Chapter 27

Normal

Privet Drive was supposed to be a normal place. It was supposed to be the epitome of normalcy with nothing to break the mold…the perfect example of suburbia.

Unfortunately, that wasn't working out too well.

And ironically enough, it was because of a family so painstakingly normal and closed minded that it was simply ridiculous.

Because of this family, or more exactly, because of this family's nephew, Privet Drive had been visited by a man with a outlandishly long beard obsessed with lemon strops and with a device that controlled street lamps, a shape shifting woman who was not to be trifled with, a half giant with a heart of gold, a truckload of flying magical letters, a insane amount of owls, a hyperactive house-elf, a flying car, a red headed family who popped through chimneys (headed by a wizard with an unhealthy obsession with batteries), two soul sucking Dementors, a paranoid ex-Auror and other misfits, the smartest witch in her magical school's year and a pureblood wizard who insisted he was an idiot, then proceeded to kick every living person's tail at chess. Most importantly, Privet Drive had been home to the only hope the world had of stopping an insanely powerful megalomaniac bent on killing them all, who happened to be a rather unremarkable looking visually impaired boy who was skinny as a toothpick.

In other words, the Dursleys had inadvertently sucked every bit of normalcy out of Privet Drive.

It was about to get worse.

Since Harry Potter had left Privet Drive, it had finally returned to it's completely normal state, while the rest of the world was falling apart. The Dursley's tried to pretend he'd never existed, which was of course fairly easy for them since they'd been able to do a pretty good job of that even when he was actually present. The neighbors were relieved to have that scrappy looking juvenile delinquent gone. He had stuck out in everyway, for some reason always looking miserable, which was against the Privet Drive rule of constantly feigning happiness. The oh-so-normal children continued to get beaten up by Dudley Dursley, and sometimes caught themselves wondering why Dudley Dursley wasn't the juvenile delinquent of the family, as he made their lives hell, and that skinny kid had never bothered them at all, or as far as they could tell, done anything bad, besides being really weird and depressed. But these thoughts were rare and quickly wiped out, because, even if Potter hadn't appeared to do anything bad, being weird was a crime in itself. After all, at least beating the life out of people was NORMAL male behavior.

But the brief spell of normalcy Privet Drive had enjoyed was about to be wiped out, as that Potter freak had come back to make trouble, despite the fact he had wished never to see this place again. Once again, Privet Drive had a new thing to add to it's list of Potter-induced oddities, as six teenagers Apparated cleanly onto Magnolia Crescent.

The six stood there for a minute in silence until Harry broke it.

"I REALLY don't want to be here."

"I know," Hermione said.

"This doesn't make any sense. My aunt Petunia hates magic. And my mother. Why the hell would she have sent her secret plans?"

"That's what we're going to find out," Hermione said.

Harry sighed and turned to Neville and Ginny and Luna. "Just to warn you three, the Dursley's are not nice people."

Neville shrugged. "Can't be much worse than Gran."

"Yes, they are," Harry, Hermione and Ron said together.

"You don't KNOW that," Neville said, stung. "Gran can be pretty-

"They made him sleep in the cupboard for the first ten years of his life," Ron said.

"Oh…well…that is bad. Sorry, Harry."

Harry narrowed his eyes at Ron. "I got a bedroom when I turned eleven. Now come on, and just don't take the fact they hate all of you personally."

"It's odd, people who save the world tend to have traumatic childhoods," Luna said vaguely. "And so do most Reptilian Face Suckers."

"Think listening to her for two minutes will make your Uncle Vernon's brain explode?" Ron said.

"Most definitely. I will enjoy watching it," Harry said, reaching the Dursley's front path.

"It's sounds rather disgusting to me," Luna said.

Harry reached the front door. "Brace yourself. They're not going to be happy to see me." He knocked.

"Who the HELL is knocking at this hour?" they heard Vernon roar.

"He always says that when people arrive past nine," Harry said conversationally.

The door flew open, and Vernon gaped at them.

"Hi," Harry said. "Er, we just need to…ask you something."

"I thought I told you NEVER TO COME BACK!" Vernon thundered, after taking a second of recovery.

"Yeah, believe me, I had no desire to return," Harry snapped, slipping into defiant mode. "But we need to discuss something with you. It'll only be a minute."

"I am NOT letting you into my house," the large man said through gritted teeth.

"Yeah, not really giving you a choice," said Ginny, pushing up front and pulling out her wand. "You let us in, or a demonstrate exactly how much damage flying bogies can do to your face."

"It's really quite gruesome," Luna said cheerfully. "I wouldn't recommend it."

"And I can demonstrate exactly how many hexes I have mastered," Hermione said, pulling out her wand as well.

"That's a lot," Ron nodded.

"Yeah, remember that time Dudley got that pigs tail? Well, Hagrid kind of didn't finish his third year at Hogwarts. We've finished six…or five and a half…so we could easily turn you fully into a pig," Harry snapped.

They all looked at Neville.

"I can't really think up a good threat, sorry," he shrugged.

"All right, come in," Vernon said grudgingly. They marched in, Luna coming in last. Uncle Vernon stared at her. "What the hell is wrong with your ears?"

"You mean my pickle earrings?" Luna replied.

"Luna likes vegetables," Ginny nodded.

"Freaks," Vernon slammed the door. "Freaks the lot of you…now get whatever you want to tell me over with before Petunia-

"What is going on, Vernon?" Petunia came walking into the room. She stopped dead when she saw Harry "What are you doing here? I-I was sure you'd be dead by now."

"Sorry to disappoint," Harry shrugged. "Actually, it's you we wanted to talk to."

"Why would you want to talk with her?" Vernon snarled.

Hermione decided to get to the point. "We found…these letters to Harry's mum in the, er, remains of …their house. They were…secret codes…from someone reporting the goings on of Muggles in the…war…when Voldemort was still alive. Important information. It…had Petunia's name on it."

She dropped the sheaf of paper on the table. The Dursley's stared at it for a full minute.

"Preposterous," Vernon finally snorted. "Petunia hates her sister…she would never get mixed up in-

Petunia picked up the sheaf with trembling hands. "I-I always wanted to tell you…" she said in small voice to her husband.

"What?" the beefy man said sharply.

"I…had to do it…when I found out what was going on…this…V-Voldemort man…he was…going to wipe out everyone normal…populate the world of freaks…it threatened everything we were, Vernon! Dudley…everything would have been destroyed. I had to work inside, I was the connection to this part of the…normal world. L-Lily lied too…pretended like I was sending her hate mail. Because that mad man…Dubble Dorn or whatever…said no one could know except James…there was a spy or something…I…didn't want to get involved with the freaks…but it was the only way to save us!"

Silence encapsulated the room. Hermione noted the similarities of the expressions on Harry and his uncle's face. Complete shock and disbelief, both staring at Petunia as if they'd never seen her before.

"You…you…" Harry said. "But that's…you hate magic! You hate my mum! You hate Ime!/I

"Yes," Petunia said unashamedly. "But I love Vernon and Dudley. I love being alive. That's what this was about. Keeping you…abnormal people…from destroying my life. That's why I convinced Vernon to take you in. I was well informed about that inane prophecy or whatever."

"What…what…what…" Harry looked like he was going to go into shock. "Prophecy…you knew…?"

"What Prophecy?" said Vernon, Neville and Luna together, though Vernon's was very garbled.

"I knew if that brute came back…Lily convinced me he was very capable of doing something like that…that you were the only thing that would stop him. I found it hard to believe, honestly. You were always so…ugh. We do treat you roughly, I would do that anyway, as I really do not like you, but I was fairly sure that you needed to get used to being kicked around, learn how to fight back. You built up a resistance to pain and all that. You never really took it lying down, which was good, though your sarcasm and such annoy me to no end. And from what I hear, when people attack you in that death trap of a school, you take it quite well, so it did work."

More silence.

"That…has to be the sickest thing I have ever heard in my life…" Ginny said angrily. "And I had to listen to Tom Riddle yammer on!"

"I have no idea who that is," Petunia shrugged.

Ginny lunged herself at the skinny woman, but Neville and Ron grabbed hold of her.

"I…I…I…" Vernon stammered.

Harry sank down in a chair. "My life no longer makes anything resembling sense anymore."

"Vernon, dear, please. It was for us," Petunia said soothingly, rubbing her husbands neck as he continued to babble.

"Harry, take deep breaths," Hermione knelt down beside him. "This isn't really that unbelievable, compared to all those time good people turned out to be evil, Voldemort popped up everywhere and random people attacked us, right?"

"No, that stuff's the usual," Harry shook his head. "This is completely freaky."

On that note, an explosion shattered through the ceiling.

"I think the reward for conformity is everyone likes you but yourself"-Rita Mae Brown