Chloe Potter had always thought she was a rather normal girl. As far as she could tell, there wasn't a single remarkable thing about her. The only things that made her a little different than your typical girl seemed to be things that made the other children think she was weird.

She needed to wear glasses to see properly, as she was near-sighted, and for the first few years of her life she was teased about her glasses by the other children at school.

The other thing she got a lot of teasing for was the strange scar on her forehead, just below her hairline. It was curiously shaped like a lightning bolt. She could never keep it hidden behind her fringe.

Her home life seemed normal enough, except for the fact that she lived with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and their son, Dudley. Aunt Petunia was her mother's sister. She would tell Chloe, whenever she happened to ask, that they had taken her in when she was a little over a year old. This seemed to be the only thing that Aunt Petunia didn't like to talk about. Whenever Chloe asked about it she would always repeat the same explanation in stiff sentences before saying that proper, polite little girls didn't ask such questions. Chloe would agree with this, while secretly thinking that there was nothing wrong with her having a healthy curiosity about her parents. She couldn't really remember them, but sometimes if she thought about it really hard for a good long while, she thought she could picture their faces with her mind's eye.

The images in her mind were likely half made-up, at the least. Chloe supposed she really just tried to imagine two people that looked like her in different ways. She could never hold on to the imagined image of her parents for very long before it was gone again. She would often spend minutes alone in front of the bathroom mirror, gazing at herself. It wasn't out of vanity that she did this, but out of curiosity. She'd learned a little bit about genetics at school, and she wondered which of her parents had given her her green eyes, and which had bestowed upon her the unruly dark hair that Aunt Petunia often complained about. Chloe wore it long and wavy, because when it was cut short it stuck out all over the place. When it was long, it became sort of wavy and was less awkward. Aunt Petunia used to brush her hair for her at night before tucking her into bed, but she stopped doing it after one night when she had accidentally called Chloe by her mother's name.

Other than that, Aunt Petunia had always been perfectly nice to her, always making sure she had clothes to wear and food to eat, and on the rare occasion that Uncle Vernon took Dudley out somewhere without Aunt Petunia, they would have a 'girl's day' and go shopping.

When Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia went out together, they would often take their son Dudley with them but leave Chloe at a neighbor's house to be babysat. In the almost eleven years she had lived with them, Chloe had learned that Uncle Vernon didn't like her very much at all. When they thought she and Dudley were sound asleep Chloe often heard him arguing with Aunt Petunia about spending so much time with her. "It's such a waste." He would say. "When you have a perfectly normal child that you should be raising."

He had passed this mentality onto his son, who would sometimes whine or throw a tantrum if he thought Aunt Petunia was treating Chloe better than she was treating him. He hadn't done it as much lately after Aunt Petunia had yelled at him one day, something she rarely ever did. He'd been so shocked that he'd gone quiet immediately, and he had had such a funny look on his face that Chloe had the hardest time not laughing. Dudley had been further cowed a few minutes later when Aunt Petunia didn't offer an apology, as she usually did when she was sharp with him.

They were having lunch one afternoon in June when Uncle Vernon put down his newspaper and started rifling through the mail that Chloe have retrieved from the door only minutes earlier.

"Post card here from Marge." He said to Aunt Petunia. Marge was Uncle Vernon's sister. She was like her brother and didn't like Chloe the tiniest little bit.

"She says one of her dogs has taken ill and she's coming home from her vacation early. She'll be able to come for your birthday now, isn't that wonderful, son?"

Dudley grunted noncommittally around a mouthful of scrambled eggs. It was going to be his birthday in less than a week. Uncle Vernon had hidden the many gifts he'd bought for his son in Chloe's closet, telling her very crossly that she wasn't to lay a finger on any of them. Dudley was likely to give some of them to her after a while, after he had broken or grew tired of them.

Chloe hadn't ever told anyone, not even Aunt Petunia, but sometimes she would put Dudley's broken toys in her closet or up on the shelf in the corner of her room and then she'd wake up the next day and they would look as if they were brand new. She had learned that if Dudley ever saw her with the repaired toys that he would take them back again, but she didn't particularly mind when he did that. Most of his toys were the sort that were mostly just for boys, and she didn't particularly like them.

Her favorite thing in all of Little Whinging was perhaps the pretty little porcelain doll that Aunt Petunia had given her on her birthday when she turned nine. Dudley had gone into her room once when she wasn't there and broken the doll, leaving the pieces on the floor. Chloe hadn't even known about it until he had blurted out to her what he had done at the dinner table, wondering why she wasn't upset. She had taken him up to her room then and shown him the intact doll, standing next to the mirror on her dresser. After that, Aunt Petunia had given him a stern talking to about making up stories and he had sulked for days.

The rest of the week passed by quickly, though by the time it was the day before Dudley's birthday Chloe had started to wonder if anymore could fit into her closet. Uncle Vernon had bought so many presents for Dudley that Aunt Petunia had actually made him return some of them, as she didn't want their son to end up completely spoiled.

Dudley had made it clear that he didn't want Chloe to come out with them for his birthday celebration, but they couldn't leave her with her usual sitter. Mrs. Figg, the woman down the street that usually watched her when the Dursleys went out, had fallen and broken her leg. Aunt Petunia had run across the street and inquired of the woman of the household if her teenage daughter would like to make a little extra pocket money. The woman had asked her daughter, and the daughter had agreed. That was how Chloe came to spend an uneventful afternoon playing boardgames with Imogen Gibbs.

When it was almost dinnertime, Aunt Marge arrived at the Dursley house in a terrible mood. She had refused to let Imogen leave, as she didn't want to be left alone with Chloe. The girl and her younger charge sat very quietly on the living room sofa while Aunt Marge had her tea in a chair nearby, ignoring their very existence.

Imogen was relieved when the Dursleys came home shortly there after. She gave Chloe a friendly wave and left after Aunt Petunia had paid her.

"She wanted to pawn this one off on me." Aunt Marge grumbled, jerking a thumb in Chloe's direction. "I wouldn't have it."

Uncle Vernon got Dudley sat down on the living room sofa and then made no less than four trips up and down the stairs to retrieve all of Dudley's birthday presents, including some of the ones that Aunt Petunia had told him to take back to the store. Aunt Petunia made no comment about this as she watched her son rip the wrappings off his gifts with chubby hands. Once he had finished with Uncle Vernon's gifts, he went on to some things that Aunt Marge had brought him back from her vacation. Chloe knew better than to ask if there was anything for her, because of course there wouldn't be.

Aunt Petunia had dinner delivered from Dudley's favorite restaurant. The five of them sat around the dining room table to eat it. Chloe thought it was quite good. She was quietly eating and thinking about nothing in particular until she caught a bit of something Aunt Marge was saying.

"I'd keep your eye on that girl, if I were you, Vernon. She looks like she's going to grow up to be a real delinquent. Not that much more can be expected of her, eh? Look at where she came from, those parents of hers that you never talk about. I only met her just the once, your sister, Petunia, but I'm sure you can agree that she was a bit strange. The way she carried on with that boy, whatever his name was. Bit of a harlot, at any rate, and her daughter will likely be a bit of the same."

Chloe was silently raging, as much as a little girl is able to rage. Not even Uncle Vernon had spoken so poorly about her parents, as far as she knew. He preferred to act as if his wife had never had a sister in the first place.

Nobody was more surprised than Chloe when Aunt Petunia slapped Aunt Marge across the face. Perhaps Aunt Petunia herself, for she looked quite stunned.

Aunt Marge had a violent glimmer in her eyes as she raised a hand to the red welt on her cheek. Vernon looked between the two of them before glaring at his wife.

"Petunia, what's gotten into you?" He spluttered.

For a moment, Petunia looked as if she regretted what she had done, but then her eyes hardened and she set her jaw firmly. Wordlessly, she withdrew from the sleeve of her blouse what looked to Chloe like a long, polished stick.

"You know, I've wanted to do this for years. It's a little early yet, but I don't imagine a couple months will matter in the long run."

She pointed her wand at Aunt Marge, for Chloe had realized that that was what it was. Aunt Petunia muttered something that Chloe couldn't understand, and with the faintest of popping sounds Aunt Marge disappeared.

Chloe stared at the place where Aunt Marge had been, her mouth open. After a few moments, she slid her eyes to Uncle Vernon and Dudley, who were eating as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

Uncle Vernon looked at her with his beady eyes and scowled. "What are you looking at with that slack-jawed expression? Eat your dinner before I think twice about continuing to feed you!"

Chloe was about to quietly ask Aunt Petunia what had happened, as she still had her wand out. There was no time for that, however. Aunt Petunia leveled her wand at Uncle Vernon and said the same string of nonsense words that she had said before. Just as with Aunt Marge, Uncle Vernon was no more.

Aunt Petunia then turned to look at Chloe. Chloe gulped and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, expecting to join Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge where ever Aunt Petunia had sent them, or perhaps she would become nothing and simply cease to be.

After an unbearably long minute, Chloe didn't feel at all like she had been banished to somewhere else. She could still feel the dining room chair under her and her feet were still firmly planted on the floor. She cautiously opened one eye and looked at Aunt Petunia, who had turned away and was sagging in her chair. Chloe thought she looked relieved.

"Aunt Petunia, what happened to Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge?" Chloe asked quietly, afraid that Aunt Petunia would simply tell her not to ask questions.

Instead, her aunt turned to her and smiled. "As far as the world is concerned, Vernon and Marge Dursley never existed, and truly they shouldn't have." She leaned in close to look Chloe in the eye. "Chloe, your uncle and his sister weren't real. They were the product of magic, a spell I did with this wand many years ago. Can you believe that?"

Chloe was surprised to find that the idea of magic wasn't shocking in the slightest. "You might have done a better job of it, then." She said, feeling bold. "They were simply awful."

Aunt Petunia laughed then, in such a carefree way that Chloe thought she had never seen her aunt so happy.

"That they were, that they were. I was inexperienced at the time, but I wouldn't hear of anyone doing my work for me. I'm afraid I didn't cast the spell perfectly. If I had, Uncle Vernon would have been a lot nicer, and I daresay a bit better looking as well. As for Marge, I'm not exactly sure where she came into the picture. She didn't exist at first, but one day Vernon just started talking about her in a very matter of fact way, and shortly after that she showed up for a visit. I was never quite sure how she came about, but I'm glad to be rid of them both."

It was then that Aunt Petunia launched into a story. Chloe's parents had been killed not by a car accident, but by a very evil wizard. Chloe's father had also been a wizard, a good one, and her mother had been a witch just as Aunt Petunia was.

After they had been killed, the evil wizard who had killed them tried to kill Chloe, but ended up hurting himself instead. Aunt Petunia told her that nobody was sure to this day what exactly had happened, only that Chloe was the only person ever to survive a very particular curse that was supposed to kill you the instant it was cast on you.

Aunt Petunia said that she came straight away to collect Chloe when she heard about her sister's passing. She had always promised that if anything ever happened to her sister and her sister's husband that she would take care of their children, should they have any at the time. A few days after that, shortly after a funeral for James and Lily Potter, a powerful wizard came to Aunt Petunia.

"Professor Dumbledore." Chloe thought that was a very strange name. "He thought it was near impossible that the wizard who killed your parents was gone for good. He thought it best that we go into hiding. Where better than the muggle world." Aunt Petunia gave a snort of a laugh, then explained that 'muggle' was what magical people called non-magical people.

"We thought surely that if he-who-must-not-be-named were to return, he would look for a woman living alone with a young girl. So I created Vernon Dursley, and he was my husband from that point on."

"If they're not supposed to have existed, how come I still remember them? Uncle Vernon and Dudley didn't even blink an eye when Aunt Marge disappeared." Chloe wondered curiously.

Aunt Petunia gave her a broad grin. "That's because, my dear Chloe, Marge was right about something." Chloe frowned at her, causing her aunt to give a girlish little giggle. "You're like your mother. You're a witch."

"You don't say..." Chloe gulped. She hardly had time to think about it before a voice that didn't belong to Aunt Petunia piped up.

"Yes, we're very lucky, the three of us, to be able to remember those two horrible specimens." The person's tone was dry. Chloe turned to look at the voice's owner in shock.

"Dudley?" She gasped.