4 Privet Drive, May 21st, 1988

There was always a flock of birds around the tree facing her kitchen window. Among the flock was a little grey one and its mother, who preferred her other children over the little grey one. Petunia named it Cascadia, after herself. Maybe if she had a daughter, she would call her that. But she did have two boys. One of them her own, and the other closely knit by blood.

Petunia had a secret. Not known by her husband or her son. Petunia was capable of magic. Not that she was a witch or ever wanted to be. The only person who knew of this secret was her nephew.

Out of her family, Petunia was very different from her obese husband. Not that she'd ever say that to his face. Vernon is a man deeply rooted in traditional values, whereas Petunia has dabbled in her fair share of progressive ideology. They are different people. But they share a roof and sit at the same table for dinner, no matter how much he hates it when Harry sits too.

She wasn't too different from Lily. Even though she had no place in Hogwarts, Petunia Dursley studied magic with her sister. She was what they call a squib—a mundane woman with nothing remarkable to say about her, aside from her ability to brew potions and perform runic magic. She minded her own business and followed the law closely, never breaking the Statute of Secrecy.

Harry was a calm boy. Most eight-year-olds his age would run around and cause havoc, but the boy was quiet, collected and eerily similar to her dead sister. Morgana forbid that he directs his anger at someone because with looks so angelic he could kill with a smile.

There was subtle anguish in the boy's voice when he spoke. Unlike an average child, he constantly bites down the words he wants to say and masquerades around in the facade of carefree aloofness. His teachers proclaim how nice of a boy he is. And even Vernon admits to how docile the boy is. After he had his way with him, Vernon placed him in the attic where no one could hear his muffled cries when the boy outgrew the cupboard.

Petunia had another secret that could get her into a lot of trouble and end with her being sentenced to death.

She could manipulate blood.

From a very young age, she and her sister Lily would practice the art secretly. The power of blood was unlike anything else in her life. It was harmony, and it was balance. It was a calling not many could hear. But she could, but so could Lily. Before she trotted off to Hogwarts, it did not matter that Petunia wasn't a witch because she and her sister had a powerful bond that transcended the boundaries of who was what.

But now, Lily was gone and what was left of her was cleaning the dishes. Harry was standing on his tippy-toes over the yellow stepping stool on the ground.

To Petunia, Harry was an innocent boy brought into a harsh environment where he would not receive love and affection as other children do—however this was the perfect environment to raise a child in the arts of Blood Magic. Although she could practice it herself, she used Harry as her mouthpiece to learn and create new spells, which required a steady flow of magic.

Petunia and Lily were portrayed as sisters persecuting each other, but that was not true. They were as thick as thieves from a young age. Even after that Snape boy took Lily under his wing, Lily always returned and told her everything she learned that day. Lily was three years younger than Petunia with a propensity for fire and arson. She set a rabbit on fire with her magic by accident once, and they ate it in silence. A random thought, but alas. It explains Harry's affinity for cooking bacon without ever burning himself.

In her last year of secondary school in London, Petunia met Vernon, an athlete with handsome stubble and similar beliefs to her and Lily. Spinner's End was never Lily's home. It was always Hogwarts… a place Petunia wanted to call home, but it wasn't. It would never be. When Vernon saw Lily for the first time, he was infatuated. As most men who saw her. Eerily, this was not normal. Petunia was not bad looking. In fact, one could go as far as to say that she was just as pretty as Lily. But the red-headed vixen was so enchanting. That there had to be foul play. A juvenile terror waiting to happen was she.

But no. Lily was born that way. After Lily's death, Petunia traced their family lineage back to the dark ages when she discovered that an ancestor was a half-blooded magical creature called Aos Sí. Lily had inherited some kind of power from them, which attracted the opposite gender. Which was what Petunia thought until she saw that Polkiss boy trying to lick Harry's face. Apparently, the son doesn't stray far from the mother.

Of course, there was the other thing, which was more likely to explain what Harry exactly was and how things happened around him. And she was not talking about the boy being a wizard. A saviour. A hero—celebrity... Petunia was not the one to dig her nose into people's lives, well, okay, maybe she was, but it was probably a good thing because she could keep Harry away from danger for most of his life.

She looked at the two boys. Dudley, her son, was chubby and round, eternally hungry. The same could be said for the skinny boy wiping her mug with a small towel. Harry was hungry in a different way from Dudley. Harry was hungry for knowledge. Petunia could see it in the ebb of his fingers, how he itched to know more, to swallow it whole.

"Dudley, what would you like for tea, sweetums?" She called out to her boy. 'Sweetums' was not the first thing that came to people's minds when they thought of Dudley, and most would actually say something partway derogatory or crude.

"CHOCOLATE!" The boy yelled from the other side of the room.

The silence was deafening. Harry giggled from his position by the sink but continued washing the dishes after receiving a quirk from Petunia's brow.

"My bundle of joy, you already had some cocoa this morning..." Petunia tried, and Harry most likely thought she wasn't trying hard enough. And she wouldn't be able to correct the boy.

"Alright." Petunia sighed and put four bars of chocolate on a plate. Without the wrappers, Diddly Diddums couldn't open them without dropping the plate on the floor.

He was awful at multitasking.

To top it off, Vernon had a late shift today.

And a long day it will be.

"The red candles are for releasing the mist, the runes are for the dimensions you cast between, and the process of striking me with the spell is how we'll get results. Do you understand so far?" Aunt Petunia asked him. Her bangs, usually blonde, were dyed black today.

"Mhm," Harry replied. His aunt tended to over-explain things, but she wasn't a bad teacher. Uncle Vernon preferred it when aunt Petunia didn't dye her hair, but he wasn't in charge of her body, so she could do whatever she pleased. Harry dug his nails in, feeling something wet on his fingertips.

"Are you paying attention, Harry?" The woman said, facing away from him.

Harry nodded at the question while staring at the dust bunnies hopping about in the corner of the attic. "Yes, Aunt Petunia," he said. Harry would instead learn about anatomy.

The veins of human beings were rather fascinating.

They could hold and carry blood cells to the right side of the heart. Blood is the road to health, as a well-balanced diet is a road to well-being.

"Are you lying?"

"No." He most definitely was.

"That's a lie, and you kn—" She stopped when she turned to look at him.

Aunt Petunia looked disappointed. "Show me," she demanded. Harry shuffled on the spot, pulling up his pants to show her the mess he'd made. Oh great, he thought, his aunt would berate him now. He knew it. The woman kneeled down and touched the tears of blood dripping from Harry's knee. It was all his luck that his trousers weren't completely soaked. "It's swelling, Harry," aunt Petunia said. She followed up her words with a stern look.

Harry wasn't sure if she was mad at him or the blood staining her floor. Either way, it didn't matter. Harry gave her a look. She was going to ask him to clean it anyway, so he started scooping the residue off the floor. Might as well start before she tells him.

"Boy, stop." Aunt Petunia pulled his now red hands away from the floor.

"You don't want me to clean it up?" he asked, but she ignored him. Instead, she picked up a cloth from her side table and brought it back to clean Harry's knees.

His uncle once told him it was a boy's job to clean up after himself as he grew older, but Harry only did it when his uncle was done with his weekly lashes or when he woke up the morning after. The man endeavoured to whip the magic out of him because Uncle Vernon wanted him to be normal. Regular.

But where was the fun in that?

"Harry... why?" Aunt Petunia asked, looking at the jagged cut stinging his kneecap. She balled the cloth in her hand. Aunt Petunia looked defeated. "You know what, never mind... you know the drill." She gave him a meaningful yet pointed look.

Harry knew every drill; his uncle worked at a drilling company. Since Harry didn't mind a little dirt, he pulled up his wet fingers and licked.

"Drink from the cut, not the floor!" Aunt Petunia started palming her forehead.

Harry ignored her as the stinging sensation started to quell as his blood re-entered his system.

Concentrating on the fire in his system, Harry watched the cut on his knee recede until all that was left was a fading scar.

Those didn't last long.

The woman got up and made her way back to her work.

Go outside. You've been crammed up here all afternoon," Harry's aunt murmured over the tabloid she was reading. Another journal of hers, or his mother's, Harry would have liked to read it regardless. There were so many things his aunt hid from him that it was getting hard to stay on track of his progress—Harry had to break apart the foundation laid upon him by his school teachers when he started learning blood magic. He would sit on his desk for days drawing the runic equations until he perfected the symmetry of every symbol to the most delicate details.

"The rose bush needs trimming," she said. "And you know what to do with the Dahlia's, don't you?"

"Yep. See you later, Aunt Petunia!" Harry said, rushing out of the attic.

Maybe if he did his chores today, uncle Vernon wouldn't hit him.

Little Whinging, Surrey, May 22nd, 1988

The boy was with muggles—not ordinary muggles either; he was living with Lily's miserable witch of a sister.

Irony must run in their bloodline.

Severus was losing patience, and Dumbledore was no help, only shrugging and hinting at the child's location. This only strengthened his resolve to rescue this child from whatever machinations those muggles had put him under.

Lo and behold, here he was walking down muggle streets, dressed to the nines in muggle apparel. The strange looks muggles gave were totally uncalled for; he had impeccable fashion taste.

Severus knocked on the streets of Privet Drive, starting from number ten.

This was a mistake. Every house was either unresponsive to his knocking or opened the door to scream at his appearance. One muggle child called him an 'emo' and laughed for a minute before inviting him in for tea. Severus declined if only to preserve his tact. Moving further into the neighbourhood and tripping over a random cat that came out of nowhere, Severus finally found what he was looking for.

There he was.

The boy was sitting out on the patio, plucking weeds from shrubbery around the ostentatious house. The boy was pale, cherubic in disposition. His hair was black as the night sky and tamed to lay loosely just under his ears; his eyes were the shape of wide almonds and the colour a bewitching shade of green. Like a secluded grove in a forest or the most delicate emerald, or your memories flashing in an instant before the total, eternal darkness bestowed only by the ravenous Killing Curse.

If Severus set a photo of Lily side by side with the boy, no one could tell the difference.

Except for his eyes.

Those tantalizing eyes gleamed esoterically; they were nothing like Lily's bottle-green, especially when they looked right into one's soul as they were doing now.

"Peter Murphy?" The boy said in wonder.

What?

"No... my name is Severus Snape," the man responded lamely.

"Really?" The boy looked like he was about to ask for credentials. "Why are you hiding in my aunt's rose bush, Mr. Snape?"

"I am... was... looking for you, Mr. Potter," Severus said with slight trepidation crumbling from his voice.

"Oh, okay then. I thought you'd start asking me if Bela Lugosi was truly dead, but I apologize for my violation of your character."

"No... offence taken?" Severus muttered as he contemplated the boy further. "Where are your glasses?"

"Oh. Now that you mention it, I used to wear glasses when I was little; I don't need them anymore because I ingested the blood of a blind virgin."

What?

"I'm not going to comment on that, Mr. Potter," Severus said as he rounded the corner.

"Are you sure you're alright, Mr. Snape? You look very pale," said the very pale child.

It indeed runs in their veins.

"Come along, Potter. We must leave before the headmaster learns of my wrongdoings." Severus said as he dragged the boy towards the house. "Pack your belongings. Now."

Harry brightened at that. "An adventure? Where are we going, Mister Snape?"

"To my home, now pack."

Harry frowned for a moment. "I'm not supposed to go with strangers, though. Aunt Petunia says that men who randomly approach children and try to take them somewhere are the vilest creatures. But then again, she doesn't really say much when Uncle Vernon takes me upstairs for my lashings."

Severus's skin was decolorized extensively.

"On second thought, let's go now—no need to pack," Severus said, hastily clapping his hands.

Harry bit his lip in dismay. "Awh, I wanted to grab my butcher's knife if someone tried to kidnap us."

Merlin up above, down under, wherever—just exactly what have they been teaching this poor child?

Severus quickly grabbed the boy's arm and apparated them to Spinner's End. Severus led the boy to his house, uncaring of how it looked to the small population of the neighbourhood.

Those ingrates would never even touch a hair on the boy's head again.

Severus wanted to just lie down with a bottle of Ogden's finest.

And it wasn't even four o'clock yet.

Spinner's End, Cokeworth, May 22nd, 1998

The first lesson in Blood Magic aunt Petunia taught Harry was how to communicate through blood since they are, after all,blood relatives; Harry could send Petunia a distress signal with his location, but to do so, he needed to cut himself open first. Harry would be lying if he found this man anything less than amusing. Yet, the self-obsessed professor of potion making has deliberately banished anything remotely sharp from his abode.

It wasn't just the butcher's knife, and to be fair, Harry had a whole collection under the floorboards in the attic. Their purpose was to linger for the opportunity to one day test their mettle against the neck fat of his walrus-like uncle.

Or to sometimes cut open his own skin.

He remembers his aunt's words. 'Blood is yours to command and witness—and only yours. The ministry of magic can't trace blood magic because it's tied to something so deep within you that they can't control or comprehend the darkness that comes along with it—'

Severus Snape was a delusional man with a lack of communication skills, that was for sure. But Harry couldn't help but pity the man's self-esteem issues.

"Have you ever considered a haircut, Mr. Snape?" Harry said, gently kicking his legs back and forth on the man's oversized couch. Which was black like most of Snape's clothing; a charming smile made its way to Harry's face as he played coquettishly about extracting an answer out of the skinny man to understand perhaps then the man's behaviour and why he had taken Harry.

"A... haircut?" The man tried to sound opportune to speak with Harry, but it came out sarcastically, making Harry's smile drop instantaneously before he pulled it back up. Gods, it was worse than he thought.

"Yes, Mr. Snape, it's when you allow the man at the barbershop to mince the greased, slimy gore you call—I mean the sleek, stylish... thickness of your exquisite hair to make it look presentable." At least in public, Harry supposed.

"I know what a haircut is, Potter!" The man growled out childishly, making Harry sink further back into the couch. Looking at Harry's perpetually shocked face staring back at him, the man gradually congregated himself in a tidy fashion.

"Apologies, Mr. Potter," Snape said, face pink, Harry noted. "I was inquiring as to why I would need a... haircut. My hair looks perfect as it is... I believe."

Harry's deadpan stare at him must have done something as the man backed away slowly until he hit a cabinet, haphazardly turned, and picked up a bottle of alcohol. Harry's not sure what kind. His uncle drinks, but it usually takes the man a sip or two to completely lose all sense of reality. So Harry didn't have much to say in that regard.

Severus Snape sat down on his armchair, caressing a bottle of rum (That's just what the package said) and started rubbing it on his forehead like he was worshipping a deity.

Wow, being an adult must suck arse.

When Harry worships something, he makes sure to do it with enough blood lying around.

They sat in silence before Severus sat upright and signalled Harry to come to him, in... some sort of a gang sign.

"I don't think the Jedi on the telly does it like that, Mr. Snape," Harry informed him with another blinding smile. He brushed his teeth extra hard to make up for the lack of toothpaste that Dudley had digested that morning.

"Oh, for goodness sake." The man suddenly got up again, and Harry urgently backed into the couch again. He was not going to start calling it a sofa; it was way too abnormally large to be called something dainty like a sofa, just like the man's nose.

Snape reached him and placed a hurried hand over his. Harry had his eyes closed, but he was pleasantly surprised to find a purple-packaged candy depicting a chocolate frog when he opened them.

And hey. Who doesn't like cooing at those innocent little creatures as their bodies are sliced open for meat and succulent blood?

Maybe Mr. Snape wasn't too weird.

The man looked at least forty years older when he sat down.

"What's an Agrippa?"

"At least it's on the topic of my career," Snape lamented.

What a strange man.

Spinner's End, Cokeworth, May 22nd, 1988

Severus swore at the sight of the Daily Prophet. Of course, this had to happen today. That menace Fenrir Greyback had escaped Azkaban.

Bloody Rita Skeeter.

"What's wrong, Mr. Snape?"

Severus quickly ran down the basics of Harry Potter to the boy who was unaware of his surroundings... or perhaps far too aware. Severus then showed the boy the paper.

After a beat, the boy started nodding his head. "So you're telling me I'm famous. Have a reputation for something I did as a baby... and goons are running around trying to hunt me? And I need to be careful because three of them escaped wizard prison?" The Potter boy asks unhurriedly, questioning every word that comes from his mouth.

"Yes," Snape responded curtly.

"You aren't much for words, Mr. Snape?"

"I can be." Severus spat out. And the boy knew it from when the man went over what an 'Agrippa' was. He was being purposely obtuse.

"So can we go outside? I wanna see the big werewolf guy." Harry pulled at the man's leg until Severus couldn't say no.

"Why would you want to see the big werewolf guy after I explicitly told you that he eats children?" Severus barked out, genuinely concerned for the child's mental well-being.

"I want to know what his blood tastes like—I mean type." Harry gulped silently, averting his eyes. "I want to know his blood type..." He added weakly.

"And they call me the dungeon bat." The man palmed his face. "Come along. It's almost sunset," he said to the boy, turning for the door.

Harry, in a fit of giddiness, Harry stood up on the couch and embraced the man. And for a reason, which he could not explain, Severus returned it.

"Can I have a knife now?" Harry requested politely as if asking for a second serving of ice cream. How did the boy equate a hug to receiving a knife?

What in the world.

Severus contemplated not hugging the boy again after this once but chose against the notion. Those angelic eyes saw through Severus's secrets, his thoughts... all the while looking nothing like James Potter.

"How did you regain your sight again?" Severus asked.

"So you see, there was this nursing home, and one of the old ladies never married while I visited the library next door, so she would sometimes talk to me from the courtyard on the way back to Privet Drive, so one day I asked what her blood type was—"

"Alright, let's go." Stretching his 'Ah' was compulsory but worked out for him as the boy promptly fell silent and allowed the potions master to pick him up without hassle.

Apparating to the nearby magical village outside Cokeworth, Severus walked along with the shops with Harry in tow.

Visiting a sweet shop, Harry, as it turned out, unsurprisingly loved blood pops.

The vendor even joked about Harry being a vampire. "It'd explain his pale face, I reckon." It did.

The worst of it was that Severus believed the man—but then it begged the question.

How did the vendor not know who Harry was?

"Harry, can you..." Severus hauled the boy into a shadowy alley and told him to push his bangs back.

The severe lack of 'scar' was paramount in his inspection. A muted gasp left him, and he steered the boy back into the streets.

"Where to now—oh look! A barbershop!" Harry gently tugged at the man's robes with eyes like no mortal could refuse. "Let's go fix your hair," the little demon said to him, hopping on each step like he was playing an over-enthusiastic game of peevers.

They entered the shop, and Harry told the lady rigorously what to do with Severus's hair. And much to his surprise, the blonde barber responded enthusiastically to Harry's suggestions. She also shared the boys' predilection for sharp objects as she pulled out the most pointy scissors in her store.

Severus prayed to every god he knew for those brief few seconds. The rest was unexpectedly done by magic. Her response, when asked, was a shrug. Severus, with his new somehow dapper haircut, strode out of the store with his pouch three galleons lighter. Women at every turn glanced at him as they walked by, even some men. Snape was outside the realm of confusion when a woman approached him and started speaking strangely about his jawline.

"I think she was flirting with you." Harry implicated. Severus had never felt more guilt-free after losing three galleons impulsively. And another couple of sickles for the copious amounts of 'Agrippa' the boy pleaded for—which he was not referring to the potion, thank you very much. Harry identified and addressed chocolate frogs as 'Agrippas,' and Severus couldn't say no.

After feeding some ducks at a nearby pond, the boy started dosing off Severus's shoulders, so he apparated with Harry to his abode. He was done with ducks for life since he tried to pick up one to impress the boy, but somehow the duck latched on to his head and started screeching.

Back at Spinner's End, Severus put Harry down on the couch. The man was sure that the boy would be less eager to find a knife now, considering how sleepy he was from their little trip.

Even if the boy got his hands on a knife, The boy's nature convinced Severus that the boy would not do anything with a knife if he had one—Harry was so docile and pleasant to everything that it seemed impossible for him to harm anyone.

Of course, that did not apply to the boy himself, and now Severus had his hands full of bleeding boy-who-lived.

"Why?!" Severus asked the deranged boy holding up a blood-soaked, sharp pair of scissors. "How?"

"Why, mister Snape, didn't you know?" Harry said calmly.

"Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit."

Severus learned of true horror that day.

"Nothing comes from nothing."

All Severus saw was red.

4 Privet Drive, May 22nd, 1988

In its' wake, fire consumes everything. Eternal damnation awaits those who reject its suffocating warmth. But blood is sacred—blood should not boil in fervour.

Anticipation is a monster.

Petunia knew this from the very beginning—an untamable beast who never let you out of its searing gaze.

Lily was like that, too, in a way.

"Mum, what's wrong with your eyes?" Dudley asked her while chewing on something. Petunia didn't care.

Plunging into her veins and activating every nerve, all she could feel was the Call.

The boy was missing the entire day, which was her only indication of his prolonged existence.

Vernon looked away from his newspaper to put out his cigarette.

She was now exposed for who she truly was. There was nothing she could do to convince them otherwise.

Petunia had convinced Vernon that she, too, was 'normal' to sate his unreasonable expectations.

Witches who partake in manipulating blood know this because blood is more potent than magic. Harry was calling her, and it was searing her insides. But she wasn't a witch. She was barely a squib.

"Pet? Are you...you" Vernon lost the compassion in his voice when he saw her eyes. "You're like them." Vernon accused her with a monotonous voice. The man's ashtray was so polished that it reflected her face, and to anyone paying close enough attention, Petunia's eyes were gleaming an unnatural red.

Petunia waited for the outburst.

"A fucking freak!" Vernon threw his ashtray at her feet and stormed off. He was like that all the time but never to her. The man made it up to four steps up the staircase before starting to huff in exhaustion.

Dudley was crying.

The boy had dropped his plate of sweets on the floor.

After kissing his forehead gently, Petunia didn't make a show of hiding her powers any longer. To Dudley's amazement, the simple essence of blood surrounding them was enough for Petunia to repair the broken plate.

Petunia was proud.

She practiced that spell for a whole decade and couldn't get it to work until tonight.

Petunia rushed to the door to pick up her coat and purse before heading out with one last glance at Dudley.

"Don't worry, Dudley. Mommy will be back, okay?"

With that, she was gone.

A train ride later, she stood in the middle of Spinner's End, where she grew up. Where Lily brought her husband to the lake next to their old home or the meadows she trounced upon with that Snape boy, not touched by time.

When had Petunia become less of a priority to her sister over the years?

Maybe Petunia was just a nasty excuse for a sister.

With blood still boiling inside her, she coughed into her hand, which came out wet. Not with blood but tears from her burning eyes.

The night was bleary, but Petunia made it to the house where Harry sent his Call. She knew what this house was and who owned it, and she was somewhat unsurprised by the man's actions. But she did spit on the lawn before knocking quickly.

"May I help—Petunia Dursley is here?" She heard behind the door.

"Let me in, Snape!" She said in the most devastatingly irritated voice known to man.

"How did you?" Came the strangled voice of Severus Snape as he opened the door. Harry calmly ate a chocolate frog while Snape was flustered and somewhat put together.

She gave him the stinkeye. "Finally fixed that vile and rancid hair, have you?" Petunia said with faked joviality. Snape started to respond, but Petunia cut him off. "Now, will you let me in, or will I have to punch you in your gullet!"

Snape reluctantly allowed her in. Petunia shoved him to the side to saunter in to check on Harry. "What did I say about strange men wearing ugly robes?"

"Excuse me?!"

"Stay away from them?" Harry asked shyly, averting his eyes.

"Correct, now grab whatever you need, and let's go back. It's already ten past twelve."

"Dursley, I don't know if you think yourself above muggle transportation rules, but the train station closed ten minutes ago," Snape said with a lack of sobriety.

"Oh, I know, you are taking us back." Petunia got up close and personal and felt the weight of Harry's silent support help her eye down a man four heads taller than her.

"Really?" Snape taunted her. And for that, he received a slap across the face.

Harry snorts at Snape's scandalized expression.

"Really," Petunia replied with a flicker of bitterness in her tone.

"Really!" A cheerful voice said from behind them, and they jumped. Albus Dumbledore was sitting next to Harry in his bright neon yellow robes with painted ducks as Harry was nibbling on his chocolate frog's legs.

Ignoring Dumbledore's attire entirely, Snape marched over to the two, "What are you doing here, Professor? You can not just come into people's homes uninvited!" Snape yelled, sounding mildly annoyed and exhausted. Even though she currently hates the man, Petunia could relate to him as she was also enfeebled from this day.

"I might ask the same question to you, Professor. What are you doing here?" Dumbledore queries back with a kind smile.

"Ooh, I can answer that! Snape likes to... kidnap children on his off days. And since it's the weekend... you know." Harry answered buoyantly while eviscerating the frog with his teeth, and he wasn't even eating it.

He was just slaughtering it.

Sometimes, he acted nothing like Lily.

"Dumbledore, what do you want? Get it over with." Petunia wrapped her arms around herself.

"Well, I would suggest you two go back to Privet Drive." Dumbledore pointed to the satisfied boy and Petunia herself. "But since you are both here, I see no point in you going back for a bit if you decide to stay here. And Severus is agreeable."

Harry raised his hand like an obedient student, and when Dumbledore gestured at him with a smile, the boy sat up and merrily asked, "why do you get to decide that, Mr. Dumbledore?"

"Ah, that is because I can fire and have Professor Snape here arrested for child endangerment."

"Wicked!" Harry cheered before staring at Snape. "Can I have another 'Agrippa' now?" Harry said patiently.

That was the final straw. "You've been giving him drugs?!" Petunia went for Snape's face with her nails.

"NO! No! That's just what he calls chocolate frogs!" Snape said as he defended himself from her.

Harry and Dumbledore shared a knowing smile before Dumbledore brought up the fact that he had to return to Hogwarts.

Albus Dumbledore stroked his beard a moment before getting up, "other than you already know, Mr. Greyback and his companions were recently sighted near Privet Drive. Your husband and son are fine, do not worry. But I recommend staying here for the week, as young Harry there," Harry waved at him, and Dumbledore beamed before continuing, "is a priority target."

Petunia wanted to ask about Dudley, but Dumbledore calmed her by telling her that he would personally escort her son to Spinner's End and left Severus no room to complain as the man had put this on himself. He did not say anything about Vernon, but perhaps that was for the best.

Dumbledore left in a whisk of white smoke.

Soon, Harry was drowsily nibbling on another chocolate frog, Severus was lying face down on the floor, and Petunia was sitting quietly on the couch next to Harry, lost in her memories.

They had a long week ahead of them.

If you guy's didn't know, this is part of a series. The next part is already out and completed on AO3! :D It's called 'In the Mirror of Desire,' and it goes through Harry's first year at Hogwarts! If you decide not to check it out, that's also fine! I hope you enjoyed it!