Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own anything you recognise from the Harry Potter or Stargate franchises, or any of their characters. I do however own this story! I wrote it and I do NOTgive permission for anyone to post it anywhere else. If you want to share it post a link.

A/N: This is my second attempted submission for "The Big Moxie – A Comfy Challenge" Quarter 2, 2023. I hope to finish it before the deadline on June 30 but I cannot guarantee that I can.

A/N2: The opinions pronounced by the Dursleys are in no way a reflection of the opinions or feelings of the author. The timelines of the two stories have been jigged so that the Potters were killed sometime between the Atlantis Expedition re-establishing contact with Earth and Atlantis coming to protect the Earth from the Wraith. I also don't plan on trying to work out what technology was available on Earth at that time so if I've got it wrong please just bear with it.

A/N: Cross posted to AO3

Chapter 1

Petunia Dursley hummed softly as she went to the door the morning of the second of November 1981 to collect the milk as she did every other perfectly normal morning in their perfectly normal household. She shivered a little in the chill but even that wasn't totally unwelcome because it was normal for it to be chilly in the morning in November. The oddest thing about Mrs Petunia Dursley was her obsession with normality. She coveted it like other women coveted powerful men, beauty, intelligence, money or jewels. So, on this chilly November morning she was perfectly happy in her normal little house with her normal not-so-little mortgage, normal, though admittedly not very attractive, husband and normal child and perfectly normal life.

She was so wrapped up in enjoying the normalness of the early morning that she'd completely forgotten how shaken she'd been by the television the day before when it seemed that the only normal place in Britain had been Little Whinging. The number of abnormal occurrences happening in the news frightened her and then her husband had brought up the one thing she tried very hard never to think about, her extremely abnormal sister and her sister's anything but normal husband and child.

As she opened the door and leaned down for the milk her perfectly normal morning was ruined. She let out a scream as she saw a very abnormal Large old-fashioned Moses basket sitting where the milk should be. A very abnormal basket holding a toddler wrapped in a blanket that was far too thin to keep him warm outside in this weather, and yet the child was sound asleep and his little hand peeking out of the blanket was a warm healthy pink. That couldn't be normal! The baby woken by her scream began to cry and looking quickly around Petunia picked up the abnormal baby in a basket and hurried inside before the neighbours could see the abnormality. She ducked back out and picked up the milk, because it wasn't normal for it to be left outside any later than this and someone would be sure to remark on it. After the door was shut to keep the neighbours from noticing the commotion, she yelled for her husband to come downstairs immediately.

Vernon Dursley frowned at the disruption to their perfectly normal workday routine. He shared his wife's passion for normality and had an equal and abiding love for routine, though he was tolerant enough with the disruptions that his infant son had caused he hoped Dudley would soon grow to love routine as much as he did.

"What is it Pet? I'm not quite ready to come down," he called back.

"It's not for breakfast yet. I need you," Petunia called up. Luckily while the baby in the basket continued to whimper every time they yelled, their own son slept on oblivious. He was far too used to his father yelling or his mother screeching and it was not yet time for hunger to wake him up.

"What is it Pet?" Vernon asked, finally coming down the stairs.

Petunia pointed shakily to the basket at her feet. "I found it on the doorstep," she said faintly.

"A baby? On the doorstep? We should call the police, that would be the normal thing to do," Vernon said moving towards the phone.

"But what would the neighbours say?" Petunia asked hesitantly.

"You're right it will attract attention. The police will want to come and look over the doorstep themselves even if I take it in to the station. Officious busybodies that they are, but what else should we do?" Vernon said annoyed at the idea. "Did anybody see it?"

"The milkman must have if it was there before he did his deliveries and I don't see how it could have been left on the stoop after that without me hearing anything, but I doubt the neighbours could have seen what was in the basket even if they noticed it there on the stoop," Petunia replied.

"That's good," Vernon said dismissing the thought of the milkman entirely, the opinions of milkmen didn't count in the world of Vernon Dursley.

"There's a letter," Petunia said.

"Well read it then Pet? They probably left it at the wrong house. People irresponsible enough to drop off babies on doorsteps aren't likely to be able to get the details right," Vernon replied disdainfully.

"Yes, that's certainly likely," Petunia replied, heartened by the idea. She pulled the letter out from beside the baby and exhaled shakily. "It's not the wrong doorstep. The letter's addressed to me."

"Who on earth would dump a baby on our doorstep? Don't they know we're perfectly ordinary normal respectable people? We don't want anything to do with his kind!" Vernon said irritated, not that he knew anything about the baby except for the fact it had apparently been abandoned on their doorstep. Normal children weren't left on doorsteps in Vernon's opinion, therefore this could not be a respectable child.

"The letter says he's my sister's brat," Petunia said disgustedly. "She and her husband have been killed, blown up, and the author of the note says Harry would be protected by living with family. I wonder why they didn't knock on the door and ask us to take him in. That would've been the decent thing to do, to give a choice whether we wanted the boy. He's going to be just as abnormal as my sister, I don't want that awful rubbish tainting our Dudley."

"You're right, we don't want that in our home. He's not staying here! I'll drop him off at the nearest church, they'll find a place for him," Vernon said.

"He can't go to a church, he's not normal!" Petunia protested.

"Didn't your family take your sister to church with them as a child? Nothing happened then, did it?" Vernon asked frowning.

"Well yes but I don't want our church corrupted by his you-know-what!" Petunia insisted.

"I'm not going to drop him at our church, I'll dump him on the Catholics. Bloody Papists should be able to cure him of all that nonsense if they're good for anything," Vernon replied.

That decided they left the baby Harry in the basket just inside the front door while Vernon went back upstairs to finish getting ready for the day and Petunia ignored him as she cooked breakfast. When he was ready to leave for work, at the same time as he normally did, Vernon carried the basket out to the boot of his car and after checking through it for valuables or anything else that might identify where he'd come from drove off stopping at the Catholic church a couple of towns over and left the baby in the entry way. He didn't want the child remaining in their neighbourhood otherwise the abnormal brat might trick their Dudley into befriending it.

-o0o-

The next morning Petunia calmly opened the door to get the milk on this perfectly normal chilly November morning and almost shrieked again as she almost tripped over Harry lying in his basket on their doorstep again.

She picked him up and brought him inside again before the neighbours noticed, considering uneasily what the milkman must have thought to see a baby left outside on their perfectly normal front step two mornings in a row. Unlike Vernon she knew that there were those among their neighbours who were desperate enough for something to gossip about that they regularly greeted the milkman in the hope of hearing something interesting.

"Vernon, can you come down, I need you," she called up the stairs anxiously.

"What is it Pet? Is it a spider?" Vernon said condescendingly.

"They brought him back. What are we going to do?" she asked shakily pointing to the toddler sleeping in the basket.

"We're not keeping him," Vernon stated. "I'll take him to London somewhere, I won't tell you where in case they're listening somehow. Don't fret Pet, I'll have him out of here in no time."

He put the basket in the boot again and drove off, grumpily because he had to leave earlier than he normally did to have time to detour and drop off the child and he hated having his morning routine disturbed. Breakfast had been disappointing too, Petunia's cooking wasn't often subpar but the shocks of the last two days had shaken her.

Petunia spent the rest of the day obsessively cleaning and looking for listening devices or anything abnormal in her perfectly normal house.

-o0o-

When Petunia hesitantly opens the door the following morning she just sighed in resignation and brought the baby inside before the neighbours could see it. He was awake and crying this morning so she put him in the boot cupboard under the stairs and turned up the television so she wouldn't have to hear him.

"No unwanted guests this morning!" Vernon said cheerfully as he entered the kitchen to find Petunia sitting calmly trying to feed a shrieking Dudley his cereal.

"He was on the doorstep again this morning. I put him under the stairs for now so we didn't have to look at him, but I don't know what we're going to do," Petunia replied.

"I'll ring his bloody neck. Good luck to them sending him back to us then," Vernon yelled.

"You can't murder him," Petunia exclaimed. "They must have a way of keeping track of his location. What if they find his body. They'd come after us. Think of what it would do to Duddy to have a father in jail for murder!"

Vernon sighed and picked up Dudley, gesturing for his wife to follow him, they walked to the back of the garden and spoke in hushed voices. "I think the only way of getting rid of him would be to move house so they couldn't find us," Vernon said.

"Are you sure moving would work, they seemed to find him easy enough, what makes you think they won't find us just as easily. I don't want to leave our lovely normal home," Petunia said pouting.

"There's a job opportunity just come up, it's a promotion but it involves a temporary transfer to manage the drill factory in the middle of nowhere, in South America for eight months. I'll put in for it and if I'm appointed we'd need to be there by the end of the month, travel expenses and accommodation are provided and the company would maintain the house here for us while we're gone so we wouldn't have to give up our home. It's a huge opportunity because we'd live nearly expenses free for eight months and once I succeed there I'll probably be promoted permanently back here in the UK. If we leave the kid at a church on our way to the airport then they won't be able to bring him back to us," Vernon said. He didn't mention the fact that he hadn't applied for the job when it first came up because it was in a country that didn't speak English and he didn't like the idea of living among foreigners. It never even occurred to him that he wouldn't be the only person applying for the position and with his well known prejudices he would certainly not be the best man for the job if anyone else capable applied. The fact that he may not get this job, honestly didn't occur to either of them.

"But what if they bring him back here and leave him on the doorstep again without realising that we're not coming back. He'd starve, or worse he'd wake up and wander into the neighbourhood and someone might see the basket and realise he came from our house and think we'd left him behind on the step," Petunia objected.

"Well do you have a better idea, I could always strangle the little brat on our way to the airport," Vernon retorted.

Petunia still didn't like the idea of her husband killing the child even if he was a freak, she wouldn't feel safe around a man that could do that, not to mention that there'd be the never-ending anxiety that he'd been seen or new evidence would come to light and he would be caught. The public embarrassment of being married to a murderer would be beyond enduring. She'd been racking her brains trying to think of where they could send him if he kept being returned to them, and had thought she'd come up with a viable option.

"He actually looks astonishingly like my cousin John. What if we faked a letter from a woman claiming that he's John's son and leave him with my cousins. Last I heard John was serving overseas in the air force and was missing or out of contact or something," Petunia said thoughtfully. "The family would probably be pleased to take in his child. By the time they realised he wasn't John's son, if they ever did, we'd be long gone and whoever is looking for him will have given up."

"But what's to stop their lot taking him from your cousins and returning him here?" Vernon asked. "Or if he grows up and has the you-know-what?"

"Well for one he'll be with family so maybe that would satisfy them, and for the other, Uncle Patrick lives in the United States, and they didn't know anything about Lily's abnormality, they wouldn't think to connect the you-know-what with us," Petunia replied. "Dudley and I could stop there for a couple of days on our way to your new job."

"You couldn't stop and visit them. They mustn't see you. We don't want them to associate the sudden appearance of the child with us in any way, but we could drop him off on your uncle's doorstep on our way to South America." Vernon said, happily ignorant of the hypocrisy of planning to do to Petunia's relatives exactly what he'd been disparaging other people doing to him.

Petunia was disappointed not to be able to stay with the Sheppards, her aunt's husband had made a fortune running his own company and she thought that Vernon could learn a lot from him about managing a business even if it was only an American company. But Vernon was correct as always, he was soo clever, they didn't want Uncle Patrick or his family to say anything about them if someone managed to find Harry at their house.

-o0o-

It took some fiddling with the flights and passorts for them feel like they could land with two children in Washington DC and fly out a couple of days later with only one toddler without causing suspicion. As much as she hated to do it even though they no longer fitted Dudley, she dressed Harry in some of her beloved son's better old clothes and Vernon took the clothes, blanket, letter, and basket that Harry had arrived on their step in to an empty lot and burnt them, just in case there was something among it they couldn't find that was allowing someone to track Harry down and return him to them.

For Petunia the hardest part of the whole thing was having to pretend that she cared for both her children equally and pay attention to Harry's needs throughout the flight while Vernon did his clumsy best to care for Dudley. Cleaned up, Harry was a pretty baby with his bright green eyes and an engaging manner for his age. Petunia seethed as he attracted more attention and admiration from the in-flight staff than Dudley who had grizzled and cried the whole way from Heathrow to America.

Vernon hired a car to drive from Dulles international airport in Washington DC to The Sheppard house just west of Virginia Beach and leave Harry there without anyone knowing before travelling back to Ronald Reagan international airport to continue their journey. Vernon found it far more nerve racking than he expected to drive on the wrong side of the road, especially with Dudley protesting the long car ride on top of the flight with all the considerable power of his lungs, but they had no choice but to persevere until they'd got rid of the child spite of several close calls where he'd lost concentration and moved into the left lane, because it was essential that nobody in the area saw them with Harry. They found a discarded box that wasn't too dirty behind a local restaurant and pulled up under a tree not far from the gate of the Sheppard house. The night was already lightening with the predawn, much later than they'd planned when Petunia carried the box up the drive and placed it on the front step as quietly as she could. She hurried back to the car and travelled away from the house and turned the car in with a sigh of relief not to have crashed it, as soon as they'd reached Richmond Virginia and completed the journey by train. Thankfully most of their luggage had been checked through to Suriname via air freight and they only had the one case with them because travelling on a train with a hungry and over-tired Dudley and luggage was very unpleasant.

Petunia found the second flight even more unpleasant, after spending a night alone with Dudley in the airport hotel before flying 'Economy' while Vernon flew on his own in 'Business Class' as soon as they reached the airport and then booked in for a night in the airport hotel at his destination. It was the only way they could think to explain the missing child. If they were questioned about Harry's absence, Petunia would claim she'd left her younger child with his father while Vernon claimed his wife and sons were staying with relatives while he went to sort out a home for them. They both breathed a sigh of relief when Petunia and Dudley got through customs without being questioned and Vernon met them on the other side before they were picked up by the car Grunnings had sent to collect them. Though if they hadn't been too tired to complain the driver wouldn't have known they were pleased to be leaving the airport, because they weren't impressed by anything they'd seen so far, the airport, the hotel, the car, the heat, the state of the roads or the house they were eventually delivered to, which while perfectly adequate to most people definitely did not meet Petunia's exacting standards of normal. They both bitterly regretted the necessity of leaving Britain in spite of the promotion opportunities the job would provide.