A/N: grins sheepishly Heh . . . heh . . . rather corny cliffhanger. But I'll make it up, I promise.

Harry sprang painfully upright. He bolted out of his bed, feverishly wiping his glasses. Hedwig's lamp-like eyes beamed through the thickness of the dark, allowing him to scrabble at the doorknob quite accurately. His shoes remained forgotten at the foot of the bed.

Something just fell down and crashed. Or was knocked down, he thought darkly. He stumbled out of the room only to bump headfirst into the now-hardened paunch of Dudley.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" roared Harry, fishing in his back pocket frantically for his wand. Dudley aimed a kick at him. "I SAID GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

Dudley hesitated, noticing the brandished wand. Harry flung his arm out in front of his cousin. "Wait!"

He strode cautiously down the hallway, hissing occasionally at Dudley, who began to whimper. He almost made it to the stairs when his uncle's door flew open.

"YOU!" Uncle Vernon shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Harry.

Harry pressed his hand over his uncle's mouth (as distasteful as this was; Uncle Vernon had especially bristly mustache hairs springing over grossly plump lips). Uncle Vernon's eyes popped out maniacally, sputtering feebly under Harry's constraint. His gaze shifted to Harry's wand, now pointed at Dudley.

"Make one sound and I swear I'll hex him," whispered Harry harshly. "And don't let your wife get in the way, either."

He let go, leaving Uncle Vernon wheezing in outrage. "Petunia's not in here!" he managed to force out. "She's down there, wiping down the counter!"

"Then shut up and stay down."

Harry crept down the stairs as quickly and as noiselessly as he could, wincing with each creak. Surely the Death Eaters couldn't have found me here—

He stopped short, clutching the railing for support. A sight he never thought he'd see met him in the form of Aunt Petunia burying her head on her arms, cleaning gloves laying limply on the floor next to a shattered vase. Strands of hair had escaped the hard knob at the base of her neck, hanging over her forehead.

Harry stared, stunned, while a clock ticked crisply in the background. Finally, he turned on his heels and climbed back up. Uncle Vernon and Dudley remained motionless until he emerged at the top.

"Well?" Uncle Vernon snapped. "Why are you up so soon?"

So if anything had happened, it was all up to me, huh? Pity you won't have me much longer. The strangeness of the situation was enough, however, for Harry to bite back the words. It would be more than they deserved, but he decided not to sink to their level.

"No one broke in, but I think you should all go down anyway," he replied coolly. "I suggest you go see for yourself. She doesn't look very happy."

He hung back, sticking his hands in his pockets. He felt clumsy, although these people did not deserve his compassion. Intrusion into a private world always made him uncomfortable. Harry was almost at his door again when his ears caught something very interesting.

" . . . but it was a life-debt! Do you understand! Oh—god—what will all happen to us now . . ." Aunt Petunia babbled. Harry dashed to the stairs, but thought better. He returned quickly with a piece of Extendable Ear (courtesy of Fred and George) and lowered the string over the banister.

" . . . Oh—no—no . . ." She seemed to be sobbing hysterically. Harry craned his neck farther, bewildered. She was this upset over a vase?

"Petunia, it's just a vase! I'll—I'll buy you a new one first thing tomorrow," said Uncle Vernon distractedly. "We can all go to that European place, what's-it-called, er—"

" . . . I'm being punished, aren't I; I'm being punished for being so stupid! Ohhh . . ."

Aunt Petunia moaned. "Bring him down here—bring the boy—"

Harry froze, startled by this declaration. She didn't mean him, did she? He only just came! How could she blame him for anything? He barely managed to snatch up the Extendable Ear when his uncle came bursting onto the second floor. Uncle Vernon mopped his forehead with his handkerchief, tomato red from exerting himself. Harry sped by before his uncle could strangle him.

Downstairs, Dudley was crouched mutely next to his mother. He looked up at Harry's entrance, and shuffled onto the couch. Aunt Petunia was now picking weakly at the shattered glass on her otherwise spotless floor, but she merely dropped the pieces back down. She gasped like a fish out of water when Harry appeared beside her, and managed to hoist herself up. Taking a shaking breath, she began to speak.

(A/N: I would stop here, but that would be mean.)

"We're all going to die and go to hell."

There was a bit of a dramatic pause after this alarming statement in which Dudley twitched convulsively, Uncle Vernon nervously twisted his mustache, and Harry raised his eyebrows in cautious skepticism. And?

"And it's all your fault, boy." The inhabitants of number four, Privet Drive, glared wildly at Harry, who slowly and nonchalantly (he hoped) drew his hand across to his back pocket. Uncle Vernon looked as if he was preparing to throw himself onto Harry, but Aunt Petunia continued abruptly.

"Actually, it's your mother's fault."

What the hell . . . Harry blinked and curled his fingers around his wand. Seeing as everything he knew about his aunt was slipping away, perhaps his wand would now find it appropriate to vanish as well.

"I suppose it all started with that damned letter from that school of hers—yours," she nodded coldly at Harry. "But after she left, she could have turned away. She married Potter instead, and took a job at some wizard hospital."

My mother worked at St. Mungo's!

"She idiotically told your godfather about going into hiding. As if life wasn't unpredictable already," she laughed mirthlessly. "And what an awful mess he was. I mean, I saw him with my own two eyes, didn't I?"

Harry worked his throat muscles in an effort to wet his mouth enough to say something. "You met Sirius?"

Aunt Petunia fixed a beady eye at Harry. "Sirius? He didn't tell me his name, but he was bald and short."

Wormtail. Harry looked on in stony silence, suddenly devoid of innards.

"And don't interrupt me, boy. Terribly ugly, and smelly to boot. A fitting friend for your abnormality of a father. He came after me one night when Vernon was away on a business trip, and told me that he was your godfather. I saw right away that he wasn't balanced. He kept asking me where 'Godric's Hollow' was. God, he nearly had me in tears until I had enough sense to call the police."

Uncle Vernon cleared his throat. "Petunia, you never told me."

"I'm telling you now. I almost had the police department when he used his wand to slice the cord." She wiped away an errant tear bitterly. "Thought I was going to die right then, along with Dudley. (Don't cry, Duddikins, Mum's alright.) I was pregnant then, you see. He had his wand pointed at me and everything, when he sniffed the air. I only heard a crack and he disappeared, and another crack when Dumbledore appeared. Don't ask me how he knew, but he saved my life."

"Did you tell him?" said Harry. "Did you tell him where my—parents—lived?"

You betrayed your sister. Harry swallowed hard, gritting his teeth with suppressed rage. All these years I was forced to live with you, you—

"Do I look stupid to you? I guess he found out, because a year later I was landed with you. Anyway, I told Dumbledore that your godfather was here. He looked fit to kill for a second, but I must have imagined it, because he turned around and told me in the most miserable voice that I was now serving a life-debt."

Uncle Vernon scratched his chin. "Eh—Petunia, dear—"

"Turns out even normal people can have a life-debt to wizards." She waved her hand impatiently. "Why else do you think I let Harry live here, Vernon? I didn't care that he were my nephew, and that he was in danger. Lily was dead to me since she was eleven. I didn't abandon him because I couldn't."

She shuddered and collapsed weakly on the couch next to her son. Harry registered dimly that she cradled Dudley's enormous head in her arms, wiping his face repeatedly with the hem of her apron, and that his uncle was sitting extremely stiffly at one end of the sofa. Harry turned away from this scene and quietly ran to his room.

It was ten o'clock now. Harry had returned around eight, but he could not believe that two hours had passed. His bed had turned cold in the night air during his time downstairs, and goosebumps sprang up on his bare arms. The pain at the bottom of his chest was now twice as big, but he did not know why. All he knew was that he learned never to take anything at face value anymore.

So his aunt had found a loophole by treating him like dirt. But now that she was released from her life-debt, would she still let Harry remain in her house? Harry doubted that this emotional breakdown would change her in any way. After all, she had kept this giant secret for seventeen years. Harry shivered; he climbed in between the sheets. He felt like something cold was on the verge of slapping him, but stopped just before it met contact with him.

My mother was a healer.

Aunt Petunia served a life-debt to Dumbledore and is now released.

My mother was a healer.

And slowly, the image of a red-haired woman with flashing green eyes became clearer in Harry's head. The dull ache in his heart thumped softer.

A/N: Rather short (and dark) chapter, but humor will make an appearance. Please review, and watch for Bill's and Fleur's WEDDING!