Dania hesitated to point out the fact that there was a nocturnal bird tapping at the window of the Evans family kitchen. She winced as the sharp noise caused a pulse of pain to shoot through her forehead, and she turned her head away.
But her eyes never left the bird.
A moment passed. Then two.
The Barn Owl did not budge. It just sat there, staring at Dania with huge, dilated eyes like it was staring into her very soul. Judging her.
And then very slowly, it lifted one of its feet, and without breaking eye contact, it tapped on the glass once more, causing Dania to visibly flinch.
Needless to say, the Danish woman was not only creeped out but in pain as well.
She waited a full minute to see if the elderly man sitting across the table from her would do or say anything. Mr. Evans did nothing but sip his coffee calmly, and turn the page of the newspaper.
Dania counted down from ten, and then she couldn't take it anymore.
"Why is there an owl there?" she finally asked, lowering the price of scrambled egg that was skewered on her fork.
"Hm?" Mr. Evans looked away from his reading material. The moment he caught sight of the of the creature of the night sitting outside the window in the broad morning daylight, his face lit up like a bonfire. "Honey! Lily sent us an owl!" he yelled to his wife in the other room.
Mrs. Evans came barreling from the pantry with what must have been at least a dozen canned goods in her arms, which she promptly dumped onto the counter.
"About time! Lily hasn't sent us anything in months, I was beginning to worry." She said as she sashayed across the room and opened the window so that the owl could hop into the house. "Quick, give it your plate!"
Mr. Evans grabbed his untouched plate of breakfast food and pushed it towards the massive bird. The bird cocked its head to the side as if trying to determine if the scrambled eggs and bacon were good enough for it to indulge in. After a few beats, it ruffled its feathers and began to peck at the strips of bacon, much to Mrs. Evans delight.
"Oh good, hopefully, that will keep him from flying away before we're done. Go on then, read the letter before this little fella finishes and takes off!" Mr. Evans said.
Mrs. Evans wrung her hands together before she approached the bird. "We didn't even get a chance to tell her what happened to Tuni last time." She commented as she leaned over and started to inspect the owl's boney legs.
Dania sat there, eyes wider than the Grand Canyon, completely unable to comprehend why on earth were these people being so calm with a wild animal in the house.
Even for her coma induced dreamscape, she would have at least assumed that owls should have been a bird that only came out at night. And they most certainly weren't supposed to be used as some sort of messenger pigeons.
But then again, Dania's brain seemed to be convinced that she was a British national living in 1970s England so maybe daytime owls weren't so far fetched in this false reality.
Still, that didn't stop Dania from eyeing the owl's talons warily. They were sharp. Like the end of a candy cane after someone's been working on it for longer than they should have.
"So, what did Lily send us?" Dania asked, despite not knowing who the hell this Lily was since she'd never been brought up in a conversation before. It was better to play along and figure things out along the way, right? Fake it till you make it and all of that jazz.
Her brain would fill in the details and tell her what part to play eventually.
Mr. Evans put his newspaper down and stared at Dania. "You're not usually this calm when Lily sends a letter," he observed.
Dania furrowed her eyebrows in a mild expression of confusion but nonetheless pressed her smiling lips together and shrugged half-heartedly.
The older man tilted his head to the side ever so slightly, but then turned his attention back to his wife. "What does it say, dear?"
Mrs. Evans had coaxed the owl down to the counter where it stuck its leg out. Dania leaned forward and squinted her eyes. It looked like there was some sort of rolled up piece of paper tied to the leg with a bit of twine.
Definitely not something you see every day.
But Mrs. Evans didn't even seem to register the oddity of the owl and went right on ahead and united the piece of paper, unrolled it and began to read.
Without missing a beat, Mr. Evans picked up the plate of half-eaten breakfast that the bird had been working at, stood up, and pushed the plate over to the bird once more. It promptly picked up where it finished and gulped down the scrambled eggs.
Dania did not comment.
"Ooooh, that's our little girl! At the top of her class and everything!" Mrs. Evans squealed as she hugged the thick sheet of paper to her chest. "Here, here, read it." She said handing the letter to her husband after a bout of giggling.
The man took the letter, adjusted his reading glasses and began scanning the sheet of paper. After a few minutes of silence, he slowly nodded his head.
"That's good," He said, nodding his head, "It's good that she's enjoying her last year at Hogwarts."
Hogwarts.
Dania blinked.
And the dam broke.
"Seriously? Hogwarts?" She asked with a semi-obscured snort "That's what we're going with?"
Mrs. Evans hummed and put her hands on her hips, "I know you don't like magic, but it's not going to hurt you to be supportive of your little sister." she admonished as if she'd given this lecture a million times.
"Oh no, I'm not trying to be unsupportive or anything, but why Hogwarts? It's not even a real school… Oh wait I get it, She's a Harry Potter nerd." Dania said as she reclined in her kitchen chair, "Not that I can blame her though, the books were pretty good. The English version, I mean. The translations never did it justice."
Mrs. Evans furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, but Mr. Evans looked like he'd just caught a giant Northern Pike in a small, backyard creek.
"Potter? What do you know about a Potter?"
Dania paused. She blinked three times in rapid succession. "What?"
" Do you know anything about Lily's new boyfriend? Has she been sending you any messages? Is this 'Harry Potter' a brother or a cousin of his?" Mr. Evans grilled her, but Dania stopped listening to him when he said 'new boyfriend.'
"Do you mean... James Potter, by any chance?" Dania tentatively interrupted Mr. Evans's line of questioning.
"Who else?" he replied before turning back to reread the letter.
And with those two little words, Dania's world came crashing down for the second time in as many months.
"Fuck."
Dania was in the world of Harry Potter.
And not just any world of Harry Potter, THE world of Harry Potter. Not one of those theme parks with overpriced merchandise, but in the actual universe in which the actual Harry Potter resides in.
Or at least, this was the world her mind has created.
Perhaps a small part of her was excited by the prospect. To live out the fantasies of her middle school self of living in a world brimming with magic. To pet a Unicorn in real life, to throw on the infamous Cloak of Invisibility on herself, to down a bottle of liquid luck and buy a lottery ticket.
But a larger part of her, the one that was screaming bloody murder as tornado sirens blasted in the background, overpowered any feeling of glee and anticipation.
Because for whatever reason Dania was now living in a reality where magic existed, Hogwarts existed, and more importantly Death Eaters existed.
Dania excused herself from the table, leaving a steadily cooling plate of breakfast and two thoroughly confused adults behind. The Danish woman raced out of the kitchen and stormed up the stairs before sprinting down the hallway and locking herself in the bathroom.
She bent over with her hands on her knees as she struggled to catch her breath.
"No, no, no," She muttered to herself, "No, this is not happening. It cannot be happening."
But even as she said that Dania was mentally kicking herself.
How could she have been so stupid not to notice all of the clues? The British accents? The whole 70s setting? The fact that a guy named VERNON DURSLEY seemed to be hovering around every conversation she had for some stupid reason that no one wanted to explain to her? The fact that people insisted on calling her Petunia Evans rather than Dania Møller?
Petunia Evans.
Dania felt her muscles seizing up before she forced herself to take several deep breaths as she leaned against a wall and slid down to the floor.
She had replaced a fictional character.
One minute falling out of the sky in a giant ball of fire and then next taking over the life of a fictional character from a children's book series that Dania hadn't read in what, ten years?
This. Should. Not. Be. Happening.
Dania tilted her head back until she was staring at the ocean grey ceiling, and took several deep breaths.
She spread her fingers out wide as she pressed the palms of her hands against the cold marble tiles. She tilted to one side ever so slightly, letting her ear brush up against the soft cotton towel hanging from the towel rack.
It all felt real.
Should it feel that way?
Was she even dreaming at this point?
Dania shook her head.
Putting the whole 'How is this even remotely possible?' question aside, What was she supposed to do now?
According to the rest of this world, she was Petunia Evans. The powerless, muggle Petunia. The magic-hating, normal-obsessed Petunia. The same Petunia who was supposed to be Petunia Dursley but because of whatever ripples Dania had caused in this reality, it looked like Petunia was going to remain an Evans for the foreseeable future.
And that wasn't even touching on the fact that Petunia was one of the most terrible, and hated characters of the Harry Potter franchise.
Granted she wasn't the absolute worst. That honor rested with the pink toad of satan.
But with her stereotypical nosey housewife tendencies and her complete disregard for her nephews well being while at the same time spoiling her own son to the point of crafting a being of hatred and laziness, there really weren't all too many redeemable qualities in Petunia.
And now how did Dania fit into the picture?
There was no way in hell that she was ever going to marry a pig like Vernon Dursley. It wasn't on the table, it just wasn't. Dania would rather spend the rest of her life living next to a chicken processing plant rather than get married to that man.
But if Petunia Evans never got married to Vernon Dursley, then Dudley Dursley would never even exist.
And that just opened a whole new can of worms.
Dania never liked any of the Dursleys in the books or the movies, and that included Dudley. But here, in this world, the Dursleys weren't just characters. They were real people.
Meaning Dudley is- was- will be a real person. That is if he were to be born at all.
No Petunia Dursley meant no Dudley Dursley.
Did Dania even have that right? To deny his existence?
Dudley may not have been among them at that moment, but his life was spelled out in the books. He was supposed to grow up -albeit as a very spoiled brat- with two doting parents, he'd go to school, make friends, make enemies, he'd get a job, get married, have children of his own, have his own life.
Had she killed him off by not being with Vernon?
Dania gritted her teeth, pulled down the towel next to her and buried her face into it like an ostrich burying its face into the sand.
She was not going to subject herself to the torture of living with a man like Dursley. Not now, not ever.
Besides, this was still her dream, right? Dudley didn't have to exist if it was all just in her head. Who knew if the storyline her mind was weaving together was even going to follow the plot of Harry Potter.
The plot.
How was she going to deal with the plot?
Other than Dania everyone in this reality was a living breathing character born in the mind of J.K Rowling. Were the characters here the same ones Dania had grown up reading about? Was this storyline going to follow the book series or the movies?
Dania only had the chance to interact with Mr. and Mrs. Evans, two characters that barely got any mention at all in the Franchise. She couldn't tell if the couple downstairs were the same couple that was born in the mind of JK Rowling.
She knew that Lily Evans existed, Magic existed Hogwarts existed, and Owl mail was a thing. And Dania had to assume based off of these four factors that the Wizarding World existed as well.
But was the Lily that wrote the letter to Mr. and Mrs. Evans the same Lily that was going to marry James Potter, start a family with him, and then die before her son even turns two because of magical terrorists? Or did this Lily have an entirely different fate?
Did the Magic in this world follow the same rules and laws that Rowling had laid down? Or if this was all just Dania's head, did she determine what Magic can and cannot do? Did Witches and Wizards use wands like in the books or could they use a wide variety of different artifacts to channel their magic in this reality?
Was Hogwarts still a castle? Was the Hogwarts Express still the only way for students to get to campus? Did students get sorted into Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw or were the different houses named different?
And then there was Owl mail. Dania still hasn't figured out why the Wizarding World didn't just invent a Floo-like mailbox system that activated with a simple spell and so people would get their deliveries instantly. In all honesty, she was a bit annoyed that her fantasy world didn't just do that instead of following Rowling's decision to use owl mail as the primary form of communication for Witches and Wizards.
Dania groaned.
There were too many questions and not enough answers. She needed more information.
For now, Dania would run under the assumption that Rowling's word was law. Concerning the basic inner workings of the Harry Potter Universe. There was no telling how much the plot had deviated due to her apparently explosive fallout with Vernon Dursley.
Dania had no guarantee that the characters would react the same way with her presence here-
-A thought suddenly invaded the Danish woman's mind. A horrible, slimy thought that sent involuntary tremors running through her spine.
...If everyone was a character was she a character?
Oh god.
The woman's shoulders trembled for a moment before a quiet, yet hysterical laugh escaped her lips.
Was there someone out there pulling at her strings? Someone shaping every single situation she found herself in? Was someone dictating every action she took? Every word she had ever said? Every thought she ever had?
Was she nothing but a character for some unseen audience to watch and observe for the sake of entertainment?
Dania's laugh grew louder and louder until she was rolling around on the bathroom floor with her arms crossed over her chest like a dead pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.
Someone knocked on the door, and Dania's crazed laughter died in her throat.
"Tuni-deary, are you ok?" Mrs. Evans's voice filtered through the locked door.
Dania was quiet for a moment before she propped her upper body up with her elbows and twisted herself around so that she was looking at the door.
"I'm fine!" Dania called out, resisting the urge to laugh at her own lie. "I just remembered a funny joke I heard on the Telly!"
A few measly hours later, Dania was rushed to the hospital after coming down with a sudden and unexpected fever of over 39.4 degrees Celsius. She was released the next day once the fever subsided with a whole new batch of medications and strict orders to immediately come back if she felt herself getting worse.
Author's Note:
This chapter was written while listening to 'Oh Devil' by Electric Guest.
Ok, first up for some housekeeping. I managed to post this chapter on time (and I'm super proud of myself- three chapters of the same story posted in a timely fashion? That's practically unheard of for me!) But I am currently unsure if I will be able to post next Saturday because I'm looking at the schedule for the week ahead and I can already tell I'm going to be swamped. The rough draft of the next chapter is mostly written already since most of it was originally going to be part of this chapter but as it was approaching the 5,000 word mark I decided to cut it in half, but editing takes a long time and I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it before next Saturday. If I don't post next weekend I'll get you guys an extra long chapter four to make up for it.
Other than that, thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a review, they really do mean a lot to me. Reviews are what motivate me to write so if you guys want more of this story, please consider leaving a comment about what you liked and what you didn't like, or just leave a little smiley face :D
See you guys sometime in the near future!
~Lost-In-The-Muse