London
July 30th

Dear Arthur,

I'm very glad to hear you wrote to McGonagall about teaching Muggle Studies as you would make such a good teacher. Better than that Death Eater, certainly, as you point out.

I haven't decided yet about the lessons. I do keep practicing the spells I know and trying to learn new ones and thinking about all the things I could do.

I've started my divorce proceedings, the papers came in the post yesterday. I suppose I'll have to travel north to give them to Vernon.

Petunia

P.S. I miss you too.

London
July 31

Dear Harry,

Happy birthday.

I can't get you a real present, not knowing what you might like or need, but when you move to your new flat, please count on my help with cleaning and moving. That's still something I can do.

Your Aunt Petunia

The sun warmed Petunia's back so thoroughly that her blouse was beginning to stick. Nervously she shifted the stack of papers she carried in the crook of her arms, safely contained in a file folder, and after a brief moment to steel herself rang the doorbell of the house she had left months before.

After a longish wait, Vernon opened the door. He was still in his striped pyjamas although it was well past noon on this beautiful Sunday. When he saw her he straightened forbiddingly and scowled.

"So," he growled. "You're back, are you?"

Petunia's lips tightened. She had expected him to be angry, of course, so his closed expression of hurt pride was no surprise. Besides, it was better than him abjectly apologising and begging her to return—at least now she had less qualms about saying what needed to be said.

"I'm not back," she said. "I want a divorce."

Vernon's eyes widened. He spluttered indignantly, looked around outside the house and grabbed her wrist.

"Sshhh!" he hissed and pulled her inside before the neighbours could hear. Strange how the thought, once so mortifying as to be debilitating, now had no power over Petunia whatsoever. But she didn't resist, just followed Vernon inside and let the door close behind her.

The hall was filthy. The floor was marked by muddy footsteps, three binliners full of trash were waiting to be taken out, the windows were dingy and the house stank of dirt and sweat. Petunia wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"You must be out of your mind. You can't divorce me," Vernon said, as though stating a self-evident truth. "Just think what that would do to my career!"

"I'm quite certain your career would recover," Petunia sighed and tried not to let the reflexive twinge of guilt prick her too deep.

"And when you come to your senses, you'll see you'd be no better off, either. What would you live on, all by yourself? Someone needs to earn all that money you throw away every month!"

"I have a job," Petunia replied, voice frosty, "and I can live frugally if I choose."

Vernon chewed on his cheek as his scowl deepened. He ran a hand over his combed-over hair. "But you wouldn't have to! I don't understand. We had a good life, and then you were just… gone!" His voice rose into a plaintive squawk.

Petunia cringed as her heart went out to him a little bit. Was it his fault, after all, that she was a different person from who he thought he was marrying? She cast about for something comforting to say when his next words wiped away all sympathy.

"And what about Dudley?" Vernon waved his hands for dramatic effect, missing the vase set on the end pillar of the banister by half an inch. "If you leave him, that makes you an unfit mother and no mistake."

"Dudley's not a child anymore," Petunia snarled.

"And to top it all off, you have no grounds for divorce," Vernon continued, triumphant now that he had hit her square in the most painful spot of her heart. "I haven't deserted you, I haven't been unreasonable—whatever that means—and I've never messed around. So there."

So there. Petunia stared at him in shock as his words sunk in. She had foreseen that this would be difficult, but all her imagined and rehearsed conversations had ended with Vernon acknowledging the impossibility of them ever living together again, and agreeing to file jointly for divorce, or at least not to contest it.

"Then you divorce me," she said. "You have grounds."

Vernon snorted. "Your gallivanting around London isn't desertion, it's just… larks. You'll come back when your money runs out, and it will."

"I make a living on my own. I have a flat of my own," she pointed out heatedly. "I'm not gallivanting, and I do not intend to come back."

"You're back here now," Vernon said as if she had just proved his point. He stalked off into the living-room and flopped down into his favourite chair. "You'll knocking at the door within a month. Or you can stay right now, if you like, save yourself a trip." He took up The Daily Mail and began to read, pretending at nonchalance (betrayed only by the fact that he held it upside down) and left Petunia to choose between a frustrated exit and humiliating capitulation.

She pinched her lips shut, thinking furiously. The one thing that really would make him divorce her would be to tell him she could do magic—but her entire being flinched from the thought of subjecting her newfound, newly mastered abilities to the disgust and scorn that Vernon was bound to exude.

She drew breath for a frustrated sigh, when it hit her that she could tell him something else and it would actually have the desired effect. She breathed out carefully and sat down on the edge of the sofa. Could she say it out loud? Would she dare? She hardly even knew, until the words came out of her mouth.

"I wasn't faithful."

Vernon failed to explode, merely snorted and rustled his paper.

"Did you hear me? I said I've been with someone else," she said, enunciating clearly, determined to get some sort of reaction from him now that the words were really out between them.

"That's just pathetic, making up lies like that," Vernon declared from behind the front page, still upside down. "Or maybe you dreamed it. You're not as young as you used to be, you know."

Petunia did not dignify that with a reply and chose to remember instead Arthur's hands on her skin at Hogwarts two weeks ago, Arthur for whom she did not have to be young, merely herself. All of herself.

Perhaps puzzled by this lack of protest Vernon peered around the edge of the paper and just stared at her with a superior expression for two or three long seconds. "Who's it supposed to be, then?" he finally asked.

"That's my business," she said more calmly than she felt.

Vernon snorted yet again. It made him sound like a pig. "You are making this up."

"An old friend," she snapped, face burning. She fought to meet his gaze evenly. "I met him through Lily and James."

Vernon gasped. Suddenly furious, he shot from his chair, eyes almost popping from his head and his face fire-engine red, as though the very idea was boiling his brain.

"One of THEM?" he roared. He shoved his face right into hers, smelling of stale beer and sweat. Petunia flinched back. "I thought you were different from that sister of yours! After all I've done for you, this is how you repay me?"

She felt fury rise from inside her and fought to keep calm. Quietly she took a few steps back and rummaged in her handbag. Her fingers brushed her wand but she snatched them away—exploding husbands remained a bad idea for all concerned. Instead she took several deep breaths and wordlessly handed Vernon the deceptively light sheaf of divorce application papers.

"All you have to do is sign these. I can fill them in and take them to the post office for you."

Vernon was immediately suspicious. "You're trying to skin me, aren't you?" he said. "Take whatever you can get. It won't work…"

"You can have the house," she interrupted him. "You can have whatever of mine is still here after I leave—I just want some clothes and pictures from upstairs, nothing of value. I don't care. You get everything."

He refused to let her fill in the papers, of course. While he was going through them and sticking check marks and filling in answers with his clumsy fingers, Petunia went upstairs to pack some more clothes, this time making sure to include enough shoes, and searched every single pocket and drawer for the loose change and the occasional banknote she was in the habit of sowing around her habitations. She had taken most of the picture albums when she first left, but she picked up a few more from Dudley's—and Harry's—early years.

On the upstairs landing she glanced at the entrance to the attic and her hand twitched towards the doorknob, but she drew back at the last second. Nothing was there, she had made sure to empty out anything and everything that indicated magic had ever been used there.

When she returned downstairs she found Vernon signing the bottom of the last page.

"And good riddance," he growled as he shoved them at her. "I should never have got involved with a family like yours. Should have known better."

A sharp edge on one of the papers opened a small cut into her index finger. Let Vernon think that the pain on her face was due to her bloodied hand. She opened the door, drowning in a mixture of nostalgia, regret and relief.

"And another thing," Vernon said. "You're a bad influence on Dudley, so don't even think you'll ever see him again!"

"You can't forbid us from meeting!" Petunia gasped. "He's of age."

Vernon leaned closer. "When I tell him what you just told me, do you really think he'll want to see you?" Vernon straightened his back, clearly satisfied. "That's got you!"

It was all she could do not to break down, claim it was all a lie and beg Vernon to take back his words. She thought about the wand in her purse and wished she could use it to fling some ornaments at Vernon's stupid head. The mental image of Gramma's exploding husband that flitted past her eyes again now held a certain charm.

She held in the tears, not wanting to give Vernon the satisfaction of seeing her cry, and kept them back even after the door had closed behind her. On her way to the railway station she spotted a post box and stopped to stuff the divorce papers in the envelope she had brought, written and stamped, and dropped it in the box.

The bus ride to the station felt much longer than it had in the opposite direction. Petunia sat at the back and bit her lip to keep from crying as anger and frustration and fright washed over her. She had thought she had cried herself out before this over her failed marriage, bad judgement and wasted time, but seeing Vernon knocked her over the edge again. And the way he had spoken! Never, not once during all their years together had he let her have the sharp side of his tongue. She had seen it, of course, directed at Harry, and sometimes Dudley, too—as well as countless legions of taxi drivers, cashiers, passersby, Dudley's teachers, colleagues, and basically anyone who crossed or annoyed Vernon—but towards herself he had always behaved more patiently, or at least with more restraint.

On the other hand, it made it easier to leave than weeping apologies would have done. She sighed and wiped a misbehaving tear from the corner of her eye, her resolve steeling. He thought he could keep her from seeing her son? She would have to talk to Dudley before Vernon got a word in, but Dudley would not be a problem, she had always been able to handle him, ultimately.

Hogwarts
August 2

Dear Mrs Dursley,

I must regretfully inform you that, should you decide to accept my offer of lessons here at Hogwarts, we would still be unable to guarantee your safety. The ghost you encountered has not been seen since you left, and we cannot therefore force it to abide by the rules that bind the ghosts of Hogwarts. You will be most welcome here at any time you choose, but I feel bound to make it clear to you that for the time being, you would do so at the risk of life and limb.

We have by no means stopped attempting to apprehend the spirit, and I will inform you immediately if there is any change in the situation.

Yours,

Minerva McGonagall
Headmistress, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

London
August 1

Dear Aunt,

I have the keys to my flat now. If your offer for help still stands, I would very much like it if you could join me in going to Godric's Hollow to look through my parents' house for any usable items.

Yours,

Harry

Hogwarts
August 2

Pet dear,

I got your letter about you meeting Vernon. How are you? I've been sitting here now for two hours trying to think of something to say but I can't. Except maybe congratulations, but that seems a tad premature.

As for myself, it's all official now: I'm the new Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts! I sent off my resignation to the Ministry just now. They'll have to disenchant their fountain pens and uncurse their dining tables without me from now on and I'm sure they're more than capable of that.

Harry says you'll be helping him move—that means we'll definitely see each other in four weeks' time!

I'll be hellishly busy for the three weeks before term starts. I need to pack (actually, can you help? I have no idea what to take!), set a curriculum and a book, plan lessons… Thank heavens Charity kept her paperwork in order, I can use some of her stuff.

A.