Ginny left her purse at Dudley and Laura's. Of all the stupid things—but no: He couldn't blame her. They had left in such a hurry. Still, he did not want to go back there so soon.

Ginny offered to go, but she would have to drive the hour with the kids, or else drop them off somewhere before Apparating, and it was just easier for him to stop by on his way to work. He owled Dudley and Apparated under his invisibility cloak onto his cousin's front porch.

The door swung open immediately as he knocked.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Dudley said with panic on his face. "They knew you were coming and they wanted to talk to you. I can't make them leave!"

"You've got to be kidding," he said.

Dudley shook his head. "I think they just want to give you something."

Harry shrugged resignedly and followed Dudley into the kitchen.

Harry was ready to be perfectly civil, but Vernon destroyed that particular instinct pretty quickly.

"No wife to fight for you today, I see," he mumbled, looking down at his feet.

Harry looked at the man, flabbergasted, and felt disgust. All thoughts of civility were gone, but still he spoke calmly.

"Do you know why I let Ginny attack you yesterday rather than doing it myself? Do you know why I didn't fight my own battle? Because I didn't care. I honestly didn't care enough to fight. I've fought battles that have been worth it, and I know enough to know that this wouldn't have been.

"My children heard what Ginny said. You know I fought in the war: I'm regarded as a hero among my people, a celebrity, and my children know very little about it. They heard what Ginny said about me dying, but do you know what my youngest son, the one who looks like me asked? He didn't ask about the war and how I survived. He didn't ask how I lived through such trying times and bloody battles. He didn't ask for all the scary, exciting details. That didn't have much of an effect on him. Instead, he asked me how you could have not known how to love me. He asked how I could be sure that he loved me if I grew up not knowing what love is. And it made me realize, finally, finally, what truly pathetic people you are. I didn't confront you yesterday because I didn't care, but I'm confronting you today because I do.

"You have another chance with Hermione. You have a chance to be decent people. You have a chance to accept her for who she is rather than who you think she should have been. You have a chance, in my book at least, to atone for your mistakes. If I hear that you haven't, if I hear you've done anything to make that little girl think she's anything less than the amazing person that she is, my wife will be the least of your problems."

Without another word he spun on his heel to leave the house, but Vernon stopped him.

"Boy," he said. "I mean…er…Harry."

Harry whipped out his wand and spun around.

"What," he spat.

"You're aunt wanted to give you something."

Petunia pushed a very old shoebox across the table. Harry hesitated before asking what it was.

"It's just," Petunia sniffed, "It's just some old pictures and things I thought you should have."

Harry picked up the box, not quite daring to believe that Petunia had kept pictures of him with his parents all these years.

Vernon seemed to be struggling with himself. Finally, with an elbow jab from Petunia, he spoke.

"I love my granddaughter. I'll accept her for who she is without question. I'd rather have her in my life as a…er…special person than not at all. She's like a daughter to Petunia and me and we wouldn't know what to do without her in our lives.

"I…er…I didn't want you in my house. If I had to do it over again, I still wouldn't want you in my house. You were a poky little child and I didn't ask to have to raise my…er…abnormal sister-in-law's even more abnormal boy.

"But you organized our safe keeping during your war. You kept my family safe. It was your fault that we were in danger—"

Here Petunia elbowed him again.

"But we heard things about you while we were hiding. We heard what you did. You're…a…er…you're a decent man." He said this last part very rushed and Harry was almost certain he misheard him.

Laura suddenly squeaked from where she was standing and Dudley followed her gaze and immediately turned pale. Harry looked and was surprised to see Hermione poking her head around the doorway. She slowly stepped into the room.

Whatever Harry wanted, he hadn't wanted Hermione to hear his tirade, especially after what she had heard yesterday. He had been so concerned about his own children, he hadn't even though about Hermione would react to the accusations against her beloved grandparents.

"Grandpa," she said quietly, and then more loudly, "Grandpa did you really do those things that woman said you did? Did you really hate Harry because he was magic?"

Vernon looked as though he was unable to speak.

The young Hermione's eyes narrowed. "You're a bad man," she said. "You shouldn't have done those things."

"No honey," Dudley said desperately. "He shouldn't have. He just didn't know any better."

"So he's just stupid then?" the girl retorted scathingly.

Harry suppressed both a grin and a grimace. Retribution was a fickle thing. Hermione would likely never look at Vernon the same again, and Harry didn't know whether to rejoice or feel sympathy.

"I should go," Harry said. He ruffled Hermione's hair quickly, half waved an apology to Dudley and Laura and Disapparated on the spot, leaving Vernon to deal with his own mess.

Back in his office at the Ministry, Harry curiously pulled the shoebox Petunia had given him toward himself. He paused before opening it, without knowing why.

He drew in his breath sharply when he did. He had not been expecting this.

The box was full of photos of him, as he had expected, but they were not of his first year of life with his parents. They were not of his parents at all.

He pulled out one that particularly caught his eye: It was him, about two years old, running happily on the beach with Dudley while they both chased an impossibly large beach ball. Petunia was happily trailing after them, which mean that Vernon had probably taken the picture.

The next was of one year olds Dudley and Harry both sitting on…no it couldn't be. They were both sitting on Vernon's lap, laughing along with him.

There was one of Harry blowing out the candles on a cake that had a large "2" candle on it; one of the entire Dursley family, with Harry, apparently at a picnic of some sort, posing for a family photo. The box was full of them.

Toward the bottom, Harry found pictures of himself as he aged. They were taken through windows and across gardens, without his knowledge, and he was no longer accompanied by the Dursleys in these pictures, but they were of him. Even when Petunia began to hate him, apparently, she had felt the need to document his life. Why?

On the very bottom of the box he found an envelope with his name written on it. He opened it, not quite sure if he wanted to read it.

Harry,

As you can see, you were not always an unwelcome stigma in our home. I have no excuse for what was done to you more than I told you yesterday, but I felt I should explain more fully. I am unforgivable, I know, but please just try to understand why I did the things I did.

I loved your mother very much and that world took her away from me. It made her special. It made her better than me. I wanted so badly to go away to that magical school and be a witch with my sister. I wanted so badly to be a part of her world; of your world, but I couldn't.

I never told Vernon what my sister was. I was afraid that he wouldn't believe me and, if he did, that he would hate me for it. I knew how he felt about anything that he thought was strange.

When you arrived on our doorstep all those years ago, I learned that my sister had been killed. My little sister whom I had abandoned and labeled a freak had been killed in a war I didn't even know she was fighting, and I found out about it in a letter, left on my doorstep with the baby I was now expected to raise. I'll never understand why Professor Dumbledore didn't explain things himself; why he left a helpless little baby who was supposedly in so much danger alone on a doorstep through the night.

When I saw you out there, cold and alone, suddenly thrust into a world of danger I couldn't comprehend, without even your parents to protect you, I took you. To me, you were the death of my sister, the embodiment of my grief and guilt, and the reminder of the sister I had scorned and lost, but you were so alone, so I took you. You were the reason my little sister died, but I took you.

That should have made me want to protect you, to protect you because it was for you that my sister died, and it did at first.

I told Vernon everything that morning and he didn't believe me. Finally, I managed to convince him and he begged me not to take you. I had been so afraid of how he would react, and so confused by my grief, that I explained your world to him as though it was something dirty, something freakish. I knew what he was like, and I didn't want him to push me away too. He and Dudley were all I had…

He begged me not to take you, but I insisted. I explained to him that we were all you had. Finally, after days of fighting, he consented, on the condition that we would never send you away to be a wizard. He said we'd be able to make you not magic anymore. I didn't know what he meant at the time, but I agreed just to make him let me keep you.

Even then we didn't quite raise you like Dudley, but you were one of us. Maybe not one of ours but you were a part of our family.

But you never cried. Night after night I waited, but you never cried. In the mornings I waited, but you never cried. Sometimes I wouldn't feed you on purpose just to see, but you still just laughed. Sometimes I would go into your room at night after I finally got Dudley back to sleep—back then you had a real room, you see. I would go into your room wondering why you never cried, and I would find you awake, just looking out your window from your crib, up into the sky. And I could feel…It was like I could feel my sister in there with you. I could feel her presence, and sometimes I thought I could even smell her, or hear her humming softly in the wind. It's true you didn't need me—you already had a mother, but that's not why I…why I did what I did.

After a while, of course, it just sort of grew from what Vernon told me about forcing the magic from you, but that wasn't it in the beginning. I could feel my sister whenever you were in the room, and…at the time I didn't understand why it upset me so much, but I was vile to her. I really was, and I felt like you were there, and she was there, both of you judging me and hating me for who I was, and who I wasn't, and what I had done to her.

And then, when you were about two and a half, it happened. I had been trying to make you cry for days. For the very first time, I put you in the cupboard under the stairs and locked the door. I left you in there all day, just waiting for you to cry, but you didn't. Finally, I went to let you out, but as I was approaching the door, the chain lock slid over on its own and the door opened. You were just sitting there calmly. Vernon saw it too and we knew. We knew you were a wizard.

From that moment on, we cannot be forgiven, I know. When it started, we really were just trying to force the magic from you, but as you grew, we resented you more and more as those things kept happening. For Vernon, I know it turned to hate. For me, it was jealousy, it was anger, it was bitterness, resentment, and it was fear, but it was never hate. You were still Lily's son, after all. You had her eyes. Your mother's eyes…

Vernon thought the magic could be forced from you, and I went along with it, but I never really believed. When the Hogwarts letters started arriving, I was actually relieved. I was relieved because I wouldn't have to deal with you anymore, I'll admit. I was also relieved because you wouldn't have to deal with us anymore. A part of me knew, I never would have admitted to myself then, but a part of me knew how awful we were to you.. I didn't feel your mother as often any more. Sometimes though, when you looked at me, I saw Lily in you and I knew in those moments that you were a child, and that we were treating you worse than a dog. I knew in those rare moments that we were vile people. But your letter came and I was relieved, above all, because you, Lily's son, would finally be going to the place you belonged.

I know this explanation must paint Vernon and I in an even worse light than you already saw us, but I felt you deserved to know the truth. Rest assured, Hermione will not be treated as you were. She is our granddaughter, and she will not be unloved.

Your mother would be proud, you know, to see who you've become despite our influence. But then again, I have the feeling she already knows. She never left you Harry. Not really.

Petunia

Harry set the letter down on his desk and let out a slow, deep breath. Petunia was right, her excuses weren't enough. Nothing would ever be enough to make up for all the years of suffering and abuse, of neglect and abandonment, of being taught to believe that he wasn't worth more than the lowest life form. But he was glad he knew. He was glad Petunia had finally acknowledged that Harry didn't deserve the life she had forced on him. He had known that himself, of course, but until today there was still a part of him that was six years old and didn't understand why he was being locked in the cupboard while Dudley was fawned over. There was a part of him that thought he deserved it.

On impulse, he threw the letter into the fire. It wasn't something he'd want to read again, he knew.

He had a sudden desire to see Ginny, and to see his children. He had a sudden desire to be with his family.

"Bingley," he said to his secretary outside his office, "I'm going home for the day."

"But Mr. Potter," the man said, "it's not even noon. You never leave early."

"Well, maybe it's time I started."

Without another word he threw a pinch of powder into the fire and went home.

A/N: Thank you, everyone, so much for your kind reviews! I'm a bit overwhelmed by the amount of hits and favorites this "little story to take a break from my longer story" is getting. I hope this chapter didn't let you all down.

This was originally planned as a three part story, but I think there's one more event in Harry's life relating to this story that needs to be told. I should have the fourth and final chapter up in a few days.

Oh, and to clear up the confusion with the time: Harry says it has been nearly twenty years, not twenty. He is rounding up. And the DH epilogue takes place nineteen years after the final battle, not nineteen years after the last time he sees the Dursleys, so I'm pretty sure my timeline is correct.