April 1973

Petunia spent most of the Easter holidays alone in her room. This was not because she was avoiding her sister. On the contrary, she was beginning to wish that she had never sworn not to speak to her until she apologized. She needed to talk to someone about what had happened to her, but she suspected that she would find no succor from her friends, and she was too embarrassed to speak to her mother. No; the reason that Petunia refused to leave her room except in the case of meals or family outings was that Lily's friend Severus had been invited to stay with them, and had accepted. Mr. Snape hadn't been keen on letting his son go for the holiday, but after a few words with Mr. Evans, he had relented in the end.

Petunia overheard her parents talking about how Severus had been going through "troubles at home." They never named exactly what those troubles were, but Severus showed up at their door with a black eye the day the holidays began, and Petunia wasn't stupid. The Snapes were famous for their violent rows. Everyone in town reported hearing everything from breaking glass to screams coming from the Snape residence some nights, but Mrs. Snape never showed up to her job at the local pharmacy with so much as a scratch on her, and Mr. Snape was known as a friendly, jovial man in the pubs. No one had ever thought to press the issue. Severus, it appeared, had suffered for it.

Although Petunia pitied him for this, they were still not friends. Every night during the family dinners, they glared at each other while Mr. Evans laughed at his sarcastic jokes, and spoke in single words go one another if forced to converse at all. Mrs. Evans thought this meant that they were secretly sweet on one another, which Petunia found absolutely revolting. She brought it up to Petunia one mid-morning when Lily and Severus were out in the village, presumably visiting the candy shop. Either that, or they were checking up on his mother. Not that Petunia cared.

"He's hideous!" Petunia insisted. "How could you possibly think that!?"

Mrs. Evans smiled and gave a little shrug. In her lap, she shifted Petunia's dress robes and pulled another stitch from the badly-repaired sleeve. Petunia had told her upon her return home that she found it like that in her dorm one day, and Mrs. Evans didn't press the issue.

"I wouldn't say that," said Mrs. Evans. A smile played at her lips. "Your father wasn't always so handsome. He used to be all arms and legs. I thought he looked like an overgrown tree frog."

Petunia tried and failed to imagine her father as a child. No matter what she did, she always pictured him with his greying yellow mustache. Adding elongated limbs to the image was too weird for her to contemplate. It was far easier to imagine her red-headed mother as a girl. All she had to do was picture Lily, but with hazel eyes instead of green.

"He had to grow into his looks," Mrs. Evans continued. "And when he did, well. Let's say I wasn't the only girl in town who wanted to go with him." She looked up at her daughter and winked. "Severus will be the same way, you'll see."

"Mum. No. His nose is enormous."

"Oh, tut. It makes him look rakish. Pass me my scissors."

Petunia picked up the silver scissors and passed them to her mother. That done, she then threw herself deeper into the couch cushions and folded her arms over her chest. "This is stupid."

"Don't say 'stupid,'" said Mrs. Evans, without looking up from her sewing. Petunia took the opportunity to roll her eyes.

At dinner that night, Petunia attempted to imagine Severus as an adult. No matter how she twisted her imagination, she could not reconcile the image of the sallow-skinned, big-nosed boy in front of her with the supposedly rakish man her mother swore he would become. If Lily saw that in him, she had no idea how. She watched his greasy hair fall in his face as he leaned over his food, imagined marrying him, and could not suppress a shudder.

June 1973

At the end of the school year, Poinsettia invited Petunia and all her friends to spend two weeks with her family in the Lake District that summer. They were sharing a cabin on the Hogwarts Express, and had just finished their lunch of finger sandwiches, tea, and scones, graciously provided by Anita. A flurry of excited talk followed Poinsettia's announcement. Circe actually hugged Petunia, she was so delighted.

"We were going to visit Majorca," Poinsettia said through the chatter. "But we did that last year and I've never seen the Lakes. My family has an ancestral home in Broughton-in-Furness. I'm just dying to show it to all of you. Oh, do come."

Anita and the rest of the girls readily accepted. Only Petunia didn't immediately agree.

"I'll have to ask my parents," she said.

Poinsettia raised one eyebrow at her. "Of course, love. We'll all need to get permission from someone. What I want to know is whether you want to come, not your parents."

"Oh," said Petunia. She breathed in to control the blush that was threatening to rise to her cheeks. "Yes, I'd love to come. Thank you for inviting me."

"Good." Poinsettia reached across the table and patted Petunia's hand. "It'll be good for you to get away from that sister of yours for a while. To say nothing of that Snape boy she goes about with."

"Yes," Petuinia responded. Now here was a subject she was comfortable with. "Yes, he's positively loathsome, isn't he? I hated him as soon as we met. He had on a coat that was too big for him and his shoes didn't fit. He looked ridiculous. I couldn't believe he had the gall to start insulting me, looking like that."

"You've always had a discerning eye," said Poinsettia. "That's one of the things I admire about you. You always know who to avoid."

Anita smiled at her. "Too bad your sister doesn't share that quality. It must be so hard for you sometimes."

Petunia felt the eyes of the whole cabin on her. There was a look on Poinsettia's face that she'd seen several times before, but never directed at her. It reminded Petunia of a cat who has just spotted a bird with a broken wing. She tried very hard not to squirm in her seat.

"Lily's being kind. She can't help it. She pities him. He's like a stray dog that bites everyone but her."

"He certainly looks like one," added Circe.

Everyone laughed, including Petunia. They all proceeded to roundly abuse Severus, and said nothing more of Lily. Petunia was happy to participate, but the activity wasn't as enjoyable as it normally was. Whenever she glanced at Poinsettia, she kept seeing that familiar, unsettling look on her face, imposed over it like a shadow.

July 1973

Petunia did get permission to go to the Lake District, but it was a near thing. Her parents, while they wanted her to go and spend time with their friends, were blunt to her about their economic situation. Her mother worked on the assembly line in a local factory, and her father was the assistant supervisor of the men's fashion department at the Marks & Spencer. Between the two of them, they made just enough to keep their family fed and safe, with a little room for a few luxuries in between. They certainly could not, as they reminded their eldest daughter, afford to send her on a holiday in the Lake District. They could cover only a part of the cost. Petunia would have to make the rest of the money herself.

This was how Petunia Evans ended up starting a door-to-door cleaning service. Her first desire was to work with her father, but his supervisor was not keen on the idea of employing a very young teenage girl to work with half-undressed men. Cokeworth's by-laws also prohibited most heavy work for a girl of her age. There was babysitting, but Petunia rather loathed children. When her mother advised her to pursue something that interested her, it took Petunia only a day to decide on something that was both practical and pleasurable: housework.

There was nothing more satisfying to her than a room that was so clean it looked as if it had come from a magazine. She liked the glamour of the finished product, and she enjoyed the concrete results of her work. Her grandmother was much the same way. Her house was always completely spotless, even under the refrigerator. Petunia knew, because she'd looked.

There was also a small side benefit of getting to go through all her neighbors' things, but Petunia took care not to advertise this to potential clients.

One day, as she was cleaning the kitchen of her neighbor Mrs. Vandercamp and rifling through an interesting drawer, there was a crashing noise from upstairs. The noise caused Petunia's heart to leap to her windpipe. Her breath sped up and her eyes and fingers tingled. Mrs. Vandercamp hadn't warned Petunia that there would be a guest. Very slowly, Petunia closed the drawer and set the vase she'd been dusting down on the kitchen counter. Maybe it was the cat?

Petunia concentrated, trying to listen. The floor above her head creaked. Then, the floorboards resonated with heavy footsteps. Whoever was up there was large, and, judging from the stumbling he did, extremely drunk. Petunia knew this with a sudden, unshakable certainty.

Mrs. Vandercamp was a kind woman. She was famous for her kindness, in fact. So famous that vagrants as far out as three surrounding counties knew that she often offered the use of her guest bed to people she saw as in need of assistance. Petunia's groped in the kitchen drawer for a knife. As far as she knew, no one had ever taken advantage of Mrs. Vandercamp's kindness, but she was not Mrs. Vandercamp, and she was not about to be assaulted by a drunken tramp if she could help it.

"Sara?" a thickly accented voice called out. He sounded like he was from the North. Petunia's hand found a long, thick-handled knife. She pulled it out of the drawer and held it under the counter. She preferred her wand, but she knew that a wand wouldn't likely terrify a grown man into leaving her alone. More likely it'd make him laugh. "Sara?"

"Mrs. Vandercamp isn't here!" Petunia's voice was shrill and girlish in her ears. She took a breath to calm herself down tried to make herself sound older. "This is the cleaning service! Whoever you are, please go home!"

A door opened and closed upstairs. The stranger's heavy feet found the kitchen stairs. He tripped once and swore as he skidded down two steps before catching himself. When he came into the kitchen, Petunia stifled a horrified gasp.

He wore large work boots that were coated in dried mud. He was in his shirtsleeves and his short black hair and beard were mussed from sleep. He clutched at the bannister with one hand to maintain his balance while his small black eyes squinted in her direction. His skin, Petunia noticed, was as sallow as his son's.

"Mr. Snape!" She nearly dropped her knife in alarm. "What are you doing here?"

She knew what he was doing there, of course. She could smell him from where she stood as clear as if she were standing next to him. He reeked of cigar smoke. His favorite bar, The Pious Monk, was right down the road from Mrs. Vandercamp's home. She'd overheard Severus telling Lily once that his father often wouldn't come home some nights. Apparently this was one reason why.

Instead of answering her, he frowned. When he spoke, he slurred a little. "You're that Evans girl. The skinny one. "

Petunia nodded, though she didn't much like being called skinny. She told herself that she should be reassured that it was Mr. Snape in Mrs. Vandercamp's house and not a stranger, but breathing would not slow. She knew the things that Mr. Snape had done to his family in his drunken rages. Lily had told her, before things went wrong between them. And Mr. Snape was decidedly drunk.

She told herself to be calm. It didn't work. "I- Mrs. Vandercamp hired me. To clean the kitchen."

He regarded her for a moment more, then nodded, as if he'd resolved some internal debate. Then, he looked at her, and he smiled. It wasn't nice smile. Rather like his son's on the days he successfully cursed Potter, Petunia thought.

"My boy's told me about you," he said. He took a step toward her. She jumped backwards.

"S- stay back!" she said. She had the good sense to keep the knife hidden, lest it goad him into attacking.

He narrowed his eyes. "You're awful jumpy for a cleaning lady. You sure Sara knows you're here?"

"Of course she does!" she snapped, and pointed to her cleaning supplies. Tobias Snape tilted his head at her and smiled that awful smile again. She immediately regretted letting irritation get the better of fear.

"Sara doesn't lock her doors. Could be you're here to rob the place. My boy tells me you need the money for some holiday with your posh friends. Sara's the trusting type. You knew that, though, didn't you?"

"I'm not a thief!" she squeaked. She wished she could control her voice, but her heart seemed to have replaced her vocal chords and her brain had been overtaken by a thick, blinding fog. "You're the one who wasn't invited! Mrs. Vandercamp never told me you were here!"

He grinned like a hungry dog. "Sara knows me. She's never talked to me about you, though. Don't much like finding you in her kitchen. Seems fishy. Let me have a look in that bucket, see what you already stole."

He advanced on her again, and this time she held up the knife.

For a short second, Petunia thought she had scared him. Tobias Snape took a miniscule, apparently involuntary step backward. She began to look around her for an escape route. She couldn't dash up the stairs, Mr. Snape stood between her and the kitchen door. Maybe while he was distracted she could dodge him and-

He laughed like a slow-to-start car engine. He then strode the length of the room and grabbed her by the wrist. She didn't even think to strike at him. She simply gaped as he wrenched the knife from her hand and threw it into the sink.

His face was very close to hers. He stank of lager. "Now what would a Witch like you need with a knife like this?"

He shoved her hard against the fridge. She bounced off and her hip collided hard with the kitchen island. The corner of it bit into her hip and the vase she'd been dusting crashed to the floor. Mr. Snape looked at the glass, and then swung back to Petunia, his features twisted into a smile like a mad dog's.

"That was Sara's favorite vase," said Mr. Snape. "She'll be livid. Fix it, Witch. Where's your wand?"

Her wand was tucked into her skirt pocket, but she couldn't cast a spell here, now, in the presence of a Muggle. Not after the warning she'd received over the Christmas holiday. A voice in the back of her mind told her she was being stupid, that surely there were exceptions to the law for situations such as this, but she couldn't quite understand it over the sound of Mr. Snape's harsh breathing.

Petunia shook her head, one hand covering the bruise on her hip. "I can't!"

"I know it's on you somewhere." He wasn't smiling anymore. His eyes were so wide she could see how his sclera were shot through with red. His voice increased in volume with every word. "You Witches always have your wands, don't you? I look at you wrong and suddenly I'm growing tentacles, or I can't move, or you've blasted me into the yard. So where's your wand, Witch? Where's your damned wand!?"

He moved to grab her again but Petunia ducked, pushed him. He lost his balance and hit the fridge as she had earlier. Petunia did not waste time and wait for him to fall. She ran for the kitchen door, leaving her supplies behind her. By the time she had it open, Mr. Snape was laughing. She did not care. She tore down the back steps, through the garden gate, and into the yard. She was so intent on getting away that she did not notice Severus standing in the driveway until she collided with him and sent them both sprawling to the sidewalk.

She hit the concrete hard, skinning one knee and both hands as she tried to break her fall. Severus fell backwards. He propped himself up with both hands and stared at her, lip curled.

"Evans!" he said. "What the hell are you doing?"

She was breathing so hard she couldn't speak. She wanted to shout at him that it was none of his concern, or to go away, or maybe to set himself on fire and take his horrible family with him. Later, when she was alone in her room, she would think that perhaps it was better that she didn't get the chance. Because at that moment, the sound of Mr. Snape's laughter carried to them, and Severus' expression instantly changed.

His eyes, glinting black in the sunlight, swept over her, then flicked to the open door of Mrs. Vandercamp's house. It did not take him long to work out what had happened. "Did he hurt you?" he said.

Petunia nodded. Severus pushed himself to his feet, and grabbed Petunia by the arm to pull her upright before she could protest.

"Go home. I'll take care of him."

"Are you mad?" She blurted. "He'll kill you if you go in there!"

He looked at her as if she'd grown another head. Petunia felt her face grow hot. Where did that come from?

"He hasn't killed me yet."

"I'm calling the police," she said, but he shook his head.

"They're all his friends. They won't help. Go home."

He shoved her lightly, and as she twisted to maintain her footing, he took off at a brisk walk for Mrs. Vandercamp's kitchen door. She heard him slam it behind him.

What was he thinking? He couldn't use his wand during the summer, especially against his own father. He was just as skinny as Petunia, and only a little shorter besides. There was no way he could beat him with physical force. As many times as she'd fantasized about Severus getting knocked around in retaliation for all the wrongs he'd done her, she suddenly found that when faced with the reality of the situation, she very much did not want to be party to his untimely murder.

She turned on her heels and ran for home.

Mr. Evans was home for lunch. When she came bursting in the door with the story of Mr. Snape's attack on her and that he was about to kill his son in Mrs. Vandercamp's kitchen, her father told her to stay home while he looked into the situation. He called their mother to see if she could come home early that day and made sure that Petunia was safe in her room and that her wounds were clean before he set off for the scene of the crime. Petunia knew that her father, at least, could take Mr. Snape in a fight. Though a gentle man by nature, he was large and burly, and had once tossed a twenty foot log headlong into a creek when egged on by some of his mates from the department store.

The clock on her vanity ticked as the minutes passed. It was the only thing she could hear.

After a half hour, her father returned home. Her mother followed shortly. She overheard them talking downstairs about what had happened. When Mr. Evans arrived at Mrs. Vandercamp's house, there was no sign of either Snape. Even the vase that Petunia had broken was sitting, whole, on the kitchen island where she'd initially left it. Mr. Evans had retrieved Petunia's cleaning supplies and told his wife that he meant to pop by the Snapes' home for a chat. She heard her mother tell him to be careful, and then the door opened and shut again.

Mrs. Evans checked to see if her daughter needed anything, then asked if she wanted to come downstairs to sit with her while she made her a nice lunch. Petunia shook her head. She didn't want to leave her room. The thought of her father returning with the news that Mr. Snape had killed his son and had in turn been strangled to death by her vengeful father made her want to hide forever or throw up or both. Her mother assured her that wasn't likely to happen and promised to bring her some sandwiches.

A few more minutes passed and there was a knock at Petunia's door.

Petunia swallowed her dread. "Come in," she said.

It was Lily. Her face was completely white. Without saying anything, without waiting for Petunia to protest, she marched up to the bed and hugged her tight. Petunia hugged her back.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Me too," said Lily.

When Mr. Evans came back that afternoon, he looked grim. He believed Petunia, but Mrs. Snape swore that her husband had been at home all day, sleeping. He was still sleeping, in fact, and mightn't it be best if Mr. Evans came back later to chat? Even Severus wouldn't say anything when Mr. Evans asked. Instead, he stood a small distance away from his mother, one hand in his pocket and his eyes fixed at some point to the left of the door. Mr. Evans had tried the police, but without evidence, they said, there was nothing they could do. It was just as Severus said; they insisted that Mr. Snape would never hurt a fly, and that Petunia had surely confused him for one of the many vagrants that Mrs. Vandercamp insisted on inviting into her home.

Mrs. Evans was not willing to let this go unpunished. In a week, the entire neighborhood knew that Mr. Snape had attacked one of the Evans girls. He was barred from the Pious Priest and from Mrs. Vandercamp's hospitality as a consequence, and met more than a few cold shoulders from people who had once been friendly to him. It was a mild punishment, but it was all Cokeworth could offer.

The next time she saw Severus, she did not insult him as she normally would. Neither did he attack her. It was a cold truce, but it was all either was willing to give.

Petunia no longer hated him. She supposed she never really did.