Story Title: Petunia, the Petulant

Chapter Title: Initiation

Author's Note: Happy New Year! It's 2022 and uncannily, I just happened to be thinking about this story again when I received a new review out of the blue, nudging me to finish it. That seems more than coincidence, and I realized this story simply must be finished. Severus and Petunia, who received the most wholly unsatisfying of endings from their original author, demand it.

So, thank you, to my most recent reviewer, for letting me know how it affected you and motivating me to write again! I am very optimistic that I will finally be finishing it soon. Hope you all enjoy!

Initiation

The teachers and eighth years did not know what to make of Mrs. Dursley, this strange, Muggle woman who sat in the back corners of the room, copying feverishly, watching with furrowed eyebrows, but never speaking. By now, Petunia had become a fixture at Hogwarts; all of the teachers knew who she was, and most of the students did, too. The first years didn't know any better, and simply ignored her.

This was not difficult to do, as Petunia briskly walked the corridors of the school, looking very much like she belonged there, just like everyone else. She could easily have passed for a professor, for she behaved with such purpose and automation that she seemed like someone who had spent their entire life at Hogwarts.

She didn't know her way around, though. Getting lost was a frequent event, but she was so preoccupied in some kind of deep thought, that anyone who would have seen her turn a wrong corner, climb to a dead end, or nearly fall off the ledge of a moving staircase, would have assumed she were a robot, for all the attention she paid to the obstacle. Her heels click-clicked down the halls at all hours, and the eighth years wondered exactly when, if ever, she got any sleep.

Hermione and Lupin knew that she usually visited Snape after class, to put to practice whatever she'd learned in the classroom, late into the night. Ron thought she looked like a madwoman, and, fascinated, constantly predicted a nervous breakdown, and tried to get Neville to make a wager as to when.

Draco was merely curious; it would be very interesting if it turned out that a Muggle could become a witch, and while for now he kept the existential crisis at bay, in the back of his mind he knew it would have very unsettling implications for all he'd ever believed, if it turned out to be true. :Still...it was interesting.

McGonagall, oddly, seemed the most uncomfortable, and, contrary to her usual nature, stayed out of the business in general, seeming not to notice when Petunia was in a class with her. Luna Lovegood said that Mrs. Dursley was possessed and had been since the first night of her arrival; she said all this very serenely, of course, and did not seem to find this a distressing or far-fetched theory.

As it turned out, Luna would not have been very far off, for Petunia was definitely losing sleep. She was most certainly obsessed with progress, and attacked her work with a steely, sharp-faced determination that Severus seemed to appreciate. No longer did the occasional outburst or condescending demand affect her; she stood at attention like a soldier, and simply tried again and again, until he was satisfied with the result. It made their work very efficient.

When she did sleep, her dreams were filled with lessons; she had conversations with herself, trying to solve problems she had not been able to tackle that day. Her sleep was restless and she felt as if her nights and days blended seamlessly into one endless continuum.

It was the week of All Hallows' Eve that she began to hear voices.

She went to sleep one night, tossing and turning, and regardless of the dream, her mind managed to bring every scenario back around to some conversation where she was trying to get to the bottom of the last major challenge: how to produce a patronus. She tried theory after theory to her dreamself; when conscious that she was dreaming, she tried to convince herself that it could wait till the next day when she could actually test things out, but eventually fell back into the pattern again, running through the same answers over and over.

She was never quite sure, later, whether she'd actually left her bed. But somehow she had risen and decided to go out into the darkened halls. She wandered almost automatically toward the dungeons, assuming she was heading for a classroom. But at the last moment, she took an odd turn down a twisty hall she did not remember seeing before. The swampy green torches cast their ghostly glow on the cold, gray, ancient stone; it felt comfortable. This was a safe, hidden place.

This was home.

She arrived at what appeared to be a solid wall and stopped, regarding it. She reached out to touch it. As soon as she did, faster than the blink of an eye, she found herself facing a dark opening where the solid wall had been. There was no door; it simply opened straight into...what was this? All that green...she stepped through the darkness into a strange room; at first, it looked like an underground swimming pool, with water that seemed to be lit from below by a mysterious green light, casting waving patterns on the stone walls about the room. Eight columns marked the pool on each sides and at the corners; as the far end came into view while her eyes adjusted to the darkness, it appeared some kind of fountain in the shape of a creature formed the main part of that wall. Water poured from several places in the fountain, including what must be the creature's mouth.

She very much wanted to see what it was...

Petunia looked around for a way to get across. It was impossible to tell how deep the water was...though it was bright underneath, she could not make out a floor and did not know if the brightness was the floor itself. If she tried to make her way around the columns along the side, she could very easily fall into the water anyway; there was barely enough room for anything larger than a mouse to creep around on the edges. She wanted to know how deep the water was, and thought about slipping her shoes off her feet to dangle one in.

When she looked down, however, she found herself already barefoot. She had not put on any slippers. Come to think of it, she did not appear to be wearing anything at all!

The strangeness of this did not distract her for long, however, so strong was her desire to get across the pool. She stuck one foot in, balancing as she tried to lean forward and gauge the depth, but her toes did not touch anything solid.

The water was a perfect temperature; just warm enough to be comfortable. She sat down on the edge, letting both her legs into the water and, grasping onto the ledge beneath her, attempted to slowly let herself down without losing her grip. She found her feet hitting the bottom, so that it was clear she would be able to stand with the water at her waist. Was it that same depth all the way across? She would find out soon enough.

Wading across, the water felt unusually light, as if it were made of light, in fact; her hands barely made a sound when they touched it. What little splashing she made through her movement sounded soft, and had a calming effect. Closer and closer she came to the other side. The floor seemed to dip away from her and she was afraid she would have to swim the rest of the way, but she was able to walk the length completely. When she reached the other side, she stood just short of the middle fountain, the green water gushing in a brilliant arc before her. She gazed up into the face of the creature.

It was a gorgon, she thought at first; Medusa. A woman's body from the torso up arose above her, and the face, far above, seemed to be wreathed with snakes. But the longer she looked, the less certain she was...the woman held two torches, one in each hand, on either side of her. She could not see the eyes very well, and could not tell if they were black holes or had some stone set into them, but when the light from the water passed over them they seemed alive. The woman was terrifying, but not wrathful; she was the goddess of the green river.

Petunia did not know what that meant, even though she knew instantly that it was true. As she had this thought, suddenly, the rushing fountain seemed to gush more loudly, the water increasing in volume. As if it were sand falling into a pile, the water beneath the stream seemed to rise into a mound, growing in height and width till it very quickly towered above her.

Before she could even react, the shape itself began to change, and she knew, somehow, what it would be as it constricted and twisted into definition, darkening and glittering with scales. Gazing up along the swaying body, she looked up into the enormous face of a gaping cobra, glittering green, fathomless eyes staring down at her.

She thought she should be afraid, but there was very little time.

The serpent's jaws widened and the fangs seemed to lengthen; she saw darkness in the mouth bearing down swiftly over her head, and knew that darkness was eternal and endless, a void of nothingness in which she would be lost – the mouth swallowed her whole and the jaws closed around her, splashing.

Darkness.

She was lost...

Then, suddenly, her body wriggled and writhed. She could not see it, but could feel herself, her enormity, her stretching, her restlessness to switch and twist and change, and she wrapped around and around herself, spiraling upward, rising, flying, into the void, gazing above into nothing, nothing...a silent, cosmic scream erupted from deep within her gut as she burst through the darkness into the stars. So beautiful...so...terrifying!

She wanted to look down at her body and see where she ended...would she see the earth below her? But all she saw was her great, green, glittering column, winding down into swirling ether below, looking like Jack's beanstalk sinking below the clouds of giant land. From her..."feet..." somewhere below, she began to feel fire.

An inferno was devouring her body! It came from inside her, and as it blew upward, it consumed her...she thought for certain it would, that it would turn her to ash as it caught her scaly skin...up the vast, galaxy-sized flames licked, burning up her neck and like a great, painful lump in her throat, until it filled her head with fire...her head felt as if it had exploded...she could stand it no longer, and in a moment, she would scream...

Petunia's eyes flew open.