Chapter Text
There’s something strange about Petunia Evans, and everyone knows it. She is six and the kids at school talk about her in the hallways, call her freak and witch. And they’re right, of course. Petunia is a freak. When she whispers to Catherine Harding about Maisie Jones, the entire class can hear Petunia’s voice in their ear. Nobody ever wants to play with her on the playground; she’s too horse-faced, too creepy, too different. She hates them and hates herself and she desperately wants, no, needs to be normal.
Lily is a freak, too. But Lily doesn’t care, and doesn't try to hide it. She loves her oddness, calls it magic. When Petunia refuses to do strange things with her, things that their mother forbids them from doing in public, Lily befriends Severus Snape. He’s the only other person like them that the girls know, and Lily loves him for it.
Petunia despises him, his greasy hair and parlour tricks. He is proof of every one of her fears - that people with unnatural powers are scary and lonely and gross. But Lily refuses to leave him alone.
Of course, this means Petunia is forced to endure her share of loneliness. It's a better alternative, she tells herself, to the company of a Snape. But locked away in her room on Saturdays, she can't pretend that she doesn't miss her sister.
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Petunia hates herself for three years, and then she is eleven and Professor Minerva McGonagall shows up on the Evans’ doorstep. She holds out a letter between primly manicured nails, the brim of her tall hat casting a shadow over Lily's awed smile, and suddenly Petunia Evans is not a freak; she’s special, she’s better than. She is, most importantly, a perfectly normal girl - at least, in some circles.
(Years later, Lily Evans will come to love Minerva McGonagall like an aunt, even if Transfiguration is her most difficult subject. She will chat with Professor McGonagall after class, bicker with James Potter over tea and biscuits in her office, fight beside her through long nights, and laugh with her at the young Potters' wedding. Minerva will mourn Lily as she would a family member. But Petunia will hate her always; first because of all the homework and then, years later, because McGonagall is the last living person to have known the wide-eyed new witch Petunia was when they first met.)
Professor McGonagall takes Petunia to Diagon Alley and Petunia pretends to be unimpressed, because she doesn’t want to let anyone know that she’s new to this world - because she wants, more than anything else, to be normal - but secretly she’s enthralled by the moving bricks and the singing teakettles and the long robes and the magic of it all.
She gets a wand from Olivander’s (13 inches, yew and fairy wing, just as long and bony and stiff as Petunia herself). She tries on Hogwarts robes until she finds the ones that fit just right, and eagerly chats with the other girl there - Narcissa Black, also going into her first year. Petunia is desperate for a friend, and Narcissa is the perfect candidate: she’s pretty and clearly well-off. And, most importantly, she knows absolutely everything about Hogwarts. Halfway through their meeting, Narcissa asks for her name with furrowed brows.
“Evans…You’re not a mud- a muggle, are you?”
Petunia can tell, from the pitch of Narcissa’s high voice, that this is important - and so she rushes out an emphatic “Of course not,” completely unaware of what she’s denying. But it must have been the right answer, because from that point on Narcissa is much more relaxed. They chat for a bit longer before Narcissa is pulled away by her older sister, a beautiful girl who looks much older than either of them.
Professor McGonagall half drags Petunia into the Shoppe of Pets and Familiars as Petunia complains shrilly - "But I saw rats in there, and a toad, honestly, Professor, if they let those beasts into Hogwarts...”
Petunia buys herself the sixth most expensive owl there is, a great big brown thing that nips her whenever she tries to pet it. She names it Wigbert and never thinks of it without annoyance.
As soon as Petunia gets home she rips into her schoolbooks, shoving aside her discomfort over words like frogspawn and toadstool and focusing on her mounting excitement over learning how to do chores with a flick of her wand, turn corduroy into silk, conjure diamonds from thin air. She mouths spells at night, memorizes famous names from wizarding history.
She will not look stupid at Hogwarts.
Getting on the train to school is the best and worst moment of Petunia’s young life. She hugs her family tight and tries to blink back her tears. She can’t start Hogwarts looking ridiculous, and she always looks ridiculous when she cries. She isn’t like Lily, whose big green eyes make her look like a girl out of a film. But as the Hogwarts Express pulls away from the station, her misery rapidly morphs into excitement. She changes into her robes immediately, sitting in a compartment alone without even minding; sparks whizz down the hall outside of her compartment, a wonderfully round woman comes by with a cart full of candies that change colors, and Petunia is far too thrilled to be lonely.
And then she’s at Hogwarts. Really, truly there. She watches the castle rise above the lake and doesn’t even try to hide her awe. It gleams through the night, all bright windows and stone turrets just waiting for her to claim them for herself, and Petunia feels so beautifully special.
Professor McGonagall leads them into the Great Hall and Petunia is struck with the sudden fear that none of this is real - that it’s too wonderful to be true. But she pinches herself and bites her lip until she can taste blood and it’s all still there. It’s all still magic.
Petunia is sorted into Slytherin House and she is so excited. The odd talking hat says that one finds a family within their house, and Petunia is filled with visions of acceptance, of normalcy, of fitting in. But on that first night in her new dorm, the girls start talking about their parents - wizengabmutts and department heads of something or other, all with unfamiliar names stated as if she should know them without question. When Petunia proudly states that her father is a high-ranking man at a bank, the other girls fall silent. They don’t even have to tease her - Petunia sees the disgust in their eyes. She’s a freak once more.
But she doesn’t have to be, not here. She shuts up about banks and her parents. She forces her expression into one of boredom at the sight of magic and doesn’t gawk up at the ceiling of the Great Hall. She manages to carefully befriend Narcissa Black. She sneers at muggleborns in the halls and calls them mudbloods behind closed doors, her voice poisonous and shrill.
Mudblood. Petunia can always feel the word for ages after she says it, like lead on her tongue. The first time she snickers it to Cissy Black it feels as if her teeth are rotting and her gums are boiling - as if it's actually toxic. But she pretends she doesn’t notice the smoke of their vocabulary hanging in the air of her dorm room, imitating sixth-year Bellatrix Black’s cold laughter instead.
And then, one day, she lies. Narcissa is asking about her parents again and she just can’t take it. She spins a story about her foolish, selfish mother, who abandoned the Wizarding world. Petunia rails against this fictional Mum until she half believes herself as she says, "Threw away her whole life for a muggle, can you believe it? And my life, too, the selfish hag. Won’t even tell me what family she abandoned - just that she was some sort of pureblood. Lily doesn’t even know, of course, Mother only told me because I’m the eldest. She was just so sorry, she couldn’t keep the secret anymore."
It’s to be normal, at first, that's all. To be accepted by the girls she eats and sleeps and lives with. But there are whispers of a war coming for the wizarding world, of the simmering tension between the old families and the newly magical finally managing to boil over. Bellatrix Black tells anyone who will listen that she’s joining up as soon as possible. The common room is filled with news of mudbloods imperiod, tortured, murdered. The bolder Slytherins shoot jinxes after muggleborns and blood traitors in the halls, and Petunia can’t help but see how the purebloods and better-off half-bloods in the halls turn a blind eye. She's grateful to herself for having the sense to lie. If they knew what she was, she would never be safe.
Petunia makes it through the year. She never gets back the magic of the first night, but. But. She is normal now, isn’t she? She’s accepted, and isn’t that worth any cost.
She returns home for the holidays and is utterly ashamed of her parents, her clothes, her house, her town. She talks to Lily about how much better Hogwarts is, really, these muggles might as well be cavepeople. Lily is excited but confused, too, because she won't watch their favorite programs on the telly anymore. All of the sudden Tuney won’t look their parents in the eyes.
Petunia sends letters to her friends by owl and pretends not to care about what the neighbors might think. She complains about muggles to Cissy, who responds with horrified concern. I don’t know how you can bear it, Cissy writes, Father says that you might be able to visit us at Christmas.
Petunia has another year of pretending, and then she is going into her third year and Lily gets the visit that they’ve all known was coming. Petunia goes with her sister and parents and Professor McGonagall to Diagon Alley, keeps her head down and cringes at her family’s blatant and ecstatic curiosity. Lily insists on getting a barn owl, even though Petunia says that it’s too common, and names him Merlin.
Lily’s wand is 10¼ inches, Willow and Dragon Heartstring.
“Rare,” says Olivander, peering down at Lily with his ancient eyes, “Good for charms, and swishy,” and leaves it at that.
Of course Lily would get the special wand.
Petunia has nightmares all summer of her little sister sobbing, bleeding and covered in mud. In the worst dreams, she rips Lily’s skin from off of her back. There’s a flash of green and a baby crying and Lily’s eyes wide and unseeing.
As the fall approaches, she corners Lily and tries to explain - to warn her, to protect her.
“Listen,” she starts, already uneasy, “The people at Hogwarts don’t…they won’t understand…”
But Lily is so eager, so excited, and all Petunia can manage is a pathetic, “Don’t talk about Mum and Dad too much, alright?”
And then summer is over and Petunia’s little sister is boarding the Hogwarts Express with her. Lily is clearly bewildered by the pityingly condescending looks she receives from Petunia’s friends, and angry that Petunia won’t sit with Severus Snape. She flounces off to find him, and Lilith Yaxley titters “Goodness, she's gone native, hasn't she?”
Lily is sorted into Gryffindor. She swivels her head to grin ecstatically at Petunia before rushing to her table. Narcissa tsks somewhat sympathetically, the devastatingly handsome Lucius Malfoy quirks a disdainful eyebrow down the table, and Petunia wants to shrivel up and die.
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It becomes rapidly apparent that Lily is more talented than Petunia in almost every subject. She’s a master at potions, a genius in DADA, a natural at charms. Petunia has her beat in only two classes: divination and magical history. She isn’t sure that she honestly believes in divination, but she’s always been excellent at reading people. She dumps out her teacup and curls her lips into a sneer; tells Abigail White that the plant her mother bought her will wither, tells Dymphna Diggle that Solomon Goyle is going to dump her, and pretends not to notice that Abigail has a T in Herbology or that Solomon has been mooning after Elizabeth Abbot.
History of Magic, of course, takes rather a bit more effort - but Petunia is the only student to study beyond their course material. She doesn't want to miss a moment of the knowledge that her housemates have been taught from birth.
But even with those special successes, even with all her careful efforts to assimilate, Petunia is once again the perfect Lily Evans’ horse-faced older sister. Lily makes fast friends with the girls in her house, even if she’s always trying to chat with Petunia across the Great Hall. Lily writes long letters home and argues loudly with the Slytherin boys who dare to target muggleborns. She scoffs at James Potter’s advances - James Potter, one of the wealthiest purebloods in England - and it doesn't dissuade him in the least.
Lily takes Hogwarts by storm. Lily, who clues in to Petunia’s charade by her second year. Lily, who stages whispered arguments with Petunia about shame and honesty and the future. Because Lily can’t see it. She can’t understand that this new world has no place for people like them. The only way to succeed, to be truly accepted - it's to erase their muggleborn roots. Lily will understand that, Petunia reasons, when their life blossoms beyond Hogwarts' old stone walls.
Petunia keeps her chin high and her lies consistent, and she makes it through her sixth year almost entirely unscathed. War breaks out, but Petunia's cover story holds even among the most pureblood of her friends. And then, during the Christmas holidays of her seventh year, she is invited to the Black Manor.
Lily begs her not to go for months. It isn’t safe, she pleads, and Petunia knows that her sister is right. But this is her chance. To worm her way into the fold, to establish real connections in high places. Maybe, if she makes a good enough impression, she will have the family’s protection. Maybe she’ll be able to marry a wealthy enough, pure enough man to get by.
Her plan seems to be working for the first few days. She is constantly on edge, constantly well-mannered. Cygnus is an impenetrable wall of distaste, but Petunia receives several approving looks from Bellatrix and Druella. She allows herself to hope.
And then comes the gala. And then comes the Dark Lord.
He doesn’t lock eyes with her the entire night, distracted by the ballroom full of his sycophants. Still, Petunia stays in the shadows. She feels like a mouse frozen before the jaws of a great snake. She remembers the stories of mind-reading and muggleborn murders and thinks he knows, they all know, of course they know, how could I have been so stupid-
She masks her terror as best she can. Leaves the next morning. And never goes back.
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Petunia graduates from Hogwarts. She returns home and relearns how to breathe suburban air. She pushes all of her robes onto her sister, tries to remember how to be comfortable in skirts and blouses. She locks her wand in a trunk under her bed and forces Lily to tell everyone that she died in a car crash. No longer a schoolgirl, Petunia masters the art of being a muggle.
Lily is incandescent with rage. She can’t believe that Petunia would turn her back on the wizarding world; Petunia can’t believe Lily is stupid and reckless and selfish enough to stay.
Lily wants to fight, but Petunia knows better. It’s safer and smarter to hide, so she gets a job as a secretary. She meets a perfectly normal man named Vernon Dursley and decides to marry him by the end of their first date. He’s the kind of muggle that You-Know-Who and all his lot would avoid like the plague, terrified that sanity would spread. She swears her family into secrecy about what she is and wrings her hands over how to tell him about Lily - Lily, who purposefully frustrates Petunia to the point of nonverbal magic.
The Evans household becomes a war zone every holiday. The walls ring with, "And if you die? For a world that will never accept you - in a war between people who hate us?! It’ll kill Mum and Dad, how could you be so selfish? How could you be so stupid?" And then, "We’re not muggles, Tuney! We’re witches, no matter how much you try to deny it! We’ll always be witches. We don’t belong out here, hiding who we are. You don’t belong."
Petunia hates her sister, hates herself. She dreams of floating candles and magical creatures, wakes up and drives her father's Ford Cortina Mk IV to work.
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Their parents die towards the end of Lily's sixth year. In a particularly cruel twist of fate, it's the fault of a car crash. Not bloodthirsty Death Eaters. Not one of their magical daughters' accidental outbursts. A perfectly normal car crash.
After the funeral, Lily keeps trying to make peace. She returns home for the Christmas of her seventh year with James bloody Potter in tow, and arranges for a double date with Petunia and Vernon. As if that could ever go well.
They meet at a restaurant in the nicest part of town. It’s a ridiculous, humiliating affair - James does nothing but flaunt his wizardry, taunting and belittling Vernon in the process, and Petunia boils with rage over the way Lily keeps biting her lips to keep from laughing.
Of course Lily would snare a pureblood. A rich pureblood, to boot. The Potters could’ve been on the List, Narcissa had whispered with disdain, Could’ve been welcomed as one of the Sacred Twenty Eight if they hadn’t insisted on mating with mudbloods. And that was just it, wasn’t it - James was rich, and a pureblood, and didn’t treat Lily any differently because she was a muggleborn despite being a complete prat. Lily had won the jackpot yet again, and here she sits judging Petunia for making the best choices available to her.
The dinner ends in a blowout fight between Petunia and Lily, with all of the old insults hurled - Lily is stupid and selfish, Petunia cowardly and blind.
Lily is lucky to get an invite to Petunia’s wedding. She's even luckier that the newly-christened Mr. and Mrs. Dursley extend an invitation to her teenaged wizard fiance; and that was only because James Potter had the power to reveal Petunia’s secret to the entire wizarding world.
Petunia marries Vernon, finds a house in the suburbs slightly larger than the one she was raised in, and tries to pretend that her teenage years never happened.
She shreds up her little sister's wedding invitation and flings the pieces into the trash. She attends on the date regardless, sneaking out without telling Vernon where she's going. She transfigures her nose and charms her hair black and hides in the shadows. She misses the ceremony and leaves halfway through the reception. But the incandescent smile on Lily's face is almost enough to make it all worth it.
They go back to not talking the next day. But Petunia will send a Christmas gift every year until her sister dies, and Lily will send her chocolate frogs once a month. Petunia lets them all go in Mrs. Roberts' garden, like clockwork, if only because they muss up her roses.
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Bellatrix always said that children with muggle- with normal blood were more likely to be squibs- muggles- normal. When Petunia realizes that she's pregnant with Dudley, in the pristine bathroom of her pristine home, she bites back a scream and prays for the first time in her life that her muggle blood will weaken her power.
But Dudley is born a healthy, beautiful, normal little boy.
And Petunia resolves to never even think of magic again.