"It's a new game that we can all play together, even Daddy and Uncle Sev when they're not here. It's called Secret Keeper." For some reason, Severus had looked particularly pained when Petunia proposed that name, but he neither explained himself nor proposed anything better, so the name stuck. "Do you boys know what a secret is?"

Dudley nodded enthusiastically. "Uncle Sev told us when we played Vocabary. A secret is a thing that only you know."

"I didn't know secret was a game, too," Harry said excitedly.

"Regular secrets aren't games. They can be very serious, in fact, but Mummy figured out how to turn it into a game. The way it works is very similar to Hide-and-Go Seek, but you're hiding secrets instead of yourself. Daddy is going to be 'it' first, and Uncle Sev is going to tell each of us a secret to keep from Daddy."

"How's Daddy s'posed to look for secrets?" Dudly asked.

"By asking people. That's why you can't tell anybody your secret. Not even Piers and Robin. Not even Ms. Figg. Anyone who isn't playing the game has no reason to keep the secret and will go ahead and tell it."

"Oh. But we can tell you?"

"Well, there's nothing in the rules that say I can't just tell Daddy your secret too..." Petunia said suggestively, but then she smiled. "But I promise I won't tell any secret you little munchkins might confide in me." It was a fine line to walk, teaching the boys to keep secrets but also making sure they didn't learn to keep secrets from all the adults in their life. Pitting Vernon and Severus against the boys was an unfortunate necessity to make the game mechanics work, since they couldn't exactly bring any other adults in on the scheme without raising questions. They decided Petunia at least must remain fully trustworthy and in the boys' confidence, however. It wouldn't do for them to learn to keep secrets from everyone.

Both boys smiled up at her. Harry exclaimed, "And we can always tell Dahlia, because she can't talk yet to tell the secret to anybody!"

"There is that. As to whether you can tell eachother, well, I'll leave that up to you, but it is a competition. The more people who know a secret, the more likely it is to get out."

Harry took this in and turned to Dudley. "I promise I won't tell your secret."

"I promise, too," Dudley agreed instantly. "This is going to be easy!"

"That depends on how juicy the secret is," Petunia informed them.

"Juicy?"

"The best secrets are like gossip: they're so exciting, you want to share them. Uncle Sev is going to try to come up with the most exciting secrets he can think of. But, if you manage to keep your secrets for three days, you each get a treat."

"Yay!" Dudley enthused.

"Do you get a treat for your secret, too?" Harry asked.

"Of course. We all get treats. But if we can't keep the secrets, then Daddy and Uncle Sev get the treats instead."

Severus Snape was not head of Slytherin House for nothing, Petunia reflected when the boys came home from the park and almost immediately divulged their secrets to both her and Arabella. Severus had not done the obvious thing and told Harry to keep the talking snake secret right away. Instead, he purchased several exotic new stuffed animals for them, including a toy snake, in order to misdirect Arabella should Harry bring up the talking snake incident. And then he told both boys something far more significant and distracting: he told them anecdotes about Harry's parents.

"Uncle Sev said my Daddy had three best friends in school. And they all used to sneak out of bed at night, even though there was a rule they had to stay in bed!" Harry announced, looking both delighted and mildly scandalized at the thought of breaking curfew.

"Uncle Sev told me that Aunt Lily got to play Mary in the Christmas play," Dudley said.

Harry gasped. "She did?"

"She did," Petunia confirmed.

"What did he tell you?" Dudley demanded.

Petunia raised her eyebrows. "It's a secret, between me, Uncle Sev, and Dahlia, I'm afraid."

Harry was the first to tell Vernon the exciting stories about his parents, completely forgetting that Uncle Vernon was the one person he really wasn't supposed to tell. He did apologize to Dudley afterwards and gave his cousin some of his dessert that night. They both looked on enviously at the decadent cupcake Vernon presented to Petunia as her reward later that week, however. They begged her to tell her secret now that the contest was over, but she merely tsked and said she was holding out for the reward for holding her secret the longest.

The next morning, Vernon provided the secrets. He told Dudley that he had almost lost Petunia's engagement ring when he picked it up from the jeweler in London and left his briefcase on the Tube train. He enlisted the help of a security guard to radio ahead to the next station, where a janitor saved the day. She had never heard the story before and had to laugh when Dudley regaled her with it the next day. It did explain Vernon's sudden aversion to public transportation after they got married. As for Harry, Vernon took his cue from Severus and related the story of the one time Vernon had met James Potter, although he managed to make the food fight at dinner party sound humorous rather than disastrous. Neither of the boys remembered to keep these secrets from Severus either, and Petunia could see Sev fighting to contain his disdain at the James Potter anecdote.

Petunia requested to read Arabella's next report for Dumbledore. She didn't always, having learned to trust and like the older woman, but she never forgot the origins of their relationship and made a point to "check in" fairly regularly to ensure Arabella was keeping to the restrictions they had agreed upon. Arabella's update for Dumbledore contained nothing about talking snakes, nor any commentary about the Secret Keeper game, fortunately. It did mention that Arabella was spending far more time with the Dursleys as a babysitter now, as "Three young children seem frankly overwhelming for only two parents to handle. I don't know how the Weasleys manage seven, I really don't."

Petunia blushed to read that assessment, but on the walk home with Dahlia in the pram, she couldn't say it was wrong. There was no way around it: she and Vernon were outnumbered. And when Arabella and Severus were gone for the day, their absence was felt. Severus was doing a wonderful job distracting the boys throughout the day, but when he was gone, the boys clamored for her attention. Because they missed her, missed being the center of her life, a position now occupied by a baby sister. They adored Dahlia of course, never expressed otherwise, but she could see signs of stress in the way they clung to her each night as she put them to bed.

It used to be that Vernon could manage bedtime with ease. Now he might take them upstairs and get them bathed and dressed for bed, even read a bedtime story, but Petunia was always required to sing them to sleep. If she didn't, there were complaints that "I can't sleep without a song" and "Daddy's voice is no good." And if Vernon tried to be firm and say she was busy, tears. It was easier to give in, even though they both knew they probably shouldn't indulge the boys every time.

At least it was a reliable break from infant-holding...

Good lord, what an awful thought. She winced to herself and beamed down at her watching daughter as a silent apology.

But no, Petunia had to be honest to herself. She was tired. She loved her boys and she loved her sweet baby girl, but it was exhausting being a breastfeeding mother of three. She longed for the days of more than two hours of consolidated sleep. Thank God for Arabella and Severus, or Petunia's normally scrupulously tidy house would be more of a shambles than it already was. She didn't know what she would do when Sev was back at Hogwarts in a few short months. Though she supposed Harry and Dudley would be in school too. She frowned as she wheeled the pram into the house and had to kick a few of Dudley's toys out of the way.

Dudley's head poked out into the hall, and her little boy's face burst into a wide smile. "Mummy! You're back!" He scampered forwards to hug her leg, Harry close behind. Severus emerged next, observing quietly from the entrance to the kitchen. He had offered to cook dinner today, claiming if nothing else to be an excellent follower of recipes.

She smiled down at her boys and listened to their excited chatter about their day.

It would work out. Surely, if the Polkisses could manage three children, if this Weasley family Arabella wrote about could manage seven, well, Petunia and Vernon Dursley would learn to do it too.

Author's note: one of my mother's acquaintances said the third child is the hardest, because that's the first time the parents are outnumbered. They went on to claim the fourth or fifth child really isn't difficult by comparison. I won't weigh in as to whether I think that's correct. Updates well continue to be sporadic.