A/N: I know, I know, this was a long wait. Work and wedding planning may be the death of me. However, SevenBees reminded me of my promise not to go too too long between updates aaand, here we are. Time will move a little faster now, so be prepared. We are beyond the halfway point and I expect this to be 20 chapters or less. I hope you enjoy!

As always, reviews are my favorite. I appreciate every single one. ~ Pooka

As the years went on, Daisy learned more and more about the Wizarding World, and her family along with her. Dudley heard about exams called HAWKS or DUCKS or something like that, and was thrilled when Daisy got nothing but Outstandings, which was the highest a student could get. Harry apparently had not received straight Os, though Hermione Weasley had. Dudley had never been more proud of his eldest girl.

He did his best to brag about her at work, though their story of her boarding school always stuck in his throat. It reminded him of Saint Brutus's. Again and again the memories of his parents pummeled his thoughts.

Magic was strange. Alien. Quite literally the thing of fairy tales. Wrapping his brain around it would've been near impossible without Harry. And yet, his mother had grown up with a witch as well. She should've been able to understand Harry's magic, should've understood that this wasn't something he could control.

Dudley had only known the Potter pack for a few years, and yet he loved them all. James, Al, Lily: they were his family. They weren't his nephews and niece, but they may as well have been. He couldn't imagine turning his back on them as his family had done to Harry.

It took a long time, longer than it should have, to sit down and talk to his mother about it. She'd grown fond of the young Lily and doted on the child as she did her own grandchildren. It was only then that Dudley felt comfortable confronting her over her actions.

"I was jealous, at first," Petunia admitted, a glass of port in her hands. "I couldn't understand how my younger sister had this ability that I didn't. Then she found a friend, the man Al's named after. The two of them had this special club that I couldn't be in because I wasn't like them. Lily had been my best friend. My oldest friend. My only friend."

She sighed and took a sip.

"And then she was suddenly different. One day she made a flower fly. It was beautiful, but it should've been impossible. I wanted to do it too, but no matter how hard I tried, I just...couldn't. When she met Severus, I was officially the odd one out. They could play with their magic and I had never wanted anything so much as to be like them. I even wrote Dumbledore to ask for a place at Hogwarts."

Dudley gaped at her and his mother chuckled.

"Yes, I know. But then Lily went off to school without me. I met your father whilst I was preparing for Uni and I had to keep my sister's secret. I told him the same cover story my parents told and I hated it. I hated the lying. And with every lie I think I grew to resent her. It was worse than being jealous. It broke us."

Shoulders slumping, Petunia set her glass down.

"Telling Vernon was a relief. I was given the clearance to do so after the wedding. I almost didn't want to, for fear he would think me strange as well. But eventually I just broke down and told him that my sister was a freak and I was nothing like her and I hoped he would understand. I was so angry with her, with what she was, and I'd kept it inside for ages. I couldn't tell me parents, they would've scolded me and Vernon was my outlet. Everything boiled out and it was mean. Cruel, even. He was so understanding of my anger, encouraged it even."

His mother shook her head, picked up the glass, and took a sip. It fortified her.

"I let myself revel in his encouragement of my anger, and I stayed there for a very long time. Then we had you, and you were lovely and normal and sweet. Then our parents died, and Lily married, and then she disappeared. I thought it was for the best. I was- I was glad."

She knocked back the rest of the glass, visibly trying to push back her tears.

"I was glad," she said on a whisper, "Actually glad that my sister had disappeared."

Dudley moved onto the couch beside her and hugged her into his shoulder where the tears began to escape.

"And then she d-died. And that boy that represented everything she'd been, everything her husband and her friends had been, was sitting on my doorstep with a letter from that miserable man, Dumbledore. And he told me that magic," she spit the word, "had gotten her killed."

He rubbed her shoulder, consoling the woman who had consoled him countless times as a child.

"That little boy was why she died. And I hated him for it, even more than I had hated her. This infant had killed my sister and I had to look at his face, so like his father's, every single day, remembering the thing that killed her. The man who gave her this child that killed her."

Petunia was openly sobbing now. Dudley wasn't sure he'd ever seen his mother ever lose control so completely. She was the ever proper English lady, but here she sat crying with an empty glass of port.

"And then I met Little Lily and the horrible little boy I so resented gave me a sweet face that was my Lily. My sweet, sister Lily. And Harry forgave me. He forgave everything. I don't know how, or why, but he did."

That was the last of her talking for the night. Dudley held her as she cried and cried.

The next day, Dudley picked Daisy up from the station for her Christmas hols. She struggled a bit after the hug lasted longer than usual, but she didn't notice the tears in her hair. It was for the best, Dudley thought. Little girls should think their fathers invincible until they're old enough to know better.