It was many years ago at a small cafe. Young Petunia Dursley sat dressed in her pretty clothes, chatting to a friend's aunt that unexpectedly invited her out for some morning tea. It was her close friend Prue's aunt whom Petunia had met a few times before when she took her and some other girls out for tea so she had said yes to the familiar face.

"I have a friend of a friend, Vernon Dursley. Handsome man, budding career, very normal, just missing a wife at the moment. Now I heard that you were single and of course it's up to you if you want me to arrange anything, but if you're looking for someone and unsure of who to look for..." Aunt Evita said with a grand sweep of the tea cup in her right hand as part of her gestures.

Petunia was about to say yes, but unfortunately the tea was rather hot and she almost burnt herself on it. She bit her lip to avoid yelping out in pain and soon the moment to say something had passed.

"There's also Norman Dursley, the most normal man you will ever meet-" Aunt Evita's voice was full of fond affection. With her first booming 'call me Evita' and wide hugs she was an emotive person from day one, and the people whom she liked she could create sparkles around with her fond descriptions. Petunia found herself instantly becoming intrigued.

It was because, Petunia picked up somewhere, on the slightest hint that Aunt Evita was ever so fond of Norman Dursley slightly more than Vernon, so many people tried to be unique or individual these days, but sometimes normalcy was still good. But it was also because of...well she shouldn't say, but if you had Lily for a sister, well not Lily herself, there was nothing wrong with her, but what...what had gotten ahold of her, this...witch thing, like a villain out of a kid's show, this...magic...

Petunia would do with normalcy. Lots of it. So thick one wouldn't even think about abnormal things from being steeped in such a normal life from head to toe.

"What's Norman Dursley's number?" asked Petunia.

Aunt Evita blinked. "Well that was sudden, don't you have any more questions about him? I mean, I suppose he's always had a bit of a charm on him..." she looked confused. Aunt Evita was the straightforward type of person, rarely wrong about anyone. People weren't confusing to her, ever. But now, she was feeling the slightest hint of something uncomfortable buzzing in the air she couldn't quite put her finger on.

She peered at Petunia, "you're a very normal girl actually," she said with an intake of breath, "typing course. Office clerk job. Posh and well-do, keeping with good manners. Somehow Prue missed telling me what an accomplished young lady you were, it was always girly story about this or that you and the clique got up to at school. She didn't touch on the individual...yes that'll be it. A perfectly normal high-status couple..."

Petunia smiled but inside she wasn't sure simply being a normal high-status couple was where she would take her comfort with that relationship.

She was introduced to him. If Petunia thought she knew normal Norman took it to a whole new level. He was mostly on time for everything, but seemingly both early or late at even intervals the few times he wasn't. He was mostly in a neutral mood, but sometimes cheerful or grumpy at again, almost even intervals. He was a little above average in most things, but never really doing well enough anywhere to draw attention to himself, and also never doing badly enough to draw attention to himself. He had the average amount of friends and a handful of enemies, but otherwise, seemed perfectly normal. Dependable, blend in the shadows, you wouldn't really notice him.

He was a little above average in charm and bought Petunia to a wonderful restaurant by the water for their first date, topped of with gifts already. Their next dates were to an art gallery, a museum, he had a simple easygoing charm and a predictable routine and Petunia found herself falling for him. He was the very sort of strong man she'd dreamed about.

A few years later and they had moved in together, gotten engaged after he'd popped the big question, and were now the envy of their smalltown gossip circles, as they lived in their cozy well-do home and tended to their careers and high class society. Enjoying their lives for a few more years before the arrival of any kids.

"Going to work now, love you," he said before kissing her on the cheek. The monthly flowers he always bought for Petunia sat staring at her from the centre of the table. His polished plate reflecting the normalcy of the kitchen. He'd insisted they buy a house when it was only the engagement that they had, and a rather big one with more money than Petunia thought he'd owned. His work was the manager of a door knob company, perfectly ordinary and normal, but for being one of the managers, and a rather average one at that, he really ought not to have earned enough to buy this house...

It was one of the things about him that didn't really quite match up. Though Petunia didn't question him for she thought perhaps if he received help from a relative or something he might not like to mention it. Still...a tiny voice inside of her was screaming that not all was as it seemed and suddenly a part of her wished she just picked Vernon Dursley, who although seemed normal was still a little out there in terms of his appearance and well...

"Love you too," she said.

He then left and Petunia got to washing the dishes. Since she cooked for him and she wanted to be a good wife she kept track of how much he ate, and at what quantity he seemed the most happier at. So she was slowly adjusting the amount she put on his plate to be the optimal amount. Doing this she did notice he seemed happier after meals, and also that he ate almost exactly the same amount every single day, or preferred to, except on Tuesdays when he ate one extra sausage in the morning. This had happened for three Tuesdays in a row.

Today was a Tuesday.

So now, four.

Petunia looked to him sometimes, a question inside her, wanting to see if he acted differently on Tuesdays, was there a big day at work on Tuesday? But if there was he never gave any indication of it. His face was perfectly still, emotion couldn't be wringed out of his face even if she tried, and she had the feeling that if she asked him about it, he would question her sanity as well.

Hold on...Tuesday...big day at work? Suddenly a thought shot through her head. He had mentioned his schedule a while back when they first moved in, he had a day of, it was on a ... Tuesday?

She scrambled through some of the sheets on the kitchen table, suddenly becoming aware of the grandfather clock ticking in the corridor. Oh, it was such a mess! She would have to be careful to scramble it back together so it didn't look like the original pile had been moved. But there it was...the sheet of paper she had been looking for, a small schedule scribbled on a weathered torn of notepad that really should be thrown away.

Tuesdays were his day of.

A million questions were popping of inside her head. Could he have changed his day of at work? Perhaps he had, she hadn't exactly asked him any questions about work recently because everything seemed so normal...

Quickly, Petunia slipped on her boots, grabbed her coat and handbag, she always had a packed one to go. The door opened silently, Petunia quickly stepped out and then shut it as silently as possible, pressing close to the flowers in the pot. It was useless, the trunk of the flowers couldn't possibly hide her. If anyone was looking they'd spot a woman behind them fairly quickly, but Petunia was able to see that her fiancee Norman, had almost completely left the street. He was just at the other end, waiting for the light to turn red.

She slipped to the side of the pavement, sticking close to the line of houses, and trotted after him. Curiosity growing inside of her.

She didn't like this. This was abnormal. Non-normal. She didn't want to live this kind of life when she married him but...

She didn't even like the fact that she had a packed handbag to go. But when she used to live in the same house as Lily a part of her was terrified of Lily's magic after she began Hogwarts, or Severus', and she always kept a bit of a packed trunk just in case she wanted to run away, sleep at a friend's house, or just...just what if? What if magic blew up their house or anything? It was more of a teenage escapist fantasy, but nonetheless the habit of keeping a packed handbag had stuck to her.

It was with a sad bit of realisation she thought over this. So even her habits weren't so normal afterall?

Her hatred of Lily burned brighter. Stewing over how she fucked everything up in her life. But Petunia tried to keep her composure and she followed the car down the left turn at the intersection, and steadily saw it reach far less industrial areas of the neighbourhood. Until the houses turned to mostly empty horizons, where she could see some factories in the next town over in the distance, spewing their gloomy purple fumes into the air. Powerlines and overlapping hills in the distance. Somewhere through the foggy mist that occurred during the daytime of the factory's running, there was an old (polluted for the most part) river that Petunia and Lily used to play near as a kid.

Petunia thought it was enchanting at first, especially as there were willow trees by the river. But then they met Severus and Petunia quickly realised everything to do with that river, that part of town, possibly her life, was rotten. A part of her had always wanted to pack up and completely move away from this neighbourhood but yet it never happened.

"No. This can't be it. Where is he going?" Petunia found her heart leaping in her chest as she saw the car drive of the last road, just at a large curve where one could do a U-turn at the dead end street, and the wheels of the car struggle up the grassy banks bordering a...one of the twisty windy patches of woods around the river and wastelands.

Petunia paused.

Disgusting. Tramp. Hiking. Camper. All low-class activities she didn't like very much. Maybe he has a hidden hobby. Maybe it's something he used to do as a kid. Maybe he's even a serial killer...

He couldn't be. He had been very normal, perfectly safe, fine. She'd loved him. Trusted him. And part of Petunia thought that he loved her as well...when they got engaged he told her that she was the most normal women he had met and that was what he loved the most about her. There was a sparkle in his gaze as he said it, that made her think he wasn't lying. It was real.

No, even though she had no evidence yet, a part of her just knew deep down he loved her. She loved him. He couldn't be a serial killer. That wasn't her husband to be.

But yet...something was going on.

Do you want to know?

Youalreadywentsofaranyway. YoucouldveturnedyourbackonmagicagesagowhenLilywasawitch.

Yousometimeswatchherfascinated. Tryingtounderstandwhatshedoes.

Youarealreadyaninvestigatorofpracticallyeverythinginyourlifethatdoesntmakesenseanyway.

Quickly, she dipped into the trees herself and followed their curve around the edge, following the trail of the car.

After several hundred yards the car stopped. The door opened.

Petunia stayed behind the tree. Her body burning, her chest aching, a tight knot everywhere in her torso.

Her fiancee got out of the car, it was so tucked in beneath the treeline it was hard to spot if it weren't for her angle and the fact that she had found a smooth metallic patch to keep her eye on throughout the whole drive.

Her fiancee car was dark green. A slightly odd colour she had thought when he'd first bought it, but the darkness of it (and the fact that dark blue was an equally popular car colour) made her not think too much. He had two cars, one was the large grey one he drove to work regularly. The second was this...dark green one. He bought it because he had said it was sleekier and everyone needed at least one show-off car. She had accepted it without question then.

Petunia found herself following after him. Her footsteps light on the grass. Tall trees blocked her view.

There were some rustlings of shrubs. The ghastly sound of nature and birds all around her. Could nature sound ghastly? It certainly could in the wrong situation.

She followed where she thought he had gone and...

He was standing atop a manhole cover. Possible drainage pipe. Just standing there. His back towards her.

Then suddenly, the cover seemed to open up from underneath him. He fell through it like a bullet and then he was gone.

Petunia wanted to scream but she couldn't.

Because she was too scared to turn her back on him in case he came back and found her, she began walking backwards through the forest and only when she'd walked maybe fifty yards did she fully turn her back on him and run.

When she reached her home the first thing she did was make the kitchen look normal, then head to the bathroom to wash her sweat-laden dripping hair, and try to plaster on a fake smile on her face again before he came home.

Was he a wizard? Did that look like magic? Did she marry a wizard? Was that why he pretended to be as normal as possible? What was down there? Did she want to know? Get herself involved?

You know the truth about this reality you live in far more than anyone else. You know about magic, your sister was magic...

You could've completely blocked it out and you did, out of disgust for your sister, but you also eavesdropped rather eagerly, curious...throughout these bitter jealous years of your teenage life.

It would be a shame if you turned your back on this secret. Would you be able to die knowing you already know one major secret about the world and not another more? Just find out what this is all about...then you can die in peace. He is your fiancee afterall...investigate. Find out the truth about him...

"Yeah you know. I'm the type of person. To choose to find out the truth. Because I can," Petunia stared at herself solemnly in the bathroom mirror after she redressed.

She had known the secret of magic. She will uncover this secret as well. It felt like something she had to do.

That evening however, her fiancee had a slight surprise for her. He came home very early, two hours early, and had bought a big bunch of flowers.

"I can help cook dinner tonight," he said with a kiss on her cheek.

"Oh god, what's the occasion?" asked Petunia. It was the first time he broke his schedule of an otherwise mundane life.

"I got a question for you," Norman suddenly said very decisively, "when you ask me questions. Do you want the truth or a nice answer?"

Petunia paused. She could tell he was offering her the choice to turn a blind eye to everything. In fact, she was almost positive he knew she had followed him there that day. And she could say nothing much, thank him for the flowers and resume life as normal but...

"I usually feel better knowing the truth. Even if it's bitter," she said.

"Right. I saw you today following me. The moment you left the house actually," he said, "because you usually turn of the kitchen lamp after I leave since you only turned it on to give the house more lighting for my breakfasts. I didn't see the light go out, so I watched the house for a little while in my rearview mirror. When I saw you come out, I knew you were following me and I...truth is I decided to test you today. To give you the chance to uncover my...I'm sure you're curious."

He paused, as if gauging her reaction.

Petunia used to gossip a lot with her friends so she could pull a pokerface in the eye of extremely tantalising gossip to hear the end of it if she wanted to.

"Tell me the truth about your...abnormality," said Petunia.

"I'm part of an organisation. Called the U.F.O - Unity of Finding Organisations. We're a bunch of humans who suspect the world isn't as it seems and that groups of human beings have deviated from the norm and isolated themselves in their communities, making it hard for us original humans to find them. But this could get dangerous, it's not good to have too many secret societies milling around, without knowledge of them. They may live happily now but what if one day they decide to hurt us? And we have zero knowledge of them? The society is dedicated to finding them. We have several different organisations we have been tracking for some time, with our guesses to when they separated themselves from us original humans. I'm one of the agents there," he said.

"Is this like...the CIA?" asked Petunia, who had seen movies about that sort of thing.

"Unlike the FBI or the CIA, the government doesn't care about us because we're don't serve England's interests directly. Instead we exist more as a...hobby group taken to the maximum I'd say. But we just have the funding to do what we do. Some of our members are...very wealthy, don't ask me how they got their wealth, they keep that secret buried deep, but we have deep pockets and that allows us to keep our organisation running. We call ourselves the U.F.O so if we were found by others we can easily make it out to be that we're a UFO finder, which is something the public finds easier to accept. Rather than the idea of entire communities of people living right beneath our noses that have separated themselves from us centuries ago. That is harder for the public to accept," he said.

"Is the U.F.O. just in England?" asked Petunia.

"Yes, but there are similar groups in America and some other countries. If there's a major discovery we will share it with them and so on. But mostly we already have much of the same ideas about the different groups," he said.

"How did you join?" asked Petunia, "so is this...whole normal thing a facade? To hide...all of it?"

"Sometimes the most normal people are the ones with the most to hide," Norman said, "my real name is Norman though. I actually think it's a bit of a joke that my life is so...abnormal despite being called Norman."

"No," said Petunia all of a sudden, "I...I get it. I...some part of me has always wanted adventure...something new in my life. And I'm fairly ordinary," she said. It wasn't a lie. A deep part of her wanted to be magical and still did.

It was also in the heat of that moment that Petunia decided to not tell Norman about Lily, and magic.

She had the strong idea witches and wizards were probably investigated under U.F.O., but somehow she didn't want to sell out her sister or the magical community. She could imagine U.F.O. wanting to visit with all sorts of instruments and probes, cameras, and she had the vague sense the witches and wizards wouldn't like that. Also, she wasn't sure if the U.F.O. would try to find some way to profit of them or not, lots of people lied and pretended they were looking for something rare or extinct for some other reason but then turned around to profit of them later on. She couldn't rule it out. In any case, it didn't sound like Norman was particularly on anyone's trail, possibly there would never be a breakthrough discovery in her lifetime, so she didn't have to worry about the U.F.O. posing any real threats there.

She could be content she uncovered the mystery of her fiancee and also leave the magical world of her childhood untouched. Petunia did get the sense that some of the witches and wizards were prim and proper people in their world, wealthy too, judging from Lily's complaints, and she wished to do them no harm. Petunia was jealous and wanted magic for her own, but she wasn't bothered to personally bring about unhappiness to every magical person.

"Do you want to join...?" he asked.

"I have no reason to," Petunia said (she did not think the organisation had advanced to the point of being able to make her a witch so it was pointless in her opinion). "I'm just happy I know you a little deeper. How...how did you join?"

"The U.F.O. leaves clues to it's entrance test. I cracked the code and found out. I was...always good with these sort of things but I used to hide it when I was younger. Didn't want anyone to think I was strange and all of that. After I cracked the code and ended up there, they asked me if I wanted to join them, that's offered to anyone who can crack the code and make it to their headquarters. I said yes and...it honestly keeps me going. It's the most interesting thing in my life. But I don't want anyone giving me trouble over it so I doubled down on the normal thing outside," he said, "I am a normal person. Just...with a little secret pleasure."

"Well. I shall have to feel like my life's adventure is being engaged to a...normal man with a tiny bit of abnormality then," said Petunia. Although since she wasn't sure there was anything more there that interested her she didn't particularly ask any questions. In fact, she may even have more answers about witches and wizards and their community than the organisation did in some ways.

Nonetheless, Petunia felt like she had uncovered something quite serious that day. Up until then she always felt a bit inferior to witches and wizards, but it felt good knowing that muggles were onto them as well, they had that organisation...she liked muggles a whole lot more after that.

Petunia later married Norman Dursley, Vernon's elder brother of 2 years. They had one son whom they called Dudley Dursley and when Harry came to live with them, they had no choice but to accept the boy. Norman immediately had suspicions about Harry and Lily, but he seemed to think that Lily had run of with some gypsies, or she had attempted to live of the grid, and he didn't seem to suspect Petunia's sister was magical. Petunia didn't know whether to tell him or not. In the end, she settled on silence.

It was still a very happy marriage however, and a cozy family, though Dudley was still the apple of her eye whereas her jealousy of her sister flared everytime she saw Harry.

Author's Note: Please review, I love reading them :)