Dania woke up one morning to a pulsing ache behind her eyeballs. As dulled and muted as it was, she could still notice it as she rubbed the sleep away from her eyes and slowly hoisted herself up into a sitting position in her bed.
She was greeted by floaters, gray dots, and black cobwebs that wriggled and buzzed around her vision like TV static.
Hmmm. Blood pressure must have taken a nosedive. She was gonna need to go drink a lot more water today, and probably get her sugar levels up.
She swung her feet out of bed, waited out the dizziness, and commenced her morning wake up routine without much fanfare.
She had taken the curlers out of her hair and put on her nice work dress and doing the final touch ups on her make up when she heard some sort of tapping noise. At first she thought it was some sort of white noise. Kids playing some game outside or someone moving around the house downstairs.
But the tapping persisted. She ignored it.
Then something screeched, and Dania jumped a foot in the air.
She whirred around, her white floral patterned dress flaring. Her owlish eyes met the wide obsidian eyes of a Barn Owl.
The owl had a package. One that Dania was hesitant to accept. But as soon as she opened the window, the owl flung it onto the floor of her room and it took off.
This package looked incredibly suspicious. It was roughly the same size and shape as the first one, but it was as if James had purposefully tried to make it look as shabby and broken down as possible.
There were patches of exposed cardboard, massive dents on one side and what looked like a blob of smeared nutella on the other. To top it all off there was a ripped piece of paper - not parchment as the Wizarding World typically used, but actual muggle paper- that said in the messiest, chicken-scratch handwriting Dania had ever seen: OPEN ME
Needless to say, Dania did not open it.
She didn't even risk throwing this package out in the trash cans near the Evans Family home. Dania donned the oven mittens once again, wrapped the package up in a garbage bag, and carefully carried it to one of the large garbage containers at the opposite end of the street. The only thing running through her mind as she opened the rectangular plastic lid to the dumpster was that one scene from Brooklyn Nine-Nine when Amy tried to give Captain Holt a gift.
"So, just to recap." Dania recited Jake's line from memory. "You left an unmarked package on a police Captain's desk on a random Monday with a suspicious message written on it that looked like it was scrawled by a crazy person."
Then she she raised her volume and let her voice drop a few pitches to mimic Captain Hold. "BOMB!- There's a bomb!"
The scene played out in Dania's mind mostly as a joke, but only a scant few heartbeats after she shut the lid something actually exploded in there. Dania let out an involuntary shriek as she jumped back, but that wasn't enough to save her white floral dress from getting splattered with traffic-cone orange blobs of paint that shot out from the cracks.
"Asshole!" She yelped as she scrambled away, knowing fully that James Potter had no way of hearing her. Maybe. Probably. So she yelled "You ruined my dress!" just to hammer in her ire.
Once she was a decent enough distance away, she stopped to furiously scrub at the paint stains on her dress. But they'd already set in by then, drying and permanently staining the fabric within seconds.
"This is never getting out, is it?" She grumbled to herself. "God, Petunia, how did you deal with this guy in the original story?"
Then she looked back over her shoulder and glared at the dumpster.
Whatever James was playing at, he had just escalated things.
But she didn't have time to think up her revenge. She needed to get back into the house and change before she had to be at work.
In the autumn, Dania managed to land a job working weekends at a local bookstore. It was a cozy little shop within short biking distance of the house. It was easy for Dania to get to on her own, and she was thrilled with the freedom that it afforded her.
She could finally regularly interact with people outside of the Evans family, and get to know the people of Cokeworth.
The bookstore was tucked away on a side street in Cokeworth's downtown core. A little shabby, a little run down, but with plenty of heart and it was a local gem. There was also the added benefit that the owner of the bookstore was an old school friend of Mrs. Evans. Dania did not think that Mrs. Evans would have let her start working as easily as she did without knowing that there would be someone familiar watching out for Dania.
All in all, it was not a bad gig. She would show up, do whatever her co-worker in charge told her to do, which was mostly sitting behind the counter operating the cash register, hand writing receipts, and helping customers find whatever books they were looking for. Dania would do that for a couple of hours, then head home.
The demographic of customers who came shop in the store were much more laid back and kind compared to other retail jobs Dania had taken over the years, and she was grateful for that.
It reminded her a little of her days growing up in Copenhagen. How she would come home from Gymnasium and help her parents out at the family flower shop…
Dania stopped that train of thought before it could really get going. Thinking about what she had lost was painful, and if she dwelled too long she wouldn't be able to bring herself to get out of bed.
Luckily, working as a florist was different from being a bookseller. She had far fewer responsibilities in her new role since she was just a part-timer. Plus, her boss didn't expect much from her other than holding down the fort while the full time workers got their lunch breaks.
It was a nice change of pace. The environment was nice too. The perfect place to spend a dark, rainy autumn day. The store was filled to the brim with a carefully curated collection of books, and there were overstuffed leather chairs tucked away in niches between the aisles for people to sit down and read. There was even a record player behind the counter, and Dania could choose from a wide selection of jazz, blues, and classical music records to play.
She always chose the classical music records. There was something that was just so comforting and nostalgic about the orchestral music that she just couldn't resist.
Dania could honestly say that she loved her new job.
That was why when the flare-ups started, Dania's first instincts were to keep them to herself. It took so much effort just to convince Mrs. Evans that she wasn't going to heel over from a slight breeze, and Dania did not want anyone to call her ability to continue at her job into question.
She was so tired of being sick.
She just wanted to live as she used to, have some sense of normality, for as long as she could hold on to it.
Dania was fighting through the mother of all headache when the second package arrived. She didn't even want to deal with it.
She enlisted Mrs. Evans to go help bury the offending package by some bushes underneath a large English oak tree in the backyard. Something Mrs. Evans was happy to help since she shared Dania's distrust of anything her youngest daughter's scoundrel of a boyfriend sent to them.
Twenty four hours after the package was delivered, Dania heard a PEW!
Like a Star Wars blaster went off in the backyard while she was washing the dishes. It was sudden and loud enough to send her ears ringing. Dania's shoulders leaped up to her ears in a belated attempt to block out the sound.
Once she got her bearings together, Dania peered out through the window and gazed upon the enclosed yard.
Nothing seemed to be amiss. Nothing broken, or out of place.
And then she saw the bush she had buried the box under. Or rather, the lack of bush.
Dania quickly turned off the faucet, slipped on a ratty old pair of shoes, and rushed out to see the damage.
The main structure of the trunk was there, but there was a whole section of branches on the left side of the bush that was straight up missing. She approached it cautiously, keeping her distance and avoided touching anything.
There were twigs and leaves that were just gone. Cut cleanly from their branches as if it were done with an exacto knife, or a very precise chainsaw.
She circled the bush with her eyes narrowed in concentration. Then she hopped up on a few decorative rocks and peered down at the scene of the crime.
Dania blinked once. Twice. Three times.
"Lort!" she hissed under her breath.
The package was gone, and in its place was what Dania could only describe as a surgically cut hole going straight up from where the box once was.
She looked up, and saw a hole through the colorful foliage of the oak tree. There were missing tree branches and orange leaves in the exact shape of the package.
It genuinely looked like a video game glitch, or a bizarre piece of modern art.
Something that should no way shape or form exist in real life, and Dania was half convinced she was looking at an edited video on Youtube. Except this was real life, and it was 1978.
And the more worrying point was that this package was perhaps the most dangerous one Dania had received to date. She could not let this continue and endanger not only her meager health and well-being, but she would not risk the safety of Mr. or Mrs. Evans.
With one last grimace aimed at the precisely mutilated bush, Dania turned around and marched back into the house.
She wandered around the kitchen and living room, calling for one of the other adults that lived in the household until she found Mr. Evans up in his room fiddling with the radio while he was recording the song Walk this Way by Aerosmith for his mixtape.
He whipped his head around as the door opened, startled.
"Oh," Dania's hand shot to her mouth as she stilled at the door. She took a step back back out into the hallway, lowered her hand and whispered, "Sorry did I interrupt?"
Mr. Evans paused the recording on the cassette deck, turned off the radio, and shook his head. "No, it's alright Tuni, I'll re-record this later. Now, what have you been up to?"
And Dania, being ever so blunt, said "I think Potter tried to kill me. I need to go buy the finest glitter on the market for my revenge. Can you drive me to the craft store?"
Mr. Evans's reaction was one of stunned silence. An unidentifiable expression flashed across his face.
He rose up out of his chair at his desk, said, "Excuse me for one moment," and then brushed past Dania, and calmly walked down the stairs.
Dania stood in the upstairs hallway for two minutes when-
"HE DID WHAT?" came the sound of Mrs. Evan's screech reverberating through the house.
Somewhere in Scotland, James Potter sneezed.
When the third package came -a small, palm size container covered in wrapping paper and fabric ribbon- They were ready.
The owl arrived at breakfast, swooping in through the window that the Evans had left open for this specific purpose. It perched on the back of the one empty chair at the table that was reserved for Lily.
Dania felt a stab of pain shoot through her brain behind her eyeballs, which reminded her that she needed to take her medications. It wasn't a work day, but she would need them before she got started on chores for the day.
The pain was inconvenient, but didn't detract from Dania's focus.
She watched Mrs. Evans like a hawk as she waltzed up to the bird with a big smile on her face and a large plate of a full English breakfast. The middle aged woman crooned as she offered up the assortment of sizzling bacon, fried egg, baked beans, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, and bread that was toasted to perfection.
She truly went all out for this moment, not sparing a single expense, not risking even the slightest chance that the owl may reject the food, and therefor reject the only chance that the Evans family could pass along a message to their youngest and her boyfriend.
They were Muggles. It wasn't like they had their own owl, after all.
The owl crooned back and peered at the meal.
Dania and Mr. Evans, who had put down the newspaper he had been reading the second he heard the 'swoosh' of the owl's decent, held their breaths.
For a moment, the bird hesitated.
Mrs. Evans's back was turned to her husband and Dania, but Dania could still see her face in the reflection of a big, silver, reflective metal pot left on the drying rack. Even as the reflection of Mrs. Evans was distorted by the shape of the pot, Dania could see a twinge of change in her expression.
A big bubbly smile growing darker and more strained the longer Mrs. Evans was left waiting.
For a moment, Dania worried that the older woman would do something drastic if the bird refused.
Dania's head pounded.
But as quickly as that moment came, the moment passed, because the owl gave a happy little hoot, and accepted the gift of food.
Dania relaxed the muscles that she didn't even realize were tense, and grimaced when she recognized the type of headache she had.
A tension headache. Not the worst, but not the best. It was like a rubber band squeezing her skull, and it would be a while before it went away.
Wonderful. Just wonderful.
Dania let her attention lapse, allowing her focus to turn inwards to assess her own well-being. She missed it when Mr. Evans got up out of his seat to join his wife. She missed their conversation. Missed how they removed the package from the bird and tossed it right back out the window for later disposal. But what Dania didn't miss was the flash of an envelope in the corner of her vision.
No, not just one envelope. Two envelopes.
It was enough to snap her back into the present. Dania got up out of her seat and used Lily's wooden kitchen chair as a support when she was hit by wave of fatigue.
She watched as Mrs. Evans began tying both envelopes to the leg of the munching owl, then Dania asked, "what's in the second letter?"
Because she knew what the first letter was. Her little slice of revenge against James. But she didn't realize that Mr. and Mrs. Evans wanted to send James a separate letter.
"Oh," Mr. Evans said, momentarily turning to her, "It's for Lily."
Dania's heart skipped a beat, disrupting her regular heartbeat rhythm, leaving her with a uncomfortable sensation in her chest.
"Why is it for Lily?" She found herself asking, even though the obvious answer was that Mr. and Mrs. Evans were Lily's parents who loved her and of course they would want to maintain contact with her.
Dania just didn't understand why it filled her up with so much… Irritation? Anger? Despair?
She couldn't name exactly what it was that she was feeling. Or why she was feeling those things.
"We want to see when she'll be free for a visit." Mr. Evans continued, not noticing Dania's growing distress. "We haven't seen her since Christmas, and she didn't come back during the summer. It would be good to have her home at least once more before the holiday season."
Thinking about last Christmas made Dania's head hurt more.
"Tuni, dear, do you need to sit down?" Mrs. Evans asked, pausing her attaching the letters to the owl's twig-like-leg.
Dania shook her head, and then regretted it because it made her feel like her brain was a slushie sloshing around in her skull.
"I'm fine," she lied. "Completely fine."
"Alright," Mrs. Evans reluctantly letting it go. She returned to her work, attaching the letters, then sighed. "I just hope Lily's doing alright. It's clear that James," she hissed out the name before returning to her regular cadence, "hasn't matured from her old stories about him. Still going on with his pranks."
Dania couldn't stop her snort, nor, as she came to realize, could she prevent the words that came out next.
"He's an arrogant freak, what do you expect?"
"Tuni," Mr. Evans clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in disapproval. "Don't use that word."
"What, 'freak'?" Dania's mouth kept moving, as she felt a strange cognitive dissonance. She didn't want to say any of these things. "It's true. Only a wizard could think that sending bombs to normal people would be a good idea for a prank. If that won't get him the title of 'freak' then I don't know what should."
Something jolted, deep within her. A spark of realization.
Petunia?
Mrs. Evans sighed, oblivious to her daughter's inner turmoil. "I can't say you are entirely wrong," the woman said with a shake of her head. "Your sister deserves someone so much better."
"She deserves exactly what she's getting!" Dania snapped against her will.
Suddenly, she felt her hand that had been holding onto the back of Lily's chair give in. Dania stumbled sideways. She narrowly avoiding smashing her head into the wooden frame, but as she twisted around, she failed to prevent her hip from smashing into the ground, and her elbow onto a corner of the chair which sent it flying across the room.
The hit to her elbow pinched her ulnar nerve, sending shocks of pain and numb tingles down the length of her arm and to the tips of her fingers.
She let out a cry of pain, and the next thing she knew Mr. and Mrs. Evans were fluttering around her in a panic. Through the shock of it all, and the flurry of questions the middle aged Brits lobbed at her, Dania was vaguely aware of the owl booking it out the window, startled by the sudden commotion.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noted that the two letters were fully secured to the birds leg as it took off, on it's way back to Scotland. On its way to James and Lily.
But Dania could barely think about that. Through the haze of the pain throbbing from her entire left side of her body, her eyes locked on to the splintered paneling from the back of the chair that she was holding in her uninjured right hand.
Her knuckle was white as she held onto the frayed wood with a death grip. She had somehow managed to completely snap off. She hadn't even notice how tight her hold was.
Dania willed herself to let go.
She could not.
Author's Note:
Hi.
The last time I updated this story was on April 1, 2020. And now it is February 21, 2024. My has the time flown by. You guys are probably just as surprised as I am about this update. I am not going to lie, I didn't think I had it in me to keep writing this story, a lot of it because of life, me falling out of the Harry Potter years and years ago at this point, and my dwindling motivation to continue with it.
In all of my ten years of writing and posting fanfictions under different names, this story has gotten me more hate and discouraging comments than all the other story I have written combined. Writing fanfiction is supposed to be fun, you know? People getting upset at me because I'm not writing the story to their tastes really sucked the joy out of working on this story.
Yet, here I am again, four years after the last chapter. I literally completed my bachelors degree, worked, then started a masters degree in the time it took for me to update this story.
My writing abilities have improved drastically since I first started drafting this story six years ago in 2018, and when I posted in 2019 when this was the only Petunia Self-Insert out there. Reading through it again, there is stuff here that I don't like, stuff I still love, and stuff that has so much potential to be more. These new chapters are going to definitely look and feel different compared to the old ones, because I am more experience now. But I am not going back to change or fix anything. I am just going to keep moving forward.
I am also going to announce that I am not accepting critiques on this story. As far as I am concerned, every chapter that is posted is published, and therefore I will not be going back to edit. Even if you say it's to improve my writing in the future, don't worry yourself over it. I have experienced readers for my original fiction and nonfiction who will do that for me. You don't need to do their job.
Unless it looks like I am missing a paragraph or a sentence cuts off abruptly, I will not go back in to change things. I am writing this story strictly on a first draft basis that I am choosing to share it with you. I have held on to the notes and outlines of this story for six years already, I know how it all ends. It's only a matter if you get to know how it ends.
Also for the love of GOD, please stop sending me messages about how there should be an OP Harry. He isn't even in the story yet, and I am so fed up with people wanting me to immediately write a power fantasy about his time in Hogwarts after being raised by Dania that I don't want to write about him anymore because this is not his story.
Once upon a time, I did plan to explore how Dania would raise Harry. The plan was that she would take him and run away to Idaho, USA, because why the fuck would Voldemort think to look for Harry there? And so Harry gets raised by his weirdly Danish Aunt Nia in a community of rural working class wizards who give zero shits about what the snobby rich folks on the East Coast that went to nepotism boarding school (aka Ilvermorny) have to say about what they can and cannot do. Hogwarts was never in the picture unless I decided to go ahead and write the spinoff in which the characters of my fic got summon into the canon HP world where they meet their counterparts.
But I don't have the time or the energy to do any of that anymore.
So, I will say this only once: HARRY POTTER WILL DIE IN THIS STORY. VOLDEMORT KILLS HIM. THAT BABY IS DEAD. DANIA WILL NOT GET TO MEET HIM. I AM TAKING HIM OUT OF THE TAGS.
You are, however, free to speculate on Idaho!Harry and his magical potato gun. Since he is no longer part of this story, I can talk to you guys about my original plans for him.
The only reason why I am posting any new content for this story at all is because of all of the wonderfully kind readers who have left encouraging comments. Literally. I would not be posting if it wasn't for you guys. I love it when you guys theories about what might happen, do character analysis, talk about what parts were your favorite, or what made you emotional, how it made you feel. Or even if you comment with a simple smiley face.
I am sharing this chapter for you.
Anyway, this concludes the longest Authors Note I have ever written.
See ya.
Lost_In_The_Muse