In A Mother's Eyes
(A/N: Hi! Same Story, just...better...I didn't realize people actually were reading it and went to take it down with the new year to clean out my email and decided to continue and...refurbish it instead. I am extremely sorry to everyone who put up with the apparent 'abandoning' of this story that was never my intent and it hurts me when stories I'm keen on do that enough that I should have done better. I'm going to try to update or at least write every night. I'll try to find my original notes, but from what I remember this story fixes and breaks and fixes and cycles on like that. I hope you still enjoy it if you're waiting. If you're weren't...Surprise!)
Chapter 1 (A/N: Old chapters fixed, put together, and stuffed with more plot.)
The morning Petunia found her sister's daughter on her chilly doorstep would be a day that echoed in her memory as bittersweet-one of the very best and the most heart-wrenching.
The crisp air and promise of continued monotony was brutally shattered by the abnormality that was a beautiful baby girl, about a year old, head already fluffy and full of raven colored ringlets that tangled about her head, and nearly luminescent green eyes. A scar resembling a lightning bolt was red and fresh along one side of her unwrinkled and unworried brow.
A sharp pang of fury and sick stung inside her heart and stomach at such an angry cut, untreated, on one so young. It made her feel strangely overprotective and weak kneed.
But then those unconcerned eyes met hers and flickered to life, gazing up at her like a greeting, nearly comically wide as if the child didn't expect to see anyone. Like no one would, no, like she knew no one was coming for her.
Petunia moved quickly, the eye contact all she needed to propel her into motion, if not quite out of her shock.
Soon the girl was held securely against Petunia's terrycloth robe, wind reddened cheeks pressed against a warm shoulder and Petunia's slightly less warm hand. The child froze in her arms.
A deep breath shuddered through her frame and her eyes fluttered briefly closed.
The child's eyes clinched it for Petunia when next they opened. Those pretty, pretty green eyes darkened slightly, looking on at Petunia in a whole new light, one of extreme adoration. Freely given adoration, as if in that one moment in that one act, Petunia became the center of her world. Petunia felt ten feet tall in a flattering and proud way.
For once she didn't feel awkwardly tall or self conscious. Anyone could look through their blinds and see her in her old robe and for the first time she felt like she had nothing to prove. A brief, childish, thought that maybe, just maybe, this was what being magical felt like.
Petunia's own son, Dudley, had never focused so completely on her, yet. His eyes disinterested as he learned to cry and hit and she fondly thought of him anyway. A mother's love was unconditional and complete. And Petunia knew exactly what she thought of this trusting little girl.
Petunia stroked the little girl's cheek to warm it up and the girl hid her face in Petunia's robe like it was someplace precious and secure.
Petunia's eyes struggled to understand the situation.
Finally, she simply bent to retrieve the basket the girl had been tucked in, only for the girl to tense up again. Petunia looked down at the girl to see what was wrong only to freeze herself.
The little girl seemed to be almost resigned. Her hand gently clutching the edge on robe before letting go, little hand tucking itself into the animal themed baby blanket as the child prepared herself to go back in the basket.
Petunia snatched up the basket and hurried inside, leaving the newspaper without a single care.
Once in the warmth of the house the girl snuggled down against Petunia, only wriggling once in discomfort from the rather extreme temperature change.
Petunia continued to carry her bundle of suddenly curious baby. The girl's eyes flitting this way and that as she took in the change of scenery.
Vernon was upstairs getting ready to go to work for the day and Petunia left him to it, knowing he'd get down soon enough.
Dudley bounced in his bouncer in plain view of the door from in the kitchen, uninterested in her as ever, with a rounded rattle being gnawed on. Petunia walking briskly into the kitchen to sit at the made table, making no move for her cooling plate. The basket was placed between herself and Dudley, the baby girl held against Petunia's chest, and silence but for the distant sounds of showering reigned in the house.
Dudley stopped and looked at the new baby and Petunia panicked a bit, the familiar feelings of inadequacy running up and down her spine as her face flushed and she remembered this, if she was correct, was a magical baby. Her heart pained for her little boy.
But then, Dudley smiled and reached out a drool covered hand towards the girl. And Petunia heaved a sigh of relief, noticing as she did that her unease had made the girl cautious.
Petunia gathered her babies up and moved them into the living room.
Dudley didn't have a temper tantrum when removed from the bouncer which was in itself a miracle. But their sudden forced proximity against Petunia's narrow chest made the girl try to back up oddly, moving jerky and uncoordinated as she tried to make more room for Dudley. Dudley simply, gently, patted her curls.
It was the gentlest she had ever seen her usually sour faced boy.
Petunia managed to lay out a couple of tummy time mats and lay the babies next to one another, the girl noticeably tiny.
The girl's legs were red and stiff when freed from her confines and Petunia helped rub feeling into them, wondering if the baby was mute before, feeling a fool, realizing she hadn't voiced her discomfort at all other than a small moment of looking pinched faced. Already the girl was stretching about curiously and Dudley was pushing little toys Petunia was scattering about next to them towards the girl in a clear offering her son hadn't ever shown before.
"Pet? It's breakfast time, and-" Vernon stopped in the archway between the hall and their living room to take in the baffling sight of Petunia and Dudley and a new, unknown baby not having breakfast at the scheduled breakfast time. "Pet." It was more a statement that a question and Petunia straightened an bit as her hands continued helping the girl stretch and bicycle through the air. "Abnormal time for a play-date, Pet." Vernon commented as if she would suddenly make it just them and breakfast time again.
Petunia was surprised that the comment didn't make her want to do so though. Usually Vernon's suggestions of normal made Petunia want to go along with it. Made her want to be normal and perfect.
"She was left for us." Petunia finally replied. "Let on the doorstep, the basket's in the dining room." Petunia was knocked out of her strange new thoughts as the story started to feel real as it was told and continued, "there might be a note."
Vernon began to purple and stormed into their little dining room, angrily.
Finally knocked out of her shell-shock, Petunia focused on the baby, checking her over a tad frantically, before grabbing the diaper bag from beside the couch and when through the process of changing the little girl with tears in her eyes as she realized her inattentiveness, inexcusable no matter the shock caused by the child's sudden appearance, allowed an already soiled nappy to spread an angry rash and the fecal matter to dry to the babies skin in a way that required her to scrub at her skin. After a few solid minutes, as Vernon rampaged in the next room, the area was ready to be liberally slathered in cream. Petunia thickly layered the little girl up and worried that the process, which had to be painful, as well as the baby's situation hadn't made her cry as baby's should.
The baby was terribly laid back. And Petunia feared for the future, already planning a Doctor visit and a series of alarms every three hours to check for necessary diaper changes since the baby obviously wouldn't warn her it needed to be done.
Vernon went quiet in the next room, and Petunia dug in the diaper bag for a reusable, adjustable cloth diaper that she'd impulse bought but never used, thankful now as she could snap the baby into something extra soft and warm and clean that fit.
Vernon reappeared in the archway a slightly crumpled note in his hand, "I'll drop her off on the way to work."
"What?" Petunia replied incredulously.
Vernon explained himself.
"Grunnings is far enough they wouldn't connect the girl to us." He kept talking, but all Petunia could hear was fuzzy static.
"I don't think we still have Dudley's small car seat," Petunia interjected as Vernon tried to assure her the little problem would be gone soon.
"Not to worry Pet, it came in a basket, right? I'll just put it in the basket no need to dirty Dudley's things with the little freak, and then I'll plop it on the floorboard of the passenger's side. Throw a coat over it, no one'll see."
"Wait!" Petunia panicked internally, body feeling shock again from what her husband was saying.
Mind racing she choked out, "Everyone's outside for work now, and you'll be late." It was feeble, but he bought it. A new flash of horror went through her as he opened the hall closet door and put the basket inside.
"There, wont have to worry about it for the day, just put it here and I'll drop it off after work."
The world was a blur of color and Petunia was very off balance as a kiss was pressed to her cold lips and it wasn't until she heard his car drive away that her feet unstuck themselves from the floor and her body stopped working on autopilot.
Sobbing she ran her hands aggressively through her blonde hair, thinking. Thinking and thinking and trying to think, her eyes catching sight of Dudley still teething on a toy, as oblivious as he had been since she started to change the baby girl.
The girl's eyes were on her, she'd rolled over on her tummy, eyes wide. when their eyes met, the girl suddenly smiled wide, giggling and reaching out a small hand.
And normalcy stopped for Petunia after that.
Petunia steeled herself as she looked into her personal savings account, she used it for supplementing their needs, made up of saved birthday money, the remains of all four of her part time jobs from before she was married, and most recently, and of two years ago, the death of her parents.
She left it for emergencies and Vernon never asked if her parents had left her anything after their Wills gave the monies and property to Lily, leaving Petunia with the sentimental stuff and a small sum, which Petunia had already known about and suggested herself since at the time Petunia was married and settled nicely in suburbia while Lily had just graduated and lived with a friend.
However, Lily turned the entirety over to Petunia. A brief note with the documents rambled on about how her husband, which Mom and Dad never even knew about, came from wealth and she was settled in a safe house and on and on the note went.
Petunia remembered the 'i' in Lily had been dotted with a heart and the rest of the contents disappeared in the mind numbness that being in charge of your parents dual funeral and the absence of certain redheads cause.
Soft coos brought her back to herself as she ran a hand through her mussed hair and babies contentedly stretched and crawled and played on the floor.
The account was fairly substantial with the selling of her childhood three bedroom home.
A brief flash of remembrance cause Petunia to cringe as she remembered watching her parents being lowered to their final resting spot, the last paragraph of Lily's upbeat note saying how death was but another adventure or some such rubbish.
Her hands clenched her hair and she took a deep breath before changing the password to the account and calling her bank.
As she continued to call various people she migrated the kids into the playpen in her bedroom, she dressed quickly and started packing practical jeans and other such clothes, her parents wedding rings Lily had sent with the horrible funeral note, and not much else for herself.
She got Dudley's littler car seat out, having lied about not knowing it's whereabouts, and in the girl went, laying down and then she got Dudley was dressed and many baby things were packed into Petunia's mostly unused car.
The whole process took three precious hours.
When everything and everyone was strapped in the car she laid her head against the steering wheel thinking about when she could go.
With a sudden epiphany, she started the car and left her husband, house, and normal life behind.
She was sitting cross-legged, a bundle of nerves, as she waited in the hotel room. Both babies almost drifting off from the pack and play she'd fortified with eight pillows, six baby blankets, and two medium sized stuffed toys.
In front of her was her cell phone, a printed bank statement, the letter from the basket, and all of their legal papers. The girl's had been tucked in an envelope like the letter at the bottom of the basket, making what Petunia already knew an undeniable fact. The girl was her niece.
As she waited for the agent, she looked over Lily's letter once more, the one that Vernon had crumpled up, the entirety filled a single sheet of paper.
Petunia read it out loud, if only because the baby girl's ears twitched along with the corners of her mouth in a happy smile whenever Petunia's voice took on the lull of reading.
"Dear Tuney,
I wasn't sure what to write, and there is much I can't tell you. But I know I should explain, if not in depth, than enough that when she's older you can tell her that We love her and the gist of what happened. I only have permission to tell you the basics, she won't ever need more than that. We know she'll be raised believing she's only ever been a Muggle, and we're okay with that small kind lie.
Sev discovered a prophecy that put us on a very bad man's radar.
We went somewhere safe and lived there for the first few months of my babies' lives. Crime had gone down so we were going to travel to our Headquarters for Holiday. For a single night we stayed at a well known hotel, so the babies could get a bit of a rest.
While we chatted with our friends in the room next door, our room was attacked by that very bad man.
He killed a friend of ours and something about my son, Aiden, reflected the curse back at him, and reduced him to dust. This is a very good thing but followers of the very bad man are still at large and after us.
One follower, a rather loony woman had been in the room and somehow exhausted Wish's magic core.
The healers say she'll never have magic, not enough to go to a wizarding school.
They think they might have been able to fix it if she'd gotten there sooner but I had to remove Aiden from the situation first. He was screaming and probably pained from defeating the very bad man.
And Wish is naturally shy and quiet, it's caused her to miss a few meals and changes here and there so she'd be safe longer than Aiden's healthy lungs! By the time Aiden was safe and James could go back for her it was too late to save her magic.
I put all her papers and some muggle money in an enclosed envelope for you.
We need to keep Aiden safe and with her being a squib anyway we figured she was safest with you. And she never cries so it's not like it'll be a hardship for you. I mean I handled two babies alright and that was with a very bad man trying to find us!
Just, tell her all that and explain it in a way she'll understand, and that when these people are dealt with tell her Mummy and Daddy and her big Brother Aiden will come get their Wish, okay?
It sounds horrible like that but I've written it several times and all other versions were vetoed.
Thank you, Tuney. I know I'm not giving you much choice but we don't have much choice either.
Take care of her. She's all yours now.
Love,
Lily Potter."
Petunia's voice rose here, as it had the other two times she read it out loud causing the girl, Andia, meaning Wish, to starting making little song-like "Oooh-Ohhh" noises as if she were trying to comfort her. And when you think about it, being comforted by a baby who probably learned crying doesn't sooth discomforts or cure your hunger was absolutely heart shattering.
Andia did everything tentatively and with big, trustful, doe-eyes.
Petunia hated the letter, it was childish, written with a fast hand and seemed like nonsense but it might grant her total custody. So, she placed it neatly beside the other things and went back to wait nervous and tense.
A knock sounded softly at the door and Petunia rushed over, tugging her clothes straight, running fingers across her hair to smooth it into place.
She peeked in the peephole and opened the door to Agent Raine of the United States of America SCP.
Agent Raine was a witch. Agent Raine was from America. Agent Raine gave her information to Petunia's parents before, which they put in a small photo album, proud of anything magic.
Agent Raine's job them was to try to offer Amnesty and help to any Mundane or Muggleborn who needed it.
Petunia was pretty sure leaving your lunatic husband who tried to keep a baby in a closet all day after being told he couldn't let 'it' slide around the passenger side floorboard, trying to legally and permanently adopt your heavily neglected niece who seems to have a twin celebrity, or maybe even the fact someone could be after your niece to harm or kill her were all valid reasons.
Agent Raine Agreed.