Author's Note: Happy new year! Just to give everyone an update, my surgery went well and I'm on the road to recovery, I just can't sit in one place for too long. I hope everyone had a good holiday and I hope you all enjoy this chapter, but I am really close to discontinuing this story due to several accusations of plagiarism. As I have stated in a previous author's note, I have never read another story like the one I am currently writing. However, if the author of the other story asks me to stop writing and take the story down, I will. Until then, I will keep on writing due to the fact that even before I started writing fanfiction, I hated finding a story I enjoyed, only for the author to discontinue writing it for one reason or another. I do apologize for the rant, and I appreciate all that have reviewed, liked, and followed this story, again, I never thought a story I wrote would be this well received.
Chapter 24
The next morning, Minerva wakes up before her alarm went off, wondering why she's so nervous about today, then it all hits her like a freight train. Learning that between her and her son they could inherit Hogwarts, Harry's cousin is a wizard, calling Petunia and learning that she doesn't know what happened to her sister, and a coffee date with Mark. Not to mention she has been so involved in the opening of the daycare, helping the goblins further Lily's research into muggleborns, and raising Harry that she hasn't even put a thought towards going back to teaching at Hogwarts next year. 'Well, since I'm up, I may as well start making breakfast and make some snacks to bring to Petunia's.' Minerva thinks to herself as she crawls out of her comfortable king size bed and heads towards her closet to find some of her nicer clothes to wear today.
"Oh shoot, I forgot to floo call Sirius last night. Well, no time like the present." Minerva curses out loud to herself as she finishes getting ready for the day, making herself a mental note to call Sirius the minute she gets downstairs. 'On second thought, better get a pot of coffee brewing before I call Sirius.' Minerva thinks to herself as she's walking past Harry's room, quickly peeking in, and noticing that Harry and Fawkes are still asleep and nothing's floating around his room. Once Minerva makes it downstairs and sees that the coffee is brewing, she heads to the living room and with a pinch of floo powder in her hand, throws it in the fireplace, gets on her knees, and calls out, "Sirius Black, History of Magic teacher, Hogwarts." Once the flames turn green, she sticks her head in the fire after mentally preparing herself for the awkwardness of her head spinning around uncontrollably while waiting for the right fireplace. Once her head stops spinning and she notices she's in the right grate, she hollers, "Sirius Orion Black!" Within a minute of her hollering, she sees Sirius running through his quarters shirtless, but thankfully wearing pajama pants, and once he notices her head in his fire, quickly skids to a stop and makes his way towards her.
"Minerva, I knew you'd be on your knees in front of me one day! To what do I owe this pleasure?" Sirius asks, slightly out of breath.
"Morning, Sirius, I hope I didn't wake you." Minerva says, although judging by his lack of dress, he had literally jumped out of bed when he heard his full name being hollered, while secretly glad that this trick still works despite him being out of Hogwarts for years.
"Noooo, I've been up for half an hour," Sirius says, while trying, and failing, to stifle a yawn. "Minerva, what can I do for you?" Sirius asks again.
"Listen Sirius, I know its short notice, but can you watch Harry for a bit this afternoon?"
"I wish I could, but I have my NEWT classes today. Why would you need me to watch him anyway? Don't you have a huge bank account and no work apart from the daycare?" Sirius asks, visibly upset that he can't have some quality alone time with his godson.
"As much as I dislike how much you know about my finances, the reason I was wondering is because I'm invited over for tea this afternoon." Minerva says, internally dreading as to with whom, therefore trying to stall the who for as long as possible.
"Well, why can't you bring Harry with you?"
"There are a few reasons as to why I don't want to bring him with me. The first reason is because he's grounded."
"Why would you ground my godson? Harry's an angel."
"Because he ran off on me when we were shopping, and because of that, we put the store on lockdown, and I almost injured another shopper."
"You said there was more than one reason, where's the other reasons?" Sirius asks.
"Ok, so there's mainly two reasons. One, he's grounded, and two, tea is with Petunia Dursley."
"Ok, that makes sense, and wait, wait, WAIT, WHAT?! You're WILLINGLY, going to have TEA?! With that WITCH?! Pardon my French, Minerva, but, WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING?" Sirius yells, now fully awake.
"I don't have all day to spell it out for you, but I need to do this, if not for my son, for her. She doesn't know what happened to the only family she has left. In case you've forgotten, Albus was planning to leave Harry on their doorstep with nothing but a note explaining everything."
"Ok, ok, no need to get so short tempered, sheesh, I don't think I've seen you this cross since James and I hid catnip throughout your office."
"Thank you, for that reminder Sirius. Anyways, hopefully between you and Remus you can keep Harry entertained tomorrow, I'm needed at the daycare tomorrow."
"Tomorrow I can do, it's a Saturday and I'm not on rotation to patrol the halls until Sunday."
"Ok, if you can be here for 1:30 tomorrow, that would be great. See you then Sirius." With that, Minerva pulls her head out of the fireplace and heads straight for her coffee, hoping that Remus doesn't spill the beans about her going on a date. Glancing at the clock, she sees that its almost breakfast time, so she quickly fires up the stove and starts frying some bacon, knowing that since the smell of coffee brewing didn't wake Remus up, the smell of frying bacon will. Sure enough, within 2 minutes, Remus comes jogging down the stairs. "Good morning, Minerva, you're up early." Remus says after pouring himself a cup of coffee.
"Good morning Remus, my mind decided to wake me up well before my alarm, so I floo called Sirius, he can't watch Harry today, but he's free tomorrow to watch Harry so that I can have coffee with Mark." Minerva explains.
"Right, he has his NEWTS classes today. Anyways, what's our game plan for this afternoon?"
"We are going to have to tread carefully, but lets hope it goes well, well hello Fawkes, what's up?" Minerva exclaims as Fawkes suddenly flames into the kitchen.
"Good morning Minerva, I just thought I'd let you know that young Harry is awake and Molly would like to start interviewing people come Monday morning." Fawkes explains through their bond.
"Thank you Fawkes, Remus, could you go get Harry dressed for the day?"
"Of course, as long as you save me a few strips of bacon." Remus jokes as he got up from his seat to go get Harry.
'Let's hope this afternoon goes well.' Minerva thinks to herself as she finishes cooking up breakfast.
1pm- Little Whinging
As much as Minerva wanted to apparate everyone to Petunia's house in order to get the afternoon over quicker, Remus argued that it would be better to drive, if anything, it wouldn't spook Petunia and her son. So, they got the car loaded up and Harry buckled into his car seat. Luckily, the traffic was relatively light so that even though they left late due to Harry being stubborn about the long car ride, they made it to Little Whinging right on time. Once she got Harry out of his car seat, Remus and her, with little Harry walking alongside her, they walked up the walkway and rang the doorbell to Number 4, Privet Drive.
"Good afternoon, may I help you?" Petunia asks once she got the front door open.
"Good afternoon Petunia, my name is Minerva, we spoke on the phone yesterday, this is my friend Remus Lupin, and my son, Hendrick."
"Come in, I assume you brought what I asked?" Petunia asked, referring to the snacks.
"We did, may we come in?" Minerva asks. Petunia hesitantly steps aside and opens the door fully to let them all in.
"Thank you for letting us come over on such short notice Petunia." Remus says once everyone's inside and their coats are hung up and shoes lined up near the door.
"The kettle's on, tea will be ready shortly, make yourself comfortable in the living room please." Petunia says.
"Where's your son? I think it Hendrick would love to make a new friend." Minerva asks.
"Dudley is upstairs napping at the moment, when he wakes then he may play with, Haddock, was it?" Petunia explains.
"Hendrick," Minerva corrects, "Harry for short." Petunia snorts to herself, then heads to the kitchen as the kettle begins whistling, signaling that the tea would make itself present shortly. Within a few minutes, Petunia comes back with a tea tray loaded with a very nice (and expensive) antique tea set. Once its set upon the coffee table, Minerva reaches into her purse and pulls out the fruit tray, cheese tray and a vegetable tray out of it, and sets it alongside the tea tray.
"How did you fit all of that in such a small purse?" Petunia asks, eyes wide as she begins pouring three cups of tea.
"Expansion charms are wonderful for such things as these." Minerva explains while accepting the cup of tea from Petunia. "To be honest, magic is one of the reasons I asked to visit with you, but I'm not sure where to start."
"Better start at the beginning." Petunia says while preparing her cup of tea.
"Very well, before I start my story, did Lily ever tell you what was going on in her life?"
"Like I told you, I know she got married, had a son, and wanted to have a relationship with me after her wedding, but Vernon would have a conniption if I allowed anything abnormal into this house."
"Ok, so she never told you about the civil war that was going on in our world?"
"No, never."
"Well, to make a long story short, there was a civil war going on due to a terrorist that went by the name Lord Voldemort, he had minions he named Death Eaters, and they were hoping to kill all muggleborns and half-bloods so that the purebloods would reign supreme. However, a prophecy foretold of his downfall, and on Halloween, he went to murder the one that it spoke of." Minerva stops and takes a sip of tea, silently gathering her courage to finish the story.
"The prophecy was speaking of your nephew, Petunia. On Halloween, Lord Voldemort found your sister, brother-in-law, and your nephew, who were in hiding. Despite their best efforts, Lord Voldemort killed them, and once they were out of the way, he turned his wand on young Harry, your nephew." Petunia gasped, her teacup falling out of her hands and shattering on the carpeted floor.
"They're dead?! The last of my family, dead? My nephew?" Petunia starts sobbing, meanwhile a child starts crying. Seeing that Harry is happily playing with some blocks while snacking on the fruit, Minerva deduces that Dudley has awoken from his nap.
"Reparo." With that, Petunia's teacup is quickly repaired, and Minerva says, "Petunia, if you tell me which room is Dudley's, I will collect him and finish my story."
"Up the stairs, 1st door on the left." Petunia says sobbing. With that, Minerva heads up to collect the young child. Within five minutes, Minerva returns with Dudley, and sets him down so that he can play with Harry. Within that time, Petunia had stopped crying for the most part.
"I changed Dudley's nappy and gave him a quick wash up, I hope you don't mind Petunia. Anyways, back to the story. Unfortunately, yes, Lily and James perished that night, but your nephew, Harry, survived." Petunia almost dropped her teacup again at that statement.
"My nephew's alive? Where is he?"
"He's safe, but the Headmaster of Lily's school, Albus Dumbledore, thoroughly fucked up Harry's placement at first. Albus thought the best course of action was to leave the child on someone's front stoop in the middle of the night with naught but a note."
"What does this have to do with me, my son, or my nephew?"
"On the night of James and Lily's death, Albus thought the best thing for your nephew would be to place him on your doorstep."
"Then why have I never seen him? This happened almost a month ago! If what you say is true, why did I not find him when I went to set out the milk bottles on the morning of November 1st?"
"Because I brought Harry to my place! I decided to adopt him after I saw the abhorrent behaviour of your husband and how you have spoiled your son rotten! Albus asked me to watch this place that day because of what happened with Harry's parents. He decided to wait a day between their death and bringing Harry here, so it would've been the night of the 2nd Harry was placed here. He left Harry swaddled in a thin blanket! Nothing more! In the heat of the moment, I decided to adopt Harry. I came back and picked him up off your stoop." Minerva all but shouts, showing Petunia why certain students feared her Scottish temper. "So, to answer your question, your nephew is right here, playing with your son!"
"So why now? Why do you decide to show up now? Are you tired of caring for Harry?" Petunia asks, not sure how to take this news.
"Like I said, I adopted him, and in the wizarding world, we have what's called blood adoption. To put it in simple terms, we take a potion, add in the blood of the child and the adoptive parents, and we both drink it, so that we become biologically related. Now, I decided to go to our bank and get a comprehensive inheritance test done on Harry, to see if we had any other living relatives, and we found out some interesting facts regarding you and your son."
"What did you find out? I don't know how much more news I can take."
"I'll be blunt. During the inheritance test, it showed that you are a squib, and your son is a wizard. Your mother was a squib, but your grandmother was a witch."
"Then why did Lily get magic, and I didn't?"
"Simply put, genetics. Lily was researching the history of muggleborns, her research showed that muggleborns witches and wizards were descendants of squibs, which are children born to magical parents, but the magical genes were dormant. However, much like red hair is a recessive gene, so is the magical gene. After a time, it will pop up in future generations, be it one or even three generations. Although your husband, Vernon, is a muggle, the magical gene decided to become active in your son, making him a wizard."
"How do I tell this to Vernon? Vernon is so traditional and pious that he will think Dudley has been possessed by the devil." Petunia says, looking at how happily Harry and Dudley are getting along.
Minerva is starting to read between the few lines she has been given from Petunia, "Petunia, forgive me for prying, but is everything alright in your relationship? From what I've gathered, you don't seem happy."
"Since you've been honest with me, I'll be honest with you. I love my son, but my doctor told me that it will be dangerous to have another child. When I told Vernon that I can't have any more children, he lost it. Started throwing glasses around the room, I am so glad my Dudders was in his crib at the time. He started saying that it was my duty as a wife to bear him more than one child, it was God's word that women are to bear multiple children, and that we should be put to death if we can't fulfill that duty. Ever since, his temper's gotten short, he's practically turned me into a servant of the house. I am not allowed to go out unless its for groceries, the house must be spotless on a daily basis, and not a thing out of place. If I don't have everything does to his standards, he'll beat me." Petunia says, gently rolling up the sleeve of her blouse, showing Minerva and Remus the several bruises, both fresh and yellowing. "He doesn't believe in divorce, and I cannot petition for an annulment due to Dudley."
"We may be able to help you Petunia." Remus says, speaking for the first time since arriving there. "If things are as bad as you say, and I can smell the fear coming off of you. You fear that your husbands temper is going to become worse, to the point either you or your son may lose your life. If you're willing to uproot the life you know, we may be able to help you."
"Remus, what are you suggesting? I am quickly running out of rooms in my house, and I don't think Petunia has a hidden cache of cash to buy a house outright." Minerva says, forgetting to put up a silencing charm.
"Don't you remember what else the inheritance test showed? Petunia and Dudley are related to the Hufflepuffs, the goblins may be able to do an audit of Hufflepuffs accounts and see if there are any properties that are move in ready."
"How does that help Dudley and I?" Petunia asks, quite confused.
"Since you are related to a founder of Hogwarts, the school your sister went to, since there are no other known living members of the Hufflepuff family, the land deeds will legally be yours, meaning you wouldn't have to buy a house, and we could schedule a kidnapping or something to make you disappear from this world." Remus explains.
"Remus, what you are suggesting is desperate, maybe even extreme." Minerva states.
"What other choice does she have? Either she stays here and barely survives, or we help her disappear, and live. There is a difference between surviving and living Minerva."
"How soon can you make it happen? I want better for Dudley, and if he's going to be a part of your world, I want to get him as far away from his father as possible, before he sees him as a role model, and ends up putting another woman through what I'm enduring." Petunia says, now knowing why Lily always looked up to Minerva, despite how scary her temper can be.
"What does Vernon work on weekends?" Minerva asked, slowly warming up to Remus' line of thinking, and agreeing that no matter how awful Petunia was in the past, no one should be left in an abusive relationship.
"Unfortunately, he has weekends off, he tells his boss that its for quality time with his young son, but in truth, he goes out all day Saturday drinking, and doesn't come back until suppertime. On Sundays, he drags both of us to church, even though I'm an atheist, which he was fine with when we were dating, but now…" She trailed off, finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
"I understand, Petunia." Minerva says, as she grabs her small notepad out of her purse and scribbles down her number. Once she was done, she tore the paper off and hands it to Petunia, "This is my home phone number, take your time packing you and your son's things as discreetly as you can, but first, when Vernon goes to work on Monday, give me a call and I will literally pop over and bring you and your son to Gringotts Bank for an inheritance test and we will see if there's a property you guys can move into ASAP."
"Why are you being so kind to me? I have a feeling my sister had nothing nice to say about me during our teen years." Petunia asks, trying to figure out their angle.
'She would have made an excellent Slytherin' Minerva thinks to herself. "You would be correct, which is another reason I decided to adopt your nephew, but I believe that after what you have told us, which I'm sure isn't everything, people change due to their circumstances, and I'm hoping, that with a fresh start, it will help you immensely."
"Thank you, but how will I be able to get to your world? I sent that Albus fellow a letter begging to let me attend Hogwarts with Lily, and he said it's impossible due to me being a muggle." Petunia asks.
"You are a squib, not a muggle, let me ask you this, have you ever seen a pub called The Leaky Cauldron in the heart of London?" Remus asks.
"I have seen it, I admit I have poked my head in there looking for Vernon the odd time, but all I have seen are weird looking people in multi-coloured robes of all shapes and sizes." Petunia reluctantly admits.
"Vernon would never be able to set foot in that pub, only witches and wizards can see it, or even set foot in it. Since you are a squib, even though you may not be able to do more than light up the end of a wand, you have enough magic in your veins to see magical places. I even think we may be able to get you a tour of Hogwarts, with the help of the headmaster of course." Remus explains.
"That would be wonderful, I would love to see even a small glimpse of the world that whisked my sister away from me. Believe it or not, we were quite close growing up, but her getting that letter changed everything. My parents began favouring Lily, putting her up on a pedestal, putting her needs ahead of mine, and leaving me to stew in my anger. I wish that we had the chance to reconcile, I had hoped that with our sons being close to the same age, they would be able to grow up together, become best friends." Petunia explains, slowly allowing herself to hope for the first time in a long time.
"Oh my, we have been here close to two hours already, and I think our children have tuckered themselves out." Minerva exclaims. "Petunia, do you have a camera nearby?" Minerva asks, hoping to get a picture of Harry and Dudley fast asleep beside one another, arms circling each other in a brother-like hug.
"Unfortunately, no. Vernon only wants professional photos done of us. The ones lining the stairs to upstairs are the only ones allowed in this house." Petunia explains, wishing that she could have more photos than the ones she currently has.
"I have a solution, just don't freak out. Doc?" Minerva calls. Next thing Petunia knows, a small creature with large tennis ball eyes, bat like ears, and small half moon glasses, of all things, perched on his long pointed nose, quietly pops into her living room.
"Doc called you; I mean, you called Doc?" Doc asks.
"Yes Doc, could you pop back to our place and grab the camera? You know where I normally keep it, and bring it back here? And if possible, could you please pop back quietly as possible as to not wake the kids?"
"Doc can do that. I'll be right back." With that, Doc quietly pops out of the room, Petunia still trying to wrap her head around the fact that otherworldly creatures could pop in and out of her house without her knowing.
"Doc is one of my house elves, don't worry, he doesn't go anywhere without me asking him to." Minerva reassures, seeing Petunia's gears turning in her head.
"That's a relief." Petunia sighs, and she noticed Doc had reappeared, and quietly took a few snapshots of the two children happily napping away.
"It would be a shame to wake the children, but I'm afraid we have taken up more than enough of your time Petunia. I will bring you a copy of the photo of the two kids, and please, don't hesitate to call me if you need anything." Minerva says, getting up to gather her son. "Harry, come on, wake up, time to go home." Minerva says, gently waking him up. Once he's awake, he gently untangles himself from his cousin, and starts attempting to help Minerva put everything away, which ends up causing a bit more of a mess than Minerva had intended. Once they were all packed up, they corralled everyone to the front door, and wished Petunia one last farewell, knowing it wouldn't be the last time they see her.
End Author's note: This is it for this current chapter, I was hoping to get Minerva's date into this chapter, but it quickly got away from me. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope I can get the next chapter up soon, but my personal life is a bit of a mess right now. Please review, but I'm going to kindly ask for constructive criticism only, I am getting tired of being accused of plagiarism.