Petunia woke up with the ghost of a scream on her lips, eyes wide and fearful for a second before she closed them, tears spilling down her cheeks and green flashes dancing behind her eyelids. Sweat drenched her brow and pale blonde hair, her stomach doing uncomfortable flips that almost made billis rise up to her throat.

In the darkness of the room, Petunia grasps the bedsheets as if they were a lifesaver and she a drowning woman, hold growing stiff with each passing second as she tries to fight back the urge to vomit, and instead, a silent sob escapes in its place.

Fearful eyes remain wide open, out of instinct more than anything, she reaches for the switch of her lamp and fumbles until the small light is turned on. The familiarity of her own room startles her for a second.

Seconds turn minutes, and her breath slowly quiets down.

It couldn't be, right? She was in her own room, her old room. The room she had used her firsts eighteen years of life. The room that was later turned in a guest room after she had left.

The room that had burned down along the entire house, when…

No, no that- that wasn't right. She was dead, wasn't she? Petunia could almost be sure that she had died, but that couldn't be right, her racing heart and the disgusting sweat that clung to her body told her otherwise. The nightmare clinging its last, rapidly dissolving tendrills into her mind as she became fully aware, small body trembling between covers.

"What…"

But she remembers- she knows! She had died, along with everyone in that house, along with…

['She can't help, she can't help it but scream and cry like some sort of animal when the woman, the old witch that had accepted her family into hiding, was downed with nothing but a slash of a wand, red blossoming from her throat as the masked wizards -the murderous freaks- made their way inside the house. Vernon is the first to get up, but the flick of a wand and a snarled word sent him into blood curdling screams as he twitched unnaturally on the floor until foam appeared from between his lips.

She ran, again, like a frightened animal and almost cried with relief when she saw Dudley, her son, her beautiful baby boy having a look of utter panic on his face. And she can barely open her mouth to scream at him to run before something, like a cold, icy gust of wind passes over by her head and rams into Dudley's face.

Petunia howls, as if something had been viciously torn away from her as she watches her son struggling to breathe, ice forming over his face in less than a second before he tumbles onto his back, clawing at his face weakly before the cursed ice covers most of his upper body and chokes him to death.

A man, easily twice her height, kicks her away from her son's body and she lands with a disgusting 'crack' that sends pain from her skull to all of her body, and blood begins to cover most of her vision from her right eye.

"This worthless muggle." The word holds so much hate it makes her flinch, and the murderers loom over her with wands at the ready. "Her worthless, piece of shit nephew turned all of us to nothing!"

The boy. They talk about him with such loathe it reminds Petunia of herself, and her frightened gaze travels to the man's hood down to his wand.

She can taste blood from the inside of her mouth, can feel it running from her head down to her chin.

This wasn't supposed to happen. The wizards, they told her lies, they told her no one would find her family, that they would be safe.

"A last parting gift to that disgusting son of a mudblood they call savior. AVADA KEDAVRA!"]

A flash of green is the only thing her eyes manages to catch before she wako up. Green that still dances on her eyelids and Petunia hastily tries to rub it away from her eyes like she would do to dust.

That-That must have been a dream, she tries to convince herself. Because she is just nine years old, she is just a child. She isn't married, nor has a son, and magic isn't real. None of it had been real.

Right?

But no, it isn't quite right. Because if that had been a dream, or rather, a very realistic nightmare, she can feel it real and she can remember things. She doesn't remember dreams often, not even partly, but she can recall almost everything there.

She can recall her last high school grade, her first job interview, her first anniversary, Dudley's first birthday.

Her parent's death.

Lily's death.

Her own death.

She can recall them clear as day. Too vivid and realistic, and she knows there is something very wrong when she thinks about the chubby boy, her... son?... lying unmoving and mostly encased in ice, and pain like no other hits her.

It's like the worst tummy ache she had ever felt, but worse, much worse. It's a pain no nine year old should even be aware it exists.

"Tuney?"

Petunia gasps, long hair flying as she turns her head so fast it could have given her whiplash. Lily, her lovely, sweet, energetic little sister stands at her door, sleep heavy in her eyes that is soon morphed into surprise as, she guesses, she stares at her tear stained face.

"Tuney! You're crying!"

Eight year old Lily quickly steps inside her room, leaving the door barely open as she approaches, something that often drove Petunia up the wall but she couldn't be bothered at the moment.

The elder Evans tries hard not to think about...her dream? Was it a dream in the first place? She tries hard not to think of the Lily she had conjured in her mind, on the girl that her- her imaginary self? Her future self?- her person couldn't stand. The young woman that the dream - future? Past?- that the other her loathed.

On the girl that had died before her.

"Lily-" Petunia gasps out, and a fresh batch of tears slips from her eyes, her entire body shaking with uncertainness as Lily climbs on her bed. Her throat feels raw for some reason, as if she had spent hours screaming and howling.

"T-Tuney! Tuney, what happened?" Lily's voice is soft and filled with worry, her tiny, warm hands gently wiping away her tears in a gesture that made her cry even harder for some reason she couldn't undesrtand. "D-Did you had a nightmare?"

"W-What are you doing here, Lily?" Petunia asks, voice shaky and breathy as she sniffles, Lily's question flying right past her. She was quite a heavy sleeper, and only the sun right in her eyes woke her up, she didn't think her cries had called her sister's attention.

"I heard the knocking again." Lily mumbles, both ashamed and annoyed at her silly reason; The old apple tree by her window often shook and scratched the glass when the wind was a bit too hard. "I got scared…"

"O-oh, it's alright Lils, h-here." Petunia sniffles again, but as a dutiful big sister, she scooted a bit to her right to leave space for her sister to crawl in. The little redhead taking the chance as soon as she got it, and within a minute both sisters were under the covers as the wind howled outside.

"Tuney." Lily whispers softly, all but her eyes under the flowery covers. "Why were you crying?"

Petunia's eyes were red rimmed and puffy, her eyelids feeling heavy and urging her to sleep despite her slight fear of doing so.

"I...I had a nightmare." It's her only answer, though a very, very tiny voice in the back of her mind whispers that it was too real, too clear and vivid to be just a nightmare, but it's the only thing she can come up with.

"Oh." Lily mutters in quiet understanding. She had nightmares too, and they weren't pretty. "Was it...bad?"

Petunia nods, and tries hard not to think of the chubby boy that was supposed to be her son lying around chunks of ice as his lips turned an ugly blue and black.

"Oh." Lily repeats, looking at Petunia's face for a second before scooting closer to her. Her tiny body start-fishing around Petunia's under the covers. Petunia gently puts her arms around her little sister's shoulders, and the forgotten- forgotten?- the familiar scent of strawberry shampoo that Lily loved so much bringing a fresh batch of tears to her eyes.

" 'S okay Tuney." Lily mumbles, hearing her sister's soft, even heartbeats. "Mummy said that nightmares aren't real, just mean dreams 'cause we eat too many biscuits before bed."

Petunia gives a wobbly excuse of a smile that is hidden by Lily's mane of thick, red hair. It makes her feel better, but the nagging feeling of something being off still picks at her head uncomfortably. "Uh-huh."

She feels Lily's tiny body shifting before hearing the soft sigh that escaped her, the wind outside quieting down for a few seconds before starting up again.

"G'night Tuney."

Petunia nods, her puffy eyes feeling heavy and tired, yet sleep doesn't comes to her. "Night, Lily."

She can feel Lily's quiet even breaths just a few minutes after bidding her goodnight, and Petunia tries hard to stay awake, not that it was a hard feat on its own; The nightmare had scared her enough not to want to sleep again, and had Lily not come to her, then she would be the one knocking on her little sister's door, pride and the fact that she was the older sister forgotten.

The wind howled outside, and her fear slowly gave way to confusion as Petunia recalled her dream once more. Though calling it a dream left an odd taste in her mouth; She's still able to remember most of it, and feels as if she did...die...at the very end.

"I know I did." She mumbles in Lily's hair, and for a second her voice isn't like her own. "I...died there...didn't I?"

But thinking about it, the fact that she 'died' also left her with the feeling of disbelief. She's still breathing, scared out of her mind at such a nightmare, but Petunia is very well aware that she is alive, in her room and not in some shabby house with a bunch of strangers surrounding her.

"I'm not an adult." She mumbles again, and Lily, in her sleep, mumbles something back at her. "I'm not…"

Petunia knows there is something odd with that nightmare, and she can't even call it that. There was a nagging feeling in the back of her head that something was wrong, a little voice whispering furiously that it was more than just wrong, and fear once again takes over her.

'I didn't die, it was a stupid nightmare.' She thinks, with barely a hint of panic. 'I'm here, with my mum, dad and Lily. I go to school, not to work. I'm not married, and I don't have a son, or a nephew.'

The nine year old girl trembles for a moment, and her hands grasp the back of Lily's pajama tightly.

'I wouldn't marry someone like that man.' She thinks, and an uncomfortable grips goes over her stomach. 'I wouldn't let him boss me around either.'

"Dream-me is dumb." Petunia whispers, and fervently tries to shove away the images of the unknown man and boy that were her husband and son in that nightmare of hers. "...Boys are icky, and dumb, I wouldn't marry..."

The wind howls outside, and for what it feels like hours, the little girl does nothing but watch her sister sleep, going over her odd nightmare over and over again, until she knows most of it by heart, fuzzy parts pulling blanks here and there that she couldn't recall anymore.

"...I wouldn't hate my nephew." She mumbled in a quiet, wobbly voice that little by little began to break. A small, bespectacled little boy with bright green eyes appears in her mind for a split second, and a stab of ill-placed guilt piercers her heart.

"I wouldn't hate Lily."

Petunia Evans, aged nine and more serious than what her age demanded her to be, clung to her little sister as she cried in fear and confusion until the crack of dawn.