By the time October melted into November, everyone in Cokeworth knew about the tragedy that had befallen the Evans family.
The whispers, the rumors, and the casual "Hey, did you hear?" flew about the English town first as a light summer breeze. Then as time marched on, it grew momentum, it grew more powerful, it grew to the strength of Category 5 hurricane winds.
And once Halloween had come and gone, every single dog in the town had unwittingly overheard their owners whisper about the 'poor sick Evans daughter,' as they happily nommed on their dinner.
"I heard that her boyfriend attacked her in her own home."
"I heard that she got her head bashed into the walls after she rejected his proposal!"
"Really? I thought it was because she was cheating on him with his Business Rival."
"No no no, I'm fairly certain that they had already broken things off, but the boyfriend was still in love with her and lost it when he found out that she was seeing someone else. He didn't mean to hurt her, he did it out of love. I think it's a little romantic."
"That's not romantic! That's downright terrifying! I certainly hope that they are pressing charges."
The stories swirled and whirled about, and with each retelling, the story twisted and morphed into something new.
"I don't think there's anything actually wrong with her, we all know what kind of person Petunia is, she must playing things up for all the attention."
"Maybe. But I've seen an ambulance in front of the Evans house so many times in the last month, and there are doctors constantly coming and going. I think it might just be something serious."
"So she knocked her head up a little bit. I still say it's all being blown out of proportions."
The Cokeworth rumor mill churned and churned, with one Petunia Evans in the center of it all.
"The Moore family, you know the ones that live across from the Evans? They invited Mr. and Mrs. Evans over for supper one evening and extended the invitation to their daughter too. And they agreed! Mr. Moore told the entire office the next day that Petunia's mind is completely gone. The girl was just sitting at the dining room table, staring at nothing and babbling about like a baby."
"Well you know Mrs. Chapman? The piano teacher who's a bit too interested in Mrs. William's husband? Yes, yes the one with the awful haircut. She says that Petunia hit her head and woke up being able to speak fluent Norwegian of all things. You see her brother's friend has a cousin at University whose flatmate is from Norway. And when Mrs. Chapman heard Petunia speak it sounded a bit like the language that the man spoke."
"That's a load of bull. When have you ever heard of someone waking up being able to speak a completely different language? If that were the case, everyone would be bashing in their heads and let me tell you, that is not going to make them any smarter."
There was no stopping the gossip from flying from one mouth to another. No one could resist wondering, theorizing, and speculating on the mysterious case that is Petunia Evans. And in this particular case, time did not quell the queries, the suspicions, and the juicy rumors.
The more Petunia stayed out of the public eye, the more Mr. and Mrs. Evans covertly ferried her to and from the hospital, the more professional looking people showed up at the Evans household, the more the town hounded for answers to the completely out of the ordinary situation happening on their doorsteps.
Answers that they would never get.
"Alright, you two!" Mrs. Evans clapped her hands together loud enough to startle the other two occupants of the house.
Mr. Evans ripped his eyes away from the television, and Dania glanced up from her novel.
"You can't spend the rest of your lives indoors, just look at how beautiful it is outside!" Mrs. Evans continued, sashaying into the living room and gesturing at the large window.
"Hmmm," Mr. Evans hummed, turning around in his spot on the couch. He looked up and down the lacey curtains. "Yes, it most certainly is beautiful out." and then he turned right back around and continued watching his program.
Dania returned to her book without uttering a word.
And Mrs. Evans huffed out in growing irritation. She opened her mouth to shoot her husband with a fiery retort but paused.
She snapped her mouth shut and waltzed down the stairs to the basement without Mr. Evans or Dania even living room of the Evans household was silent for a few scant moments, save for the sound emitting from the television.
One of the main character's in Mr. Evans favorite daytime soap opera crying because her boyfriend cheated on her with her sister who had supposedly died three years prior in a hang glider accident but now leaning against the wall with a tequila in hand a few paces away watching the main character and the boyfriend trading verbal blows.
As sobs and hiccups wreaked the main character's frame, she turned to look into her unabashed boyfriend's eyes. Tears were flowing freely down her cheek as the music intensified.
"H-how could you, Adam?" The main character cried, wrapping her arms around her chest. "After everything we've been through together?"
But the boyfriend wasn't fazed. In fact, his face twisted into a scowl. "After everything, we've been through together?" he asked, mocking the main character's words. "After all of the lies, cold shoulders, the avoiding, and all the other men you've seen lately? Yes, I know all about those Tuesday 'Girls night out' with Frederick from the pet store. You're not pulling the wool over my eyes."
Mr. Evans's eyes went wide as he leaned forward, wholly engrossed in the storyline.
The main character gasped and overdramatically clutched her heart as if it were causing her physical pain. "Adam, you have it all wrong-"
"I have it all wrong, Louise? Well, what have I gotten wrong here? Please, explain to me why you've been coming home so late every night. Why you have the smell of men's cologne on your shirt. Explain to me why Jane saw you kissing Frederick through his storefront display window?!"
"I never kissed Freddie-"
"Oh, so it's Freddie now?" The boyfriend interrupted with a snarl.
The main character burst into tears and cried out, "Adam, listen to me! I'm-"
And then the power went out.
"NOOOO! Come on come on come on!" Mr. Evans yelled, furiously pressing buttons on the remote before dashing up behind the television itself to make sure everything was plugged in correctly. "What was Louise going to say? WHAT WAS SHE GOING TO SAY?"
"You know these types of shows are incredibly predictable?" Dania spoke, lowering her sunglasses on her nose as she glared at the darkened lamp she had been using as a reading light.
"So? That doesn't mean it's not entertaining." Mr. Evans shot back as he frantically adjusted the bunny antennas.
And suddenly, all motion stopped. Mr. Evans let his hands drop down to his sides, and Dania closed her book.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Two pairs of eyes darted to the partially opened door down the hallway.
"I warned you two that you couldn't spend your lives indoors," Mrs. Evans said in a sing-song voice as she emerged from the basement of the house, "Now, instead of wasting precious daylight, how about we all enjoy the break in the cold weather with a nice, relaxing walk down to the park?"
"But-" Mr. Evans started, only to be interrupted with a sudden glare from his wife. He clamped his mouth shut, then sighed deeply. "Alright Honey. Come on Tuni-dear, get your coat on."
Dania for her part didn't bother protesting. She merely slid her book onto the coffee table and rose to her feet. "So where are we going?"
"I was thinking about the one that stretches along the river, it may be a bit of a lengthy walk to get there, but exercise is good for the soul." Mrs. Evans replied and then she paused, "However if you don't think you can make it that far, we can always make it a quick walk around the neighborhood." she finished, turning to address her daughter.
"No, I'm feeling better than usual today, I think I can make it." Dania responded in her odd Scandinavian accent, "I'll go find my hat and mittens."
Dr. William Benson was practically vibrating with manic energy as he knocked on the door of one of the numerous, identical buildings in a quiet neighborhood close to downtown Cokeworth.
He didn't need to wait more than a few moments before the lady of the household graciously opened the door and ushered him, and his two assistants in.
And then it was just a simple matter of falling into a routine. Mrs. Evans would offer him some afternoon tea like a proper hostess, Dr. Benson would politely decline, seeing as this was not a recreational visit. Mrs. Evans would then lead Dr. Benson and his entourage into the dining room where his patient Petunia Evans sat ready and waiting at one end of the long mahogany table.
"Good afternoon, Miss. Evans. I hope you're feeling well today. Are you experiencing any symptoms right now?"
The woman nodded in greeting, as she always did, and then looked down at Dr. Benson's suitcase.
"I had a massive headache this morning when I woke up, and it took me a couple of hours before I could get out of bed. But after lunch, it got better, though I still needed my sunglasses indoors." His patient replied in her newly developed Danish accent.
Dr. Benson hummed and made a note to look over Miss Evans's dosages. "Well, it's good to hear that there are some improvements. How about we start today off with some memory exercises?"
She asked Mr. Evans to drive her to an art supply store one crisp autumn day when the whispers of ice and frost decorated the dying grass outside.
The older man readily agreed, and then a few days later on a chilly Saturday morning she drove her to a tiny, tucked away crafts store in the center of town.
Dania let herself run loose, collecting sketchbooks, writing journals, trace paper, pencils, ballpoint pens, highlighters, markers, erasers, and after a few minutes of consideration she threw in some watercolors and watercolor paper. Just for fun.
When they had returned Dania scurried up to her room, drew the curtains shut, turned on her ambient lights, pulled her sunglasses off and settled herself down at her freshly decluttered desk.
Dania dug into one of the shopping bags she had propped up against her chair and fished out one of the more expensive ballpoint pens as well as one of the blank writing journals.
And she began to write, tackling one of her first questions.
Harry Potter was left on Petunia Dursley's front door for a reason. There was no one in the family left alive to take him in according to Albus Dumbledore. Did that mean that the couple downstairs -the same couple who affectionately teased each other and spend their evenings quietly reading on the couch together- were going to die at some point in the next four years or so?
No, Dania could not let that happen. She will not let that happen.
Fictional universe or not, they took care of her while she was in the hospital, and then welcomed her into their home without a second thought. Sure they thought that she was their daughter, but Dania certainly didn't act like how she imagined a twenty-something-year-old Petunia to behave, and they must have noticed that.
At the very least, she owed them for their hospitality and warmth.
What could she remember about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Harry Potter's maternal Grandparents?
The answer was not much. Just that they were supposed to die normal muggle deaths.
That was such a cold and indifferent term.
Normal muggle deaths.
What constituted a normal Muggle death? Old age? Cancer? Shooting? Car accident? Natural Disaster?
JK Rowling's definition of 'normal muggle deaths' was so incredibly vague it could literally be anything.
Dania liked to think that she had a full proof plan. That she had accounted and made contingency plans for everything. She had read the Harry Potter books so many time, both in Danish and English, that she had more than enough forewarning to prepare for the upcoming storm.
But she had no idea how they were supposed to die.
All she knew was that sometime between now and 1981, Mr. and Mrs. Evans- the parents of Lily and Petunia Evans- the Grandparents of the famous Boy-Who-Lived, were going to die.
And it was going to be a normal Muggle death.
But that couldn't be right. Mr. and Mrs. Evans seemed to be like two perfectly healthy adult. In fact, neither of them had even hit the age of 50. Both of them were still in their late 40s.
Dania didn't want to admit it, but she was utterly shocked to learn that Mr. Evans had only recently celebrated his 48th birthday just ten days before Dania woke up in this world.
He looked so much older than 48. Mrs. Evans too, who was only 47. Both of them were younger than even Dania's real parents.
She mutely wondered if it was because of all of the stress she'd caused since waking up in their daughter's body.
But the point still stands. Mr. and Mrs. Evans couldn't die of old age in such a short amount of time.
And besides, what could cause not one but two people to killed off? Certainly not natural causes.
The Danish woman spun her pen around in her hand and brought it down against the paper to create a T chart. On one side she wrote down possible ways the Evans couple could perish within the next couple of years, and then on the other side, she wrote down what she could do to help them avoid those deaths.
She delegated about half an hour to this problem. Juggling the pros and cons of one solution over another, marking down half-baked thoughts in the margins, and creating diagrams next to each individual paragraph.
Dania glanced over her work and nodded in satisfaction.
Then she flipped to a fresh page and titled it: "Jobs."
She needed to get a job.
There was no getting around it, Dania couldn't rely on Mr. and Mrs. Evans forever. And given that there were currently no plans to get married or become a dependent in the future, Dania was going to have to figure out how to get a stable income.
Of course, she did have a BA in Economics so that should at least help her out in the 1970s job market to some extent. She could keep a lookout for jobs in the classified ads in the papers, maybe something as an Accountant or Financial Analyst…
...A beat passed.
Suddenly, Dania dropped her head against the table and forced herself to resist the urge to slam her head against the wooden surface repeatedly.
She had no proof that she'd earned an undergraduate degree. Dania had forgotten entirely that while her mind and consciousness may have transferred over to Petunia, Dania's credentials hadn't.
Meaning unless she could somehow figure out how to reverse this whole situation, four arduous years of hard work, sweat, and tears had all been for nothing.
All of that time, all of that energy she had spent studying, studying, and studying until her brain felt like mush. All of that and she had nothing to show for.
Dania wasn't even sure if Petunia Evans had a higher education. Meaning that her job prospects just got a whole lot narrower, and she probably wasn't even going to be able to make as much money as she could have.
Besides, Dania knew Petunia had a job as some sort of secretary or clerk. That's how she met Vernon after all, they worked at the same company.
But Dania's stint in the hospital and the enormous recovery time her doctors had delegated to her caused her to lose that job. But to be perfectly honest, Dania was relieved that this was the case even though that meant she was left unemployed.
If she'd been able to keep that job, she ran the risk of running into Vernon and given their recent track record together, a meeting between them at this point in time would most likely turn out explosive.
Yes, she was better off losing that job. Even if it meant she was going to have to start pouring through the classified section of the newspaper since the ease of the internet didn't exist yet.
Dania brainstormed a few ideas for the kind of jobs she could take.
Obviously, clerical work was on the list given that Petunia already had a history with that career. She put 'barista' down as well, given that she had experience working in cafes when she was still in Uni. After giving it a couple of moments of thought, Dania added 'retail' and 'waitress' too.
And then, very hesitantly, Dania wrote 'taxes' and circled it. A career in doing other people's taxes would undoubtedly pay well, she had ample knowledge of the Danish and American tax systems so the system employed by the United Kingdom should be easy to understand, and you didn't need to have a higher education to get such a job.
Dania inhaled and let out a deep, dog-like sigh, and rubbed her eyes.
She glanced over at the wall clock in her room. It was almost 3 o'clock. One of her psychologists were supposed to stop by today to test her Danish reading comprehension skills.
The Danish woman groaned at the thought and looked back down at her notes for a moment. In one motion, she stood up out of her chair, closed the journal, and slipped it behind her wardrobe for safe keeping.
Buddy, you're a boy, make a big noise
Playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday
You got mud on your face, you big disgrace
Kicking your can all over the place
Dania sang her heart out as she scrubbed the dish in her hand. She bobbed her head in time with the music as she rinsed the plate off, plopped it onto the drying rack and reached for one of the metal bowls sitting in the sink.
We will, we will rock you
We will, we will rock you
Today was one of her good days. She woke up with absolutely no problem, her light sensitivity issues weren't as bad that morning given that it was dark and raining outside and the light inside the house wasn't bothering her as much as it usually did.
Her headache was mild, and compared to some of the other days it was almost barely noticeable.
So, in an initiative to seize the day and not let her moment of good health go to waste, she volunteered to pick up some extra chores around the house. Mrs. Evans allowed her to do the dusting, and after Dania finished that she moved on to doing the dishes.
And to fuel her happy mood, Dania asked to borrow Mr. Evans's Cassette Deck, and while he was at work, she set it up in the living room. Now it was going through a playlist of all of the latest hits Mr. Evans had recorded from the radio in his free time.
Dania couldn't help but chuckle a little. She never thought she'd get to experience listening to Queen when they were still a relatively fresh, and newly formed band.
Buddy, you're a young man, hard man
Shouting in the street, gonna take on the world someday
You got blood on your face, you big disgrace
Waving your banner all over the place
"Petunia!" Mrs. Evans called out suddenly from the other side of the house.
Dania could hear the sounds of the older woman's feet pounding on the creaky wooden floors of the stairs before she could even turn the water off.
"Yes?" Dania answered as she wiped her hands on her apron and turned around to meet the excited gaze of Mrs. Evans.
"Oh Tuni-dear, I have some great news!" Mrs. Evans practically squealed as she waved something in her hand.
Dania's eyes drifted over to Mrs. Evans's waving appendage. The Dane let a small smile grace her face. "Well? Are you going to tell me, or are you just going to leave me here to wonder?" she said in amusement.
"Look, look! You're sister just sent us an owl! She's going to be coming home for the holidays, and she'll be bringing her new boyfriend too!"
Dania's mind went completely blank, and she could only stare as Mrs. Evans began waltzing around the kitchen, dancing to the beat of the music holding the letter high in the air for the world to see.
We will, we will rock you
We will, we will rock you
Author's Note:
This chapter was written while listening to 100 Bad Days by AJR and We Will Rock You by Queen.
The song We Will Rock You by Queen is used in a portions of this chapter. Obviously, I do not own the song and I am making no profit off of this fanfiction therefore I am not making a profit off of the use of this song in this fic.
Hey everyone, I'm a couple days late with this chapter, (I did warn you guys that it may be late, I had a really long week.) But, hey this chapter is a little bit longer than the last one by about 500 words so does that count as made up for? Anyway, Next chapter will be up on some time either Saturday or Sunday. I'm not exactly sure when because I am officially out of prewritten material and historically speaking when I run out of prewritten material, updates get super random. But I'm going to try to stick to the schedule that I have managed to establish here.
Quick shout out to thedarksun_writes on AO3 for helping me out with the Danish back in Chapter 2, I have now corrected the mistakes they pointed out.
Thank you everyone who reviewed and see you all next week!
~Lost-In-The-Muse