A storm, lashing and burretting her body and hair, rushed around Cecilia as she lay, winded, on the grass near a hedge. Around her, she heard voices, shouts and dialogue, footsteps, feet running – whether away or towards, she did not know. She opened her eyes.
"No, no, take care, dear." Arabella Figg, an elderly woman, her hair wrapped in a scarf, her wrinkled features in Cecilia's full view. "We don't know if they've gone yet."
"Cecilia!" she heard another voice shriek her name. "I saw...I saw...!" She too knelt by Cecilia, glaring at Arabella Figg as she helped Cecilia to sit up.
"They may come back," Mrs Figg warned, as she glared at Petunia Dursley. "You should take her back to your home...contact Dumbledore...!"
"NO!" Petunia declared. "I will have her stay here before I contact that man ever again!"
"Petunia," Cecilia began weakly, her mind fuzzy, her senses blunt. Of course she wouldn't contact Dumbledore: Aberforth was dead; Albus Dumbledore would be with Grindelwald. Maybe she could contact the Reciprocators...but...
"I am Mrs Dursley, young woman, not "Petunia" to you."
"Yes," nodded Cecilia, blinking into the hot, summer sun. "Of course..." But her voice trailed off. For, in the distance, she could see the figure of a boy, a young man, blonde hair glowing gloriously in the sun. But he was running away; running away very fast, and in pursuit, a woman, beige robes, pale hair, pale skin.
"I saw...a Dementor," Cecilia said, shaking her head as she tried to get on her feet. Arabella took one arm for her to lean on. Petunia, however, stood back, arms folded. "It...it..."
"You seem to be fine," reassured Arabella Figg. "Indeed you do. Now, I think Dumbledore should - "
"I cannot," Cecilia interrupted her, the last twelve years of being somewhere else contacting into her mind, the reality here, her true reality, opening in its place, like an umbrella. "I am wanted by the Ministry. My mind will be altered and, well, who knows what will happen? Death Eaters have killed my family. I have nowhere to go, except for..." Cecilia held her head. This time, Petunia Dursley supported her elbow.
"I am sorry that you feel you cannot use your magic, Mrs Dursley," Cecilia added. "Your empathy would have been a valuable weapon. You used it well...there..."
"Where?" Petunia looked confused. "Where did I use magic?" But Cecilia stopped, nursing her head again. "Somewhere," she whispered, vaguely. "A place with no Voldemort; with no Death Eaters. Where you never suffered the losses you have here."
"I can take her from here, Mrs Figg," Petunia Dursley declared, assertively, waving Mrs Figg away. The elderly witch frowned as she did so, muttering at her change of tune, and Cecilia heard her say, "I was only trying to help, I must say."
Crossing the road, she called to Dudley to hold open the door for her and Miss Wells, and, for the first time in his life, was shouted at by his mum for letting it swing closed: "Dudley Dursley, do as I tell you, now!"
Escorting her to the sofa, Petunia practically shut the door on her son, telling him to go out to play, and she talked quietly to Cecilia, as she plumped cushions around her, knowing that he would probably have his ear pressed to the door.
"There, my dear," she fussed. "Let me get you a drink – no, better not. You may be in shock – look, you're shaking."
Cecilia looked at her, and then down at her hands. They were shaking – perhaps she was in shock? Had she really been here, all that time ago? She looked around, the open-plan kitchen-living room; the hall, that led to the front door. She had been here only two years ago, she was sure. Petunia had lifted her hand and squeezed it. She had told her to forget about the machinations of her sister and Henrietta Edwards; she had advised her to let Tonks take Freya for now. She had, through the fireplace – that fireplace – sent her her cardigan, for the freezing cold Durmstrang winter, using a technique her husband, Regulus, had perfected: the floo nudge.
"You seem miles away," Petunia commented, looking in the same direction as Cecilia, towards the fireplace. Then, she sat down on the big, chinzy armchair opposite her, and looked at her carefully.
"Am I happy there? In the place you went?" Cecilia shot her gaze from the fire to Mrs Dursley's face. It seemed so full of knowing, so full of understanding, of a world that she had spent so much of her life forcing herself out of. Maybe this accounted for the worry lines, the gaunt features, the fact she seemed far older than her true age: it must take such effort to deny the truth to herself, and to determinedly keep her family from it.
"Yes," Cecilia nodded, smiling warmly at Petunia's admission. "You were very happy there. You were with - "
"...Regulus..." she murmured, looking away. Then,Petunia smiled back to Cecilia, a comforting, warm smile too, one that reflected the beautiful summer's day outside. "I know about what Dementors can do; I know too much about the wizarding world for myself. You must have had quite an adventure, Miss Wells."
"Oh, you could say that," Cecilia replied. "One that, I think, has resulted in the destruction of Voldemort, and Dark Wizards from that time."
Petunia's face froze. She stared at Cecilia as if she had, just then, appeared on her living room sofa from nowhere.
"I cannot confirm it, but I know that was what the intention was. The plan has been in place for decades; it has just been carried out." She closed her eyes, and pictured the Department of Mysteries, then, still with eyes closed, continued talking. "The veil of memories," Cecilia murmured, "destroyed with the help of a lost wizard, one who could control time. I went, I think, to a place similar to this; I managed to get Harry's potions perfected there – he..." she trailed off, and opened her eyes. Petunia was still staring at her.
"I knew that there must have been something evil within Harry," Petunia explained, unexpectedly. "I found out about what horcruxes are, when I attempted to get admitted to Hogwarts. Oh, oh!" she exclamed, her head sinking into her hands. "It is surprising what people will explain to you when they think you don't matter - and you, Miss Wells, your potion...proved it?" She took Cecilia's hands in hers. They were cold, and stiff, but Cecilia wrapped hers around them.
"I believe so."
"Then, that is why I have been so miserable for so long!" Petunia declared, getting to her feet and pacing bitterly around her own living room. "Horcruxes cause long-term depression, malalignment, bitterness... ohh!" she screamed, exasperated, throwing her fists to her sides. "And they said, you know what they said?" Cecilia felt herself shaking her head. "That I was bitter; that I was insanely jealous of Lily. That I was cruel to Harry because of it! Ohhhhh!" she shrieked again.
This time, Cecilia felt herself getting to her feet, this time approaching Petunia Dursley, and taking her arms now.
"Then, if that's what you think has happened, it's alright. You can put things right; you can make things better." But Petunia was shaking her head.
"The truth will out," Cecilia insisted. "Endure. You taught me that. Last longer than your enemies; know that you are right and live your life well. Then, in time, the truth will be evident, and those who jumped to conclusions will be in your debt."
"I suppose so," Petunia sighed, her energy ebbing from her as quickly as it had come. "I am still bitter, I was before Harry was placed on my doorstep: it's hard not to be. They are arrogant; they do not know the advantage they have."
"And you have the genetic ability too," Cecilia soothed, as she escorted Petunia back to the chair. "You are kinder than they have ever been. Even Sirius," she added, and thought to herself, the image of him, even though it was clear he was a double agent, standing over her, attempting to carry out the blood deed.
"Yes, that is Sirius," Petunia replied, as if Cecilia's thoughts had been a silent dialogue between them. Cecilia nodded; she was past caring how it was that Petunia knew her thoughts, her motives. If anyone deserved to benefit from magic without knowing it, or even knowing it, it was her.
"So, there is a connection between us and muggles," Petunia mused, half to herself."
"You no longer consider yourself a muggle?" Cecilia felt herself genuinely shocked at Petunia's revelation.
"The Universal Link is easy to understand. Thank you for trying to help Dudley, he will be who he is; I am grateful for Vernon taking us on."
"If it weren't for you, I would not have been able to do it, Mrs Dursley," Cecilia replied. "I am glad that your mind is at peace."
"You are kinder than they deserve, Cecilia. But of course, you know what it is to be a witch yourself, albeit a temporary one."
And it was true: Cecilia had been a witch, of sorts. She had been able to master magic courtesy of environmental magic and the absorbtion of the correct energy into her cells.
"Not now," Cecilia murmured. "I am not longer able to harness magic energy."
"Tell me," Petunia continued, smiling at her again, "before you leave, where is it that would make you the happiest?" She handed Cecilia a piece of screwed up paper. "You dropped this, by the way."
Cecilia looked down. The paper, a thin piece which was the wrapper for something, seemed to be staring back. Patchy memories lit up in her mind as she stared at it, lying there innocently in her palm. She rembered Helvellyn, remembered the cottage. She remembered climbing down the cellar steps, and...
...Cecilia took the non-wizard floo powder paper and untwisted it. A bright green salt, its facets reflecting the sun through the window, sparked at her.
"I must go," Cecilia declared. "I must...get to..."
"There's a bus into town, then you can get a train. Be with him, your fiancé," Petunia urged, pressing what she insisted were her tutor wages into her hand.
"But, he is dead." Cecilia felt a weight in her stomach that she remembered feeling so long ago. All the half breeds, those at Azkaban, exterminated.
"Go home, Cecilia Frobisher," Petunia urged. "It will bring you comfort."
888888888
It took three hours after Petunia Dursley bid Cecilia Frobisher a safe journey to the Lake District when a wizard whom she loathed appeared on her doorstep. Glowering at Dudlet, Severus Snape asked for his mother and within minutes she was standing there, her face in seeming to be, with Snape's own, in a "Who Can Scowl the Worst" competition.
"The Dementor was here," Snape intoned, getting straight to the point,
"The murderer of my sister is finally destroyed?" Petunia questioned, folding her arms.
"Yes." The competition had now changed to "Who Can Outstare Whom".
"It was here."
Snape turned to go when he heard Petunia's words. He turned back.
"You loved her too."
"Always."
"I felt you had taken her away from me," Petunia looked away, looked down, towards her feet. "We did everything together."
"So did we."
"I hated her for her magic; you divided us." Petunia looked at him, her defenses lowered.
"We cannot change the past."
"No," Petunia laughed. "Not reliably, not ethically, not accurately."
"And yet, you have magic."
"Yes."
Snape stared at Petunia Dursley. She had done so much, and yet...
"Cecilia."
"I told her to go to the place that made her happiest." Snape dipped his head in a sudden nod, then disapparated.