Hello, darling readers! This plot bunny grabbed a hold of me a while ago and hasn't let me go since, so I wanted to see what you guys thought. Please leave CONSTRUCTIVE criticisms/reviews/comments in the review section after reading this! AU Warning: Aunt Petunia will be nicer in this story and more willing to bond with Harry, while Harry will be more willing to forgive the Dursleys! If you don't like, DON'T READ! Also, religion will be discussed thoroughly in this story - again, don't like, DON'T READ!

As always, read, enjoy, and review! Thanks!

-Owlix

Chapter One: Small Kindnesses

The hottest day of the summer, August 2nd, dawned too-bright and muggy. A skinny but wiry boy opened his emerald-green eyes abruptly to find himself not in a cold and misty graveyard but in his too-hot bedroom, drenched with sweat for yet another time. Forcing himself to sit up, he ran a shaking hand through his recently shorn black hair. His aunt liked to do that every summer after he came back from school, even though she would only end up scowling at the untameable mop of black about a month later as she cut it back yet again. Thankfully, she cut it the same length all over instead of leaving his bangs to cover his scarred forehead, like she had when he was a child.

He looked up at the window and scowled heavily at what was no doubt another awful day with the most awful people at the most awful place in the world. What he wouldn't give to just fall back into bed and hide from it all, but he knew what waited for him when he slept: a graveyard, a murder, and a resurrection from the point of view of a prisoner and unwilling sacrifice. He looked down and managed to stop himself as his fingers gingerly traced the faint scar on his forearm, just below his elbow, where he'd been bled like a sacrificial lamb for the purpose of bringing one of his worst nightmares back to life.

"BOY!"

He was pulled out of his dark thoughts by the sound of his uncle bellowing like a grouchy old bull at him. The boy sighed, knowing that his uncle wanted his breakfast and that it meant he'd slept late again. Knowing there was nothing for it, he quickly changed into a more-or-less clean set of clothes and quietly went downstairs to help his aunt with breakfast.

His aunt did the majority of the cooking, since she and her husband believed that cooking was mainly a woman's job, but whenever his aunt needed something extra or particularly nasty to be done, he was supposed to do it. His jobs mainly consisted of minding the food as his aunt took care of other things, retrieving pots and pans and other items out of the cupboards, getting the food from the kitchen to the table, cleaning up any messes left behind at the table, and washing the mountain of dishes that always resulted from every meal. It was rare that he got to eat at the table with the rest of the family, but then again, he had never really felt like part of the family.

You see, the boy's parents were murdered when he was about a year old, leaving his aunt and uncle as the only members of his blood-related family still alive to raise him. They took him in reluctantly, no doubt pacified into tolerating him by some form of monetary compensation that was supposed to be spent on him instead of their own doltish son, and raised him as a burden that was meant to earn his keep. He "earned his keep" by doing all the chores his uncle and cousin wouldn't or couldn't do. When he was young, that would mean helping his aunt clean the house, mainly scrubbing the tiles and wooden floors as well as beating the various rugs, polishing the wooden banisters, and scrubbing each bathroom until they sparkled. As he grew older, his list of chores grew to include various outdoor chores like mowing the lawn, weeding the flowerbeds, and washing his uncle's car.

As you could probably imagine, the boy wasn't very happy with his aunt and uncle at all. He likely wouldn't have known what true happiness was if the letters hadn't started coming. Despite the fact that the boy's uncle would always burn or rip the letters to pieces whenever they came through the door, the letters kept coming until one was finally hand-delivered directly to the boy and catapulted him into the greatest adventure of his life.

One where he found out that he was special, that his parents hadn't died in a car crash, that people actually wanted to be friends with him ...

And that magic was real.

The boy's name was Harry Potter.

Harry Potter was a wizard.

And, as his friend Hagrid had warned him long ago, not all wizards were good.

Harry fully realized that when he came face-to-face with the wizard who murdered his parents during his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The wizard's name was Lord Voldemort, and he soon became obsessed with killing Harry. The only year Harry hadn't met Voldemort face-to-face so far was his third year, but that was a mad enough year already.

A little more than a month before, Voldemort managed to find a way to regain the strength he'd mysteriously lost when he'd tried to kill baby Harry after killing Harry's parents. Voldemort had done so by using the bones of his murdered father, the flesh of the one servant he'd latched on to over the past year, and blood forcibly taken from Harry's arm. On top of that, Voldemort had made his servant murder one of Harry's classmates right in front of him and then had forced Harry to duel him in hopes of killing him before the followers he'd called to his side. Harry had barely escaped with his life and had thankfully managed to bring the body of his dead classmate back to Hogwarts, but the damage had been done.

And now, here he was, stuck back with his "family", doing chores and being forced to listen to under-handed and blatant insults toward his magic, his parents, and his mysterious behaviour at night, among other things.

"Get the mail, boy," his Uncle Vernon grunted through his eggs.

Harry looked up from the dishes for a moment before realizing what his uncle had said and deciding it wasn't worth arguing about. He knew better than to look for his name in the mail, knowing no one outside the Magical world would actually write to him. Out here, he was a scruffy-looking nobody who went to this school for criminal boys. He trudged back to the kitchen sink and began scrubbing the remains of a meal that he wouldn't get to taste today.

A few minutes went by rather peacefully before Aunt Petunia let out the strangest noise. It sounded like she was being choked by the gasp of air she suddenly pulled into her lungs. All of the other eyes in the room looked straight at her and knew something was very wrong. Aunt Petunia's already-large eyes were almost bugging out of her now-porridge-coloured face as she stared in abject horror at the letter in her hand.

"It cannot be ..." she gasped before passing the letter to Uncle Vernon, who stared at the letter in confusion before reading it. His puce-coloured face quickly shrank and turned the same colour as Aunt Petunia's, so quickly that Harry was surprised he didn't faint dead away.

When Uncle Vernon was done with the letter, he gingerly set it down, as if it was a time bomb about to explode, and looked at his wife to ask, "What is to be done, Petunia?"

Aunt Petunia was quiet for a long time before whispering, "I'll have to see her. There's nothing for it ... Margaret is like your sister's dogs, won't let go when she has hold of something ... oh, that poor child!"

"The child?!" Vernon cried, seeming affronted. "She's one of ... of his kind!" He pointed over his shoulder at Harry, whose interest was immediately peaked. "By George, Petunia! Your poor sister at the mercy of one of them? It's no wonder she went loopy!"

"Vernon, don't say that!" Aunt Petunia cried, her eyes filling with tears.

"Huh?" her son Dudley said, looking more confused than usual.

"Sister?" Harry asked, loudly enough to be sure he was heard. "My mum's dead!"

"Oh, don't be stupid, boy!" Aunt Petunia shrilled. "You think I don't know that?!" She sat back down to get herself under control, taking in deep, trembling breaths as she looked straight at Harry. Finally, she stood up, looking very determined.

"We are going to have tea with her," she said to the family, holding a hand up to keep Uncle Vernon from speaking. "We are leaving at half-past three. Make sure you're all presentable. That includes you, boy," she said to Harry.

"But who is she?" Harry asked, not willing to let this go. "Who are we going to see?!"

Aunt Petunia got a familiar look on her face, one that looked like she was sucking a lemon out of pure spite, before marching over and grabbing Harry's shoulder, dragging him into the back yard and shutting the door before Uncle Vernon and Dudley could follow.

"Pay attention, boy, for I won't say this again!" Aunt Petunia said, sounding like she was trying to shout as quietly as possible. "Lily was not my only sister. We had an elder sister named Daisy. She was ... very passionate about religion, even before Lily began ... changing. Lily's strangeness, however ... pushed poor Daisy over the edge. She spent almost all her time reading the Bible and praying and preaching to us, going on and on about how we were prideful and let the Devil into our home. She said more than once that we were all going to Hell for sheltering a ... a w-w-witch.

"The week ... the week before she moved out, she ... slipped something into Lily's tea." Aunt Petunia's voice went thin and frail, as if she were remembering something awful. "She admitted it to me later. Lily was fine at first, but then ... she kept getting headaches and upset stomachs and dizziness. It kept getting ... worse and worse until ... until she fell and cracked her head open on the coffee table!" Aunt Petunia spit out that last phrase in a rush, like she was confessing to doing something horrible.

"In the hullaballoo, we didn't even see Daisy leave," she continued, starting to shake like a leaf as Harry stared in horror at her. "Before we knew it, she had changed her name to Margaret and married some ... preacher-man named Ralph White before moving to America, of all places! Lily survived, obviously, but she had problems with sudden dizzy spells after that. She was only fifteen ... just like you ...

"Anyway, Margaret wrote me around Christmas that year and said that they were married, her and Ralph. Every Christmas, Margaret would send me a letter and let me know that she was alive and still married. Then, before Dudley was born, I got a letter almost a month late saying that Ralph had ... 'taken' her ... and left her because ... because 'the Devil had taken root' inside of her. The following Christmas, I got a baptismal picture along with the letter ... a picture of a little girl named Carrietta. Carrietta Nigella White ...

"I've watched Carrietta grow over the years from a ... b-beautiful little girl to a ... rather unfortunate-looking young woman. With each picture I receive of her, she seems to ... shrink in on herself. Margaret would tell me about her, little things ... she likes sewing ... she sings like a silver flute ... things like that.

"I fear for that girl, raised under Margaret's thumb. Over the years, Margaret's letters have gotten ... more erratic. I truly wonder if there is something ... wrong with Margaret, and for that, I want to get Carrietta away from Margaret. The only thing is ... Carrietta can ... move things, by wishing it. I remember when Lily would do that when we were children. I think ... she may be one of you, one that gained her ... powers late, Lily said it happened sometimes. If ... if we can get Carrietta out, then ... maybe you can ... hide her with ... w-with your kind, where Margaret cannot find her. It would be best, I think ... for Carrietta ..."

Harry stared at his aunt in absolute shock. He'd never heard her talk this much about her family, not even on the day he'd finally received his Hogwarts letter. That night, she'd gone into an almost hysterical rant about Harry's mother, and not a word about that episode had been said since. Now, Harry knew that there was one more family he could have gone to, and from what Aunt Petunia had told him, he was almost thankful that he had come to the Dursleys instead of to the Whites.

A part of him wanted to tell Aunt Petunia where she could shove her request, but the idea of a young witch out there, alone and frightened and unaware of where her powers came from, made him think of his friend Hermione Granger. She had come from a Muggle family, too, and her powers no doubt frightened her family at first, before someone had come and explained everything. If Hogwarts helped Hermione, Harry reasoned, then maybe it can help Carrietta as well.

"You want me to be ready by half-past three?" Harry asked.

Aunt Petunia simply nodded, looking like she was telling herself to not dare to hope.

Harry nodded back and simply said, "I'll be ready."

Aunt Petunia stared at him in surprise and ... was that delight?!

"Oh, thank you!" she gasped, completely forgetting herself for a moment and wrapping her arms around Harry for the first time since he learned to walk. Harry stood there in shock for a moment, but before he could hold her back, she let him go and hurried inside, throwing something about getting ready over her shoulder.

Harry stood there for the longest time, memorizing the way it felt for a family member to hold him close. It didn't feel like he felt a mother's hug would, but something about it felt ... right.

Harry realized that he had spent so long looking for family outside of the Dursleys that he hadn't realized what he did have when he was with them. Yes, they weren't kind to him. Yes, they never really loved him. Yes, they were sometimes downright cruel to him. But they were his family, and they were the only connection he really had to his mother. He didn't know if he could forgive Uncle Vernon or Dudley, but he did know right then that he could forgive Aunt Petunia, who always had made sure he'd had something to eat and something to wear and someplace to sleep, even if they weren't of the same quality as what she gave Dudley. He wouldn't excuse what she had done, but if she was capable of small kindnesses, maybe she could do more.