Chapter Seven:

Petunia in the Garden

(Translated by annebanane)

"What are you planning?" Without being noticed Ron had entered the drawing room.

"Hey, where have you been?" asked Hermione.

"I accompanied dad to the underground station. He wanted to treat himself to a trip with a Muggle carriage once more but didn't know how to get there. It's where we arrived last time, remember?" Ron came over to the desk. "Honestly, I'm looking forward to school. This summer vacation could have been better. First the never ending hassle with Phlegm, and then more or less having been grounded here. Not mentioning all the rest."

"I can't imagine Hogwarts without Dumbledore," said Hermione sadly. "Everything will be different somehow."

"And it's our last year," said Ron. "What are you doing, Hermione? Some homework, just in case or what?"

"No, I've only been looking up something. The dragon on the ear-pendants of Harry's mother."

"A Nordic Zingwing, right?"

"Ron!" shouted Hermione amazed. "That's killing me! How do you know that? It took me at least an hour to find it in this dragon book!"

"Well, you should have asked me first. Coincidentally my brother is a dragon expert. I started doing all the dragon puzzles he brought along when I was only three. We must have more than twenty at home." He sat down on the only unoccupied corner of the desk and looked at the other two. Finally he sighed and said: "It's not funny how flabbergasted you are when I chip in something. But I admit I felt rather useless during the last days. I mean, Occlumency and stuff like that isn't down my alley."

Hermione was staring at her parchment and drawing a few very neat 'O's on the border.

"Don't talk nonsense, Ron!" said Harry. "Do you really think that I am fond of that stuff? But Hermione is right, I got to learn it. And without you guys I would have gone mad in here." He then put the jewellery box that he had been holding in his hand, into his pocket. "I have to go now. And you try everything so that nobody notices it, okay? I'll hurry up as much as I can."

"You are really going to visit your aunt? The one you – er – pumped up then?"

"The very same. But I do hope I don't run into her. Nor into her curs."

"And how are you going to get there? Do you actually know where she lives?"

"Sure. I've been there once, when the Dursleys had to take me along on a trip to her, because the old Figg had been sick and couldn't take care of me. It was the worst weekend ever!" He went into his bedroom and they could hear him rummage in his things. Then he came back with his invisibility cloak in his hand. "May I have your wand, Hermione, please?" he asked all of a sudden.

"Why?" she enquired dumbfounded.

"Well, I still haven't got my license. And if I take another wand, er, maybe the Apparition cannot be noticed as unauthorised, you know? Maybe that's nonsense, but I –"

"I believe you're crazy, Harry. You will probably apparate in single pieces across England," snapped Hermione.

"Give it to me, please, let me at least try!"

Hermione hesitatingly handed her wand over to Harry. He took it, looked at it doubtfully and twirled it warily through the air. Nothing happened. Ron and Hermione were watching him tensely.

"You better try to do it from here to the bedroom or so," suggested Ron. That was a good advice and Harry decided to follow it. He lifted Hermione's wand, took a deep breath and concentrated. When he looked up again he was standing with his shoes on his pillow and was staring at the wall. The other two came through the door. Ron grinned and said, "Wow!", but Hermione gave him an odd look and said nothing.

"What about that?" said Harry triumphantly. "Thanks, Hermione! I'll bring it back to you soon. And now keep your fingers crossed for me that the Dursleys really ran to Aunt Marge for shelter."

"Well, good luck then, mate," said Ron, and with an enquiring look at Hermione who was still standing in the door he continued, "I will use the morning to write a letter to Fabienne."

Harry shook his head in resignation. "I leave you to your own business. See you!"

oooOooo

A few minutes later he was standing in the middle of an unmown, rain-soaked meadow full of molehills. It was grey and chilly there, and he could hear a church clock striking eleven a.m. He looked around hastily and breathed a sigh of relief. He was on Aunt Marge's property, and he couldn't see anybody. He dragged his invisibility cloak out of his bag and put it on. Then he hesitatingly walked towards the old house at the end of the meadow, carefully avoiding the row of dog pounds which were set on the left side under the umbrella of some big elm trees. Equally carefully he looked for the residues of their inmates. He still could remember his only visit to this place too well. Four of the six dog pounds were empty. To him that seemed to be a good omen, because it surely meant that Aunt Marge had gone walking her dogs. But the two bulldogs left were franticly barking and snarling when he passed by under his invisibility cloak. The back door flew open and a sharp voice jangled, "Shut up, you nasty curs! Can't you stop that yapping only once! Your dear mum will surely be back soon!!"

Harry's heart leaped when he recognized that the thin woman with the grey chequered costume was Aunt Petunia. She peeked around distrustfully, and suddenly Harry wondered how he could ever have been so stupid to believe she would listen to him, talk to him. For a moment he felt so uneasy that he immediately wanted to return. But then he pulled himself together and called her with a low voice. "Aunt Petunia! Here, at the dog pounds!"

Petunia stopped as though she had been rooted to the spot.

"Come over here, please! It's me, Harry!"

Either she raised an alarm now, in this case he still could disappear in a second; or she –

Petunia, who seemed to be bonier and paler than ever, came determinedly towards the dog pounds. Slowly Harry removed his invisibility cloak and met her half way. She had red spots on her sunken cheeks and her thin lips were closed so tightly that she seemed really haggard. But she was looking straight at him.

"I – it wasn't me! I mean, the house," said Harry instead of an initial hello. This had to be clarified first of all, he thought.

"You're lucky. Vernon is in London, Grunnings couldn't spare him for long. He's staying at a colleague's place and is trying to get things settled. And Marge is walking the dogs."

"Dudley?"

"Inside, watching TV." And suddenly Petunia burst into tears. "I hate this house! I hate these dogs! The noise they make! Hair and dog's dirt everywhere! And knowing that the own house has been destroyed …!"

Somehow Harry felt guilty. Somehow he was guilty. And unexpectedly he felt something like compassion with this woman whose entire existence had centred on her home, her son and her neighbourhood, and who was now standing here, uprooted, on this meadow full of dog's muck.

"I'm really sorry, Aunt Petunia," he mumbled. "It wasn't me; you just have to believe that."

"I've never thought that," his aunt sobbed. "Vernon did, of course. But it's got something to do with – with your kind of people, hasn't it? All those unexplained details; the insurance company acts up because of that, and the police don't get ahead –" She blew her nose with trembling hands. "Actually, what do you want? You cannot stay here, no way, you know? If Marge or Vernon sees you here –"

"No, that's not what I want. I desperately need to ask you something."

Her lips closed even tighter. "Really, Harry, I've got other problems now. I just don't want to have anything to do with your business. I took care of you for sixteen years and –"

Harry denied himself several answers to these words that crossed his mind, but just said urgently, "Please, it's very important to me. And you are the only one I can ask. Listen to me, only once more!"

"It's about my sister again, isn't it?"

Harry nodded. Then he pulled out the small jewellery box, opened it and showed it to his aunt. She took it reluctantly, looked down into it and immediately up again. Her face closed even more if possible, when she returned the box to Harry.

"Do you know these earrings?" he asked.

"Yes, of course I do. Quite ugly they are. They belonged to Lily."

"Where did she get them?" asked Harry, his heart thumping.

"From Nanna Dora, our great-grandmother. I think you have seen a picture of her in the album I gave you. What's the matter with these ear-pendants?"

The news made Harry gulp. "Do you remember how she gave them to her? Or when, or why?"

"Yes, indeed, I do remember it very well," answered Petunia snappishly. "She came to visit us one Sunday; I must have been about ten years old then. I got a book titled 1000 Jokes for Little People. And Lily got these – these earrings! A girl of eight! I mean, they weren't particularly pretty, but definitely precious and not at all suitable for a child!"

Aunt Petunia's indignation didn't seem to have diminished over the years. "She hadn't been able to wear a dress without getting it dirty or ripping it. But she got these earrings!"

"Can you – do you remember anything peculiar about your great-grandmother? I mean, what was she like?"

"Well, first of all, she died only a little later," began Aunt Petunia. But then her gaze turned glassy and she fell silent.

Harry waited breathlessly and he could hear his blood rushing in his temples. He felt that every moment Aunt Marge, accompanied by a number of slavering, panting curs, would turn around the corner. Harry thought of urging her once more, but in that very moment Aunt Petunia continued with a totally different voice as if speaking to herself.

"Yes, there was something peculiar about Nanna Dora. I haven't thought of it in all these years, never. I wanted to forget it. When Lily and I visited her, we often baked a cake together. We had a lot of fun. I think she was lonely and looked forward to seeing us. Her husband had died some years ago. And then she did funny little things, when we had finished baking, or when we got tired. She told us she would clean the kitchen magically or so. And then she waved around and said long spells, and we laughed about it, and then the kitchen was really clean. Lily and I could never find out how she did that. But we thought that it was great and pretty funny."

Suddenly Aunt Petunia came back to reality again. She blushed and looked aghast. "I – I didn't know that any more. It came back only now, when you asked me. I was so jealous, because she preferred Lily to me. What does all that mean? Was she a – one of those –? Does it mean Lily had inherited it from her? Oh my god, does it mean I or even Dudders ...?!"

Harry had been listening in silence. His mouth was dry, and when he started speaking again, it was only a croak. "Do you remember her husband? Your Great-Grandfather? Or anybody else from her family?"

Petunia gazed at him. "I think she – she didn't have a family," she answered in a low voice. "Other than us, of course. My great-grandfather used to call her 'my little gypsy'. I remember it, because my mum always got angry when he did so. She had been very fond of her and thought it would hurt her feelings."

Harry just stared at her.

"Harry, what's all this good for? And how can you be busy with something like this, now, that all those terrible things happen?"

He only shook his head.

"Listen, you must believe me; I never hated Lily. I never wanted such awful things to happen to her. But she – she always had to play with fire until she burnt her fingers. And now you – doing just the very same! And the same evil things happen," she lowered her voice to an urgent whisper, "exactly like back then. Houses are blown up! People disappear or are oddly murdered!"

A loud barking announced the approach of Aunt Marge. Petunia winced. "She must not see you here! You've got to leave! Please, Harry, go! Life here is like hell already."

Harry nodded. "I'll see if I can send you some money," he said in a hoarse voice. "It probably happened because of me."

The last thing he saw was the surprise on Aunt Petunia's face and the first of the heavily barking bulldogs that jumped to the spot where he had been standing only a split second ago. Then everything turned dark and he felt the pull of Apparition again.

oooOooo

He only then realized how dangerous it had been to apparate – head over heals and as agitated as he was, using somebody else's wand – when he landed on his own feet on the well-known black stoned floor of the house at Grimmauld Place. He felt very exhausted and sank down on the stairs thankfully noticing that nobody could be seen around. He sat there and covered his face with his hands. Didn't want to see anybody. Didn't want to think about anything. But in the red blackness behind his closed eyelids the same single name appeared over and over again.

He didn't know how long he had been sitting there when he noticed he wasn't alone anymore. He took his hands off his face and looked up. It was Hermione standing next to him.

"I didn't want to disturb you," she said unusually reserved. "I'm glad you're here again. It really didn't take you very long. Nobody noticed your absence."

She hesitatingly sat down on the stairs beside him and began picking on a frayed out spot of her jeans on her knee. "And? Did you find her?"

Harry nodded.

"Did you get to know what you wanted to know?"

"Yes, I did," he answered in a low voice.

Then they fell silent. The whole house was unusually quiet. "Where is everybody?" asked Harry, only to say something.

"Ron's upstairs in Mrs Black's room. We've been looking around a bit. Hestia's in the kitchen – where else? That's where all of them hang around." Meanwhile Hermione had succeeded in pulling out so many threads off the weak spot in the material that her knee could be seen through the hole.

"Oh, wait, your wand!" remembered Harry all of a sudden. He took it out of his pocket. "Thanks, really. I don't know whether it camouflaged me or not. But it worked perfectly – and till now I don't see anybody coming to arrest me."

Hermione took her wand back again and turned it around in her hands. "You don't want to talk about it, do you?" she finally asked.

"I – I dunno. Have to think about it first," he mumbled.

"Er – I've found the connection between Peverell and Slytherin," she said.

Harry jumped up and Hermione looked at him in surprise.

"There is one? You're sure?"

"Well, yes. A very simple one. I'll show you, come on."

Ahead of Harry she went energetically up the stairs to his flat. "As I said, we've been looking around the Blacks' things a bit, I hope that's okay?"

Harry just nodded. Go on, his eyes said.

"I've really wanted to find that book we had been talking about, this Wizarding Genealogy, you remember? I thought that maybe it was put upstairs with all the other stuff. And bingo, I've found it!" she said triumphantly. She tore open the door to the drawing room and went to the desk. It was littered with her parchment rolls, and a very huge tome lay open in the middle of it all. "Here it is, but you better read for yourself," she said turning the book to him.

Harry stared at the page covered with small letters, considerable footnotes and many bracketed links. This book looked definitely like the perfect book for Hermione. To crown it all there were handwritten notes on the sides, too, which made him feel even worse, because it reminded him of the book of the Half Blood Prince. Eventually he began to read.

"It would be best to start right here," Hermione suggested and pointed to a section in the middle of the page. Harry read:

'Due to a few rare documents, most of the history of the Slytherin family could be revealed. The preamble to Magic Medical Plants by healer Leon Peverell, famous in the 13th century, can be named as a major source. In this preamble Leon Peverell proudly mentioned Salazar Slytherin to be in his line of ancestors.'

Harry sighed and kept on reading.

'When Salazar Slytherin, after years of extremely involving travelling, returned back home from the Orient with immense knowledge and apparently with great treasures as well, he was quite renowned and became famous very quickly. Together with his old companion Godric Gryffindor and the two erudite witches …'

Harry ran over a few lines describing the foundation of Hogwarts and went on reading where his eyes met the wanted name:

'In the same year in which he co-founded Hogwarts, he married Lucille Peverell who was of old Norman nobility, "a damsel whose beauty and wisdom had been praised all over the land". They had three daughters, Salome, Syriadne and Selena. It is bequeathed that Syriadne married her cousin Jerome Peverell and this way founded the line of Slytherin descendents that is proven up to this century (cf. Leon Peverell, above mentioned text, addendum 4; cp. Genealogical table, p.725; for coat of arms cf. addendum, table 25).

It's most likely but not proven that Salome married a member of the Ghaunt family which had already then been mentioned as a wizarding family. One century later, the prosperous merchant Claudius Ghaunt boasts of his ancestors in the preface of his book Trade Routes through Muggle Country and claims his family to be descendants of Slytherin's daughter Salome who had married Theodorus Ghaunt.

Concerning Salazar's youngest daughter Selena legend has it that Gryffindor fervently fell in love with her, and that they had taken to flight together. When her father finally found them, she drowned herself in the sea. In any case, no descendants of Selena are known.'

Harry turned the page. His fingers were trembling. Family trees and notes of different branches of the Peverell and Ghaunt families followed on the next pages. The pedigrees seemed to have surprisingly few branches; apparently the tradition of marrying within small boundaries of the extended family lead far back. Within the last branch the two families of Peverell and Ghaunt, who had meanwhile changed to Gaunt, had united.

Harry couldn't stop looking at the last names – names, he knew already and which he had seen on Sirius' old tapestry only a few days ago. The last name with both the dates of birth and death was Morfin Gaunt. For his sister Merope and his mother Pandora there were only the dates of birth. Instead of the dates of death Harry saw little question marks.

Pandora Gaunt. Pandora Gaunt, nee Peverell. Voldemort's grandmother. Where had she been, then, during the scene in Marvolo Gaunt's house which Dumbledore had let him watch in his Pensieve?

When he finally looked up again, Hermione's eyes were set on him, full of expectation. "Ain't that great? Seemed to be such a difficult question, but we only had to have a look in this book. And we are not the first ones interested in this topic, as you can see."

"I'm sure that Dumbledore knew this anyhow," Harry said tonelessly.

But Hermione's enthusiasm couldn't be abated that easily. "Even the story that this librarian in Godric's Hollow tried to convince you of, seems to have a bit of truth in it. This was probably the true reason for the break-up of Slytherin and Gryffindor!"

"Do you think so?" asked Harry dully. "Ain't that a bit too romantic?" He had other problems, and eventually even Hermione couldn't ignore his lack of exaltation about her discovery. "What's the matter, Harry? What did you find out at your aunt's house?"

Harry moved the things on his desk around, pushed the parchments together, put quills back in the box. "Please give me some more time, Hermione," he finally asked. "I've got to think about it in peace first. Thank you very much for digging out this book. The things became – much clearer than I wanted them to be."

"Okay," said Hermione a bit huffily. "I go and look for Ron then." She closed the door not really gently, and Harry dropped his head on his arms.

Pandora Peverell. Nanna Dora. The little gypsy woman with no family. Pretending to be a witch for the great-grandchildren. All that was unbe-

A yelling scream disrupted the quietness of the house. "Harry, Harry! Come fast!"

That was Hermione, and her voice came from upstairs. Harry jumped up and started to run, taking three steps at once. Besides a bathroom there was only one more room on the attic floor, the one that had belonged to Sirius' mother. All the belongings of the Black inheritance that nobody used anymore were stored there now.

The door stood open, and Hermione was kneeling inside on an old carpet. Only little daylight came through the chinks of the jalousie in front of the window. But it was enough to see Ron lying motionlessly on the floor beside Hermione. Harry suddenly became so frightened that he couldn't speak. Hermione looked up with tears in her eyes. "He doesn't move," she snivelled. "And he's hardly breathing."

Harry shook him gently. No reaction. He tried to feel the pulse. When he found it, it seemed to be okay. He drew in a deep breath, trembling, and sank down on the floor, too. "Maybe – maybe he's only practising Substitutional Imagination again," he croaked, but Hermione didn't listen to him at all.

"Oh, Ron! I shouldn't have left him here alone!" She was crying while she held his limp hand.

Only then Harry became aware that the danger, whatever it might be, could still be lurking. He looked around and spotted an object he had seen once before. One of the cabinet doors was standing open and a musical box was lying on the floor in front of the cabinet. Harry stood up and lifted it carefully.

"What is it?" asked Hermione.

"The musical clock. Remember, we wound it up and grew dizzy and sleepy. And then Ginny closed it again."

"But the lid is open now," whispered Hermione. "And it doesn't make any sound."

Harry nodded, watching the little object. It was made of wood, with lightly engraved dancing figures. Only when looking more closely you could see that those figures weren't dancing fairies or Veela but vicious looking, oddly deformed little monsters. Looking disgusted, Harry put the little box back into the cabinet, taking care not to close the lid or damage anything.

"Lupin. Need him." He didn't seem to be able to talk in complete sentences.

"There is nobody here but Hestia." Hermione was still crying. "Why didn't I stay upstairs?"

"Don't go nuts, Hermione," said Harry, gently touching her arm. "He's breathing. He will be okay again; it could be worse." But he felt panic-stricken himself. Ron was so pale, and so stiff. And his skin was so cold. "Maybe we should bring him downstairs, in his bed. Keep him warm. And try to inform Lupin somehow."

They didn't want to use a levitation charm on Ron. That seemed to be rude and would have looked as if –

Harry bent down and narrowly succeeded in lifting Ron, who was quite a bit taller than himself, and carried him downstairs to his room. Meanwhile they had produced enough noise to let Hestia show up on the stairs. "What happened?" she asked alarmed.

"Ron – we don't know. We need Lupin here, right now. Can you reach him?"

She nodded quickly and hurried back downstairs.

Harry and Hermione laid Ron in his bed and blanketed him tightly. His condition still seemed unchanged. They sat beside his bed, frightened, and hardly dared to avert their eyes from him. Minutes passed by slowly.

All of a sudden Lupin stood in the room, his face grey with concern, bringing along a cloud of cool rainy air from outside. A tall, dark haired woman was standing behind him. She promptly went to Ron and bent down to him.

"This is Melanie Raeburn, a healer and member of the Order, as you can guess," explained Lupin.

Melanie Raeburn felt Ron's forehead, his pulse and looked into his eyes by lifting his lids. He showed no reaction at all. "He's suffering from some kind of shock or hex. I can't tell exactly," she said finally. "Do you know what happened?"

They told her about the musical clock. She nodded earnestly.

"I want to have a look at that box," said Lupin.

"There is no danger to life right now. But I can't do much more for him, either. Keeping him warm was a good idea of yours. Go on keeping an eye on him. Maybe he wakes up in a few hours and is back to normal again. We just have to wait," Melanie Raeburn added.

Lupin left the room to examine the musical box. Harry followed him slowly upstairs, meanwhile feeling totally dazed. When he arrived upstairs, Lupin was already holding the box in his hands.

"It was open when we found it. I intentionally didn't close it. Could have been that I – fix something for good by doing that or so," said Harry vaguely.

"That was very thoughtful of you, Harry" said Lupin, pulling out his wand.

"Specialis revelio!" he mumbled waving his wand gently over the box. It produced only an odd crunching noise that seemed to come directly from the wood. "It had already stopped playing its melody when you arrived, hadn't it?" asked Lupin.

Harry nodded. "Two years ago, when we were decontaminating this house together with the Weasleys, we opened it once before. We all became very tired and somehow weak when hearing the melody. Ginny just managed to close the lid in time."

"And despite this he's turned it on again?" asked Lupin, his eyebrows lifted.

"Maybe it only fell out of the cabinet," said Harry in a low voice.

Lupin put the box back in the cabinet. With true concern showing on his face he then turned to Harry and said, "We have to wait and see, as Melanie said. And now I have to call the other members of the Order together. We have to have a meeting tonight."

"What happened?" asked Harry, but with the clear feeling not to be able to stand much more today.

"Three days ago a small town near Liverpool had a complete breakdown – er, how do the Muggles call it when their lights and machines don't work – yes, well, a power breakdown. That happens from time to time, as far as I know. But in this case it could not be repaired. And that's not all: Any effort to rebuild some kind of power supply – is that the term? – failed. Nothing is working there at all. The people have to leave the town."

Harry and Lupin looked at each other.

"Magical cause," said Harry more confirming than asking. Lupin nodded. "Very complex magic, in my opinion. No Death Eaters' skirmish. That was a masterpiece."

Harry shuddered. It had finally begun.

oooOooo

They were sitting on Ron's bed the whole evening, hoping Ron would wake up. Down on the lower floor they could hear the people of the Order come in and walk down into the kitchen, but for once that wasn't their main interest. Harry sadly fed Hedwig with owl treats. She had come and sat on his shoulder, almost as if keeping company with him.

"I wish I hadn't left Crookshanks with the Weasleys," said Hermione at this sight. "It would be so comforting to have him here right now. But –"

The rest of her sentence was an ear-piercing scream. Harry turned around. Ron's eyes were open. They seemed to be totally black, but looking closer Harry realized that this impression came from the extremely enlarged pupils. Apparently Ron didn't see anything. He still lay as if paralysed, but his eyes were rolling alarmingly in their eyeholes. It was hard to look at.

"Ron! Ron, can you hear us?" Hermione said urgently and grabbed his hand again. "Ron!"

They stared at him for several minutes and waited for a reaction, but nothing happened. "Do you think he'll be okay?" asked Hermione eventually with her voice trembling.

"I do hope so!" said Harry.

Sometime later they had turned off the lights because they thought that Ron might be disturbed by them, and stayed in the dark that was only lit up by the weak glow of a street lamp from outside. Harry was lying on the carpet, and slowly the memories of what had happened that day came back into his mind.

He wondered whether his mum had known it. And if yes, had she told his dad? Had she told anybody? How had she managed to be a Gryffindor? The same way he had done it?

The Sorting Hat had been right then, he thought bitterly. I should be a Slytherin! He remembered what Slughorn had told him about Lily Evans last year: how he had been teasing her that she should belong to his house. And how she used to talk back to him.

But if she had wanted to keep that a secret, why had she worn the earrings then? And she couldn't have known the whole truth; only Harry could finally make sense of all of it.

Pandora Gaunt must have left her family, her husband and her cute children Morfin and Merope. Harry couldn't even resent her for doing it. Then she had left the wizarding world behind her – and the magic – and had gone into hiding in the Muggles' world. She had married a Muggle and founded a second family. Under the name of Dora, the gypsy. Later Nanna Dora. My mother's grandmother had been Merope's half sister.

Harry burst into a mad snicker which he tried to suppress immediately. I am the Heir of Slytherin, he thought sarcastically. Me, Harry Potter, I'm the last relative of Voldemort alive! Me – and Aunt Petunia and Dudley!

He wondered what his friends would say when he told them. Dumbledore's words came into his mind and made more sense now: that it is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

And then he heard a haunting voice in his head saying to his mother, "I'm afraid you made the wrong decisions, Lily. The wrong decisions again and again. And now you have to bear the consequences."