s normally red face grew paler and paler.  “All this time, you…Mother…mother died thinking that…Mother died because she thought that you were dead, that you had been…”

The color returned to her face in a rush, as her eyes filled almost to overflowing.

“I’m sorry Petunia, truly.  It wasn’t entirely my choice, I…I was very ill, and my life – Harry’s life was in great danger, I…”

Suddenly Petunia strode forward and slapped her soundly across the face.  She gasped, blinking in surprise and bringing up a hand to cover the glowing red handprint on her cheek.  She was surprised that Harry hadn’t leapt to her defense, but perhaps he was as shocked as she was. 

“You were always so spoilt!” her sister snapped.  “Always doing as you pleased, not caring how it hurt other people!  Only thinking of yourself – you and that nasty boy!  Well, you killed mother with that selfishness, Lily, and you…you…”  But her voice cracked and the tears that had been teetering on the brink, spilled over, streaming down her cheeks.

“I know, Petunia.  I was young.  I’m sorry.”

And then Petunia launched herself into her arms, and wept against her neck.  She could have throttled Vernon for not letting in that damned owl.  It had not been fair to dump this in her sister’s lap completely unexpected, completely unannounced.  And she had taken so much care with the letter too.

She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and held her tight, mostly because she was slightly afraid that her sister’s legs were going to give out beneath her.  “Perhaps we should sit down, hmm…”

“Yes, yes…sit…”  Vernon bustled up to them and began to herd them into the sitting room.  “Harry, go make your aunt some tea!” he ordered.  He glanced, nervously in her direction.  “…if you would, please,” he added almost as an afterthought.

Petunia broke away from her then and went to sit tentatively on the edge of a floral upholstered wing chair where she daintily dabbed her eyes with a lace rimmed handkerchief she had pulled from the pocket of her skirt.  “Oh Lily, you don’t know how your death tormented mother.  She was never the same.  She…she wasted away so quickly…”

“Was she…was she ill, then?”

Petunia nodded.  “Cancer they said, but it moved so fast…”

She could hear Harry in the kitchen filling a kettle with water, and she wished Vernon hadn’t sent him off to do it.  She would have liked the comfort of someone familiar at her side.  “Harry told me that he had never known her, but…well, he didn’t seem to know any of the particulars.  I’m…I really am sorry, Petunia.  I never meant for any of this to happen.  I was a child and I…I put my trust in the only people I knew to trust at the time.  I never meant to hurt any of you, to put any of you in danger.  Please believe me.”

“Danger?”  Vernon piped up, from where he stood leaning against the mantle.  “What do you mean ‘danger’?  You mentioned that at the station too, having to move.  Why?”

“The person who killed James, who tried to kill me; he’s back and there is a good chance he wants me or Harry, or perhaps even the two of us dead.  He will stop at nothing to ensure this.  There is currently some very strong protective magic over this house, and it will hold until Harry turns seventeen in a few weeks, but then…then it will break, and there will be nothing standing between you and him. 

I could never forgive myself if any of you came to harm.  I will speak to some people who can arrange for some protection for you, but you will most likely have to be relocated.”

“I’m not going anywhere!”  Vernon, bellowed.  “Why should I.  Why should I have to move, because…because ‘your’ people are having some sort of damned war?!  I won’t.  I won’t do it!”

Harry had re-entered the room with a cup of tea in his hand, which he handed to his aunt.  Her hands shook as she took it, sending tea sloshing over the sides of the thin cup and into the saucer.  She brought up the other hand to steady it, as Harry came to the couch and sat down beside her.

“Of course you can stay, Uncle Vernon,” he interjected.  “But you will most likely end up dead, or worse.  This wizard that’s after Mum and I, he’s terribly powerful.  I would hate to think what he might do.”

Vernon flushed again, his eyes narrowing into little slits.  He opened his mouth as though to reprimand him, but then shut it again when Petunia reached out from where she sat and put a hand on his.  “I don’t care about us, Vernon, but think about Dudley.  If…if its true…” she sounded terrified.  It was clear that she believed the story much more than her husband.  She turned back to her.  “Is there really something they can do – the…the magical folk, I mean – is there really something that they can do to protect us?”

Lily nodded.  “Yes – yes, of course.”

Her sister’s eyes probed hers for a moment more and then she turned back to her husband.  “Vernon, if there’s something they can do, then I think that we should do as they say.  You…you don’t know what its like, but…A wizard who has darkness inside him, he…he could cause a great deal of damage, and if Dudley were to…”

She turned suddenly back to her.  “Where would they put us?”

“I don’t know.  Somewhere safe.”

“And who would be in charge of protecting us?”

“They would assign someone from the Order.  You remember, the organization that James and I belonged to.”

She nodded, and then looked to Harry and back to her.  “And what of the two of you.  Who will protect you?”

“There are people…”

“Who?”

“People – with in the Order.  Old friends…”

“Not the Snape boy?”  The name hit her hard.  It was the second time Petunia had mentioned Severus since she had arrived.  She was surprised that she even remembered him.  It had been years since she had last seen him.

“Snape?” Harry suddenly exclaimed from beside her.  “You knew Snape?”

Petunia’s brow furrowed and she looked confused.  “Yes, he and your mother were…they were acquainted in their youth, but...how do you know.”

“He was one of my teachers at school.”

“Your teacher…?”  She turned to her.  “Apparently the standards are not so high as one would think at that school of yours…”

“Severus is a very accomplished wizard, and highly intelligent, Petunia.  He was more than qualified to…”

“What does it matter now?!”  Harry suddenly snapped.  “Snape is a murderer!  Can we please just stop talking about him?”

“What?”  Vernon looked furious again.  “You …do you still know this Snape person, then?”  He scowled down at her, and she let her eyes drop to her lap.   “And he’s on the wrong side?” he continued.  “Here you are talking about keeping us safe and all the while your shagging the enemy!”

“Vernon!” Petunia gasped.

“Well?!”  he demanded.

“It…it’s not that simple…” was all she could manage.

“Well, then what is it?”

“It’s…it’s complicated!”  she snapped back, and to her mortification, her voice broke.

She could see Petunia staring at her strangely out of the corner of her eye.  She rounded on her.  “What?”

“My God…”  Petunia whispered.  “You…you’re still in love with him.”

“Still?  Wait…What?”  Harry sounded just as confused as his aunt had a moment before and more than a little disturbed.

“Harry, you know Severus and I were friends growing up,” she cut in before Petunia could say more.

“She didn’t say friends…  You didn’t say friends,” he said turning to his aunt, but she only stared down at the tea cup in her lap.

“Friends…” she finally mumbled.  “I saw the way you looked at him the year he spent Christmas holiday at our house.  That was more than friends...  Dad worried so, and for good reason it seems…”

“We were children!” she spat.

“You were old enough!”

“We didn’t…we never…I…I married James, didn’t I?!”

“For the money,” Petunia retorted without pause.  “We all knew that.”

She could see Harry’s face drain of color beside her.  “That’s a lie!  I loved James!”

“Perhaps…” Petunia sulked, “but that has nothing to do with your feelings for the Snape boy, now does it…”

She could feel tears coming to her eyes and she was desperate to extricate herself from the conversation.  “Why are we even discussing this?  What has ‘this’ to do with anything?!”

No one said anything, and the room was abruptly plunged into an uncomfortable silence. 

After a moment she got to her feet.  “Am I to stay then, or would you prefer if I found lodging elsewhere?”

Vernon opened his mouth, but Petunia reached out and lightly slapped his hand to stop him.  “Of course you may stay.”

“Then if you don’t mind, I’ve had a very long journey and I think I would like to lie down for awhile.”

“She’ll have to share with the boy, Petunia, there’s nowhere else.”

“Dudley is out of town until next Sunday.  You can use his room until then, and then…well, we’ll find a place…  Harry, go show your mother where to go.”  Petunia sounded weary, and perhaps even a little penitent.

“Yeah…”  She felt the light touch of his hand on her shoulder.  “Let’s go, okay Mum.”

She got up and followed him up the narrow staircase she had seen when they first came in.  They stopped before a door with a large ‘Do Not Enter’ poster plastered on the front of it.   “This is Dudley’s room.  I’ve never been in there.  I hope it’s clean.”

“I’m sure it will be fine.”

“Mum…what Aunt Petunia said, about…”

“If you believe that, Harry, than I…I don’t know what to say to you…”

“I meant about you still being in…in love with Snape…”

She pushed past him and opened the door, staring inside the room.  It was disgustingly clean and tidy.  No doubt Petunia had attacked it while the boy was away.  “What of it?”

“I…I’m sorry, Mum.”

“For what?”

“For…Because he lied to you, because you cared and he…he betrayed you, just like he did to Dumbledore.  You trusted him…  I’m sorry.”

She simply nodded.  “I’m tired, Harry.  We can talk later.”

“Yeah…yeah, sure.”

She saw the worry in his eyes as she shut the door behind her.  The moment it clicked shut she burst into silent tears.