A/N: One-shot, content not my usual. I do not own HP, JKR does. But I don't even think she'd recognize her characters in this.
Summary: Severitus with a twist. A man who resembles Harry has been stalking Ginny all her life. With Lily dead from a car crash, it is up to Petunia to fulfill her sister's wishes. Each and every one of them. Letters from Lily and James are passed between Ginny and Harry as they attempt to unravel the past. But who is lying? And who is sane?
Warnings: Nonmagical AU and OOC.
General Note: Vernon sort of doesn't exist, and neither does Dudley. There is a nonmagical Hogwarts where James and Lily went to school. Petunia lives in an apartment building.
Petunia's Keeper
Dear Aunt Petunia,
I know you say this isn't healthy, that I should move on, but I can't. I've been going through Mom and Dad's old things—and before you say that this also isn't helping me to move on, I assure you it is. I found a box of old letters to Mom from Dad. I feel as if the rest of the correspondence got separated and that you must have the other half. If you could please send me the letters, that would be nice.
Yours truly,
Harry
Petunia folded up the letter, peering over her reading glasses at the street below. It had been a year since her sister, Lily, and her brother-in-law, James Potter had gotten into that car crash. It had been a truly dreadful experience, all smoke and flames, plastered all over the 6pm news like the weather and the traffic. Of course, Harry had been hit the hardest, being their only son. He had come back from work a changed man and then had opted to live in his dead godfather's home, never to return to his childhood home ever again. But Petunia still lived in Flat 601, at the same table, with the same pleated yellow curtains over the windows. And the same…oh, she didn't let herself think of that.
She watched as a woman, her tenant in fact, crossed the street, hair in bun and phone in hand. Ginny was nice enough, Petunia wouldn't have minded her if Harry had just persisted. Petunia pursed her lips. The woman was coming up the stairs, loud and creaky enough for the whole building to hear. She might have been entering her flat now, throwing her large black handbag onto the couch with the afghan and kicking off her shoes. No, Ginny would have stepped out of them, set up neatly on their little rug, or shoe rack. Come to think of it, Petunia hadn't paid a personal visit to flat 501 in a while. Maybe it was time to change that. And Petunia did oh-so-love rubbernecking.
.oOo.
The photos engulfed him. Rolls of negatives wrapped snugly in their isolated capsules were shoved into boxes with free floating polaroid images. Some had red pencil scrawled on the back from 1950 with some names and places, but mostly no captions could contain the content, and so there was nothing written on the backs. Within the first few months, the boxes had been opened, slowly and reverently. Boxes of knickknacks and little nothings, old baby toys that were mostly dust, and old documents that someone had saved for such a time, he was sure, as this. Harry Potter sifted through the debris—that was what they called it after a catastrophe, wasn't it?—promising himself to later put things in a scrapbook or possibly just hide them back in their boxes, shut the door and throw away the key. The task was larger than life, memories looming over him, and the future just out of reach, a sort of taunting mess. And of course, the doubt.
.oOo.
Dear Harry,
Aunt Petunia, or maybe I should say your Aunt Petunia, paid me a visit today. Of course I thought it was something to do with the rent, but after inviting herself into my flat-which I really appreciated since it was a wreck-she told me some very interesting news. You see, I'm not particularly proud of the way I ended our engagement, and I mean that very literally, but I'm also not very impressed with the way you turned tail and ran. You haven't been up here in over a year. A year. Might I remind you there is only an hour drive separating your home from mine, or what used to be yours, and could have been ours? Needless to say your Aunt isn't happy. So she's made a plan, and it involves me. Have I mentioned yet how much I think of her tact? I've got your mother's letters. All of them. Do I think it's heartless to keep them ransom? Sure, but feel free to come up here and grab them yourself. But we all know you won't do that because you're a coward.
I'm sorry. That was too far. You're in mourning. It's been a year. There's no time-limit, etc. But I made a mistake once and let fear control my life. I won't let this opportunity pass. You won't return my calls, letters, emails, messages…I shouldn't need to remind you. You forget they were like my parents too. So if you want these letters, we're doing it my way.
Lots of love,
Ginny
P.S. The first letter is included.
.oOo.
LETTER ONE
LILY TO JAMES
Dear James,
We've been dating for over a year, and you know how much my mom just wants to wrap you in a bow and keep you forever—and how much my dad would like to kill you. I'm kidding of course, you know he actually liked you this past week. I don't know what's come over him, but I'm pretty positive reality is seeping in. Pretty hard not to with mom picking out the wedding invitations already—and you've yet to pop the question.
I'm not telling you to get a move on, but seriously, James, speed it up. I'm worried Petunia will start getting her hopes up again that you'll pick her just as you did for prom. She's practically drooling over you, I mean, who isn't?
See you next week,
Lily
.oOo.
Dear Aunt Petunia,
I don't even have the words to express how disappointed I am with you. That is all.
Harry
.oOo.
"So what, she just came in here and handed you a box of her dead sister's old letters? That is so creepy, Gin."
Ginny made a face, "Have some respect for the dead, won't you? It was Aunt Lily and Uncle James who died."
"But not your real Aunt and Uncle, right?"
"No."
The two women were seated at the Leaky Cauldron, a local hub for their small town, which was thankfully big enough that they never saw the same people every day. Ginny had ordered a turkey BLT with some lemonade sure to rot her teeth, while Hermione had opted for some super frapped-whipped-ultra-fluffed chocolate monstrosity which was doing a number on her sleep-deprived headache.
"Honestly, okay, Hermione, you have to give me your honest opinion, what do you think I should do? You know what happened with Harry. You know I really really liked him."
Hermione took a long sip of her drink. "I just don't get it. If you liked him, why would you call it off?"
"I—" Ginny frowned. "I…don't really, remember?"
"I'm sorry. Are you asking me or telling me?"
"Neither! It's just—Look, it's sort of a complicated topic for me right now. I just know that I started getting these really weird ideas after I started hanging around him again."
"When?" Hermione asked without skipped a beat, "When you were dating or now?"
"Dating."
"Go on."
"Well, you know I've lived in the same flat forever. Only, my parents and brothers just moved out about seven years ago. The Evans have been really great, like family and all, but that's beside the point. I feel that when I was younger I was always being watched, like a good kind, maybe. I felt like I had a guardian angel when I was really younger. I forgot about that feeling for years until Harry and I started getting involved, you know. And then it came back, that feeling, except it was tinged, and eerie, and it got worse the closer we got."
Hermione nodded before grasping her head, "Haha, brainfreeze. Sorry, continue, I'm listening."
Ginny sighed. "I don't know. So that's the whole story."
"No, wait, go back. I really am interested, really. You know I can't control my brain freeze."
"Alright. But really that's all there is. I got a weird feeling of being watched when we got closer, I cut off the engagement, his parents died, he's been in a one year depression-isolation, and now this."
Hermione let out a short laugh, "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"
Ginny shrugged. "Too late now."
.oOo.
Dear Ginny,
I think I made it clear enough that you didn't need to have a reason for cutting off our relationship. You freaked, pre-wedding jitters and all that, and I was just absorbed in…other things. You know my mom was rooting for this marriage all along, but sometimes things don't go the way we planned.
I want to be mad at both of you right now, and believe me, I am. I sent a very short and pointed letter to Aunt Petunia, but unless she's changed, and I really doubt she has, she won't care one whit about my feelings. Still, I could be a lot madder and I'm a little surprised I'm not, because what you're doing is cruel. I don't care if my mom let you call her 'Aunt Lily' or not, she's still my mother and those letters belong to me. It frustrates me that you can't see why I can't just waltz back into that place like nothing ever happened. Things happened, Ginny. Big things, life things! I can't fathom how Aunt Petunia can even stand to be in the same damn building we all lived in, living her carefree life like she's some sort of saint. Did I ever ask her to crusade around, throwing away love letters on some fancy that she's creating my happiness? I have half a mind to march up there right now and take them from you. But as you say, I'm a coward. I know, I know, you didn't mean it that way. And yes, even now, I don't think I will ever set foot in that room again, but I hope it won't always be like this.
Yours,
Harry
P.S. I know you're curious, so here's what my dad, your 'Uncle James,' wrote back.
.oOo.
LETTER TWO
JAMES TO LILY
Dear my beloved Lily,
I love you more than the entire world. You know this. Even when you are gone, I feel your presence here beside me. It could not have been my imagination then that something has shifted within you. I didn't mean to scold you for disrespecting your sister. If I could rephrase it, I would only say that your sister obviously adores you more than the whole world and then some. She is not trying to steal me away, my sweet. But maybe, perhaps, there is something else?
I am not an unintelligent man, my love. I will love Harry no matter what, despite what his father thinks. Why else would he follow me, day and night, becoming my shadow? Unless of course, it is me you do not trust.
Your husband,
James
.oOo.
Ginny knocked nervously on Aunt Petunia's flat door. There was the sound of a scurry inside, a sort of scuffle of shoes against the wood as if in haste, before the door was opened to the smiling face of Aunt Petunia.
"Come in, come in, Ginny. How nice of you to visit."
The older woman gestured for Ginny to make herself feel at home inside the spacious flat, but Ginny stood by the door, frigidly.
"Do you have company?" Ginny asked, hearing the odd creak of the floor once again. "I can come back another time—"
"No, it's just the rats and old Aunt Petunia. Come in! Tell me how the plan's going. He's answering, isn't he?"
Ginny nodded, seating herself on the couch.
"Harry's writing back, yes."
"Yes, and—?"
"I'm just not so sure this is the best way to rekindle what we had lost."
Petunia pursed her lips and nodded her head, slowly, up and down.
"I hear you. It seems sudden and weird. He's not the same man that you have known."
"Exactly."
"But let me finish," Aunt Petunia said in a calm voice, "some news cannot be broken quickly. Some things need to be heard slowly, carefully. Dosed out with love and support."
Ginny shifted uneasily, covering it with a slight shiver. From around the corner, a floorboard groaned.
"Are you cold in here?" Petunia asked suddenly.
Ginny looked around her for a blanket. "A little…" she admitted.
"I'll be right back. Stay right here. I'll go get you some blankets."
"No, it's alright. I'm fine, really."
Petunia turned around, mid-step, "I insist," she said with a glint in her eye, and disappeared around the corner.
Ginny waited with baited breath, looking around the room with the feeling one might have when they are a ghost that floats back to life. This room, with its yellow curtains and brittle porcelain saucers and faint smell of cigarette smoke brought forth memories of a Thanksgiving dinner between Ginny's family and Harry's. Passing around sliced turkey and fresh-out-of-the-can cranberry sauce, while Aunt Lily, with her sharp green eyes shot to something in the distance, just out of sight, around the corner. Aunt Lily had the type of ice in her eyes that could freeze a soul. Ginny shivered just thinking about it.
"Here." Petunia threw the heavy emerald green blanket at her as she marched into the room with the grace of an elephant. "This one was your Aunt Lily's favorite blanket. She always knew how to pick them."
The blanket gave off a slight warmth as if a warm body had been cocooned in it a second before. Maybe it was Lily's in her coffin.
.oOo.
Dear Harry,
I know things in the past have not worked out as well as we'd hope, but do not for one second lump me in with your Aunt. She's trying to give you the gift of happiness, although the impression I'm getting is that she wants to give your mother the gift of giving you happiness. Me? Well, I have my own reasons. For one, I'm still in love with you. I know you're too wrapped up in your grieving to give it much thought, but I need to come clean with you. I was scared and that's why I ended our relationship. Silly, I know.
Have you ever felt like you were being watched by a guardian angel? Some benevolent being that just stays out of sight, around the corner…I remember from my childhood a feeling like that. It got worse as we spent more and more time together and I—I'm not sure I can tell you exactly what I felt uneasy about. I had put off the unease as a childhood imagining, but yesterday I visited your Aunt, my Aunt Petunia, and she seemed to have company. And then last night, I was walking back from the convenience store and I saw man with a plain grey cap watching me. I swear he followed me into the building and everything. I know this is quite a leap to make, but I think he was Petunia's house guest…and, he looked like you.
Ginny
.oOo.
LETTER THREE
LILY TO JAMES
Dear James,
Your fears are unfounded. Harry is yours, ours, and has my eyes and your hair. There is nothing else to say except to say that you are silly. That man you mention is my sister's partner in life. His name is Severus and he's a bit shy. I would not recommend that you meet him any time soon because of his…issues. You see, Severus was born with a severe case of social anxiety. I'll be sure to mention to Petunia to keep him well away. We wouldn't want him to get the wrong impression, would we? What would he think if you came in and accused him of committing a crime he did not commit? You'll find no emblazed letter on either of us, although you're welcome to check.
Yours forever,
Lily
.oOo.
Dear Ginny,
I'm coming to visit.
Harry
.oOo.
Harry twisted his shirt in his hands, an old habit from when he was four, as he waited for the door to open. Nervously, he licked his lips, hoping that Ginny was the same as he remembered. Brown hair, brown eyes, and the scent of lavender room spray. The door opened softly.
"Hi," Ginny said, standing in the opening wearing a floral-patterned dress. She had an open, hopeful expression in her eyes, though she tried to keep her expectations intact.
Harry returned a small smile, "Hi."
They stood like that, in the hallway of the flat building, breathing in the same stale air. Harry shifted his weight from foot to foot, hoping he didn't look too nervous. This was his one time fiancée after all. They were hardly strangers.
"You look…nice," Harry stuttered awkwardly. "Can I come in? For…a moment. Just to catch a breath before we go in. Or, er, up I should say," he smiled. He pointed to the ceiling where Aunt Petunia resided.
Ginny nodded and opened the door wider. "You look like you haven't been taking care of yourself and then got showered just for me," she said evenly. She wasn't trying to be funny about it, even if it did come out a little sharp.
"Ha, thanks."
"I mean it," Ginny said mildly. She levelled him with a glance. "I thought you weren't going to return to this, and I quote, goddamn building."
Harry shrugged. "That was before, when I was in mourning for my mother and my…father."
They were silent for a while. He cleared his throat.
"We should go," Ginny said. It was clear there was nothing else to say to stall the inevitable confrontation with Harry's aunt.
"I haven't seen her in so long," Harry said lowly, almost to himself, as they walked up the stairs.
"She looks the same, long grey hair in a ponytail with a bandana headband," Ginny said.
They neared the door and stopped on the welcome mat. Cautiously, Harry knocked.
In an instant, the door had swung open, but instead of Aunt Petunia, there was a man. He had a heavily lined face and a black cap. His dark eyes seemed to double in size as they took in Ginny and then finally her companion.
"Harry," the man breathed in wonder, before the shock took him over and he scurried from the door as if called away.
Suddenly, Aunt Petunia was in their faces, her eyes a little crazed and a little sad. "I see you finally met your father, Severus. I see she finally told you about him!"
Bewildered, Harry was easily guided to a seat in the kitchen where Petunia had some biscuits and cookies on a platter. The two guests lowered themselves into the chairs they had sat in in holidays past, unsure of what they had just seen.
"Who was that?" Ginny demanded when it was clear the man was not going to return. "How long have you been living with that man?"
Harry's brain was on overload. He could not think enough to ask a full question, so he grabbed a biscuit and chewed mindlessly.
"Ahh," Petunia smiled, "Don't you see the brilliance of it? The irony?"
Ginny cocked her head to the side. Her eyes cut like steel. "I want answers. You owe your nephew some answers. You owe me an explanation for whatever this is. He is the man that has been shadowing me my whole life and you never thought to say anything?"
Petunia seized up. "It wasn't like that. It wasn't like that!" she moaned.
"Then what was it? Tell me what it was like!" Ginny looked expectantly at her companion. "Harry?"
The man raised his head. "He was my father?"
He looked so heartbroken and lost that Ginny wanted to roll him up in silk threads and tell him everything was going to be alright.
"Yes, Severus was-is your biological father, Harry." Petunia shut her eyes, "But you need to understand, it wasn't easy for us. No, it wasn't easy. Your mother, Lily. Oh, she didn't want James to know, not at all, and she didn't want you to know either, Harry, so she told me to make sure he didn't meet you. Well, I said, what if he already knew of your existence? What would be the point then? And Lily said she supposed it would be alright then."
"So he stalked me," Ginny marveled.
"Correction, I watched over my son and you happened to be his best friend."
Everyone turned towards the voice. Severus was walking towards them, his steps sure and steady. He sat down at the kitchen table right beside Aunt Petunia, and reached for a chocolate chip cookie as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do so. Maybe it was.
"And thought that perhaps if you saw me often enough, Harry would catch on or maybe you would mention me to him," Severus said stonily. "But you never did. It was too much to ask for and fate has not been known to favor me."
"You have to understand," Aunt Petunia said, "Your mother gave us strict orders never to tell you any of this."
"So why are you?" Harry demanded. "You left me to mourn a stranger. A year of my life, gone, wasted!"
"But he was your father in all the ways it counted," Severus stated. "What were we to do? Declare ourselves like a jack-in-a-box. Surprise! Now that your dad's dead, he's a secret for you? Even we knew enough to not do that."
"And really, Harry," Aunt Petunia continued, "You knew what your mother was like. You knew how much she wanted things done her way! When she died, I just felt it would blight her image to unravel all she had done the instant her body went cold. She tried her hardest to keep you believing you were a perfectly normal, desired little boy and not some bastard child out of wedlock."
"Hey!" Ginny stood up.
"Ginny," Harry pleaded.
"No, this is insane!" Ginny said. "I can't do this anymore. You knew this, Aunt Petunia, you knew this and you set me up! I'm—"
She made to leave in a huff of anger, rolling off of her like smoke.
"Don't. It's what she wants." Severus reached for another cookie.
"What do you mean?" Ginny asked, leaning against the back of the couch. "It's what who wants?"
"Who wants anything?" Petunia asked, "Lily. Your mother, Harry, you have to believe me, was every bit as loving and caring and kind as you remember her to be, but there were other parts to her too. Darker parts. She wanted you all to herself. She always wanted everything to herself…"
Ginny slowly returned to the table.
"My mom wanted to keep Severus away from me…and even Ginny," Harry said. "She must have known what Severus was doing. How he was scaring her away by watching her, day and night. She might have even sent him."
"I wasn't ordered," Severus denied, glancing swiftly at Petunia. "I just got desperate. You spent all your time with Ginny s I thought, how else were you going to learn of me? So I did what I had to do."
"But I got scared and left…" Ginny whispered.
Petunia nodded slowly. "I just wanted you all to be happy. I'm sorry I set you up, Ginny. I just didn't have it in me to tell you, either of you, of what was really going on. I thought—I thought that if you were able to hear it from Lily's own hand, you'd be able to understand how sick she was. Please believe me, there was nothing I could do. She would have flown into a fury if she suspected Severus was trying to make contact. And I loved Lily, still do. How could I say no to her? Especially when you were growing up so quickly. How could I tell a toddler, a seven-year-old, a twenty-something young man that his mother had arranged for you to be kept away from your biological father?"
Ginny shook her head. This didn't make sense. Aunt Petunia was insisting that she had had no power in the situation. Severus had even allowed himself to be shut out from the relationship he could have had with his son, and had opted instead to stalk the best friend of his son under the watchful eye of Aunt Petunia. Something wasn't making sense. But looking at Petunia and seeing that genuine spark in her eyes scared Ginny more than anything else, because it was a look of earnest, a look that said she did everything she could, and that she firmly and madly believed it.
"You've been living with Aunt Petunia for how long now?" Harry asked, reaching for another biscuit.
A corner of Severus's lip lifted up. "About ten years now. We're in a relationship of sorts, though not married."
Petunia smiled brightly, reaching over and touching Severus on the shoulder. "I guess it's a sort of Stockholm, eh? The type of love that grows over time."
Severus laughed without humor. "Indeed. Two idiots who couldn't figure out commitment could hardly raise a child—"
Petunia flinched.
"Whose child?" Ginny asked slowly.
The world seemed to freeze.
"Oh, now you've done it!" Petunia screeched. "Get out! Get out! Shoo! Shoo!"
Harry began to hyperventilate.
"Go," Petunia moaned in agony, "Please just leave me in peace!"
Severus was calm and collected as he stood up. "Go," he said in a deep authoritative voice, "I'll take care of her. Go! Out, now!"
Fear filled Ginny's eyes. She tugged soon Harry's sleeve, but he wouldn't budge, rooted was he to the kitchen chair, unable to understand the world as he knew it.
"I just wanted you to be happy!" Petunia whined as she collapsed in Severus's arms. He hugged her tightly around the waist. "Be happy!"
It was clear from Severus's suddenly more powerful stance and Petunia's quickly diminishing control that despite appearances, Severus was Petunia's keeper and not the other way around. Maybe it was even Stockholm syndrome. A chill swept through the room, a frosty breath on the nape of Ginny's neck that whispered the name of Lily.
"Let's go," Ginny urged, a note of desperation in her voice. "Harry! Harry!"
It was all too much. The ringing in his ears, the sights before him, the screams and pleads. He became a deadweight, not dead, just asleep…
Severus had successfully maneuvered Petunia into the bedroom and was at that very moment calming down her hysteria. Despite just meeting the man, Ginny was sure that Severus was the only sane one in the family, even if he had once been her guardian angel. But then again, maybe it was too soon to tell. She contemplated this as she dragged Harry's body out of the room, down the steps and into her flat. She kissed his blue-tinged lips and even his shut eyelids and slipped into bed bedside him.
After all, she thought as she felt his still beating heart, she just wanted him to be happy.
A/N: Not my usual, but I had this weird plot bunny that just would not leave. Please let me know what you think. I'd love to get some feedback and loveletters or even hatemail just like Harry received... ;)