Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Harry, Petunia, Snape or any other characters you may recognize throughout this story. I also don't own the wizarding world or basically anything else you recognize from the Harry Potter series. That all belongs to the wonderful goddess of writing, J.K. Rowling. So don't sue me!

A/N: This is a sequel to Growing Up Flower Twins, you could read it without having read that story, but you would probably get a little confused, plus if you read this first it will totally spoil the surprise in Growing Up Flower Twins, so I suggest you read that first. If you absolutely refuse to read it, just know that this story is being written with the assumption that you have read GUFT so everything won't be made clear. With that being said, welcome and enjoy!


Chapter 1: An Unlikely Visitor

It had been a strange couple of weeks for Harry. Of course with everything that had happened, one wouldn't be surprised that things were strange for Harry. After all, his mentor had died, he had learned that there was a very real chance that he would be able to defeat Voldemort and he had the beginnings of a plan for doing so, and he was going to be set to start that journey in little more than a month's time. Yet none of those reasons were why Harry thought things had been strange. What was strange was that he was getting along with his aunt.

At first he hadn't really noticed. She had just started doing small things. When the Dursleys picked him up from King Cross Station she had actually smiled at him. In the weeks following, she had occasionally asked him how he was doing. They were little things that Harry didn't even pay any attention to.

Then his Uncle Vernon had gone away on a business trip, and Dudley had been spending a lot of time away from the house out with his girlfriend (Harry had almost died when he heard that someone was dating his whale of a cousin). Because of this, Harry and Petunia had been home alone a lot, and they had started having actual real conversations.

Not REAL real conversations. He didn't talk about what had happened at school. He didn't talk about Voldemort or anything in his wizarding world life. But they talked about light stuff. What Harry had done that day, what Petunia needed to buy at the market, the news. It was strange and finally Harry couldn't take it anymore.

"Aunt Petunia, why have you started being so nice to me?"

Petunia's back was to Harry, but he could see that she flinched. After a few moments, she brought the teapot over and poured some tea into Harry's glass.

"I am so sorry that you have to ask that questions Harry. No one should ever have to ask a family member a question like that. I have been so unfair to you for the last 15 years, Harry, and you've deserved better."

Harry was shocked. His aunt was apologizing to him. He had learned to stop thinking that one day his aunt and uncle might love him a long time ago, but he supposed somewhere deep down he had always hoped it would happen. To hear his aunt say that what she had done to him was wrong, it was shocking.

"But why? Why now?" Harry asked, when he finally regained his voice.

"Don't you remember what Dumbledore said to us before he left with you?" Aunt Petunia asked.

At the mention of Dumbledore's name, Harry flinched involuntarily. It still hurt to think of the man, to realize that he was never going to see him again. But he stopped and thought and was able to vaguely recall Dumbledore chastising the Dursleys before he took him that night almost a year ago.

Harry nodded and said, "So much has happened since then, I'd forgotten."

Petunia shook her head, "Well, I haven't. I thought about what he said every day that you were away at school. I thought about writing to you, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It hurt to hear those words, but everything he said was true. I promised I would take care of you, and I didn't. And I'm sorry."

Once again Harry was stunned. He couldn't believe that his aunt had taken offense at what a wizard said. She thought they were all freaks. And, Harry thought with a small smile, Dumbledore had been the biggest freak of them all.

Harry wanted to say that she wasn't forgiven. Wanted to say that you couldn't just forgive years of abuse and just hug and make up, but the fact was, he already had forgiven her. Since he had been home it was like she was a different person, a better person, and he found that for the first time he felt like he had a family, and he just couldn't not be happy about that.

"I can't say that I'll ever forget everything that you and Uncle Vernon and Dudley have done to me, but I can say that I forgive you Aunt Petunia. All I ever wanted was for you to love me, and I'm finally starting to feel like you do."

She looked like she was going to say something, but she opened and closed her mouth and then nodded.

After a while she finally said, "So since we're sharing, are you going to tell me why you've been so sad all summer?"

Harry looked at her. He didn't even know where to begin. The fate of the wizarding world rested on his shoulders and he had to destroy four, possibly five, artifacts that would probably destroy him before he was able to destroy them. Dumbledore had been seriously injured destroying one and he was a hundred times more powerful than Harry.

Dumbledore.

Harry looked at his aunt. He supposed that he could tell her that part of why he had been so miserable this summer.

"Professor Dumbledore was murdered," Harry said.

Petunia looked at him for a moment before collapsing into a seat.

"Was it Voldemort?" Petunia whispered, and once again, just as a couple of years before, Harry was reminded of the fact that Petunia was his mother's sister and she had to have known about Voldemort during the first war.

"No, it wasn't Voldemort," Harry said, hatred building up inside of him as he thought of who it actually was.

"Well who was it then?" Petunia asked.

Harry was about to spit out the hated name when he was interrupted by a knock on the door.

Petunia placed a hand on Harry's shoulder and told him she'd be right back. He smiled at the sign of affection.

He couldn't believe that this was the same Aunt he had hated for so many years.


Petunia felt different. She couldn't figure out why she felt different, but she did. Ever since Dumbledore had shown up in her house the year before, she had felt like there was something she couldn't remember, like it was just out of her reach, and she couldn't quite get to it. And she kept thinking back on the way she had treated Harry and it literally made her sick to her stomach.

He was such a good kid, and she couldn't understand why she had never seen it before.

She had also found herself thinking about Lily a lot. She remembered when they were younger, before Lily had gotten her Hogwarts letter, they were very close. They were best friends. She couldn't even really remember why she had started hating Lily so much, she just knew that for the past however many years, she had told everyone that she didn't have a sister.

It was strange, but sometimes Petunia felt like she was two different people and she couldn't figure out which one was the real Petunia.

And it had all started when she had seen Dumbledore. She had never seen the man before, even though they had corresponded, yet when she saw him, she knew who he was. It was as if she had met him before, and knew him, yet she knew that she didn't.

It was all very strange and complicated and the only thing that kept Petunia from feeling like she was going to explode from the confusion was Harry. He calmed her in a way that no one else could. Except Lily. She remembered when they were five or six, Lily was the only person who could bring her out of a temper tantrum, and now Harry seemed to have the same effect on her.

He had told her that he felt like she loved him, and she had wanted to say that she did. She really did love him, but she couldn't say it. She knew that after the way she had treated him for so many years it would sound cheap and she wanted to say it when the time was right, when he needed it, when he would know she was telling the truth.

And now he was telling her that Dumbledore was dead. She felt like the wind was knocked out of her. How could he be dead? He was Dumbledore. The greatest wizard who had ever lived. The only wizard that Voldemort feared . . . and there she went again. How did she know these things? Where did these thoughts come from? She felt like she was losing herself again, or finding herself, she couldn't quite figure out which.

Who could have killed Dumbledore? Harry was about to tell her when there was a knock on the door. She looked at Harry, who she cared for so deeply. She cared for him as if he were her own son now, a feeling that had seemed to have sprung up over night. She could see the anger in his eyes as he thought of Dumbledore's murderer, and she placed a hand on his shoulder hoping that she could calm him a little. He smiled up at her and she walked out of the kitchen, wondering who could be at the door.

When she opened the door, she saw a sallow-faced man, with long greasy hair and a great hooked nose. He was wearing robes, and there was a wand in his hand. She looked him over, knowing that she knew him, and yet not being able to figure out how, and then she looked into his eyes.

They were dark, black really. And they were pained. Yet she remembered. She had stared into those eyes a million times. She had seen those eyes in pain, in happiness, in tears, and in love. Oh she had seen the love in those eyes. And as she stared into those eyes, she remembered everything.

At first she didn't even realize she had remembered, or maybe she didn't realize she had ever forgotten.

"Hello Severus," she said with a smile.

The eyes of the man in front of her went wide, unable to retain the blank look that had previously been on his face.

And then, with no warning, Petunia hit the floor in a dead faint.


Harry heard the thump from the kitchen and hurried to the front door to find out what had happened.

What he saw was Snape, the man he hated more than anyone else on the planet, standing over his unconscious Aunt holding a wand.

Forgetting his wand entirely, Harry launched himself at the man.


A/N: Well? Good first chapter? Do I have your attention? I hope you like it!