Authors Note: Sorry this took me so long to write. Thank you again for all the reviews. As usual I don't own any of the characters, I'm just taking them out for a joyride.

Harry sent the other wizards back to the Ministry, asking Ron to make his excuses to the Minister for Magic.

"Just tell him it's a family Emergency, and let him think that Ginny will come after him if he pulls me away." He muttered to him. Ron laughed at the thought of Ginny going after Kingsley and chuckled merrily to himself until he disapparated with the rest of the team with a pop. Harry stared at the space where they had been for a second before turning back to Petunia.

"Right then, what do you need to pack?"

"Where are you going to take me?" Petunia asked, her voice a little waverly.

"I think to the Wizarding hospital. They might try something that the Mugg… that your doctors haven't tried." Petunia nodded.

"With magic?" she asked, a small tremor in her voice as she said it.

"Yes."

"They could make me better, stop me taking the pills, with magic?" the tremor had gone, and it had been replaced with wonder.

"Possibly. We won't know until we go will we?"

"Before we go. I want to give you… you really should have it." She trailed off and started to walk upstairs.

"Aunt Petunia?"

"The box Harry. I have to give you the box. I want to make you understand. To show you that, that I'm sorry." Her voice became distant and he started up the stairs after her. Looking at the walls around him he saw all the family portraits from his and Dudley's childhood. He was somewhere behind the camera in all of them, holding the coats and bags of Christmas shopping. One photographer had been so scandalised by this that she had tried to sneak the painfully thin Harry into the picture. Vernon had been furious, Harry remembered. For his complicity in the plot to ruin Duddykins' Christmas portrait Harry had been put on bread and water for a week, just long enough that he missed Christmas dinner. "Found it!" she exclaimed as she reappeared. In her arms was a wooden chest with inlaid mahogany. He remembered the Christmas Vernon had given it her. She'd smiled and said she loved it, but everyone knew it was a lie because it never reappeared. Now there it was, big and bulky between her frail arms and hands. "Harry dear, can you take this off me? It's a bit heavy I'm afraid." He nodded and finished climbing the stairs. After he took it out of her arms she led him back down and into the lounge. She gestured for him to place it on the coffee table and she handed him a key for the large iron padlock on the front. "Vernon would never have let me keep it if he knew. So I had to keep it secret, keep it locked. Go on, open it. It's yours now." He frowned, puzzled by what could be in there. He slid the key into the rusted lock and turned it, listening to the metal grate on metal. The lock sprang open and he unhooked the padlock and opened the lid. It was filled with papers, letters and pictures. The handwriting in them was familiar, he had a letter of his own in the same writing. It was from Lily. Bundles of letters from his mother to her sister were piled on top of a pile of three albums. "The letters are tied up in year order. Lily always wrote to me, from school, from her home with James. She'd send me pictures of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. Once she even sent me a bottle of butter beer. In the albums are all the photos she sent me, plus all of the photos that I took of you when you were growing up." She picked up an album and leafed through it wistfully. "She would have been so proud of you." Harry nodded, dumbstruck. He looked at the hand writing and felt his eyes mist over. He replaced the letters and closed the box. Here was neither the time nor the place. He didn't want to look over all of this in the place that was full of memories of his painful childhood.

"We should get going, Aunt Petunia." He said standing up. "Do you want to bring anything? Clothes, a photo, books? You shouldn't be gone too long but it might be best to take something." He suggested smiling down at her. She looked a little lost, "It's ok Petunia, you gave me the box, but I'll look at it later. Now we need to take you to the hospital to see if we can make you better." He took her hand. "Come on, I tell you what, we'll go to the hospital now and see what they say, then if you need to stay I can come back. Now, shall we lock up the house?" he spoke slowly and she nodded in reply.

"Whatever you think is best dear." She said placidly, patting his hand where it lay upon hers. He nodded and led her out into the garden, the box under one arm. She turned the key in the lock and glanced around. "Your friends are very good at cleaning up. I should have realised how good magic was when I had a chance to use it." she smiled at him, "now, shall we go on our trip dear."

"Yes Aunt Petunia." He replied, feeling an odd rush of emotion. He held onto her arm and turned where he stood.

They appeared suddenly in the entrance hall to St Mungo's and for a moment Petunia stood looking around at her surroundings.

"Well that was very clever dear." She said with a little awe in her voice, and for a moment Harry thought she would be fine, that she wouldn't be affected by travel sickness caused by the Apparition. And then her arm ripped from his grasp as she doubled over heaving over the floor. There was a flurry of sound behind them and a bed appeared next to him, and caring hands lifted Petunia onto it, and then she was whisked away. Harry stood there, watching as they left and then felt a tug on his trousers.

"Excuse me sir, I need to clean here." A house elf informed him from his knee. Harry nodded dumbly and then noticed a witch in a white pristine apron beckoning him over. He went to her.

"Mr Potter, such an honour. Such an honour sir. I'm Madame Frieze, matron of the ward your Aunt has just been taken to. Would you like to come with me sir, and I'll talk to you while the nurses get her settled in." Harry looked slightly dumbstruck. "Oh, would you like some water? You don't look well at all. You did stand in the hall for an awfully long time. Mitsy was worried." She summoned a glass of water from the desk and handed it to him. "She said you looked like a statue, and that you were in her way. Come to my office Mr Potter, and I'll tell you about your Aunt." She took his arm gently and led him to the lift. The doors shut and she smiled at him, her blonde hair, edged by the white of later years, tucked up under the white and blue cap she wore, the blue almost exactly matching the colour of her eyes. "May I ask why you brought her in?"

"She's always suffered with depression, but I'm given to understand that in recent years that has turned into bitter moodswings, which are affected even more by the taking or not taking of these pills." He handed them to her and watched her carefully as her mouth twitched. "Can you tell something from them?" He asked, his brow creasing slightly.

"No, dear. Nothing to worry about." She replied in a singsong voice.

"Madame Frieze, forgive me, but I am an auror, which means as well as the ability to defend myself against the Dark Arts, I can tell when people are lying to me." He informed her, looking at her intently without seeming to. She flushed slightly and moved swiftly through the doors as they reopened outside her office.

"If you'll step this way Mr Potter." She said, loudly than she meant to in her more than flustered state. Inside she sat behind her desk and gestured for him to sit opposite her. she looked at him, then at the parchment that now had been placed on her desk in her absence.

"There is no easy way to say this Mr Potter." She paused to take a breath. "Your aunt has cancer. It's terminal." Harry took advantage of her taking a second breath.

"Can't you…?" He gestured with his hand to indicate something magical.

"I'm afraid not Mr Potter. It's too advanced, and the Muggle doctors have done her no favours with their constant bombardment of her system with toxic radiation. We can make her comfortable, but that's all. We can make her final days much more pleasant than they would be in a Muggle hospital."

"How long?"

"A month, maybe two." Harry nodded.

"I'll need to make arrangements. Do you have recommendations for home care nurses?"

"Yes, but…" Harry interrupted her, cutting her off.

"I'm taking her home with me. She wouldn't, she has prejudices, she wouldn't like it here. She wouldn't cope well with this environment, and neither would her son, and he needs to be able to see her. Can you keep her here while I discuss things with my wife, inform her of the situation." His arms tightened involuntarily around the wooden box in his lap.

"Well yes, but I really don't think…" This time she was interrupted by the pop as he disapparated in front of her. "Well, really. How rude!" she exclaimed.

Ginny looked around surprised as Harry walked into the kitchen,

"You're early." She murmured, licking some cake batter off her finger.

"I took a half day." He said absently as he slipped an arm around her waist. "You look nice." He kissed the top of her head.

"Thank you… what do you want?" She asked suddenly suspicious.

"Nothing." He said, feigning innocence, trying to find something to distract her with. "Dinner smells nice, what are we having?"

"Beef cobbler. Harry Potter, what do you want?" He sighed.

"I can't say anything nice without you thinking I want something."

"Well you usually do."

"That doesn't mean I want something now, that's just you jumping to conclusions."

"Ok, fine. Thank you for the compliments." She smiled and put the potatoes she had been preparing in the oven.

"We're going to have a house guest for a couple of months." He said while her back was turned. The oven door slammed shut, and he saw her shoulders tighten.

"Who?" she asked, her back still facing him and her tone slightly chilly.

"My aunt Petunia." She turned round and stared at him in disbelief.

"Why?"

"She's dying. She hasn't told Dudley yet, or his wife and family. I can't just leave her. She can't stay in her house or at St Mungo's." He decided to omit the fact that he'd offered to take care of her before he found out she was dying, no one needed to know that. "It's cancer, it's advanced and it's terminal. I've organised a nurse to come help us look after her, and well, she's family."

"But, what she did to you…" Ginny said, trying to keep her tone even.

"Is in the past." He put the box on the table. "she did this, she kept all the letters, all the photos my mother ever sent her. This box, it's her guilt and anger and love for her sister. She kept it for me. There has to be an end to all of this." Ginny nodded, realising that this was important to him.

"Ok, Victoire and I can prepare a room for her in the morning. Probably Teddy's room, he can sleep with the boys for a couple of months." She said, thinking out loud. She placed her hand on his on the box. "We have forty minutes before dinner's cooked. Can you show me what's in the box?" Harry smiled and kissed her before carefully opening the box.

Ginny lay on her own in her bed in the top of the house, thinking about her husband's aunt. She had been genuinely moved by the way the letters had been carefully preserved, still in their envelopes, with the seals tucked inside when they had been sent from Hogwarts. The photo albums were neatly ordered, glimpses of Harry caught unawares, some were cut out of originals, photos of the Dursley family where Harry was an unwanted guest. The box in no way made up for their treatment of Harry but it showed some kindness on Petunia's part. Having her in the house would be a trial though, it would mean more forced contact with Dudley, something Ginny dreaded. She glanced at the door to Harry's study, the light shone still letting her know that Harry would not be returning to bed any time soon. She rolled onto her side and, closing her eyes, tried to sleep.

Harry sat at his desk, the blue blanket that featured in early photos of himself in his hands. It was the blanket Hagrid had wrapped him in on the night of his parents death. He had seen it when he was looking through the box with Ginny but hadn't wanted to look at it with her. As he unfurled the blanket he found a bottle of perfume and realised with a sudden clarity that this was his mother's perfume as a long forgotten scent filled his nostrils and bringing forth an image of his mother bending over him, her long red hair dangling about his face, a smile on hers and her laugh. The clarity continued as he realised that Petunia must have brought the perfume to sprinkle on the blanket to help pacify him as a baby.