Lily Evans Potter wasn't particularly close to her older sister-this being on a good day-and the two hadn't spoken three words to each other in the past five years ("Congrats) being the only one she could remember in part because she had been the one to say it) but she felt now was as good of a time as any to call her sister.
"Hello?" Lily had hoped she had dialed the right number. She could never seem to- "Oh hi Petunia." Lily finally said when she heard her sister's familiar light, yet raspy voice.
She heard a boy screaming in the background. It had almost slipped her mind that Harry and her sister's son would be roughly the same age. "Is that Dudley?" Her sister let out a loud moan.
"What do you want?" Petunia asked in a tone that slightly unnerved Lily but brought her mind back to the real reason she had called.
"Petunia, there is a man out to kill Harry, my son. I know it sounds mad but James and I are determined not to let the man kill Harry," Lily let out a resigned sigh, "Even if that means he has to kill us." Lily knew her sister would want details-she would too had she been in her sister's place-but there wasn't time and she was sure Albus Dumbledore would explain everything when he felt the time was right.
"Where do I come into this?" her sister asked, even less amused than before.
Lily shook her head. She had long dreaded this part of the conversation. "In the event that the man doesn't kill Harry but kills James and me, we want you and your husband to raise him. We have talked it over with Albus Dumbledore-a friend of ours-and when that time comes, he will deliver Harry to your doorstep with a note attached. Give this note to Harry as soon as he reaches a certain age. Do you understand?" Lily doubted her sister would understand. Hell, Lily was confused by the topic herself. She knew He was twisted but would he really kill a baby? Was He that ignorant to think that a baby might grow up to overpower him? Even after Albus telling her, she still couldn't wrap her head around the subject.
She heard her sister sigh yet again at the other end. "Why can't he just go to live with that freak you just mentioned? Or perhaps another freak you know?" Lily considered bashing her head into the phonebox at her own sister's ignorance.
"Our world is far too dangerous for Harry. Albus will explain it to you when he feels the need to. Now do you understand?" Had Lily not been faced with her own mortality in the space of a year at just the age of twenty, she would've cried. It was hard to cry when Death was staring right at you.
"Yes, Lily. Now can you hang the phone up? My son needs me." Lily hung up the phone thinking that her son needed her in ways she hoped that little Dudley would never need Petunia.
Neither woman could've ever guessed that this would be the last time they would talk.
In the coming months, Petunia would occasionally laugh about this incident. Her sister had always been a little bit of a nutter. This was probably just one of her episodes. A man wanting to kill a baby, really? And for all Lily knew-that naïve girl-that Door guy could've been the one plotting to murder Henry. Or Herald. Whatever his name was. He could've been pretending to be close to Lily just so he could get to her son and was just using the other man as an exs-Petunia shook her head. She really did spend too much time watching crime dramas on the telly.
Nonetheless, she was still surprised when she went to put out her family's empty milk bottles and instead found a baby with her sister's green eyes staring at her from a small basket.
The man had done it whether Petunia could grasp it or not. He had tried to kill her sister's son and had instead killed her and the boy's dad.
"Vernon!" She shouted, unsure what else to say or think. Her sister was dead and now Petunia Dursley of Number Four Privet Drive was left to raise her sister's son.
One thing was for certain, the Dursleys would no longer be the ordinary family Petunia had longed for since she was 13.