November 1991

Petunia POV:

Penelope was a freak.

From Petunia's point of view, she was a worthless little bastard that her sister bore for some no-name after she and her freakish husband couldn't conceive properly. It was just like her sister to sleep with some other man like some… hussy after marrying someone who couldn't do his marital duties.

That the man's name was something detestable as… Thorn of all things only added to her apparent disgust with her sister's actions.

The next Petunia hears about her sister is that she's dead and that she left her mongrel with her!

The first thing Petunia tried to do was find the freak's filthy father, but with only the man's name, there wasn't anything she could do.

And really, what kind of name was 'Thorn' in the first place?

So now she was left with her sister's freakish, bastard daughter, and a letter from Li- her sister's former headmaster telling her to raise her.

As though anyone from that freakish world had any right to order her about.

There was however a very small silver lining from all of this, apparently, in their world, Lily's husband's family had a lot of money, and in exchange for raising his 'daughter' she would receive a monthly stipend, it wasn't as much as she deserved, but it would be enough to put up with the girl, for the time being, she was after all only a child, so she couldn't be that bad yet, even Lily, freak that she was didn't start showing it until after she got her Hogwarts letter, sure there were one or two unexplained incidents, but she seemed normal until she got back and started talking about her freakishness.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all, she could raise the girl right, instilling hard work and gratitude into her, she and Vernon could MAKE her normal, because if the freakish world could make a normal Lily into the freak that she died as then her and her husband could turn the freakish girl into a normal one.

Nodding, before setting the freakishly quiet baby into the cupboard, Petunia unknowingly sealed her fate.

September 1996

Penelope POV:

Growing up with the Dursleys was hard.

Growing up with the Dursleys was growing up malnourished, even as Dudley fattened himself she was fed very little.

Growing up with the Dursleys meant having no friends, and little contact with the outside world, nobody wanted to interact with the delinquent freak that the Dursleys were kind enough to take in after her alcoholic parents died, so the only people who spoke to her outside her relatives were the cruel boys in Dudley's gang who loved to chase her around, (beating her up if they caught her) hurling insults at her all the way around.

Growing up with the Dursleys was her own. Personal. Tartarus. She didn't know where she learned that word from, but she knew it was a bad, bad place she should avoid at all costs, it and many random bits of knowledge seemed to just kind of stick in her mind.

But as time went on, and as Penelope aged from six to seven things started changing.

The first was that Dudley's gang rarely caught her anymore, she became faster, a lot faster, and when she ran no one bothered her.

She felt free.

So Penelope started running, more and more as time went on, and as she turned seven she spent more time chasing the wind, chasing that feeling of exhilaration.

The second thing was a little weirder.

One day, when she was pulling some weeds from the flowerbeds, one of Dudley's gang, a rat-faced boy named Piers kicked her from behind.

When she turned around Piers was crying about how 'The freak hit me!' when he explained his injured foot, resulting in her being locked in her cupboard without dinner. For a week.

Days later she learned that he had fractured some of the bones in his foot.

Most of the boys in Dudley's little group avoided her after that.

Penelope never tested the limits of her tougher skin, but after a couple of nights cooking for the Dursleys, it became apparent that the knife she used to cut vegetables couldn't pierce her skin.

And while she was never 'beaten' by Vernon, he certainly wasn't against giving her a wallop or two if he felt she was 'being a layabout' or 'being ungrateful to him.'

Penelope didn't really know what to think of these developments, but she assumed it was part of her 'freakishness' and moved on.

February 1997

Penelope POV

After turning seven her changes started accelerating.

As Penelope started approaching the age of 8 she noticed that she was changing more and more.

At first, it was her eyes that drew her attention, they started to… narrow for lack of a better word, turning more and more catlike as the whites of her eyes started to be dyed a paler emerald, the original emerald color deepening as it met the pupil, turning her formerly emerald eyes into a gradient of color.

The second major change was her nails, she never grew them out very long for several reasons, but now she had no choice because she couldn't cut her nails, nothing seemed to get the slightest chip off of them as they grew from fingernails into… claws?

Regardless, these changes started to scare Penelope a little. At first, it was because she was afraid of her relative's reactions to her growing 'freakishness,' but it soon became evident that even though she could see all these changes happening to her, her relatives couldn't.

She mentioned her eyes casually to Aunt Petunia once, and to Penelope's surprise, she noticed nothing, only telling her to keep her thoughts to herself.

So Penelope was left confused. She did a little research and couldn't find anything remotely close to what was happening to her at the library, and even when she made eye contact with other people their eyes tended to… slip over her own, leaving Penelope even more befuddled.

So Penelope decided to leave it alone. It didn't hurt her, and no one seemed to notice the increasingly obvious changes, so she stopped caring about it so much, even as she realized she could see perfectly during the darkest of nights, and that her claws seemed unnaturally sharp she elected to ignore it.

After all, if it wasn't doing her any harm, then what's the worst that could happen?

July 31, 1998

Penelope POV

Penelope's eighth birthday was one she would remember for the rest of her life, at first it was any other day with the Dursleys: getting up early to fry some bacon and eggs, (sneaking herself a couple of pieces) then laundry, cleaning up breakfast, gardening, preparing lunch for Aunt Petunia and Dudley, cleaning up after lunch, which was followed by a moment to relax before her aunt told her to mow the lawn, and when she came inside Aunt Petunia gave her two grey socks wishing her a happy birthday, which was when she retired to her cupboard.

Tired from her day Penelope laid back on her tough 'bed,' trying to relax as she watched her only companion, a daddy-long-legs wander around the floor of her cupboard and decided to go to sleep early as a special gift for herself.

Penelope's sleep was interrupted when she felt a sudden discomfort from her… back?

She sat up suddenly, feeling an immense amount of comfort as her… something was freed from beneath her.

She tried to look behind her, stumbling in the relative darkness of her cupboard until she finally caught a glimpse of her… tail.

She, Penelope Potter had a… scorpion's tail? 'What?!' Penelope thought as she started panicking, her tail twitching slightly as she moved.

Penelope calmed for a moment, grabbing her tail to reassure herself it wasn't a dream, her tail twitching as she felt her hands grab it, turning her upper body, she was face to face with a rather threatening-looking stinger that reached just below her chin, curving away from her body, before curving in again and meeting her lower back.

Penelope was so absorbed in exploring her new limb she didn't hear the car pulling into the driveway, she didn't realize her Uncle Vernon was home until she heard the door slam and heard him bellow "FREAK!"

Startled from her new appendage, Penelope felt dread rise within her as she heard Vernon pound towards her cupboard, stumbling on its lock as he yelled something about her 'freakishness' and 'ruining his life.'

This is a warning if you don't want to read a segment with violence and profanity that I honestly feel terrible having read, feel free to skip to the next chapter. This scene alone would make this story rated M, and is the only one of its kind I ever plan on writing. You don't need to read this for the rest of the story to make sense, nor do you truly need it for the sake of the chapter, I wrote it in because Penelope needs a reason to leave, and this fits the most cleanly. Honestly, you can probably guess what happens here, it is kind of a cliche so… do what you want, I'm just trying to provide a fair warning. I'll include a summary of the scene in the A/N next chapter.

She didn't understand what was going on until Uncle Vernon yanked her out of the cupboard by her arm, the stink of alcohol on his breath and a vicious look in his eyes as he undid his belt.

"You little bitch! Think you can ruin my life and get away with it?! Well, I'll show you…" Uncle Vernon said ominously as he threw Penelope onto the table, dazing her as she struggled back to her feet. She turned towards Vernon only to receive a hit from his belt's buckle, sending her once again onto the table in a dizzied state.

"Think you can deny me a promotion do you? You ungrateful brat! Don't deserve to live under my roof, much less whisper lies into my boss' ears." He muttered, winding up his belt for another hit.

Penelope was on the table, dazed and confused as Vernon laid into her with his belt, none of the strikes doing any actual damage, only serving to further enrage Vernon.

"You think you can use your freakishness against me do you!" Vernon bellowed, a crazed gleam in his eyes as he pulled his pants down his legs, "Think you know better than me?!" He continued yanking his underwear down, "No freak will deny me in this house! If I can't beat the freakishness out of you then I'll have to use other methods." He finished reaching out and yanking at Penelope's shirt.

Penelope felt Vernon yanking at her shirt and jerked up, only to be slapped down again by Vernon. She looked up at his towering mass, scooting away as he rumbled forward, watching him waddle around furniture might have been amusing at another time but now it only struck more and more fear into Penelope's heart, she felt her tail catch on one of the legs of a table as Vernon drew ever closer, she saw the madness in his gaze, the hate and lust mixing into a poisonous cocktail of emotion as he trudged forward.

Penelope frantically tried to free her tail and run as Vernon continued towards her, but she lacked any fine control over her newly-found appendage, her fear starting to overwhelm her she pulled stronger and stronger until she felt a sudden contraction, followed quickly by the sound of an impact.

Penelope looked up quickly, just in time to watch Vernon tumble back, twitching slightly before he stopped moving completely. She cautiously stood, freeing her tail from the table's leg and glancing over at Vernon.

She watched as blood started to pool around his head, as it stained the carpet, she looked at the spine protruding from where his eye once was. She didn't need to look at her tail to know where it came from.

Penelope didn't know how long she watched Vernon's body for, waiting for something to happen, whether it was a sudden reanimation or some god striking her down for her murder. Nothing happened. She waited as seconds turned to minutes, minutes turning to hours, and still, nothing happened.

She waited as her apprehension turned to pride, then to disgust, to sorrow, then anger, then pride again all in a vicious turmoil of emotion. She waited as her feelings settled, as the blood browned on the carpet, as her anger turned back to pride.

And she walked out, never to return.