November 1st, 1981, at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 7:54 AM.

The morning light that crept into the headmaster's office made the flickering candles look dull – against all odds, there was no rain or snow yet that day. It was the beginning of a bright new dawn, a new future for Britain, for the war that had stormed for many long years was finally over.

Albus Dumbledore, who sat at his desk with a flagon of mulled cider, had not slept a wink all of last night, and Minerva McGonnagal, who sat across from him, hadn't either. There was much work to be done, even with the war being over, and chief among them was deciding what was to be done with the orphaned children of Lily and James Potter.

"And you think that is why Harry survived?" Minerva asked Dumbledore softly, careful not to wake the sleeping little ones nearby. Just a few feet away on a fluffy purple sofa, there lay a little girl just four years old, clutching a stuffed owl, and by her head, a baby boy swaddled in a basket, also fast asleep.

Dumbledore removed his halfmoon glasses and rubbed his tired eyes as he answered, "It's the best hypothesis I have. In all my years, I've never seen anything like this, Minerva. I doubt even Nicholas has. This is the kind of magic you don't dare touch, because it might break you."

But even with the impossibility of the baby Harry's survival, the hardest and most painful thing Dumbledore had found himself forced to do last night, was explain to the young, so very young Rose Potter that her mummy and daddy were dead, and she was never, ever going to see them again. He had seen the little Rose born at this very school while her mother was still taking her NEWTs – he hadn't thought his heart could break any further than it had already, but life always found new ways to shock him.It was almost enough to make him wish he were dead, too.

Rose stirred a little in her sleep as the sunlight filtered through the window and hit her eyelids. Hagrid had said that when he came to the house, he found her cowering underneath her brother's crib behind a pile of blankets, where her mother had told her to go until the 'bad man' was gone. James and Lily Potter both lay dead, but Rose and Harry were unharmed, save for a cut on the boy's head in a strange shape.

"So far as I can tell, I think that as long as they are together, they should be safe from anyone who might want to harm them."

"But?" Minerva prompted, sensing his indecision. He wondered when it was that the scrawny little Scottish girl he'd taught so long ago had become so very intuitive and wise.

"I don't know if this will guarantee the safety of both. Lily died to protect her daughter and her son, whether one can protect the other and still be protected themselves..." Dumbledore trailed off, leaving Minerva to draw her own conclusions.

Minerva's brow furrowed and her lips thinned. She took a desperate gulp of her mulled cider before continuing. "The law won't let their godfather take charge of them, however much he wants to. And with Peter dead, and of course Sirius... What about the Longbottoms?"

"You're not even willing to consider their relatives?"

"Lily's parents died last June, and she told me her sister became a stranger to her after she started going to Hogwarts," Minerva snapped, and then took a few breaths to calm herself. "Pardon me if I have doubts about said sister being willing to take in Lily's children after all these years apart."

"They're both in danger, Minerva, and this magic is old and unpredictable. I don't want to risk the protection choosing one sibling over the other."

"Lily wouldn't have wanted it to choose! Surely that counts for something, so -"

"And for all we know, she didn't even realize she was doing this. Magic may be about intent, but it also has a logic of its own, one that even we who are privileged to wield it aren't privy to. There are still hundreds of the enemy still roaming loose, Minerva. Are you willing to take even the slightest chance that one could find them, one skilled enough to get past whatever protections we put in place?"

Minerva gripped her cup. "Some would call you paranoid, Albus."

"But you know I'm right."

Silence, and a glance at the girl on the couch (the little girl who had already been through so much), were her only answer.

~RP~

January 4th, 1982, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. 3:00 PM.

It was a sunny afternoon when a gentle knock sounded at the front door of Number 4 Privet Drive, but there was scattered, leftover snow from the day before, and the wind was nonetheless brisk and biting. One Petunia Dursley opened the door to find an old man in a flamboyant lemon yellow satin suit with orange polka dots, holding in one arm a baby in a starry blue blanket and a fuzzy wool hat, and with his other hand laid gently on the shoulder of a small child bundled up to their eyes in jackets, jumpers, hats and scarves of various colors.

"Ah, Petunia! It's been such a long time – look at how much you've grown!" Albus Dumbledore said cheerfully. "It's a bit nippy outside, might we come in for a chat? There is a matter of grave importance that I'm afraid we must discuss."

Petunia stood frozen for a few moments before quickly trying to shut the door in the headmaster's face. Jamming his steel-toed boot in the door, Dumbledore didn't let his genial smile slide from his face one inch (though he was truthfully in some pain – the door had missed the metal toe and slammed into his foot proper).

"What do you want?" Petunia did not ease up on her pressure on the door, leaning on it with her full weight. Magic was a wonderful thing, but he was still nearly a hundred, and she could still end up breaking his foot if she kept this up. It seemed like he would have to break the information to her a little less gently than he had hoped.

"Petunia, I'm sorry to have to be the bearer of such terrible news." She stopped pushing, and warily met his eyes through the door. "Something has happened to your sister and her husband. You see -"

He didn't need to finish. The door was yanked open, and Petunia hissed, "Just shut up and get in before the neighbors start looking!"

It was a touch late for that, Dumbledore mused as he ushered Rose inside ahead of him, for there were already a few older busybodies peeping through lacy curtains, including Arabella Figg, under his very instructions, to assuage Minerva's concerns. No doubt at least one of the neighbors would be sympathetic enough to come and offer condolences. Whether Petunia would appreciate them was another matter.

She might've been harsher and ruder than she had been as a girl, but she was still a good enough hostess to pour them tea. Petunia pointedly ignored Rose, who looked curiously around at the Muggle house, apparently intrigued by the lack of twinkling lights and the motionless pictures on the walls.

"What is it, then?" Petunia asked bluntly as she sat to take her own tea, her face planted in a grimace and her focus entirely on dumping as many sugar cubes into her cup as possible.

Dumbledore put four sugars and some cream in Rose's tea (she paid this no attention, jumping instead straight for the shortbread biscuits on the platter, apparently to Petunia's irritation), and added some lemon and honey to his own. "As I was saying," he began gently, "I'm afraid I have some very terrible news. Lily and James are dead."

Petunia froze and stared at him, her knuckles white as she clutched her cup. Rose looked between them with a small frown. Perhaps she hadn't connected those names to her parents yet, or else she was wondering what this woman had to do with them.

"How?" Petunia asked hoarsely, rattling the cup and saucer as she put down her cup.

"How much did Lily tell you, about the war in our world?" Rose still remained quiet, dutifully chewing on her biscuit, but her wide eyes betrayed her fear.

"Not much. I only know that there is one. That last time we spoke was at her wedding." Petunia sneered, glaring down at the innocent girl, her hands clenched into tight fists. Dumbledore slipped Rose's little hand into his. "Two years ago."

Doubts surged in him. The rift was clearly much deeper and broader than he had thought, and the way Petunia spoke of her sister's marriage spoke volumes. But, as he scanned the pictures on the wall, he saw she had a child of her own. She was an intelligent, rational woman, she always had been. She wouldn't treat a child badly because of her feelings towards the mother, would she?

"An enemy breached the defenses of their home, on the thirty-first of October. They were killed, but their children are fine, as you can see." Dumbledore took a sip of his tea, and found it bitter – overbrewed, no doubt. "And I'm afraid there is -"

"No."

Dumbledore blinked in surprise. "No?"

"I won't do it. I don't want to, and Lily made it clear when the girl was born that she would never want me to." Petunia picked up her cup and hastily gulped down the rest of her tea. "Besides, there must be any number of others who want them. Your kind. She would've made arrangements, surely?"

"She did. However, a law has been put into place that unfortunately prevents their godfather from taking guardianship of them, and in the past few months I have exhausted the list other possibilities." He put his hands together, steepling his fingers. "You, as her sister, possess their mother's blood. In terms of, ah, our kind of security, it makes a great deal of difference.

"Even in death, Lily still has many enemies, any of whom would snatch at the chance to take revenge on her children." Rose, who seemed to have realized that they were talking about her and her brother, looked up from where Harry was clutched on her lap, sucking his thumb, and peered at Petunia's face. "You are their best chance at survival. If they don't have their aunt's protection, they are in grave danger." He leaned in as close as he dared. "Don't you possess any affection left for her? For your family?"

From her trembling expression and and fragile grip on her own arms, it seemed she did.

It was at this moment that Rose, who hadn't spoken since first falling asleep in Dumbledore's office, finally said something. "But she doesn't look anything like Mummy," she whispered, tugging on the sleeve of his jacket, "Harry looks like me. Why doesn't she look like Mummy?"

Petunia turned a blank, empty stare to Rose, who met her gaze with a challenging tilt in her little chin. Petunia seemed to become wearier, more tired and more broken.

"The older he gets, the less like you he'll be," Petunia said quietly. Rose looked doubtful, and returned her attention to Harry as he started to chew on the corner of his blanket.

Petunia turned back to Dumbledore. "You're sure there's no one else? Not one person who'd be happier to have them, be more able?"

"No one," he lied. It had always disturbed Dumbledore, his own ability to sound just as earnest when he was lying as when he was telling the truth. But this was for their own good, he told himself. Here, they would be safer than they would be anywhere else.

Petunia heaved a sigh, placing her hands flat on the table. "My husband won't be happy."

"Will it make things difficult?"

She tilted her head, considering. "Not any more than it already will be," Petunia decided.

"Very well, then." Dumbledore rose, and produced a tiny suitcase from his pocket. He placed it on the ground, and Petunia jumped as he took his wand and it expanded to its full size. (Rose paid this no attention, and was absorbed in trying to get Harry to sip her tea, spilling it as he pushed it away from his face with his little hands.) "This has all of their belongings. There are some things that Lily and James left them, but those are in the Potter Gringotts vault, accessible when Rose turns eleven."

Petunia pursed her lips, only nodding to acknowledge that she had heard him. "Will you need help clearing a space for them to sleep tonight?" he asked.

She only waved her hand dismissively. "There's room."

Unfortunately, this got Rose's attention. "You're leaving us here?" She had stood hastily, tumbling out of her chair with her brother dangling in her arms by his stomach, and he fussed and kicked as Rose scrambled to find a way to hold the infant who was much too heavy for her to carry.

Dumbledore knelt and righted the baby Harry so he wouldn't end up hanging upside-down, putting one of her arms behind his legs and beneath his bottom, and the other on his back to keep him from falling. "Rose, this is your Aunt Petunia. Your home is with her now. I'm very sorry, but you can't stay with me forever."

"Why?" Rose demanded, her sniffling threatening tears. Dumbledore felt a too-familiar lump in his own throat.

"She's your family, and she can protect you both, Rose. This is a better home than I could possibly give you."

"Liar!" Rose stomped her foot, jostling poor Harry and making him start to cry. "I don't know her! You can't just leave me here! You can't make me! I won't stay!" Petunia was clutching her cup as she stared at the crying baby, her expression unreadable.

He needed to go, now, before his doubt made him falter. "Rose, you must. You have nowhere else to go, and this is the only place Harry can stay." That made her bite her lip and look down at her feet.

Knowing she wouldn't leave her little brother, Dumbledore stood and turned to leave. "Don't worry, you'll see me again one day. Just be patient, and be good." He tousled her black curls, opened the door, and walked away with every ounce of will in his frail old body.

He didn't see Rose's tear-stained face, or her expression of anger, disbelief, confusion, grief and betrayal as her face screwed up to start bawling before Petunia shut the door. He didn't need to see it. Dumbledore knew it was there anyway, and his heart broke again with the crack of his Apparition.