Title: Normalcy
Alternative Title: On the Doorstep
Author: Gracesane
Characters: Petunia Dursley, Vernon Dursley, Harry Potter
Summary: On that day, November 1, 1981, the normalcy of Number 4 Privet Drive would forever be changed.
Word Count: 2,409
Completed: July 12, 2014; 4:44pm
Posted: July 13, 2014
AN: I had originally started writing outtakes during a writer's block back in 2012 after re-reading all of the Harry Potter books. I thought, hey, writing outtakes will get my creative juices flowing. It did. I started writing again, and then my hard drive crashed without me backing anything up on it…. I stopped writing for two years because I just couldn't recreate anything I had written earlier. This is a re-writing of the original un-posted, lost version.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the writing and the idea.
It was another normal morning at Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. Petunia had woken at 6am, as she always did, slipping out of her bed and into the bathroom. She preferred to wake up early and quietly, as not to disturb her slumbering husband, Vernon. He always rose at 6:30 and showered as she prepared his breakfast and lunch in the kitchen. It was a routine they had gotten into very early in their marriage. Vernon would be showered and dressed by 7:15, he'd eat breakfast from 7:25 to 7:55. With a quick peck to Petunia's cheek, he'd be out the door and on his way to work by 8:00.
Petunia didn't work. She had worked in London a few years before, a clerical secretary stint at Grunnings, where she met Vernon. He had just become a junior executive of the company at the time. A young, well-to-do man, with high aspirations, he had walked into the office of his superior executive, where she worked, and taken a liking to her instantly. He told her once, on one of their very first dates, that she was what a woman should be. She was conservative in her appearances and mannerisms, eager to please and positively normal, and, while some women might have been appalled at being described as such, Petunia was delighted.
He was the first person in a long time to look at her and compliment her normalcy. She couldn't imagine a better match for her. Someone who appreciated her despite her lack of anything special. Older than her by a few years, he had his life – a very ordinary life – planned and would be well on his way to accomplishing his goals, if he could only find a wife. She could see how he hadn't found one yet. His particular mindset wasn't something that all people could accept, and her parents' weren't particularly fond of him. All dates with him were the same, and he never surprised her, never surprised her with gifts either. He had very narrow views on everything. A man without a 9 to 5 desk job was inadequate at providing for his family. A wife shouldn't work outside the home. Her full-time job should be to care for her husband and child. He had no wild aspirations, no secrets, and no tolerance for nonsense. He was the complete opposite of her family, completely predictable, and she loved that.
He had proposed to her after a year and a half of dating. She was 20, almost 21, when he brought her to his mother's home, sat her down for afternoon tea in the sitting room and proposed to her properly on one knee. She said yes immediately, and she was married and became a housewife at 4 Privet Drive by the end of the year.
For someone with no special talents, Petunia thought she was quite good at what she did. For the past four years, she kept the house clean, tended to the garden and took care of their baby Dudley, while maintaining the spotless reputation of the Dursley name. Dudley would grow up to be just like his father.
Dudleykins was a mix of both his father and his mother. A little over a year old, he had a round face and rosy cheeks, like his father. His hair was blond, not unlike that of his mother's and he had pale blue eyes, just like her. He was her pride and joy – a baby just like any other.
The morning of November 1, he was sleeping as Petunia cooked eggs and bacon and as Vernon stepped into the kitchen.
"Good morning, Petunia," he greeted her. Her back was turned to him, but she could hear the kitchen chair scrape the floor as he sat at their kitchen table. The sound of rustling paper followed, and she knew that he was reading this morning's paper.
"Good morning, Vernon," she replied. "Breakfast will be ready in 10 minutes."
"Mm," he replied non-committedly. "Blasted owls everywhere," he grunted. "The paper says scientists believe it's due to a shift in the weather patterns over the ocean."
"That's odd." She turned to look at her husband. He was dressed in his work suit, his blue tie knotted perfectly around his neck and his red hair styled neatly. Vernon always dressed well for his job. He told her that he was in line to become a director there in the future, but the only way to so was to always be polished look normal. Freaks didn't get promoted.
"Not as odd as the ragtag folk wearing those costumes yesterday," he continued. "Must have been protesting something or the other."
Petunia pursed her lips. Owls and costumes. It sounded like those freaks were out and about, causing mayhem. Weather patterns, indeed, she scoffed to herself. She opened her mouth to tell Vernon exactly that, but thought better and quickly snapped her mouth shut.
That kind was not to be mentioned in the Dursley household.
Vernon knew all about those people. She had told him about her sister one night after they were engaged. They had just bought battered sausage from a local chip shop and gotten into his car. He hadn't even buckled his seatbelt when she blurted "My sister's a witch." When his jaw dropped and he gave her a blank stare, Petunia almost had a heart attack. She had specifically waited until they were engaged to tell him; it'd be less likely that he'd leave her, but she was still so worried that he'd not accept her due to her sister. But, in the end, he accepted it, assured her that her sister's freakiness would not be held against her, and told her that he lucked out in meeting her, a normal woman. Petunia never told him, but she thought she lucked out. She was lucky to find a man that didn't mind she was Plain Jane Petunia.
"Petunia, did the other paper come in?" he asked as she began to fill up a plate of food for him.
"I don't know, Vernon."
"Did you check?"
"Not yet," she replied, pouring a glass of orange juice.
He briefly gave her an annoyed look, before pushing out his chair and walking over to the door. The front door swung open, and there was a moment of silence before she heard his whispered yell, "PETUNIA."
"Yes?" she called from the kitchen as she washed her hands.
"COME HERE. NOW."
She briskly walked over the front door, in the process of drying her hands with the kitchen towel. She assumed the next door neighbors must have parked in front of their house again. Vernon always became upset when their car blocked their house's curb appeal. However, upon walking to his side, she gasped, and the towel fluttered down to the floor where it lay forgotten.
"What do we do?" she asked her husband.
"Pick it up before anyone sees!" he hissed through his teeth.
She picked up the little bundle, a small baby around the same age as her Dudders, and Vernon slammed the door shut. She sat in their living room, staring at the black haired baby with an odd lightning shaped scar on his little forehead while Vernon quickly shut the blinds, closing out the world.
"We need to get rid of it. Some trollop thinks she can just abandon her child on our front porch, well she's wrong!" He began to pace around the sitting room, ranting quietly, and occasionally stopping to look out the window, making sure that no one was watching them.
Petunia on the other hand watched the little baby, feeling sorry for it. Of course they weren't going to keep it. That would be absolutely absurd. But, she thought, what kind of mother wouldn't want her poor child, a young baby, sleeping so peacefully as this one? And then he opened his eyes, leaving her breathless and her heart pounding in her ears.
"Are you listening, Petunia?" Vernon turned towards her. "Put that thing down!"
"It's-" she could barely speak. "It's Harry, Vernon."
He stopped for a moment, utterly speechless, before asking, "Who?"
"Harry, Lily's boy," she explained, tilting her head to the side examining her young nephew for the first time.
Vernon stuttered, "Are- are you s-s-sure?"
"I'm sure."
She hadn't seen little Harry, having cut off her ties with her younger sister, but there could be no mistaking that those emerald green eyes were from Lily. They stared at her with a young innocence, black lashes fluttering against his smooth cheeks. His little hands were clutching an envelope, like the ones Lily used to send her. It wasn't Lily's looping script on the envelope though.
She placed the baby beside her on the loveseat and carefully pried the envelope away from Harry, as he quietly watched her with Lily's unnerving eyes.
"You're sister and her no good husband think they can just leave their son with us? What do we look like? We're good folk, dammit!"
She slipped her finger under the red wax seal as her husband ranted and raved, lifted open the seal and pulled out a piece of paper- parchment, she reminded herself.
No the flowing script wasn't that of her sister's, and she assumed it to be her husband's, James
"I knew that Potter fellow couldn't take care of himself! I knew it from when we met them in that restaurant. Rich my arse! He was probably a drunk!"
Petunia,
I regret to write to you under these circumstances, but you are the only one left to turn to.
As you might have been aware, your sister, Lily, her husband, James, and their son, Harry, were in hiding from a dark wizard named Voldemort. Early yesterday morning, both Lily and James were killed. They were brave and died most honorably. Lily died protecting her son and her courageous last act evoked a powerful magic. Her love and willingness to die for Harry protected him from being killed, and destroyed Voldemort.
While the threat from Voldemort may be gone, Harry is not safe. He is but a child, and you are his only living relative. Lily's love, her sacrifice and protection run through his veins, but he will only be safe from harm if you, his only link to Lily, accept him into your home.
Make a place for him in your house. Treat him like you would your own son. Protect him.
Do not make light of Lily's protection. Do not let her sacrifice be in vain.
In her name, promise to love him, be his family, and keep him from harm's way.
Sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore
Headmaster
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"Can you imagine Petunia? That THING in our house?"
A shudder passed through her as Petunia looked again at the young child. Those eyes, Lily's eyes, which she would never see on her sister again.
No, Petunia didn't get along with her sister, hadn't since she up and left for Hogwarts. Lily was this perfect angel, with gorgeous red hair and captivating green eyes, a brain as big as a library and special talents. Petunia was a girl with stringy blond hair, colorless blue eyes, a neck as long as a horses and no talent. Their parents adored Lily, and they tolerated Petunia. Lily found a boy who was passionately in love with her and Petunia was just lucky to find someone who'd take her. Petunia wanted to be Lily, and she hated the other girl for it. She made Lily's life miserable for it.
A nauseous feeling crept into her stomach. Guilt. She realized it was guilt she was feeling. Guilt for all those years of torment she caused Lily. For shutting her out, for never answering her letters, for not standing up for her and James when Vernon taunted them, for not letting her sister – her only sister – be a bridesmaid at her wedding, for not consoling her when their parents died, for not attending her sister's wedding, for not being a good sister.
And now she was gone.
"I have half a mind to dump it into a trash bin! That little freak shouldn't live in our community, let alone exist in the world."
Make a place for him in your house. Treat him like you would your own son. Protect him.
The words rang through her mind. This little orphan boy had nowhere to go but here. She knew it'd be the right thing to do. To take him in and treat him like her own son Dudley. God, Lily died to save her son's life. How could she cast him out unprotected? It'd be terrible, but then so would living with him, the constant reminder of Lily. Could she stand to look at him, day in and day out and not hate him for being a part of that world that took her sister from her and led Petunia to be worthless?
"THAT'S IT." Vernon roared, "I'm taking it to the orphanage right now. We will not have a no good, rotten-"
Do not let her sacrifice be in vain.
"-dirty, freakish THING in our house. It's leaving right-"
"He stays."
Vernon sputtered, not used to Petunia interrupting him or going against his wishes. "What?"
"He stays here. With us," she repeated, gingerly picking up the child.
"What? What spell have they put on you?" He whispers spell like it's a dirty word.
"None, Vernon. They've died. We're his only relatives. Of course we're going to take him in." She added, almost snidely, "It's what any normal family would do."
There's a moment of shocked silence
"Fine. Fine, fine, fine!" Her husband's face began to turn red. "But I won't tolerate any of his shenanigans. We'll squash it out of him like a bug. I will not have our normal family turned into a freak show."
Vernon continued to rant and rave as she took her nephew to the nursery and placed him next to her own son.
She looked at Harry lying there, side by side with Dudley. No, she'd never be able to love him the way he should be loved. There was too much hatred for his world, too much anger in her heart. But she would protect him from those outside dangers. She'd protect him for Lily.
On that day, November 1, 1981, the normalcy of Number 4 Privet Drive would forever be changed.