Note: This was partially inspired by a deleted scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 where Petunia and Harry had a final conversation. I'm sure many people have done their own take on this, but I can't help but add my own.

The first time Petunia laid eyes on Harry. It wasn't as sinful and malicious as most people thought.

Despite not having talked with her sister for several years, Petunia couldn't help but feel a sudden desire to suddenly fall through the ground towards the Earth after opening her door to see the young boy wrapped in a blanket in a basket, a letter addressed to her and Vernon, her husband.

Having just been up with Dudley, who was on the verge of being a year old himself, she was all too used to the routine of putting a child to bed, but not suddenly receiving a child that was definitely only related to her by a little bit of blood. She knew Vernon would not be happy about this, not in the slightest. They barely had enough of themselves and Dudley, let alone a new child.

To friends later in life, she'd make out like it was her worst nightmare. Secretly, however, in that moment she was grief stricken and desperately wishing to regain a small part of her childhood back, held the boy to her breast, looking over him for any sign of Lily. Any sign that her sister had left behind for her to find somehow.

She became quite bitter after a while, seeing that it was mostly his father that Harry portrayed, but when he did finally opened his eyes, that's when she saw her. She couldn't mistake Harry's eyes for anyone else's, but her sisters. She was sure he'd come to hear about it over and over again, later in life, that is if Vernon allowed him to stay with them. She still wasn't sure he would.

Of course, putting him in with Dudley in the same cot, wasn't exactly the best idea, but she wasn't exactly well prepared for two children. She only barely had the provisions for one after all. She was also not prepared for how fast she would forget about that very fact, only to wake up to Vernon absolutely exploding in rage about seeing the dark haired child beside Dudley, calmly sleeping there while Dudley poked at him, only to be wailing the next minute from Vernon frightening him.

Calming him from the revelation that they've been left with her sister's "spawn" was a task itself, but eventually, when she managed to soothe his ire in every way she could think possible, he was finally calm enough for them to talk, even if it mostly consisted of Vernon angrily blaming God for their misfortune.

He suggested an orphanage after a small time of arguing, she suggested a trial. "Think about it dear." She had said, slippers on her feet in curlers in her hair as her dressing gown flapped in the morning wind. "A whole playmate for Dudley to keep him out of the way of your office and to keep him out of the way of me especially with his greedy mouth. It's a wonder I've not been sucked dry."

His grumblings didn't get any angrier, but he was still very displeased. she expected that after all, she badmouthed her sister for so long that really, if accepting Harry meant accepting blame for the fact that her and sister had such discourse that maybe, perhaps raising him, she could get over the fact that she wasn't chosen.

That was pretty much the crux of her argument anyway, with Lily. That she was the one her parents had thought the world of and she was merely just a Muggle. Just normal, Petunia was. Technically she was a Squib, but her parents didn't even give her that luxury. Hence why as Lily thrived, so simply let the hate seep into her.

Eventually, when she left for university, a year or two after Lily finished at Hogwarts, she cut them all out from her life. Lily, her parents, that James boy she'd been seeing for years, she'd had enough. Of course, she'd had that silly whim here and there that they'd contact her, they'd try to talk to her or find her, apologise for putting her through the misery of being a mistake.

The only call she ever got was for her father's death notice, just a few days after her wedding to Vernon. The honeymoon drowned her feelings away thankfully. She had no clue if Mother was still alive at the time, but she knew now that it was only her and Harry left out of all of them. Call it a hunch, but she was still sure.

Back in the present, she held her breath as she watched Vernon pace around the living room once, twice, three times- before he finally agreed to let him stay. Of course, there were catches. The room under the stairs would be used as his primary bedroom, they would not have him with Dudley as his "genes" could have an effect on their son and once he got old enough, he would start helping with the house work and keeping Dudley out of their way when necessary.

As Vernon put it, he would "earn his board and keep, given that he's now going to be dragging resources away from us" and while it stung like a thousand needles hearing him say that, Petunia knew when to pick her battles and Vernon was not the person to pick them with if she wanted some sort of sanity back around here.

It was easier back then, if she was frankly honest. To hide things from her husband. He never knew, even long after they'd left Little Winging, about the countless days she used to give Harry and Dudley equal amounts of love and attention, when they used to be the best of little friends and when their food ratio was around about the same.

She could still recall, even as everyone grew up, apart and away, how Harry's laughter triggered unexpected rain and how Dudley used to find his glasses for him in the first few days of needing them. She missed those moments, but knew if she fell in too deep with Harry like she had the rest of the family that had failed her so many times before, she might never recover.

It was also too predictable that she'd take on Vernon's approach to Harry, that being of a hostile nature that she came to loath, but played out like a form of therapy for her younger self. The bitterness and acid-like churn in her blood that Lily and their parents had caused dissipating and leaving inner peace in its wake. Of course, it causes Harry to withdraw into himself as he got older, but she needed that balm for so long that she hadn't really cared until a lot later. 7 years later to be quite precise.

Standing in the middle of her empty house, devoid of anything that made it her home, she shuddered that the wind howling outside that used to make her feel at ease in the early mornings, the kitchen bland and brown and still as unnerving as it had become lately. As much as she could say she didn't know what she did to deserve this, she knew deep down that this was Lily paying her back for hurting her son.

That her guilty conscience, festering since Harry was brought to them, was eating her alive and the final straw was wiping out what she held dear to her person from right under her feet as cold and as carelessly as she's treated Lily and then him.

It just wasn't fair.

Crashing to her knees, she stared out the conservatory doors, the glass giving way to a grey afternoon sky filled with an eerie feeling that she hopes will one day disappear and never bother her again. She highly doubts that wish will come true though. She knows her fate has already been read for her and it's disgusting. This is her real punishment. The knowing that she'd been haunted the rest of her life. She doesn't know how she gets back up, but she's on her feet still staring when Harry enters the room, hesitatingly of course.

"I have lived in this house for 20 years and now, in a single night, I'm expected to leave."

She doesn't initially mean to sound wistful. She had all intentions of sounding angry. Not angry at Harry surprisingly, he couldn't change what he was and despite the trouble he became, she'd never ask him to. No, that was one of the most Lily things about him, despite what she knew about James. She was angry at herself.

"They'll torture you." Harry had said, his voice laden with careful intent. It sounded sticky like the flypaper Vernon used to come home with stuck to his uniform from the shop. It shouldn't sound like something coming from a young man's mouth, more or less a child like she remembers from so long ago. How did she not notice it before? "If they think for a moment you know where I'm going, they'll stop at nothing."

"Do you think I don't know what they're capable of?"

Because she did know, she did. She hadn't dealt with Harry all this time to not know. As well as that, she'd had to deal with James and Lily and their friends and all the horrible maladies of her parents treating her differently, like she was a cursed object. Lily had her moments of sisterly love and she had clung to them, but the older they became, the more separate their lives had become. If only she could shake her younger self into seeing that now.

"You didn't just lose a mother that night in Godric's Hollow, you know." She looks down as she says it, the bare acknowledgement in front of Harry making her unable to meet his eyes cleanly as she wanted to. "I lost a sister."

Harry says nothing and she doesn't expect him to, which leaves them standing there in the emptiness of everything. While she feels a sudden desire to hold him, to comfort him like she did Dudley despite her being the one in danger, she refrains. If Vernon saw that from the outside where he's been packing for the last 24 hours, she highly doubts it wouldn't start a sudden fight. They don't need to be fighting right now, not when their lives are on the line.

Of course, she doesn't expect Dudley to take the same intentional view as her, willing to be civil with Harry for some reasoning that even she still can't find in herself. It's no excuse for either of their influenced behaviour towards him over the last 17, almost 18 years of his life, but it seems that not all the bridges they've made have burned completely. She hopes that is Lily's doing as well. Somewhere along the line. Some point of forgiveness that might lead somewhere where they can all be in the same room together without degrading eachother.

(Well, that may never happen given Vernon's attitude, but still.)

As she drives away from the house she once called her home, with Harry just standing there in the driveway, Petunia tries to take in every second. She tries to believe in herself that she did her best and that this, this distance, this coldness she's felt towards him was deserved, that Harry would be better off without him, despite his worry towards them. She also believes deep down that this will be the last moment till her death that she sees Harry Potter.

That was until Vernon died. An event she never saw coming.

He passed in his sleep in 1999 just before the new millennium, 2 years after they had been released from wizard protection and given a new house with magical charms to protect them in a new village near Dorset. Dudley had been devastated and so had she, even underneath all of that sadness she felt a freedom she'd only felt when she'd left her family.

She hid that for Dudley's sake, however, as her son didn't need to see that she was almost relieved his father was finally gone despite loving him for almost 30 years. She hid it at the funeral, she hid it at the wake and only when Dudley had gone back to his university to finish his studies, did she get in the family car and drive.

She wasn't exactly sure where she was going to, but it seemed that her heart did, as it led her down country like back roads and rolling hills of green before she arrived at a gray and cream washed town covered in only a few houses and buildings, but a graveyard lit in lights despite it being daytime and the sun beaming down was enough light for everyone.

Walking with her handbag clutched in front of her, white knuckled and shaking, she didn't have to look far for what she wanted to see. What she'd never seen, but knew of.

Lily's grave.

She knew it had existed - the letter left with Harry said so much, that she and James were buried in the village they decided to move to before she finally got the message that Petunia wanted her to stop writing letters to her. Sometimes, Petunia wished she'd taken the less stubborn route to actually reply to them, but at that time, the wish for her to be rid of magic completely had been all too great. Her mind was intoxicated with the idea of freedom.

It was a different feeling this time around, this version of freedom more organic as she stood there, staring at the barren ground that covered her sister's body from her with only the slab of marble with her name on it giving any indication she was even there. Lily Evans Potter, born on January 30th 1960, died 31st October 1981. Lily was only 3 years younger than her, Petunia having been 24 when she had died and 25 when she took on Harry, given her birthday was only a few weeks or so after he was placed in her care.

[It was often known that November birthdays were quite grey, but that day had been quite downright miserable for her as Vernon had hung Harry from the top of the stairs and threatened to drop him, little mouth wailing loudly as Petunia attempted not be horrified.]

She didn't linger for long, for what could she even say to the stone? What kind of words could she even string together to form something coherent that didn't involve the other words of "I'm sorry" or "please forgive me" or worse, "I just wanted to be loved"? Nothing would bring her sister back and nothing would undo everything that had already transpired, so she just left it at that, walking away from the grave with hunched shoulders, trying not to openly cry.

Some time later, when she's home and answering the messages on the voicemail, a letter arrives that feels different to the others she normally receives. It's covered in cursive writing she doesn't recognise and quite weight in feel. It can't be a bill and Dudley not anyone else she knows or used to know would send a letter to her, so eventually after toying it up, she uses the blade of Vernon's letter opener to rip the top clean though.

"To Ms Petunia Dursley,

We invite you to celebrate the marriage of Mr Harry James Potter and Miss Ginevra Molly Weasley, which will be taking place at The Burrow, Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, England on Saturday, 23 September at 4:50 PM, sharp.

Catering will be provided and you are allowed only 1 additional guest to bring to the ceremony as a plus one. An RSVP card is attached to this invitation, which will once written on, will Apparate back to the sender of the invitations. We look forward to hearing from you.

With joyous cause,

Harry, Ginny and Company"

Petunia had stared in that same horror she'd felt on that birthday at the card for days, almost a week even. Here she was, not expecting to see her nephew, her last living link to anyone ever again and yet, there was a wedding invitation sitting on her coffee table. There are no third chances in life, Petunia knows that well. She knows that from childhood, when her parents hoped she'd get a letter and it never came, she knows that from marrying and then losing Vernon, she knows that from being told after Dudley there would be no more children coming from her. Life only gives you one chance, two if you are extremely lucky or have a lot of money. Petunia has neither of those traits and she can't understand why the universe who watched her all this time is making out that she seemingly does.

Dudley calls her on Sunday to say he also, has an invitation and doesn't know what to do with it, the rightful confusion they both share evident in his voice. They talk back and forth, debating all the while about what could be done, before deciding what should be done. That's one of the only good things that Vernon gave Dudley as he grew up, a way of reasoning that Petunia only knows how to agree to, not fight against.

So, surprisingly, they go. It's a loud affair and they are both very uncomfortable, but Harry spots them at the door and warmly welcomes them in, like nothing had happened between them that would cause a divide. Ginevra's mother of course, isn't exactly pleasant, but she attempts to get along with her for the wedding's sake.

She knows Lily would have been certainly better at this.

They gradually get more comfortable as the evening wears on and by the time night falls and expensive French champagne is flowing, Dudley's in the middle of what seems to be 20 children, talking to them about "Muggle" things, their eyes wide and fascinated as he speaks animatedly, a shy smile on his face she hadn't seen in years.

She doesn't feel Harry come up next to her until his distantly dark hair is in her peripheral and she turns to him, hesitant. She wants to say a great many things to him, but after a few go's with finding the words (just like at the graveyard), she simply says "Thankyou."

Harry, in his dark wool suit and bowtie, adorned with a pocket of rather crushed snapdragons and daises from his first dance with Ginny and then, her mother, says nothing at first, but then lets out a breath before they go back to watching Dudley. "My pleasure."

They remain at that level for the next several years. Christmas cards, the occasional letter and of course, a visit or two. When Harry and Dudley start families, it's much easier to see them both at the same time, even if they didn't talk much to eachother. When she finds out she's sick and doesn't have long to live, it's also easier to tell them as well.

All in all, Petunia Dursley, formerly of 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, may not have been a good person. She may not have been a good parent either, but that didn't mean that she didn't make her last years count in her favour. When she finally dies in a hospital room, surrounded by everyone she ever loved at the quite young age of 38 and a half, Harry is there, along with his wife and children as well as Dudley, where she should have kept him all along.

She hopes in her next life, wherever that may be, that she sees Lily again, to tell her sister how kind her son had become. Her sister may not forgive her, but somehow, Harry has and that along with the knowing he'll be looking after Dudley when she's gone gives her peace.

The last thing she remembers, as everything fades into nothingness, is two hands, one on each side, holding her own as she leaves and for that, she is grateful.