Sitting legs akimbo on the floor Hermione looked offended as if the universe had done something horribly bad. This wasn't helped by the fact the her mother and father were openly laughing at her. When Dan fell on the floor a moment later she saw Chirpy run away in fright to hide behind her mothers leg and burst out laughing. Between gasps she tried to warn her mum before Chirpy felt safe and nommed on her chair. Emma was looking around her feet when her chair disappeared and Amelia stood up carefully and looked around warily as she tried to work out what was going on. Pulling herself together enough to act, she scrambled around on her hands and knees, still shaking with giggles until she found Chirpy. Placing him on her shoulder he quickly disappeared under her hair.

Seeing Harry walking over, Amelia cancelled silencing charm allowing them to hear her voiced query about if they were OK. After everyone confirmed that they were she looked back over at his Aunt with a question in her eyes. After a moment of looking at her Petunia lifted her arm and indicated the space beside her. Harry went back and carefully climbed back in beside here, freezing at her wince.

Amelia coughs before speaking up, "Sorry to push this, but I need to go over what happened in your own words for the official investigation. Now is there anyone that you'd like to be here or anyone you would prefer to leave?"

Petunia looks down and comes to a decision, "Harry can stay if she wants, though it's not going to be pretty. If you don't mind I'd appreciate it if the rest of you waited outside.

"Also, my memory of the last bit is a little hazy, so I don't know if there's anything that can improve my memory of the events."

"I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but I suppose we could bring a Mind Healer in to look at the memories, but they would have to enter your mind to do so. A Pensive would also do the job, but they're as rare as hens teeth, as not only are they fiddly to make, they are also exceedingly fragile and so they often cost many times their own worth to be commissioned due to the number of breakages, but even when you own one, the slightest scratch in the wrong place and you've ruined your investment.

"I tried to get one for my department when I first took my position and got a three hour lecture on why we couldn't have one, and only in the most important trials could be ask the unspeakable department for a loan of one." She adds to justify the explanation before she gets up in search of the healer.

Petunia calls out for the House-elf, "Dixy… Would you be able to find some chairs, non-conjured ones, as the ones you provided before got eaten."

"Dixy is confused, but Dixy will do as asked."

While Amelia was out Petunia took the time to eat a couple of sandwiches and offer the others around. Getting some food into her sure helped as she perked up almost immediately.

Almost 15 minutes later Amelia opened the door and held it open as a couple of Healers walk in carefully carrying a velvet wrapped bundle around 24" (60cm) across. Another healer came in levitating an ornate wooden stand before setting it down and moving the water to the desk by the wall and banishing the table. Placing the stand near the bed they place the velvet package on the stand and unwrap the pensive. It was a beautiful sight, a shallow bowl made from thin moonstone with a wide scalloped edged. The runes seemed to glow with magic and the a bright band seems to chase around the bowl. Looking at it, Dan is convinced that he's looking at something that would currently be impossible to produce in the mundane world, and that's without the runic inscription. Picking his jaw off the floor, he can only mutter wow under his breath.

A couple of moments later he clears his throat. "While I'm sure that people have made similar things out of marble, I have never seen anything like that made out of moonstone. I can't imagine how hard it must have been to transport here, I'm even struggling to think of how we could transport it in the muggle world."

"That's easy, they make a Styrofoam mould, place it in a tight wooden box, line it with foam and add a foam lined Styrofoam plug. Once it's packed away it can't move and the Styrofoam protects from light knocks, so they then transport it on a trolly jack and flat trucks. It's not cheap, but it can be done. They use it for transporting antique bone china bowls and glassware."

Everyone looks a Petunia.

"What? I'm a housewife that was studying to be a legal secretary before I met Vernon, and daytime TV is a thing."

Her voice becomes morose "I may also have had cause to be awake at night, and watched some Open University programs on BBC2."

"That explains how you knew to look for those videos. Thank you, I'm sorry I didn't know before." Harry says into her chest. Petunia strokes her hair, then takes a sip of water.

Healer Gosling coughs delicately, "Mrs Dursley, may I ask, where did you get the glass of water?"

Petunia looks down at the glass in surprise and then curses under her breath. "I'm sorry, this has been happening for the last week. I presume it came from the desk, I was feeling thirsty."

"Ah! Well, can I introduce Mind Healer Tonks, currently she the only member of staff qualified to handle the pensive due to her upbringing. I need to remove the water from the room if you may end up summoning it again. I can also show anyone that's not staying to the cafeteria where you can get a drink."

Harry looks up from where she's hugging Petunia "Could I drink a glass of water before you take it away."

Gosling brings the jug around the bed to Harry's side and watches her drink a glass of water before taking it out of the room with the Grangers.

Amelia goes over to the desk and sets up a dictaquill, and moving into a professional frame of mind.

"Mrs Dursley, in your own words can you describe the events of yesterday and this morning that culminated in you arriving here. If you do not remember please say so, and if you require the Assistance of Healer Tonks to provide a clear memory again say so. Please start when you're ready, and if you need a drink we can have one brought in."

Petunia describes the day starting from the point when she finished her meditation, how she was unconsciously using her magic to do tasks unless she concentrated on not using it, and what happened at the library. She then explained how she visited the Grangers and the phone call they had with Vernon over the phone. Finally she got to the events of when she got home, and she choked up as she retold the ordeal she went through, and the hours she spent lying awake pinned to the bed. Amelia only interrupted her occasionally for clarification, and the scratch of the dictaquill was often the only sound apart from Petunia's voice. Near the end it was joined by quiet sobs from Harry, as she had experience of some of what Petunia had experienced.

"Healer Tonks, would you be able to assist me with the next bit as I'm not entirely sure what happened as I'd been laying in bed for at least an hour when my opportunity to escape came."

"Very well, I'm going to use a spell to enter your mind and help you to pull the thoughts together. Once you're happy that it's the entire thing, I'd like you to squeeze my hand and I'll stop the spell and then extract the memory. This may feel a little weird, so I would like you to do it a couple of times now with any memory that comes to mind. I'll extract it then place it back in. Once you're happy that you haven't been distracted during the process we'll begin."

Amelia spoke up "Healer Tonks is now guiding Mrs Dursley into acclimatising to having a memory extracted. The dictaquill will continue once this exercise has finished."

As it was no longer recording, Petunia ventured to ask, "Would you also like my memory of holding Harry thorough his nightmare? Is it his or her, as you were a boy at the time?"

"I don't know, this is as new to me as it is to you. I'll ask Tonks next time I see her."

"I would be interested, but if Healer Tonks agrees, I'd like to do it after the interview."

"Ok, I think I'm ready, could I have a glass of water before we start?"

After Petunia has a glass of water Amelia restarts the dictaquill.

"Mrs Dursley has finished acclimating and has indicated that she is ready to have the memory extracted. Mind healer Tonks is starting the process and will place the memory in the pensive once she's finished. We will then both visit the memory and once complete will describe what we saw. If we are unable to agree on a detail we will revisit the memory until we can both agree."

"The memory has been placed in the pensive. Mrs Dursley please can you describe the starting and ending points of the memory."

"The memory starts with me lying on the bed just before it happens, and it ends when I pass out in a field. I hope you can't feel what I felt while you're in there."

"We are entering the memory now."

"Shh, I don't want you to see this sort of thing yet, ever if I have anything to say about it. You have enough bad memories of your own."

"Can I at least watch the one with my nightmare?"

"Sure thing."

"Is it weird that I cry more while I'm a girl?"

"Not at all, at your age it's because you feel it's more socially acceptable."

"We have viewed the memory and I'm not sure that I believe it. Healer Tonks, in your professional opinion is this a true memory?"

"This is a true and untampered memory, there are also no signs of delusions although it's clear the owner was under a great deal of stress and pain."

"Then I will begin my description."

The description continues for several minutes, mild sobbing is recorded in the background.

"This concludes the interview with Mrs Dursley."

Andromeda gathers up the memory and goes to return it when Petunia holds up her hand. "Keep it, burn it, whatever, I'd rather not have it back."

"Very well, though you should know that the memory will return on it's own over the next week or so."

"If it comes back it comes back, but it will let me put some time between then and when it returns."

"Very well." She shakes it off the end of her wand where it evaporates.

"Would you still allow us to see the other memory, I assume base on my conversations with Dan and Emma, it's when you became magical."

Andromeda double takes at that statement, "What do you mean became magical. Despite the constant rumours that muggleborns steal magic from purebloods, there has never been a case where someone spontaneously became magical."

"Well, we have three now, and I suspect that there will be another one shortly, especially if I can't get a waver for the statute of secrecy."

Petunia looks confused "What do you mean another one. Oh, you are not taking one of my friends away, no way no how. I'll hunt her down and release Nixie on her if I have to."

"Exactly." And looking at that last memory, it's not like I could hold you in a Jail overnight against your will.

A moment passed where no one seemed to know what to say. It was broken when Petunia said "I'm ready if you want that memory."

Andromeda extracted the memory and then placed it in the pensive. Harry hopped down off the bed and round to the Pensive.

I'm coming too, you can either watch me go in safely or I can sneak in after you.

Andromeda smiles indulgently, not wanting to point out that she could just stun both of them before they could blink and go in and back out before they woke up. "After you then little prince."

Harry checks his body, "Hey, how did you know I was a boy, I never recognise when I change."

Andromeda looks surprised, "I didn't, I was just poking fun at you."

"See you in a bit mum, I mean Aunt" a 'Please don't hit me' look comes over his face as he cringes back once he realises what he said.

Petunia smiled at him and tried to make it reassuring, "I didn't mind I was flattered that your opinion on me has changed so quickly."

Carefully he placed his face in the pensive, ensuring that Petunia was in his field of vision as long as possible.

Petunia sighed, with how far he, she, Harry had come over the last couple of months it was easy to forget that it was just papering over the cracks. She supposed that was true for her too. She hoped that it wouldn't take too much to regain the ground lost when things like that happened. She resolved to ask Healer Tonks if she could speak with her before she was checked out. She holds her hand up and looks at it. It's ironic, when she had control she wanted freedom. Now she has freedom she's finding that she desperately needs a different sort of control. She's scared that if she doesn't build that control that one night she might disappear and never be able to return to earth. She snorts at the fact that it took someone quite a lot of magic to turn her into a spiteful witch who took enjoyment out of making her nephews life miserable in payment for protecting him from Vernon. As if she was honest with herself, she could have phrased things differently and been natural rather than antagonist.

Harry coming out of the memory and shouting "That was so cool, I wish I'd seen it like that the first time." Stopped her thoughts from spiralling further.

God, look at him, she doesn't deserve him.

Picking up on the direction her thoughts were taking her, he comes round to hug her just as Amelia and Andromeda appear in short succession. "You've been doing really well, and I know it wasn't really you before my birthday. Because the real you gave me a hug, and that was the first hug I remember." Petunia hugged him back as she burst into tears, ignoring the pain in her ribs and hips that doing so caused.

Giving them a little privacy Andromeda shudders and looks at Amelia "Well that was a completely different experience to the previous memory, I guess having magic when you're making the memory changes more than we ever thought. I don't think I'm going to get over the sheer panic she felt even while she was trying to protect him. I think it says a lot of things about his life that he can come out of it looking so happy. None of them good. If I give a professional opinion about this, do you think you can get the school to allow him to see a mind healer, as no child should shrug that feeling off and only see the wonder."