A/N: I've moved a paragraph from the end of the previous chapter to the beginning of this chapter, and chopped of the end of the chapter to either make a stand-alone chapter or add it to the beginning of the next – I'll know once I've started re-writing it.

A/N 2: Sorry for the stupidly long wait between updates and edits, but I have so many stories on the go and so few of them are actually being posted at the minute, plus health problems and a life.

Chapter Four: Welcome Home

On the 2nd of September, 1983, Petunia went to the doctors for herself. Haydon noticed the oddness of such an action since she didn't normally go and see a medical professional for herself, even though she would take her son every six months for a check-up.

Three hours after she left, Petunia returned with the news which would change everything in the house hold – she was pregnant.

Petunia and Vernon were ecstatic to be having another child, and not even the morning sickness that Petunia started having the week after seeing the doctors could change that. They'd thought that she wouldn't be able to have another child, since they'd started trying when Dudley turned two but had given up hope after two years of trying.

Dudley, at seven, was not nearly as happy as his parents. He didn't want a sibling because he believed that he wouldn't get the attention he deserved, or wanted. He thought that they would not give him everything he wanted with someone else demanding their attention. His parents tried to alleviate some of Dudley's fears, and even went to see a Child Psychologist, but nothing they did changed Dudley's opinion on the matter. However, it was the trip to the psychologists which taught Dudley that his parents would not be giving up the unborn child and he didn't want to be punished, and therefore he stopped acting out around his parents.

Two weeks after Petunia delivered the news, she sent Haydon up into the attic. He was ordered to clean and sort it, bringing down all the baby stuff that had been placed there when Dudley had outgrown them. He was ordered to leave Dudley's clothes in the attic, only bringing down things like the old cot and the reusable non-gender specific items. Everything else would be brought new, since the Dursleys wanted only what was best for their children.

It took Haydon a good three hours to clean and sort the attic. Vernon – the one who had carried the things into the attic – hadn't placed the boxes and items in any sort of order. He was fortunate that there were empty boxes that he could use to help him sort and organise what had been dumped. Haydon dusted and de-cobwebbed everything before boxing anything that was loose, and re-boxing everything that had already been boxed.

Once everything was boxed, he placed them in chronological ordered started at the back of the attic. He labelled all of the boxes so he would know where everything was in the future, just encase he was sent back up to get something.

It was only once things were cleaned and organised, that he started bringing the baby things down. From the things that they had brought Dudley, Haydon salvaged: two high chairs, five all-in-one pram sheets, a pram, seven crib sheets, a crib, four thick textured blankets, two bathing towels, two washcloths, six soft cotton cloths, two baby quilts, a bowl for 'topping and tailing', a changing mat and a changing table. Haydon wasn't sure why they needed two high chairs, or why he had to bring the blankets down when they were going to buy more, but he just did as he was told.

Once everything was down, he was ordered to clean them.

With the attic clean, Haydon was forced to dismantle the double bed from the guest room and store it in the attic. Since the mattress was too big to fit in the loft, Haydon had to sort and clean Dudley's second bedroom. Anything from Dudley's second room that could still be used was cleaned, packed and stored in the attic (baring that which Haydon was able to sneak into his room), and if it was broken beyond repair Haydon black bagged it and Vernon drove it to the dump.

Once the room was cleaned out, Haydon was able to drag the mattress into the room to be stored until the Dursley's decide what they want to do with. Haydon very much doubted that they were going to keep it until their new child was old enough to use it since then it would have been 'tainted'.

Petunia deviated from her normal routine by taking trips to the library in order to borrow books on pregnancy and child care. She may have already raised one of her own, but she wanted to make sure that absolutely nothing went wrong. With the books in the house, Haydon took his opportunity to learn something new and would take the books at night to read them. He doubted that Petunia would ever let him near the child, but he liked to be prepared for anything. He even spent more time reading his parents diaries so that he could reach the point when they were raising him.

Reading all these books, learning about children and the different parenting techniques that professionals recommend, was about more than just enjoyment for Haydon. There was something extremely important about the child growing inside of Petunia – something important to Haydon, and he had to do everything he could to make sure that he was strong enough and knowledgeable enough to help the child.

With Petunia's maternal instincts surging, Vernon's paternal instincts were heightened; specifically, his protective instincts. Unfortunately for Haydon, Vernon viewed him as a threat. What had before been emotional abuse and neglect, with the occasional backhand or rough grab, escalated very quickly into severe physical abuse.

Vernon started taking even the smallest infraction that Haydon made – not completing his chore list, over or under cooking food, bleeding colours in the wash, anything and everything – and using it as an excuse to punish Haydon. Sometimes it would just be a punch which sends him to the floor, but more often than not he had taken to using his belt in order to whip Haydon across the back and most recently leaving small cuts on Haydon with a knife – reminders he called each mark as he made Haydon repeat the rules of the house with each slice of the knife.

Since Vernon had escalated his physical abuse, Haydon was forced to start looking to Petunia's medical box for supplies. He didn't want to use anything his mother had packed – especially not the potions – encase the abuse got worse and he needed something stronger than antiseptic cream and bandages. He was fortunate that with Petunia's maternal surge, she had started treating even a small papercut with plasters so he had plenty of supplies to work with. The antiseptic cream was harder to come across so he had to be cautious with what he used, instead he stole a bottle of Vodka from Vernon – as long as he could get his wounds clean, he would do his best. Water wasn't as effective, but when he ran out of antiseptic and vodka and couldn't get his hands on more, he did resort to using his stock pile.

Haydon wanted to dive into magical healing as well as the non-magical treatment he was teaching himself, but his mother cautioned him against attempting such advanced magic without a focus until he'd worked out basic Occlumency and started with charms such as levitation and colour changing as practise. Something, with his impressive memory, was going to take him a while to work out. Once he had Occlumency down, he was going to start learning healing magic because he had no doubt Vernon was just going to get more vicious as he got older.

When Petunia was eighteen weeks along, she found out she was having a baby girl. With the gender known, Haydon was set to painting the new nursery a creamy pink that was nearly beige. After looking around the room, Petunia had Haydon add a dark purple wave pattern around the top of the room, to spouse it up. Luckily, Petunia felt that the fluffy white carpet was fine for a baby girl.

Once the room had dried, aerated and the carpet deep cleaned, they had him begin moving the things in and setting up the nursery. Petunia had been writing lists and sending him out to buy things for the baby. Everything from throw away liners for the changing table, to washable cotton nappies.

The only things that the Dursleys went out and brought for themselves was the mattress for the baby's crib, personalised baby clothes and a small baby bed which they had fallen in love with even though the baby wouldn't use it until she was a year old. The bed was designed to turn from a crib into a normal bed and was big enough to last from the kids first birthday until their fifth or sixth. The bed was stored in Dudley's second bedroom – still in its package box – until it could be used.

As Petunia went into her fourth month, Haydon made the decision that he couldn't stay in the house at all hours of the day, and so he escaped to the library. At first, his time in the library was so he had books to read, but he started filling a voluntary position in the library by sorting and cataloguing books for the librarian who wasn't as mobile as she used to do. The librarian decided to take pity on Haydon after taking in his physical appearance, and decided to pay him for the hours he spent working. He wasn't sure how she was marking of the expense, but Haydon was grateful, especially when he realised that the lady thought he was ten instead of the five he actually was.

Even though he was out of the house for two, sometimes three hours a day, Haydon still had to stay on top of the same quantity of chores as before. If he didn't complete the chores that he was assigned each day, he was kept in the house for the next day or so and he had to face punishment from Vernon when he got home from work.

On the 16th May, 1984, as the sun was rising, Petunia Dursley went into labour.

Haydon grabbed the bag he had been ordered to pack the month before, and placed it in the back seat of the car before he walked to Mrs Figgs' where the Dursley's had arranged for him to wait until they returned home. Dudley had been staying with his aunt Marge since she had arrived at her hotel room, because they hadn't known when Petunia would be going into labour and didn't want to disrupt Vernon's day-to-day routine.

Petunia was in labour for ten hours before giving birth to a beautiful baby girl, Marigold Rosaline Dursley. The neighbourhood had all been sent copies of the photograph that one of the nurses had taken of Marigold. It was their way of bragging that they had produced another beautiful child.

From the picture, Haydon learnt that Marigold had Petunia's brown hair which appeared to have red streaks through it. Due to the fact that the picture was taken a week after birth, her eyes had started darkening into sharp blue – the same colour as their grandmother who he had once since a picture off.

Haydon had to stay with Mrs. Figg for two weeks while Petunia recovered at the hospital. Marigold didn't have any health problems, but Petunia didn't want her daughter going home with Vernon and without her so they had both remained in hospital.

The day that Petunia and Vernon came home with Marigold, Marge had Haydon put up banners and make the pair their favourite foods. The atmosphere between Dudley and his parents was a bit tense since he had not accepted the fact that he was no longer an only child and sole focus of his parent's attention.

In the first month Haydon saw a side of Petunia and Vernon that he had never seen before. They had no problem getting up in the middle of the night to answer the cries of their daughter; they smiled, laughed and played with her almost constantly. For the first time Haydon saw the gentle, loving, side of the Dursleys instead of the angry and neglectful side that he was faced with daily, and the worshipping and blind adoration that they showed Dudley.

Despite having read the books, Haydon was surprised at the speed in which Marigold started going through the physical development steps. She went from being a new born baby to an infant in what felt like days, instead of the month it truly was.

The tuft of fine hair that Marigold had been born with, thickened and grew and the colour became more pronounced. What they had thought would be chocolate brown hair became a rich auburn with pronounced red highlights. When she noticed the emergence of more and more red highlights, Petunia's consternation grew. She's tried very hard to destroy everything that reminded her of her sister, and she the last thing she wanted was for her daughter to look like her dead freak of a sister. Each time she washed her daughters' hair, she prayed that the auburn would overpower the red while Marigold grew.

Physically, Marigold was able to lift and turn her head to follow movement and the shaking of her arms and legs became more co-ordinated. She greatly enjoyed tummy time and would whin when she was lifted of her tummy unless it was that she was picked up for food. Intellectually, Marigold had started recognising the people around her. Whenever Petunia would enter a room, she would track her across the room. Moving into her second move, Marigold had also taken to tracking Harry whenever he entered a room with her, even though Petunia and Vernon did their best to keep them away from each other despite the confines of the house.

When Marigold was in the living room, Petunia would give him chores to do out in the garden, or in the kitchen. If she could, she would prefer to give him a chore upstairs since that would keep his 'freakishness' more contained from her then just the small separation of one wall between the kitchen and living room. When he needed to complete a chore in the same room as Marigold, Petunia would try and keep her body between the baby and him.

There was only one time when the Dursleys would relax their strict approach to his proximity to Marigold. During the times when Marigold wouldn't stop crying no matter how much attention she was given, with a dry nappy and offer of food, they would admit defeat and have Haydon do something in the same room as her. They found the most effective way of stopping her from crying when she was so worked up was to have Haydon fold laundry while sat on the floor with Marigold lying on her tummy next to him.

Haydon guessed that his 'natural calm' that came with the development of his Occlumency shields, along with the unpanicked and efficient movements, helped to calm Marigold down. And because, by the time he was ordered to do something, she'd exhausted herself with crying just calming her enough to stop crying was enough to cause her to nod-off without anymore complaints.

Unwilling to abide by the rules of Petunia and Vernon and stay away from Marigold, Haydon would sneak out of his cupboard as many nights as he could and visit her in her crib. Sneaking up the staircase was riskier then sneaking into the kitchen, since he had to go up the staircase which could creak if he stepped wrong and passed the rooms that the Dursleys were sleeping in.

Sometimes, when he'd sneak into her room, he'd find Marigold awake, so he would read her stories or hum quietly to her. He'd seen from the way Dursley acted that the Dursleys didn't read bedtime stories to their kids, so he'd taken it onto himself to do that for Marigold so as to give her a better chance then Dudley had. Humming songs also introduced Marigold to music which the Dursley's so rarely listened to unless it was as a consequence of their TV show. If Marigold wasn't awake, he'd simple watch her for a few minutes before returning to his cupboard.

In contrast to his cousin, Dudley hadn't accepted the presents of Marigold into the house at all. If Marigold was brought into a room where he was, he made it a point of leaving unless he was eating at the table. He preferred to watch TV in the living room because the TV was bigger, but he was willing to accept watching the TV in his room if it kept him away from the noise box. For the first time since starting school, he was happy to leave the house in the morning and would grudgingly come home at the end of the day – only the promise of food when he walked through the door stopping him from stomping his way in.

New Word Count: 2825

Old word count: 4,899