Disclaimer: I look nothing like J.K. Rowling and live nowhere near her.
You'll never know unless you try. You'll never know unless you try.
The same phrase kept running through her mind. No matter what she did, it kept coming back. When it returned one final time that night as she was preparing for bed, Petunia Dursley growled in frustration.
I'll call her in the morning when I put the milk bottles out for the milkman.
But Petunia never got the chance to follow through with her plan. When the door was opened to put out the milk bottles, Petunia Dursley was greeted with a baby's cry.
Horrified, and wondering who had the gall to drop a baby off at her house of all places, Petunia set the milk bottles in their usual place at the doorstep and brought the child in, fully intending to alert her husband and have him take it to the nearest orphanage when she spotted a note addressed to her nestled among the blankets.
Her curiosity now pricked, Petunia rocked the small boy as she read the note:
Dear Mrs. Petunia Dursley,
I regret to inform you that on the evening of the 31st Day of October, one thousand nine hundred eighty-one, your sister Lily and her husband James were attacked and murdered by Lord Voldemort. However, your nephew Harry survived the attack by sustaining a mere scar upon his forehead.
And there it was. She should have seen it coming. Lily had sealed her fate the moment she'd married that Potter. The very boy she had complained about every summer for six years. Petunia had listened to every word Lily would say, pretending to hate her when in reality fascinated with every last word.
They had virtually lost all contact after Lily's marriage, only sending birthday and Christmas gifts to each other, but Petunia had finally decided to set her pride aside for a moment in order to hear her baby sister's voice just one more time.
Before continuing to read the letter, Petunia glanced down at her nephew, who was now wide awake and squirming in her arms. Catching a glimpse of his eyes, Petunia gasped. Although everything else about him was similar to Potter, it was his eyes that caught her heart strings. They were the exact same as Lily's. Seeing his eyes she realized that although her baby sister was gone physically, she still lived on in her son. Her only child.
Now understanding that Harry had nowhere else to go, Petunia finished reading and resolved that even though he wasn't her own son, and Vernon would not be pleased at all, she needed to raise her nephew in order to keep Lily's memory alive and close to her heart.
Author's note: I wanted to emphasize the bit of Petunia which was only revealed as she and Harry were parting in book seven. I hope I did well with that. Please review with what you thought of this one, and I hope you enjoy the other one-shots to come!