Petunia woke up in a comfortable bed in an unusual room. It had a plain wooden desk with a chair next to it, a quill and parchment were placed neatly on top with a couple of books and what looked like a newspaper. Not recognising any sort of place this could be, she tried to get up only to find that she was stuck to the bed in some fashion. Just as she started to panic a middle aged woman wearing robes came in through the door.
"Ah, Mrs Dursley you're awake. You're in a private ward at St Mungo's hospital. You were in quite a state this morning and you have a broken pelvis which is why you've been secured to the bed."
"St Mungo's?"
"The magical hospital of Great Britain. You were found by the crew on the Knight bus this morning.
"I'm Healer Gosling, and I'm in charge of your care at the moment. When you came in you were too close to magical depletion to risk healing your broken bones so I'm afraid that we're going to need to keep you in for a couple of days while we vanish and regrow those bones as it's now too late to heal them. You have some guests outside, but before I let them in, do you have any questions, or would you like anything?"
"Would I be able to sit up?"
"Oh, certainly, don't try to do it yourself at the moment, let me know when you're in a comfortable position and I'll set you back in place."
She draws her wand and undoes the sticking charms before carefully moving Petunia into a sitting position.
"That's fine. Can I get something to eat and drink please?"
"Oh, sure Dixy!" a House-elf pops in
"How can Dixy be helping Healer Gosley?"
"This is Dixy, the house-elf assigned to the inpatient wards, call him whenever you need anything and he'll either come and get one of us or get what you want. Dixy, this is Petunia Dursley, she's going to be a patient for a few days. Would you be able to get her some water and a sandwich please?"
Dixy clicks his fingers and a table appears next to the bed, he then pops away and a moment later pops back with a jug of water and a plate of sandwiches.
"Food for Bright witch." He says before popping away again.
"If that's all, I'll bring in your guests. Madam Bones from the DMLE is also here to take your statement, I have to inform you that as you were unconscious when you arrived we were required to take a forensic scan to record any lingering magic and the state of your injuries as soon as we'd ascertained that you had been… assaulted.
"One of your visitors is a man by the name of Dan Granger, we can deny him access if you would like. Your ward, Harry Potter is also here, but there seems to be special circumstances around her as we have been reassured that she is indeed female despite common knowledge to the contrary."
"He's a good friend and has been there for me over the last month, so let him in."
"Oh, and I've being informed that you have a rather unique familiar, while you are staying here would you be able to let one of your friends look after it, as we use a vast array of charms here to monitor our patients, and some of them are critical to the their health. Though I expect one or two of the doctors will be in at some point to see if we could possibly experiment with it in the spell damage ward."
She leaves, and then a couple of minutes later she leads in Petunia's guests. As soon as Nixie sees her human she jumps off Emma and launches herself at Petunia. A moment later she's grabbed a snack and is snuggled in her persons nest hair. Seconds later the room is full of Healers as Healer Gosling looks confused for a moment.
"False alarm guys, one of the guests must have had her familiar with them and it's just eaten a monitoring charm. Ignore any more alerts until they go, and I'll make sure that they take it with them." All the healers file out, some of them craning their necks backwards to see if they can catch sight of the mysterious familiar.
"Dixy, would we be able to have some chairs please?" Dixy promptly pops in and conjures enough chairs for everyone.
"Petunia, would you mind if I had a look at your familiar?"
"Sure give me a sec, ow, ow, come on let go. Apparently not, she doesn't want to let me go." Nixie grabs onto the hair when she tries to remove her from her person.
Hermione reaches up behind her and holds her hand out, "I've got Chirpy with me, he's my familiar but he's still young so he doesn't seem to be willing to leave whoever he's on yet."
When the healer looks at her blankly she adds "They seem to be invisible to most people."
With a sound of understanding, Healer Gosling waved her wand and said "Revelio" and nothing happened. She then waved her wand again and said "Specialis Revelio" and a faint outline appeared in Hermione's hand.
"That's… Unexpected." Amelia says
"You're telling me. That would imply that your familiars are living spells rather than creatures hidden by magic."
"I know, I have to tell the unspeakables. They'd love to examine them."
"Well you can tell them the goblins have some, as they're not getting their hands on Nixie." Petunia says vehemently.
"That goes for Chirpy too." Hermione cradles her hand to her chest.
Amelia holds up her hands defensively "I'm not going to be taking any familiars away, for a start there are laws against it unless you're incarcerated. Also, don't you think it has interesting implications that the 5 of you can see them, I'm assuming you can seem them Harry."
Harry nods from her position near the door.
"Well, I'll leave you lot to it."
They hear her leave while talking to herself "Well that has interesting implications for some spells, I wonder if fiendfyre is actually a summoning spell rather than…"
Amelia drags one of the chairs over to a corner and sits quietly while Petunia is reacquainted with everyone.
As the Grangers are checking up on her, Petunia notices that Harry is still near the door. Patting the bed beside her she calls out to him.
"Harry, come here and sit beside me. I've missed you."
With a look between apprehension and hope on her face Harry gets up on the bed beside Petunia, freezing when she winces.
"It's ok, you just jostled my hips, and they're a bit painful." She pulls Harry the rest of the way into sitting beside her and enfolds her in as much of a hug as she can.
Seeing what's going on, Dan and Emma drag Hermione over to chat to Amelia, who waves her wand and sets up a privacy charm.
"I know what's happened, I was sent the report remember. But it doesn't matter. I admit that when I received it back in September it was a bit difficult to accept. But I've been thinking about it for a couple of months now, and do you know what? Nephew or Niece, you're still Lily's child, and so I still care about you. Do you understand?"
"Yes Aunt Petunia" Harry responded almost out of rote response.
"You don't really do you, not yet." Harry shook her head.
"Look at me, not like that, just at my appearance. I look like one of those models on the covers of magazines, it happened yesterday unless I've been asleep for a whole day. I didn't even notice it as it happened while I was meditating, it took Emma pointing it out when Karen and I got round there for me to check a mirror. Even then I was too worried about how I could calm Vernon down when I got home that I didn't even consider how it could affect my relationship with him. And well, we can see how that turned out for me." She gave a self-deprecating laugh.
"I had a long time to think while I was lying in the bed last night while he slept on top of me, and I needed to distract myself from what hurt. Our magic seems to have a mind of it's own, it responds to our subconscious desires and fills them like an extra pair of hands. For the last few days I've struggled to do things manually, as if I wasn't concentrating the tea would make itself, the dishes would clean themselves, and things would be at hand when I wanted them. It also changed my body to look like this, except my hair was down to my waist. I then thought about your situation that first morning in Hogwarts. You woke up alone in a strange room with strange people around, you went down to do something familiar and meditate with Hermione. But she wasn't there. You wanted something familiar and comfortable so your magic made it so that you could visit Hermione the only way you knew how. You needed to be a girl.
"I bet since then you've found that you're happier as a girl than you were as a boy, and so you keep changing back whenever you want to be happy."
Harry nods.
"Do you ever change back into a boy?"
Harry nods wordlessly and burrows into her side.
"I bet it's only in situations that remind you of living before."
She nods into her chest as she starts to cry.
"It's ok, it's ok. Try to learn how to control your change, and find things that you like to do as a boy. I know it's going to be hard as saying we were a bad family would be putting it kindly and understating things. But I'd like to be able to do the things my mother did with me with you, as well as the things that boys typically do. I want to take you shopping for pretty dresses, brush each other's hair while talking about what we've been doing, and teach you how to do your make-up. I want to be able to take you out and see you dressed up all smart in a suit or other casual clothes.
"The other thing that I realised is that we mistreated Dudley just as much as we mistreated you. Not like that, but in ways that I fear are far more damaging in the long run. We spoiled him, I know at your age that seems like a good thing, but we never said no, we never told him that something was wrong. In fact Vernon often encouraged him in this. Unlike you and me, who will carry the scars of what has happened inside us, other people will have to carry the scars of what Vernon and I did to Dudley unless he gets better through school and when he comes back home.
"I know you probably don't understand what I'm talking about right now and you're thinking it's unfair what I'm saying, but think about it between now and Christmas and see what you think, we can talk about it more then.
"But, on a slightly more happy note, I'm not sure, but I don't think Vernon is going to be around anymore. I'm sure I've got to talk to Amelia later about last night, and I want to see if they've got something that will help me remember more clearly. But I think he's gone. If he is do you want to come home for Christmas instead of spending it at the Grangers. We'll still visit, but we can go out and do things together, maybe we can adopt a house-elf to help look after the house, or visit London and see the sights.
"Listen to me rambling on and you've not even said a word."
"It's ok, I was enjoying listening to you. I think I'd like that too."
Further conversation was interrupted as Hermione fell painfully on the floor as her chair disappeared, the movement catching Petunia's attention.