The first time he had ever heard of Stardew Valley was when he was seven, his aunt mentioning a letter to him that was given to her by her grandfather. She had been complaining about the rural side of the city at the time, before pausing for a few minutes in unnatural silence. He, too, had paused in wiping one of the plates and eyed Petunia for a minute. The pale woman was staring at the floor, her mousy brown hair damp with sweat from the afternoon heat.
Then she spoke of the letter, a strangely wistful tinge to her voice. It wasn't something he had ever heard from her.
The second was when he was eleven, his aunt giving him an oddly piercing look one day in August. It was close to September, the stick-like woman studying him with her pale eyes and sharp expression. It was a cold, calculating look that he didn't like. Yet the expression was oddly suitable to her facial structure.
"You know, I never liked your… magic school," her nose wrinkled, eyes creasing slightly as disgust passed over her face. Wiping her hands on her apron, she ran her fingers over the edge of the kitchen wall, as if searching for something. After a few moments, she made a soft sound of triumph and she pulled out an old letter from within the wall. "Take this letter, it was meant for you. It was supposed to have been given to your mother, but then she died and... Well... it passed to me. Some day, somehow, you will be tired of everything you've gone through. You won't have anything to look fondly back on, nor will you want to be in your… magic world anymore. When I was younger, my grandfather gave me this letter. He told me the same words, but now I'm here and I'm happy. Maybe one day you will go to Stardew Valley and raise up the old farm from its ashes, but that will be far into the future." Something about her words made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, his insides going cold.
Petunia had snorted derisively, her eyes hard as ice, and glittering cruelly like shattered shards of glass. "I don't even know why I'm giving you this. Maybe you'll find some use of it, make yourself finally useful. Like my grandfather said, don't open the letter until you've come to a point in your life where everything has fallen around you and you can't bear anything any longer. Good luck."
That had been one of those moments where Petunia had talked to him for that long. Normally she could not stand him, but maybe she felt bad for him. For a few days after that, he had gotten a pair of new clothes for once and larger meals. A new blanket for his thin mattress, and one of Dudley's old pillows.
The third time Stardew Valley was mentioned, it was in the letter that he had finally opened. At age twenty-two, Harry James Potter was in the Auror Corps. He had married his long-time sweetheart Ginny Weasley shortly after her graduation, but it wasn't long before she was pregnant. The young man had been overjoyed at her pregnancy, but the day that the baby was due (October 30th), something went wrong.
Ginny's pregnancy had been tough, but according to her mother, every girl went through a rough period in her life. The couple hadn't been so sure. At the first appointment, the doctor had said that her hips were narrow and it would be difficult for the child to come out. And when she did go through childbirth, it wasn't all unicorns and daisies.
Dahlia Ginevra Potter had been born very sickly, and after the birth, Ginny was frail and susceptible to illness. A few days after the birth, mother and daughter fell ill. To what, Harry didn't know. Then, Dahlia started coughing up blood. Ginny followed soon after. The hospital didn't have the supplies needed to prevent and treat this illness, and on Christmas day they succumbed to the sickness in their sleep.
Harry had been distraught of course. Throughout the months his wife and daughter had been sick, he had done his best to get them the professional care they needed. Yet, it hadn't been enough. Molly Weasley's grief and wrath was a sight to be seen, shrieking at him when he came to tell them the horrid news.
That didn't help either. He was thin at the time he told them of her death, his bones jutting sharply against his skin and dark shadows under his eyes. His cheekbones were sharp, his normally bright green eyes dull with shock and denial. The beginning stages of grief. Months passed in his job, and he grew increasingly more reckless, volunteering for the more dangerous bounties.
Admittedly, he had forgotten about the letter throughout the entire time period. Now that he was actually cleaning up his house for it to be packed up and sent to storage, he fished it out of a stack of papers that his former wife had had laying around. Harry stared at the spidery script scrawling across the thick paper, his face blank as he tried to remember where it came from.
..Didn't Aunt Petunia give him this? His mind raced, struggling to pull out the memory from his childhood. Wasn't it given to him right before he left for Hogwarts? Something about Stardew Valley and her grandfather, right? His great-grandfather. Harry's mouth went dry as sandpaper, making him lick his lips nervously as he twisted the envelope to the back and studied it uncertainly.
Running a hand through his thick mane of black hair, he ignored the few strands that flopped right back over his eyes and carefully pulled apart the back flap. The letter that almost fell out of the envelope was yellow from age, making Harry overly cautious as he carefully sifted through the two delicate pages.