It had been four years since Henry and Petunia had first met on that cold night in September and quite a lot had changed since then. For one thing they'd left the big city for the quiet suburbs of Winchester. For another Henry had completed his studies and become a dentist. And last but not least, they were married now.
Their life was, in many respects a completely normal one. They had a nice house, a car and a little baby girl named Hermione, who they thought was sure to grow up to be the best and the cleverest person there ever was. And on this particular morning there was even less reason to believe that anything unusual was going to happen than there normally was. No special events were planned, nothing important was in the news and the weather was dismally cold and grey.
The only unusual thing that they were connected to in any way was the Potters. The Potters were their relatives, Petunia's sister, her husband and their baby son. The Potters were involved in many unusual things that neither Granger could discuss in public without fear of being sectioned. Petunia and her sister had a long running feud which shocked Henry in its length and viciousness. It had been very difficult to persuade Petunia to attempt to make amends but he'd worked on it for a while. Nobody should have such a hatred of their own flesh and blood.
It seemed to have worked, at least for now. Petunia was never going to be close to her sister- too much had passed between them for that. Nevertheless they were on reasonably cordial terms and both couples had attended the others wedding and received the usual assortment of birthday and Christmas cards. They hadn't heard from the Potters in a long time- they'd run into some serious trouble and had to go into hiding.
Still the Potters were the furthest thing from his mind as he climbed down the stars to start his day. He greeted Petunia warmly, he played with Hermione and marvelled at her continued development and finally he sat down to eat his breakfast and read the paper. What he saw in the paper did not meet with his approval "unemployment up again!" he griped "bloody Tories! They don't care about the working man Petunia, not one jot". "Yes dear, you're quite right" replied Petunia rather absentmindedly as she bent to feed Hermione. When he'd finished his breakfast Henry kissed his wife and his daughter goodbye and went off to work. If he'd left a little earlier, he might have noticed the parliament of owls flying over his house.
The first sign that that day might turn out to be a little stranger than he thought was when he turned the corner and saw a cat reading a map. Naturally this struck him as a very strange occurrence but he was too busy driving to go and investigate. And truth be told it seemed to him that there was a perfectly rational explanation for this – someone had dropped a map of the street on the floor and the cat had happened to be nearby. He had a little laugh and continued on his way.
Once he arrived at the dentist's he settled down and got to work. He dealt with several patients, none of whom required anything more difficult than a filing. It was while he was making small talk with his latest patient that he received his second sign. "It's been an awfully funny day today hasn't it" said the patient with an unseemly cheerfulness. "Really?" replied Henry "I've not noticed anything strange". "Why you must have been living under a rock!" exclaimed the patient "we've got swarms of owls about in broad daylight, weirdos with cloaks running around everywhere and I've heard tell that something really weird happened in the Cotswolds". His words gave Henry enough pause that he forgot to start the procedure until the patient reminded him. Owls? Cloaks? This was starting to sound an awful lot like what the Potters were involved in. He'd have to talk to Petunia when he got home.
It was while he was on his lunchbreak, walking across to the sandwich shop when he saw the wizard. There was a man walking across the street, wearing a black cloak with robes underneath. Henry had been to the Potter's wedding – he knew the kind of clothes they wore. He walked up to the man, hoping to get some answers. "Excuse me" he said "I was wondering if you could tell me-" but before he could finish his sentence the man bolted and ran across to the next street. Henry could find no sign of him there but that was to be expected.
Henry arrived home to find the same cat lying around the pavement. He looked at it with a suspicious eye –hadn't Lily said that one of her teachers could turn into a cat?
When he got in he did what he usually did- he greeted Hermione and Petunia and they ate tea together. Petunia told him that Joanna and Tim from next door were having a row and Hermione had learned a new word -"read". It was only when the evening news came on, filled with stories about owls and shooting stars that he felt confident enough to raise the subject.
"Petunia" he said "have you heard from Lily lately?" "No" she replied "the last I heard from her was Harry's birthday and that was months ago. We haven't been able to talk since this horrible business with that madman started". Henry tried to think of what to say next. He didn't want to alarm her but it seemed as if something big was happening and he'd rather not go into such a situation ignorant. After a few minutes of thinking he responded "it's just –all those things happening today, they sound like something to do with their kind of people".
"I know what you mean" replied Petunia "I've been thinking about it all day. What if all this is because something awful has happened? I heard them talk they said they were fighting a war…. And what about little Harry? " I'm sure they'll be fine " replied Henry with a confidence he didn't really feel "I'm sure things would be a lot more sombre if something bad had happened and those Order people really seem like they know what they're doing"
"I hope you're right" said Petunia "but it's too late now to do anything. We'll have to see if we can find out in the morning". And so they went to bed, unaware of just how right they were.
Henry Granger had been asleep for several hours when a very peculiar man arrived on his street, carrying the answers to all his questions. But that's a story for another time.
Author's Note: Not much to say about this one. I skipped Harry being dropped off because I figured it'd be more or less the same as canon, apart from McGonagall being less reluctant. Again, feel free to read and review.