It was later on in the garden when things took a turn for the worse.
Harry was sitting on the bench, idly watching the birds as Aunt Petunia selected some flowers for the front room. It was a nice day out, and Harry was enjoying the fact that it really had been a good birthday so far. Dudley had even convinced Aunt Petunia to bake Harry a cake, which was possibly the most surreal thing that had happened since the summer began. It wasn't that Dudley wanted Harry to have cake. Cake was cake to Dudley's eye, and anyway, Dudley had instigated birthday celebrations for Harry since they started at Hogwarts together. What was weird was how easily Aunt Petunia had acquiesced.
Harry still couldn't get used to this new dynamic, but just for today, he decided not to worry about it.
As Harry chewed on these thoughts, an owl came winging over the rooftops with a letter in its beak. It alighted on the stone bench next to Harry and dropped the letter in his lap with a hoot, then shifted, staring around the garden.
Harry frowned at the letter, wondering what it could be. Usually the angry letters came in multitudes, and in response to something in the paper. There had been no particularly incendiary articles about Harry lately, especially not today, and especially not since Harry explained the situation to Skeeter.
There wasn't a sender marked on the parchment, and there was no seal. Harry flipped it over once, frowned at it, and decided to risk it.
Harry, it said. I wanted to wish you a happy birthday, even if you don't want to hear from me. I'm really sorry, I-
Harry crumpled the parchment up, good mood ruined. It was obvious from the handwriting who it was from, even if Harry hadn't read a word. He swallowed hard and tossed the parchment in the grass in front of him, slumping down in his seat and crossing his arms. He had hoped he wouldn't have to have to think about all that today. He hadn't even had a nightmare last night. He considered getting up and leaving the parchment there in the grass, but before he could make a decision, his thoughts were interrupted by a shout.
"Oh Lord!" Aunt Petunia had turned away from her gardening and spotted the owl, dropping her flowers. She stepped back into the flower bed and crushed a patch of daisies, but she hardly noticed. Her hand was pressed to her heart and just for a second, her expression was filled with distress and a small measure of the disgust Harry had seen in the kitchen a couple weeks ago. "Get it away, " she said to Harry, waving her scissors at the bird.
Harry stood up and waved the bird away with a hand, staring at Aunt Petunia with narrowed eyes. She was grimacing and picking up her flowers now, trying to arrange them to avoid further bruising.
"What was that?" Harry asked, taking a step forward. She smiled up at him, suddenly calm again.
"It caught me by surprise, dear, that's all. Don't leave that paper on the ground when you go inside."
Harry glared down at the letter from Draco, then back up at Aunt Petunia. "You still hate it all, don't you? You still can't stand Dudley because he has magic. I've seen how you look at him when you think no one's watching."
Aunt Petunia's face fell, and she stared down at her flowers silently, jaw tight. Harry felt himself getting angry.
"Why are you even here?" Harry asked, taking another step toward her. "If you can't even deal with an owl, if you think Dudley's a freak, then why would you come back to-"
"I don't think he's a freak," Aunt Petunia said, and now the distress was back, worse than before. "He's my son. I love him."
Harry scoffed. "You've been treating mebetter than him, since you got here."
"I love him," Aunt Petunia repeated, in a stronger voice. "I do. That's why I came back. I'm worried for him."
"Why?" Harry asked. "Why now? Why not when he was sending you all those letters, or in second year when he had that stupid journal, or-"
"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named hadn't returned then!" Aunt Petunia exclaimed in a shrill voice. She clutched her flowers closer, mouth pinched. Harry stared at her.
"How would you know about that?" he asked.
"I know how to listen," she said, grimacing. "And I know the signs. Lily always used to say you had to read between the lines when it came to the wizarding world."
Harry rubbed his forehead. The casual mention of his mother was almost as baffling as the rest.
"It isn't safe anymore," she continued, wrapping her arms around herself. "That... that man wrote us a letter when he left you on our doorstep. He said that if I was here, if Lily's blood was here to protect you, then this house would be safe."
"Dudley has our blood too," Harry said, watching her. "In fact, Dumbledore updated the wards. We don't need you here anymore."
Aunt Petunia's shoulders stiffened, and her hands tightened around her upper arms. She wouldn't meet his eye.
"You came back because you were afraid for yourself," Harry accused. He felt sick, suddenly. "You weren't worried about any of us. You weren't worried about Dudley."
"I love my son," Petunia repeated, lifting her chin. "I love my family."
"Sure," Harry said. "But not enough to be anywhere near them unless you knew it was the only way out of danger."
Aunt Petunia fell silent, still shaking her head. Harry turned away in disgust and crossed the garden to the back door.
"Please don't say those things to Vernon or Dudley," she said, before he could even touch the handle. "I don't want you to hurt them with this."
"You just don't want them to boot you out," Harry said, scowling. She looked at him beseechingly, arms still wrapped around her torso, and Harry relented a bit. "Fine, I won't say anything for now. But I think you're awful."
He slammed the door as he went inside, and spent the rest of the day in his room, fuming. When Dudley managed to force him downstairs later that night for cake, he and Aunt Petunia could hardly look at each other.
Harry couldn't wait until it was time to leave for London.
The tension Harry had noticed before his birthday became positively tangible after that, especially when he and Aunt Petunia were in the same room. At least Harry wasn't the only one who felt it anymore.
Dudley was spending as much time as he could with his mother now that she'd returned. They were always watching the telly or going to the shops together, where she would buy him video games and fashionable new muggle clothing. It was rare that Dudley's old gang managed to drag him away, though Aunt Petunia encouraged him to go play with his friends just like she used to before she left.
She seemed genuine when it was just her and Dudley, and Harry felt himself faltering sometimes. Maybe he was wrong. Or at the very least, maybe he'd been too harsh. She might really be trying to get over her fears.
Harry broke down about a week after his birthday, and decided he needed to get away from Number Four for a couple hours. The embargo on leaving the house for extended periods would still allow him a trip to the park for a while. As he walked into the kitchen for a glass of water, he heard the sounds of Dudley and Aunt Petunia in the dining room, playing Scrabble.
"Crup," Dudley said proudly over the clacking of his tiles. Harry raised his eyebrows and slowed down as he passed the doorway. Aunt Petunia was blinking at the board, her expression conflicted and uncomfortable, as though she knew she'd regret asking. He left them to it, striding past the dining room and out the front door, determined to let Aunt Petunia sink or swim on her own.
He stayed at the park, just enjoying the fresh air and the quiet until the sun touched the top of the trees and until Dudley came looking for him.
"You've been out for a while-" he began, leaning on the back of Harry's bench. Harry sighed and stood up.
"I know. I just wanted some quiet. Let's go."
They set off for Number Four together, watching the windows flash orange as the sun set behind them.
"Mum and I are going to London next week," Dudley said. "I reckon if you can go visit your godfather, I can leave too, right?"
"Makes sense," Harry agreed, rubbing his arms. It was getting chilly out rapidly, with the sun setting. "What are you going to do?"
Dudley launched into a detailed description of his plans, which mostly involved spending a lot of money, from what Harry could tell. It all sounded pretty bland, and Harry couldn't help but wish he was anywhere but Privet Drive, with anyone but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and Dudley. He wished his parents were still alive. He wished Draco's family wasn't ready to kill him at the slightest provocation. He wished...
They had just turned the corner at Privet Drive and Cypress Court when they realized the danger.
Harry was kicking a rock in front of him and nodding occasionally at Dudley's monologue, so Dudley spotted it first. Grabbing Harry's arm, he cut himself off mid sentence.
"What's that?"
They sun had set behind the houses already, and the pinks and purples were already draining out of the sky. Harry had to squint through the gathering darkness to see what Dudley was pointing at. It was a hooded figure, and it had just left Magnolia Crescent a couple streets away from them and turned in their direction.
"Dudley." Harry suddenly noticed the seizing cold in his chest and grabbed Dudley's sleeve so that they were gripping each other. He pulled Dudley toward the houses. "We don't want to find out, trust me. Come on."
Dudley followed dutifully, and Harry's mind clattered through ideas as they jogged back to Number Four. The cold, the dark thoughts, the hooded figure. It couldn't be. What would a dementor be doing on Privet Drive?
"Harry!" Dudley, who had been glancing back at the hooded figure as they moved, had caught on, and his voice was hushed with terror. "Harry, it's a dementor!"
Harry pulled out his wand, watching Dudley do the same with shaking hands. "Dudley, run."
Dudley's eye caught on Harry's wand. "You have to run too!"
Rolling his eyes, Harry grabbed Dudley's wrist again and pulled him along at a much faster speed, ignoring the way his breath caught in his chest and the white cloud of exhale as he spat out, "Obviously!"
Together they fled for Number Four, sprinting flat out. As they neared the house, Harry saw Aunt Petunia on the front porch, putting out the milk bottles.
She had already spotted them tearing toward her with their wands out. Her reaction wasn't encouraging. Having straightened up and put a hand to her mouth, she backed through the front door and gripped the wood tightly.
"Aunt Petunia," Harry called, and that seemed to do it for her. She slammed the door on them as they reached the garden gate. Harry yelled her name again and hit the door full on, pounding on it with his fists. Dudley arrived behind him a second later and tried the handle, to no avail.
"Mum, let us in! It's us, please!"
"Aunt Petunia, hurry!"
Harry glanced behind him and saw the dementor flying past Number Two toward them. He turned and hammered on the door again.
"Let us in! Aunt Petunia, let us IN! It's an emergency!"
The door opened to reveal Uncle Vernon, frowning down at them. "What-"
Harry and Dudley shoved past him and slammed the door shut. Dudley locked it and ran over to the window to check that the dementor really couldn'tget past the wards while Harry made a beeline for the phone.
"Hello?"
"What's going on?" Uncle Vernon demanded. Dudley turned away from the window to explain.
"Hermione!" Harry swallowed and lowered his voice. "Hermione, we need help!"
"Harry? What's happened? Are you alright?"
"No! There's a dementor here. At Privet Drive! What do I do?"
"Dementors, dad!" Dudley cried when Uncle Vernon persisted in his questioning. "They're huge, cloaked, floating monsters that make everything cold and awful and if one catches you, it takes away all your happy memories and then sucks out your soul, and there's one outside right now!"
Uncle Vernon's skeptical bluster in response died quickly when he realized even Aunt Petunia seemed scared.
The silence on the other end of the line wasn't encouraging. Harry glanced out the window and couldn't see the dementor. "Contact the Aurors," she said finally. "The spell for emergencies is adiumentum, cast it out a window if you can."
Harry ran to the back of the house and opened the window onto the back garden. "Adiumentum," he cried. Silver sparks flew from his wand and rushed into the sky, disappearing almost instantly. Uncle Vernon shouted something indistinctly from the front hall, but Harry ignored him.
Harry shut the window firmly and went back into the living room to pick up the phone.
"Now what?"
"You're supposed to get a response soon," Hermione said. "Then you can-"
"Department of Magical Law Enforcement, what is your emergency?"
Harry dropped the phone and stared around the room for the source of the voice. "H-hello?"
"What is your emergency, sir?"
Harry rallied, still searching the room. "There's a dementor outside our house! In a muggle area!"
"A dementor?" The woman sounded highly skeptical.
"Yes," Harry said, finally spotting a hazy reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. Uncle Vernon had come into the room and was watching the process with an unreadable expression. Aunt Petunia was still in the front hall, not having moved since Harry and Dudley burst into the house.
The woman sighed. "The fine for fraudulent reports is fifty galleons, sir. What is your address?"
"I'm not lying!" Harry responded, annoyed. He gave the woman the address, and her reflection vanished from the mirror after advising him to stay inside.
"What's going on?" Uncle Vernon demanded, once he was certain Harry was finished speaking to the decor. Dudley answered for him.
"There was a dementor outside, Dad!" he repeated. "Harry called our police to send help!"
Harry peered through the netting, and though he couldn't see the dementor anymore, the chill in the air and the faint fog around the house was still alarmingly present. Having followed Harry to the window, Uncle Vernon huffed. "I don't see anything," he said.
"We're not making this up," Harry repeated, and glanced back at Dudley for confirmation just in time to see Aunt Petunia sidle past the door toward the kitchen. Anger boiled up in his chest. "And Aunt Petunia slammed the door in our faces! We could have been Kissed!"
Aunt Petunia froze, and Dudley chimed in. "Mum, why'd you lock us out?"
"I, I didn't realize it was you, darling," she said, grasping the door frame. "It was dark. You were running and pointing something at me and I thought you were burglars."
"Burglars who call you 'mum' and 'Aunt Petunia'?" Harry offered, glaring. She flinched.
"I saw the dementor," she explained, rubbing her arms, an anguished expression on her face. "I panicked!" She turned to Dudley. "I'm so sorry, darling."
Dudley, in an infuriating twist, seemed ready to accept his mother's story. Uncle Vernon looked moments away from sitting her down with a cup of tea. Harry piped up again.
"What did it look like?" Everyone turned to stare at him. "The dementor, I mean," he said, resisting the urge to take a step back. Even Dudley looked irritated at the question.
"It was enormous," she said after a brief pause. "It floated and it was wearing a long cloak. It was terrifying, and I'd rather not think about it any longer."
A knock on the door saved her from just that, as Harry was still skeptical.
He and Dudley pulled out their wands and peered through the glass to investigate. A tall, broad man stood waiting patiently on the step, and tipped Harry a nod and a solemn smile when he noticed him looking.
"Kingsley Shacklebolt," he said by way of introduction, once Harry opened the door. "I was sent by the Auror office to investigate a dementor sighting." He folded his hands in front of him and leaned forward slightly. "I was also sent by Dumbledore to find out what happened to your usual guard."
Harry leaned his head to the right to look past Shacklebolt at the street.
"The dementor was gone even before I arrived," Shacklebolt explained. "Although there is no doubt at least one was present here tonight. Alerting the Aurors was the right thing to do."
Harry sighed, leaning against the door frame in his relief.
"What guard?" Dudley asked, also looking better for the news that the dementor had left. "Who was supposed to be here?"
"That would be Mungdungus Fletcher," Shacklebolt said. "Not that it's especially surprising that he's wandered off. He was never our most reliable person."
"So what happens now?" Harry asked, straightening up. "Er, you can come inside if you want."
Shacklebolt stepped through the doorway with another nod, pulling out his wand. "Now I check that your wards are stable and, assuming everything is in order, we come back to bring you to London in a couple days. We'll be investigating the dementor presence in Little Whinging as well, but I should have all I need from this side of things."
Aunt Petunia had disappeared into the kitchen at the knock on the door, and returned now with the tea service. "Thank you for coming," she said, setting the service down in the front room. "If you aren't in too much of a -"
She faltered upon getting a good look at Shacklebolt in the light. "- a... a hurry..."
She had a very strange expression on her face: one part slack surprise, one part budding anger, and two parts disbelief.
Shacklebolt's smile was apologetic. "I'm afraid I am in a hurry, but thank you for the offer," he said, and looked away, raising his wand and going about his work.
Aunt Petunia rallied admirably, her face taking on a polite, almost blank expression. "Of course, how silly of me," she said. "What did you say your name was again, sir? Was it Kenneth?"
Shacklebolt actually seemed uncomfortable. He had his back to her as he moved around the room, checking the wards. "Kingsley, actually, ma'am," he said.
"Oh, of course," Aunt Petunia trilled, putting a hand to her throat and laughing. Harry, Dudley, and Uncle Vernon watched the exchange in silence, and Harry, at least, was fascinated. He'd heard his aunt fake laughter before, but this almost sounded more like she had broken glass in her throat. "My mistake. I suppose I met someone else by that name recently. You must remind me of him."
Shacklebolt was definitely avoiding eye contact, Harry realized suddenly. He was moving around the house, facing the walls the whole time, only acknowledging Aunt Petunia's comments through nods.
"I should check the wards outside," Shacklebolt said, having moved through the entire downstairs, followed the whole time by the Dursleys and Harry. Uncle Vernon, at least, didn't seem to trust a stranger to wave a wand around in his house without supervision, as he'd followed Shacklebolt closely and suspiciously throughout the whole process. Harry didn't know about Dudley, but personally, he just wanted to know what Aunt Petunia was so worked up about. "You should probably all stay in here, just to be safe," Shacklebolt recommended, and quickly closed the back door behind him.
"Petunia," Uncle Vernon said after a moment. "Who was that?"
So it wasn't just Harry who was curious. Good.
Aunt Petunia seemed more stressed than usual, which was saying something lately. "Just the policeman, Vernon, you heard Harry call for help." She gave him a very plastic smile and opened the door. "I just have a question or two for him. You should all stay in here, like he said. I'll be but a moment!"
Harry's eyebrows shot up on his forehead. "That wasn't suspicious at all," he said, and received identical glares from Dudley and Uncle Vernon for his trouble.
Uncle Vernon paced the kitchen restlessly, several times making aborted moves toward the doorway before stopping himself. Harry had never seen his uncle so uncertain. A shout from the back garden seemed to clinch it for him, and an expression of relief crossed his face before the more familiar puce of anger descended and he rushed out the door, snapping, "Stay here," over his shoulder as he went.
Harry and Dudley immediately scrambled to find a good vantage point from the windows.
"You lied to me!" Aunt Petunia was saying to Shacklebolt, who wasn't saying anything. In fact, Aunt Petunia's carrying on was attracting neighbourly notice. Harry and Dudley weren't the only ones hanging out a window hoping for an earful. Shacklebolt had been forced to stop checking the wards, even, because of all the muggle attention.
"Petunia," Uncle Vernon said, staring at Shacklebolt with hard, piggy eyes. Harry and Dudley leaned further out the window to get a better view. "Who is this man?"
Shacklebolt stood in front of Harry's aunt and uncle, impatience beginning to push the embarrassment from his face.
"I am the man who is trying to ensure your family's safety," he said briskly, interrupting Aunt Petunia's reply. "If I can be allowed to finish my job with no further distractions, that is. This is a discussion for later."
He managed to shoo them both back inside with an impressively small number of objections, mostly, it seemed, because his words caused Aunt Petunia's ire to deflate completely.
Harry and Dudley exchanged a glance and hurried away from the window before they could be caught.
Once inside, Aunt Petunia was quiet and withdrawn.
"Petunia." Uncle Vernon had not been anywhere near as cowed by the Auror as Petunia. In fact, he sounded more angry than before, since his question had now gone unanswered twice. "Who. Is. That. Man?"
"He's," she swallowed and wrapped her arms around her abdomen. "He's the man who made me realize I needed to come home," Petunia admitted, refusing to meet Uncle Vernon's eyes.
A/N: Petunia had an interesting last few months away. Maybe there will be a one shot about it one day. Who knows. I should warn you, if you want any resolution on Petunia's story or anything weird that happened in this chapter, you're not getting it any time soon. It'll take a while. Just trust, guys! And create wild conspiracy theories in your heads about what happened between Kingsley and Petunia. That's what everyone in the story is doing.