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Chapter Text

At the end.

For someone so haunted by death and sorrow and war, Petunia Evans counted herself one of the happiest women alive.

She had known now, for a few months, that she was on her way out. That this was her time. She knew she would be missed – what a blessing, to know someone would think of you, even after you were gone.

She’d seen so much, felt so much, lost so much. She had cried and screamed and clawed her way to a happier life than the one written in the stars she was born under. She had forged herself happiness, and she was more than happy with the cards she was dealt, in the end.

She wasn’t alone when she died, despite the fact no one was home. The ache in her chest wasn’t the sickness that had been dragging her into the grave for three years. It was a tug on heart heartstrings, like she was a puppet being controlled by the heaven she was hurtling towards. Like Lily was pulling on the invisible ribbon that had connected them from birth and was severed by death, now mending itself once more.

Petunia climbed into bed, knowing it would be the last time. She was exhausted, but still found the energy to worry about who would find her in the morning, gone to sleep never to awake again.

Once, she had been haunted by the photos on her walls that moved and smiled and laughed. She had thought it was like living with ghosts, apathetic and fading. But now, it was a comfort to know that her lips would still smile, her eyes would still light up, her arms would still embrace those she loved, after she was gone, even if just on the walls of this creaking, beautiful house.

She glanced at the picture of Lily on the wall opposite her bed for one last time – a woman, a girl, really, who’d had to leave this world before her time.

Not Petunia, though. This was her time.

They say your life flashes before your eyes as you die. Petunia’s did – well, some of it. Not the sorrows, not the tears. The happy memories, the laughter, the rebuilding of beautiful things. Seventy two years she had lived, seventy two years she had loved.

Petunia saw the pretty parts of her life flash before her eyes like a film reel, and smiled as widely as she could with her fading strength, pleased at what she remembered.

She left the world with a smile on her lips, her heart heavy from a lifetime of love.

***

Thirty two years earlier.

When it was all over – the funerals, the memorials, the building of statues, the shotgun weddings, the reclaiming of hope – Petunia found herself alone in Knoxley House once more.

It didn’t seem right, staying at Knoxley, when this was meant to be Harry’s house, and Harry was a man now, the legal owner of his grandparents’ manor, finally. But he had turned around and frankly refused to let her leave.

“It’s your house,” he’d said, shrugging.

“Harry, that’s not true – it is legally and rightfully yours .”

Harry had only laughed. “Do you have any idea, Aunt Petunia, just how much money I have? I could buy Knoxley Manor ten times over with the money my dad left me, not even speaking of what Sirius left to me too.”

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

“And I wouldn’t feel comfortable having you live anywhere else. I’m not leaving home just yet, Aunt Petunia, you have a good few years left to coddle me before I decide to find a place of my own – and then, when that time comes, I would like to be able to come and visit you here, in the house I know my grandparents would be more than happy you staying in. Because you made it a home.”

She knew Harry was right: Effie and Monty would have wanted someone to keep Knoxley feeling like a home. And maybe Petunia had done that, through whatever effort she could muster.

She was standing in the dining room now, having just shut the front door, eyes wide and drinking in the sight before her, so familiar yet so strange. It had been almost a year since she had left Knoxley, fleeing out the front door after a death eater had come and threatened her life.

Someone had obviously come in and cleared up before Petunia returned. Whilst she didn’t like the idea of someone poking around in her things, she was grateful that she hadn’t returned home to a mess. If Knoxley had been left untouched, a chair would be discarded, thrown halfway across the room. A dozen cakes and pastries would be rotting on a tray beside the oven, the floor would be strewn with dust, the ceiling thick with cobwebs like dull, sluggish comet tails.

She put her bag down, slipped off her sensible blue heels and took a deep breath. Somehow, after all these years, Lily Evans’ scent still lingered in the halls of Knoxley House. Petunia caught it as she wandered from room to room, inspecting every corner of her life like she was worried it had all crumbled. She checked every photograph was level, checked all her good spatulas were in the right drawers, ordered her jams in alphabetical order again, just how she liked. But even then, it didn’t feel right.

Remus wasn’t sitting out the back, smoking a cigarette on the patio chair he always liked. Sirius wasn’t sitting next to him, loudly complaining about articles in The Daily Prophet . Harry wasn’t laughing at it all, shouting over his shoulder to ask Petunia when the muffins would be ready.

Petunia had no one to bake for.

“I hate it,” Petunia said to Marlene on the phone after one particularly lonely night. She hadn’t had to ask Marlene and Dorcas to install a phone, they’d just done it, probably knowing just how much Petunia needed someone to call. “I’m lonely, but I’m not. I mean… I know people, of course, but I don’t have anyone. Does that make sense?”

“Of course it makes sense, Tune,” Marlene said gently, obviously able to hear the thickness in Petunia’s tired voice. “But I don’t think it’s true. You have Harry.”

“I suppose so.”

But Petunia didn’t know how true that was anymore. Yes, he still lived at home, still inhabited the third bedroom on the right, still announced he was home with a joyous shout, though he got home later and later now. But he had started the auror training programme at the Ministry, and it was taking over his life. He was never home for dinner, barely had time to eat breakfast, and when he was home he was working up in his room, muttering about charms and curses and wand movements. Petunia would bring him plates of cut-up fruit and chocolate tarts straight out the oven, and he would smile and kiss her on the cheek, but Petunia would need to pop back upstairs and remind him he did actually need to eat.

He became more deranged, determined, but not in a good way. Petunia supposed it was a pitfall of Harry’s courage – the boy did not stop trying to be a hero, when he was already twice over a saviour of the world at seventeen.

“When was the last time you saw Ginny?” she asked kindly one day as Harry was making for the front door like his life depended on being on time for work.

“Not in a couple of weeks,” Harry said with a frown. “We had a bit of a fight about the programme.”

Petunia’s brow furrowed, and her heart sank. “A fight?”

“She doesn’t think it’s the best idea. It’s only because Ron dropped out, and now she’s hoping I’ll drop out too.”

Before Petunia had time to respond, Harry was out the door and there was a loud crack to tell her he was gone until at least eight this evening.

Harry’s words troubled Petunia all day. Ginny would be going back to school in a few days, they had to sort things out before they left, didn’t they?

Harry had told Petunia to stop waiting up for him, but she did tonight. She sat on the back patio and smoked until he dragged himself through the door and saw the kitchen light on. He poked his head around the door.

“Too hot to sleep?” he asked gently.

“Something like that.” She wasn’t trying to hide the cigarette in her hand – she couldn’t blame the ash on Remus anymore.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked nervously. God, that boy had an uncanny knack for knowing when something was amiss.

Petunia looked up at him with a thin-lipped smile. She stubbed her cigarette out and gestured to the chair next to her – Remus’ favourite chair.

“Come and sit with me,” she asked. “Just for a bit.”

Harry seemed more than happy to oblige, slipping his cloak off and sinking into the chair beside her. They looked out over the garden for a while. They did this – sat in comfortable silence, staring at the same spot on the horizon – it was nice. Usually, it was Petunia who broke the silence. But today, Harry spoke first.

“It doesn’t feel like we were fighting the war not even three months ago.”

Petunia sighed. “No,” she agreed. “It doesn’t.” Things had gone horrendously back to normal. But not for Petunia, not for Harry.

“Everyone at work is acting like nothing happened and I hate it.”

“You need to take a break. Have you been to see Andromeda and Teddy recently?”

Harry pressed his lips together in the same way Petunia did when she was debating whether to speak or not. “I don’t know if I can face them.”

“You’re his godfather.”

“And you’re his godmother.”

“Yes, and we need to go together,” Petunia insisted. “But that is something we cannot do if you are perpetually at the ministry. Harry… I’m not trying to sway you away from your dreams, but is this really what you want? Leaving at seven, getting in at nine, exhausted beyond measure, burnt out before you even turn eighteen? Harry, can I be very frank with you?”

Harry didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”

“I never saw you as an auror. The war is over, Voldemort’s greatest foes have been captured, why are you so determined to fight dark magic, when that is what you have been doing day after day for years? Don’t you want peace?”

Harry sighed, eyes twinkling with whatever melancholy still resided within him. “It’s what expected of me.”

“What? Becoming an auror.”

“Well… yeah. My parents were aurors, weren’t they?”

Petunia took a deep breath, knowing that if she didn’t make an effort, she would cry. “Your parents,” she began, already tearful, “were child soldiers, thrown into a war they did not want to fight. Your mother did reconnaissance, your father blindly followed orders because he knew that’s all he could do to help. Given the chance, Harry, they would not have become aurors.”

“Do you know what they would have wanted to do?”

Petunia smiled. “I think your father wanted to play quidditch. He was good, if Marlene and Sirius were to be believed. Marlene even admitted that your father was better than her.”

“Auntie Marls never says stuff like that,” Harry said with a chuckle.

“A testament to his skill.”

“And my mum?”

“Your mother could have done anything she set her mind to. Hell, I think she could have become minister for magic if she so wanted. But when we were little, and I mean before we even knew magic was real, believed it to be the stuff of fairytales and dreams, your mother wanted to be a teacher. First she wanted to be a maths teacher, then a geography teacher, then she wanted to teach English or German or art but no matter what, she wanted to teach.”

“Uncle Moony always wanted to teach,” Harry said fondly. “But he only got a year’s worth of it.”

“He would have changed so many students’ lives, had he had the chance.”

Harry was silent for a long moment. “Neville said he’s going to train to become a teacher. McGonagall offered him the training almost straight away. Professor Sprout’s retiring in a few years, and Neville is going to step into her role. There’s openings for other teachers too… You know, it’s funny. McGonagall asked me to fill the Defence Against the Dark Arts role – that’s what Moony taught. But… everyone expects me to become an auror.” He sighed, a soulful but exhausted sound which drove its bony hands into the depths of Petunia's soul and handed her a realisation.

“Harry,” she whispered, placing a careful hand on his shoulder. “It sounds like you want to be a teacher.”

Harry looked up at her, looking like the small boy who had stared up at her and called her mama . She smiled encouragingly.

Harry nodded. “I think I might.”

“So, you’ll take McGonagall’s offer?”

“Well, the offer isn’t for now ,” he told her. “She said that after Ginny leaves Hogwarts I can start. Her words were ‘I don’t want fornication between students and teachers, no matter the age difference,’ and that’s an exact quote. Then I’ll start training.”

Petunia laughed. “So, you take a year off, which you deserve , and then you start training for the role. Spend some time with your friends, babysit Teddy for Andromeda, mend your relationship with Ginny because I swear to god if you let her go Harry, you’ll regret it forever.”

A slow, nervous smile broke its way across his lips. “It would be nice to have a break.”

“Harry. You saved the world. I think you’re allowed a gap year.”

***

Six months later.

The day before Valentine’s day Petunia piled Harry and Ron into her mini and they headed north for Hogwarts.

Her mini no longer struggled on long roads or steep hills, as she’d accepted magical help in the rejuvenation of her second favourite child. She had been facing the terrible prospect of having to scrap the car after over twenty years of faithful service. She’d mentioned it at Christmas and there had been the most raucous uproar she had ever heard from the wizards she knew, even during the war. Arthur had personally insisted he fix her car with magic, and then once it had been checked over by the ministry, she had been assured the car would probably run for another fifty years at least, and wouldn’t require petrol at all. It was, perhaps, the greatest gift anyone had given her.

She had insisted that Harry and Ron travel all the way with her to visit their girlfriends for Valentine’s day. They’d grumbled, but eventually relented.

“You need to see them as frequently as possible,” Petunia told them sharply one day when both boys were sitting at the kitchen table at Knoxley, hungrily consuming a hearty midwinter breakfast. She brandished the spatula she had been using for the eggs at them. “They’re your girlfriends now, not just girls you taunt and moan at.”

Ron went a deep shade of pink. “She’s still Hermione.”

“Yes, and you’re not seeing her every day like you used to. Send her letters when you can, little gifts, ask to meet her in Hogsmeade at the weekends. It’s not hard, dearie, to put effort into a relationship.”

Harry looked puzzled by this suggestion, and Petunia knew that he was well aware she hadn’t so much as flirted with a man since Vernon Dursley left her in an Italian restaurant twenty years ago. But Petunia smiled all the same and made sure the boys didn’t suffer from travel sickness and marshalled them into her car. Ron had grumbled about not just being able to apparate, but Harry reminded him he’d never been very good anyway.

By the time they reached Hogsmeade (the mini was astronomically fast now despite the fact Petunia never officially broke the speed limit) it was midday and Harry and Ron scampered off to the Three Broomsticks to rendezvous with their respective paramours. Petunia waved them goodbye and knocked on Marlene and Dorcas’ front door.

Marlene looked like she hadn’t woken up yet when she answered the door, looking devastatingly younger than her thirty eight years in a long red dressing gown, her glossy blonde hair in a cloud around her head.

“Were you visiting today?” she asked in alarm when she opened the door.

Petunia laughed. “If you have room for me, then yes.”

Petunia heard Dorcas call from the kitchen, “There’s always room for you, Petunia!” and laugh at Marlene’s forgetfulness. Petunia put her bags down. Marlene and Dorcas’ house was quaint and filled floor to ceiling with books and boxes. It was a little chaotic, though an organised chaos, no doubt thanks to the calm balance Dorcas brought to Marlene’s constant panic. She’d been to the house a couple of times, for stray meetings, picking up Harry, to drop off cakes and things, but never properly stayed.

“Harry and Ron didn’t want to stay?” Dorcas asked, setting a cup of tea down for Petunia once Marlene was dressed and knew what day it was.

“No, I think they said they’d get rooms at the Three Broomsticks.”

“A room for both or a room for each so their girlfriends can enjoy their company ?” Marlene asked with a raise of her eyebrows.

“Marlene! These are kids we’re talking about,” Petunia said.

“And we all know what kids get up to when they’re given five minutes alone with each other, don’t we?” Marlene replied, and she and Dorcas shared a concise but knowing look.

“Well, no, as a matter of fact, I don’t. They’re kids!”

“Hermione’s nineteen, Ron’s almost nineteen, Harry’s not far off. Ginny’s turning eighteen soon, too. They’re not exactly babies, now, are they? They’ll be getting up to exactly the same things you were when you were eighteen, Tune.”

“When I was eighteen I moved to London to become a secretary at a drill and driver company,” Petunia said, deadpan.

Dorcas almost spit out her tea, but then kindly patted Petunia on the elbow. “She’s talking about sex, Petunia.”

Petunia just knew she’d gone red. “Ah. Well. I… wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“What?!” Marlene asked. “Petunia, have you never had a boyfriend?”

“Of course I’ve had a boyfriend !” Petunia insisted, mildly panicking that her friends believed her to be an old maid now. “I’ve even had a fiancé!”

“Why didn’t I know about this?”

“I didn’t keep it a secret, but I didn’t advertise it,” Petunia said with a noncommittal shrug. “We just… never did anything. We weren’t together long enough for me to trust him with all that.”

“What happened?”

“He tried to make me choose between him and Lily, and of course I chose Lily.”

Marlene was looking at Petunia like she was completely mad. “And you’ve thought to find no one since? You’ve never… you know?” She looked awkward now rather than shocked.

“Well, no, I’ve just never cared that much before. I don’t ever find myself drawn to anyone in that way. The only reason I was engaged to the only man I’ve ever dated is because of what he offered me, and because he offered me my dream life, I think I convinced myself I was in love with him. Since I realised I like my own company more, I’ve never sought someone out.”

“Do you not get lonely?”

“Of course I do. But everyone gets lonely. It’s a marker of the fact that somewhere, out there, there’s someone you love enough to miss.”

They left it at that.

Petunia considered whether she regretted the fact that Vernon Dursley was the only man she had ever been involved with. But he didn’t mean anything, the fact she never settled down didn’t mean anything. Yes, life was defined by love, but Petunia was so very content with the types of love she received.

Petunia Evans would never get married. She would never go on another date, never flirt with seedy men in bars or nice women with pretty smiles in libraries. People would look at her and pity her, thinking the fact that she never had anyone to call her own meant she was miserable and bitter and had a thousand regrets.

But Petunia didn’t care about what they thought of her. She knew, in her heart, that she was happier than most, despite everything.

***

Two Years Later.

A lot happened in a short space of time.

Hermione and Ginny left Hogwarts – Hermione went straight into a Ministry role and began climbing the ranks immediately, and Ginny was headhunted by a Quidditch team.

“I did always say she was better than me,” Harry said proudly, though Petunia knew he had received invites to join almost every quidditch team in the country despite the fact he’d hidden the letters.

Harry and Ginny’s relationship seemed to improve immensely thanks to their newfound proximity. Harry would go to stay at the Burrow for a few days, Ginny would come to Knoxley, they would go and stay with various friends when they could. They went on dates to amusement parks and Harry won Ginny giant teddy bears and they would play quidditch in the garden and bet on who would win. It seemed, to Petunia’s delight, that they were reliving their teenage years, the time they lost because of war and death and seemingly undefeatable foes. They did all the mushy stuff too – Harry wore a necklace with her name on it for three weeks until Ron paid him two galleons to take it off and he and Ginny split the profits. Ginny tacked up a moving photograph of Harry in her locker at the Holyhead Harpies training ground (that was Petunia’s idea.)

They were sickeningly annoying and it was absolutely beautiful.

Ron and Hermione were a little different, though of course they were. They were shyer, more reserved, trying to undo years of being irritated by each other when they were secretly besotted. Petunia only witnessed bare glimpses of their relationship in comparison to Harry and Ginny’s, but she saw enough to know that they knew what they were doing. Ron knew how Hermione took her tea, Hermione knew not to wake Ron before eight in the morning, Ron read Hermione’s favourite books and Hermione pretended she didn’t know the results of the Quidditch league so she could listen to him explain what was happening.

Harry and Ginny seemed naturally inclined to love, Ron and Hermione seemed naturally nervous of it.

So, it was a surprise when it was Ron and Hermione, not Harry and Ginny, who announced on New Year’s Day 2000 that they were engaged to be married that autumn.

“Did you know about this?” Petunia asked Harry when Ron and Hermione left the night they announced their engagement. Everyone was a little baffled, but happy nonetheless.

Harry shook his head.

“What, Ron didn’t even tell you he was planning on proposing.”

He laughed. “No, because Ron didn’t plan on proposing. Hermione didn’t either, but she still got down on one knee and everything.”

Petunia also found herself laughing. “If anyone was going to do it, it would be Hermione.”

Now Petunia was sat behind Hermione’s mother, a little tearful, in a church in Cambridgeshire. Petunia realised she was right – if anyone was going to do it, it would be Hermione . And yes, Hermione obviously did it – if it was plan a beautiful, seamlessly organised wedding. Of course, Petunia was assuming this was all thanks to Hermione, (no insult to Ron,) but the flowers, the ribbons, Harry and Ron’s ties, the bridesmaids dresses, they were all perfectly coordinated in a shade of pale blue Petunia knew Hermione liked.

She was grateful, really, that Hermione had put her so close to the front, where she was among people she knew. Like at Lily and James’ wedding, there were muggles among them, and there was only due to be a wizarding (and Petunia) only reception late in the evening. So, now, Petunia was sat between Dorcas – whose knowledge of the muggle world entirely came from Petunia – and Hermione’s great aunt Jean, who was smiling happily.

“Odd family, the Weasleys, don’t you think?” Jean said, loudly enough to make Petunia think she was probably a little deaf. “I’ve only met the boy once, Ronald, that is. But the stories poor Hermione’s parents bring back about them! You’d think they were feral!” Petunia was holding back her laughter – she knew that Bill had heard what Jean had said and was now shaking with silent chuckles from across the church.

“How do you know Hermione?” Jean asked when Petunia neither agreed nor disagreed with her statements about the oddness of the Weasleys.

“Oh, my nephew, he’s their friend. Ron’s best man, Harry.”

“Oh, yes, Hermione mentioned him. Nice, isn’t it, how close friendships form at these boarding schools. I was sceptical when Michael and Georgiana chose to send little Hermione away to school but it seemed to have worked – in more ways than one!”

Petunia agreed and smiled to herself. It was funny, she thought, how so many people believed their cousins and nieces and grandsons attended a simple, bog-standard boarding school in Scotland rather than a hybrid death-trap and paradise where they teach children the wonders of magic.

The wedding was beautiful, though of course it was. Jean complained about the vows (“Not very traditional, are they? And why are they saying the ‘I dos’ together? Kids these days, honestly…”) Ginny, Hermione’s maid of honour, was glancing at Harry from across the aisle, who was crying undignified, unrestrained tears of joy. In that moment, Petunia saw Sirius Black in the tear-streaked face of her nephew, best man at a wedding of two child soldiers hoping for a better future. By the end of the day, Petunia’s cheeks were aching from smiling so widely.

It would become a little bit of a tradition, for Petunia to make wedding cakes for the couples she knew. It started with Bill and Fleur’s wedding cake and continued at Ron and Hermione’s wedding – she made a satin smooth vanilla sponge (because, in truth, everyone hated fruit cake) iced and decorated with pale blue ribbons and pearls. Classy, understated, not too complicated. Hermione had insisted on paying Petunia for her work, and Petunia had insisted right back that she would refuse payment. In the end, they agreed that the cake would be Petunia’s wedding present to them – but she slipped a blank photo album and a voucher for snapfish into the present pile anyway.

“Are you having a good time, pumpkin?” Petunia asked Harry fondly when they arrived at the Burrow for the wizarding reception that evening. It had taken all of thirty minutes to get from Cambridgeshire to Ottery-St-Catchpole in the mini thanks to the magical upgrades it had received.

“I’m so happy for them.” The smile on Harry’s face was so genuine, so wide and dazzling, Petunia just knew that he had inherited Lily’s unconditional, unfathomable ability to be optimistic, kind, selfless, and then developed some of his own knack to understand his friends on top of that.

“They’re quite young,” Petunia remarked.

Harry shrugged. “Loads of people are getting married nowadays. I think the war made people realise that there isn’t much point in waiting, if you love someone enough.”

Petunia nodded and watched Harry lean back in his chair and send a smile to Ginny, lost in her own wild dancing in the middle of the famous Weasley marquee, pulled out for every wedding and special event. He looked enchanted, ardently infatuated, almost confused by the love he felt for this girl.

She thought of the words Sirius had said to her long ago. It’s a miraculous thing, isn’t it? To be loved? Petunia had witnessed miraculous things and unexplainable events, unspeakable actions and dream-worthy moments. But never in her life had she ever seen something so miraculous as love.

It was a miraculous thing, to be loved. But to watch someone you love learn to love for themselves, so innocently, so well? That was stuff of beautiful legend.

***

Four months later.

Petunia knew it was coming. Really, she did. Maybe that was why it hurt so much when it hit her – because she had been waiting for the day Harry would say those three words, I’m moving out , and she had rehearsed every way she would respond in her head. She had promised herself, however, that she wouldn’t cry.

But here she was, currently breaking that promise to herself, clasping a mug of warm eggnog in her hands. It was Christmas eve, and now, she realised, probably Harry’s last Christmas eve at home.

“Where are you going?” she asked. Harry was spending a couple of days a week at Hogwarts, training to step into the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher role, as he was a little young to be directly taking the job at Hogwarts. He took a few first year classes, as they were the students he hadn’t actually been at school with, but he was only gone a few days a week and he’d stay with Marlene and Dorcas so was only a phone call away.

But here Harry was, finally flying the nest Petunia had so painstakingly maintained to protect him after all these years.

“Ron, Hermione, Ginny and I have all decided to buy a house in London. It’s not far from Diagon Alley or the Ministry, so good for Ron and Hermione, and Ginny can apparate to Holyhead for Quidditch. The Quidditch season and school term are about the same, so when Ginny and I are working, we’ll live where we work, and then return to London with Ron and Hermione when we want a base. We’re moving in September, just before I start properly teaching at Hogwarts.”

Petunia nodded. She supposed it was incredibly, ridiculously selfish of her to be upset that they’d found such a good arrangement for the four of them. Harry was right, it all worked out. He could move about the country with a wave of his wand, and come back for weekends, see his friends, likeminded people who were probably more interesting than his old muggle aunt.

But Harry had an uncanny ability to tell when something was wrong, and reached out and patted Petunia’s hand. “We will come and visit whenever we can. I assure you, none of us can cook, so you might have to give us a good meal once a week to keep our health up.”

She gave him a tearful smile. “You must install a telephone. And write when you can. And make sure there’s a porch where the postman can leave boxes if I send you cakes. And if you buy a fridge, make sure to ask me before you get one, because there are some terrible models on the market. Give me plenty of notice, I need to start framing photos for you to take away.”

Harry hugged her fiercely, unexpectedly. “I love you, Aunt Petunia.”

She hugged him tighter. “Oh, my boy.”

***

One day later.

Despite the news of the day before, Petunia proceeded with Harry’s last Christmas at Knoxley with as much effort as usual. She made three cakes and two turkeys and set the table all on her own.

Marlene and Dorcas were the first to arrive, and came bearing as many gifts as they could carry. They were reaching middle age gracefully, and Marlene was beginning to develop the loveliest crow’s feet wrinkles around her eyes from all those years of laughing away awkwardness and pain and sorrow. When Petunia told them Harry was moving out, they hugged her and didn’t accuse her of being selfish, but promised they would make sure Harry was alright when he was living at Hogwarts during term time when he became a teacher.

Weasleys trickled in one by one. Ron and Hermione first, then Ginny, who kissed Harry probably a little too eagerly and excitedly when she arrived, then Bill and Fleur, accompanied by their now-seven-month-old daughter, Victoire, who was bonny and laughed and had a smile which stopped every heart around the dinner table. George came with his fiancé Angelina, and Percy and Charlie came with enough cheer and spirit to take the atmosphere from merry to raucous. Molly and Arthur insisted on hugging everyone in the room and Arthur was taking great delight in telling everyone that Petunia’s car would be magically fast and efficient for at least fifty years.

Last to arrive, fashionably late but no less welcome, were Andromeda and Teddy. Teddy was walking now, though it was barely a toddler, and his hair changed colour twenty times at least in the three hours he was at Knoxley. Andromeda’s hair was grey now, though she seemed too young to be a grandmother. She appeared grateful for the break from looking after grandson, and she and Petunia marvelled at the way Harry was so good with him, the way Ginny smiled and played peek-a-boo, the way Ron and Hermione had so carefully picked out books for him for Christmas, both muggle and wizarding. Teddy’s laughter was aflame thanks to the attention he was receiving.

Andromeda and Petunia were sat side-by-side now, on a sofa in the corner of Knoxley’s living room, drinking small glasses of port.

“He’s such a sweet little boy,” Petunia remarked as, yet again, Teddy demanded a game of hide and seek with Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione. The others seemed to be having more fun than Teddy himself was, and Ron was currently doing a very good job at helping Teddy count to ten.

“Just like his mother,” Andromeda said with a fond, painful smile.

“I bet you miss her.”

Andromeda smiled. “We both know the pain of missing someone you can’t have back, Petunia. It seems a lifetime ago, our first Christmas here, when Dora was what, seven? We’d just lost Lily and James, you were figuring out how to care for Harry… Sirius was in Azkaban, Remus was a wreck. Now look at us… where are we all now? Entrusted with rebuilding a world unacquainted with peace, or dead.”

Petunia sighed and held back her tears. She watched Teddy and Harry, godfather and godson, for a moment longer, thinking of Remus. He’d always loved Christmas – the excuse to eat enough chocolate to make him sick, the cold weather, the snow on the ground. He would have loved this too, seeing Harry and his son laughing on the floor of a house where the halls would have been haunted had it not been for constant laughter. Ginny came up behind Harry, making him jump, making Teddy squeal with delighted cackles. Despite the pain, Petunia mustered a smile.

She thought of all the things Remus would miss. He’d missed Ron and Hermione’s wedding, missed his son’s first words, first steps. He would miss countless Christmases, countless weddings and parties and smiles and tears.

There was a wall in Petunia’s living room almost completely covered in pictures of people she had loved and lost. There was a picture of Lily and James on their wedding day, Lily laughing as James swept her off her feet. There was a picture of Remus and Sirius, curled up on the sofa in their London flat, a plate with some of Petunia’s cakes half-eaten between them. There was a picture of Petunia’s parents in the corner, starkly static among the crowd of animated, joyful faces.

There was a picture of so many people she loved, some still with her, some not, in the middle of the wall. James and Lily were perched on the side of a sofa, Sirius on Remus’ lap next to them, Marlene and Dorcas on the floor. She’d taken that photo, in the very room it hung in, one summer during the wizarding war when everyone just knew her as Lily’s sister.

It was always going to be like that, wasn’t it? Petunia was always Lily’s sister, Harry’s aunt, Teddy’s godmother, the lady who made cakes. But she was content with that. She was good at being content. She was good at sitting on the side-lines, smiling at memories of people snatched away from her and a world which would have been so much better with them in it.

***

Eight months later.

Harry was acting odd.

Well, more odd than usual.

He was acting so odd that Petunia only had to come to the conclusion that something grand was afoot or something was particularly, worryingly amiss.

It started in January, when Petunia found Harry going through her jewellery box. He was holding Lily’s rings in her palm and when she asked him if he needed them, he swiftly said no , and put them back.

Then in February, when Petunia visited Harry and his friends’ house for the first time, she noticed he was acting a little odd around Ginny. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but Petunia wearily observed the way his hands hovered a little longer on hers, his eyes kept falling to her fingers, he gulped a little more, like he had to catch his breath every time he looked at her.

In April, for Teddy’s birthday, Harry threw him a party, and began crying when Ginny and Teddy played a game of House together (Ginny was the cat and Teddy cooked her fish in his little plastic kitchen set). He tried to hide the tears, but Petunia caught him wiping his eyes. Strange, she thought, as he never really let his emotions get the better of him.

In July, on Harry’s birthday, they all had a big dinner at Knoxley. Harry spent most of the time staring at Ginny, like he had some kind of secret crush on her and couldn’t confess it. Hermione bought him a book of metalworking spells and bookmarked a page which taught a spell to shorten a ring of gold or platinum.

In August, Petunia was looking through her jewellery box when she realised Lily’s engagement ring was missing. For a moment, her heart stopped, and she was about to fly into a panic. When, after a heartbeat, she realised. Then, instead of panicking, she began to laugh.

So, it was no surprise that, on a late August afternoon Harry was due to come for tea, he came through the door with the biggest smile on his face and threw up his hands like he was taking a bow.

“I asked Ginny to marry me,” he said. “She said yes.”

Petunia laughed and patted his cheek. “It was only a matter of time.”

***

One month later.

With Harry gone, teaching at Hogwarts, and staying in London during the term time, Petunia Evans began to feel more and more as though she had less and less of a purpose.

It was the same old crisis she went through when Harry went off to Hogwarts the last time, just as a student and not a teacher, she supposed. But something felt a little out of place, this time. Harry was getting married, though not for another year, and it wouldn’t be long before everyone would develop their own lives and Petunia would be left alone in Knoxley, huddled on the sofa crying once more.

“I just feel so lonely, all the time,” Petunia wailed down the phone to Marlene and Dorcas. It had taken her a while to muster the courage to phone them. Only when she felt as though she was being drowned by her feelings did she even think about picking the telephone up. “It’s stupid, I know.”

“It’s not stupid at all,” Dorcas replied soothingly, her voice a little muffled from late night grogginess. “You can come and stay with us if you want, Tune, for a bit, for a while, we don’t mind.”

Petunia sighed. She supposed there was nothing keeping her in Hollsworth anymore. She could just as well move up to Hogsmeade without any consequences, or move to London to be closer to Harry and his friends. But it would be a shame, she thought, to leave Effie and Monty’s beautiful house so empty. The last time it had been empty was following their deaths, when Lily and James were in hiding and couldn’t manage the estate. It was always going to be Effie and Monty’s house, but Petunia did somehow feel as though it was her home. A home which she had a duty to preserve should, one day, Harry decide he would want to move back home and raise the family he might want here.

She thought about the size of the house, the importance it had held once upon a time. She thought about the days when she felt most fulfilled – the days when she had someone to care for, Harry or Remus or Sirius or stray Order members passing through her flat in Cokeworth. She didn’t have anyone to bake for anymore, no one to make the beds for, no one to ask whether they took one or two sugars in their tea.

“Petunia?” Marlene called down the phone. Petunia then realised she had been silent for a long moment.

“I’m fine,” she said, and she did feel fine.

Petunia had an idea.

***

Two months later.

It was a longshot, of course it was.

It was a longshot that this would work, a longshot anyone would come, a longshot this wasn’t Petunia just making a complete fool of herself.

The Knoxley House Bed and Breakfast for Wizards, Witches and those In Between, opened in time for Christmas 2002.

Petunia had taken charge of everything. She’d picked the bedspreads, replaced the light bulbs, bought toilet brushes and stocked up on hand towels. She’d given her Bed and Breakfast a signature scent (Lily and jasmine) and put little reed diffusers on all the nightstands.

Of course, there were things Petunia didn’t know about running a wizarding hotel, and she mostly turned to Molly for help with these.

Did she need to buy wand stands? (No, most wizards just kept their wands on bedside tables.)

Were there any charms or enchantments she needed people to place over the house (also a no, they should be fine.)

What kind of food did witches and wizards like to eat? (Ron answered this one – “Whatever you cook, I imagine, based on how legendary you are nowadays,” he’d aptly said through a mouthful of Petunia’s blackberry trifle.)

She was nervous, and Petunia didn’t get nervous (except at weddings and funerals and other life-changing events, which she was sure she could call this day.) Marlene, Dorcas, Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione were all here to support Petunia on the opening day of the B&B.

Petunia had once wanted a bakery. But whilst that would have been lovely, it wasn’t personal enough for her. She got her white iron chairs and awning over a beautiful garden, but she also got conversations over breakfast, thank-you letters from owls she always fed treats from her bedroom window, a sense that she was needed and loved . She didn’t charge war veterans a thing and made sure they all knew they could come to Knoxley whenever they wanted, free of charge, for a break or a getaway or somewhere where their thoughts maybe weren’t quite so loud.

Knoxley House would become one of those places in the wizarding world everyone knew – said in the same breath as Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade and Tinworth and Ottery-St-Catchpole.

But right now, Petunia didn’t know that. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, heels of her sensible shoes clicking against the stone threshold of this house she had once believed to be haunted by memories. There was a crack, and the first guest of the hotel arrived.

“Hello,” Petunia said, her voice up an octave (that always happened when she was nervous.) “Welcome to Knoxley House. How do you take your tea?”

***

Nine months later.

Harry and Ginny got married on the 31 st of August, exactly twenty-five years after Lily and James did the same, in the same garden, many of the same people in the congregation.

The wedding was different in a hundred ways, though. Lily had liked pretty things, Ginny liked to make a statement, liked a joke and a laugh, liked to add elements of her fiery personality in every aspect of her wedding. She carried a bouquet of blood red poppies and golden roses, no doubt a tribute to the house she and Harry had so much pride for. Their cake (which Petunia baked, naturally) was golden and had wings made of spun sugar, tiny broomsticks stuck into the side with cocktail sticks. They married during the day, where Lily and James had married at night under the light of floating lights. Harry and Ginny had their first dance to a terrible muggle song and made everyone dance with their frankly embarrassing dance moves.

It was a joyous, time-stopping occasion, a truly beautiful day. Harry and Ginny didn’t take themselves too seriously, at least in public, and they threw a damn good party. Maybe this was what James and Lily would have been like, had there not been a war ongoing when Lily walked down the aisle to the love of her life. Had their marriage been thanks to a feeling of necessity, like Remus to Nymphadora, for protection, a tether? Or wouldn’t they have waited much longer anyway? Would they have been able to have a wedding like this, full of laughter and joy rather than whispers and tears borne of a confused concoction of emotions?

Harry and Ginny could both talk for England, and gave a pair of beautiful speeches.

Harry’s mostly talked everyone through all the times he fell a little bit in love with Ginny – when they first met, when she whacked him over the head with a tea towel, when he first watched her on a broomstick, when she refused to shy away from the fact he was a little bit broken and bruised and learned how to love him in the perfect way.

“I should also say that a marriage isn’t just thanks to two people,” Harry continued, and Ginny stood up with him and they both clasped their champagne glasses. “We are both blessed to have such wonderful families and friends. Of course, we have to thank Hermione and Ron, Ron especially as we never would have met.”

Ron gave a groan from across the Weasley Wedding marquee but laughed nonetheless.

“And Molly and Arthur, who are endlessly supportive of us both,” Harry said. He tipped his glass a little at them, and they repeated the gesture back. “As you all know, we’ve lost a lot of people in the last few years who should be here today. We lost many people here too long ago, who would have loved to see us today, happy and fulfilled. I didn’t grow up with parents, I grew up with uncles and aunts. My uncles are no longer with us, but I know for a fact they’re cheering me on.” Harry looked up through the gaps in the tent at the hazy, late-night moon and stars. The stars were glimmering mischievously, a thin, crescent moon beside it. Harry smiled faintly. “My aunts, however, are here with us. My Aunt Petunia, especially, has been probably the greatest driving force in actually getting us here today. Whether it was leaving us alone by inviting Ron to do the washing up or talking us through rough patches or making our fabulous wedding cake, she’s really been there for us through thick and thin.”

Harry looked down now, one arm around Ginny, and they were both beaming at her, as though this wasn’t their wedding day, as though she deserved some kind of ridiculous praise.

Petunia brushed a tear from her cheek. She always cried at weddings.

***

Fourteen years pass.

Teddy Lupin didn’t grow up with parents. He grew up with uncles and aunts and grandparents. He spent most of his time with his grandmother, but there were half a dozen people who volunteered every time he needed babysitting. Needless to say, Andromeda had more than a few nights off a week.

Teddy liked his Uncle Harry, who bounced him on his knee and told him about his mother and father with a fond smile on his face. He liked his Aunts Ginny and Hermione who pinched his cheeks and laughed and clapped when he changed his hair colour with less than a blink. He liked Aunts Marls and Dorrie, who read him books and took him shopping in Hogsmeade and told him his mother and father loved him very much, even if they weren’t there to look after him. He liked his Uncle Ron, who brought him jokes and toys from the joke shop.

However, miraculously, his favourite was his Aunt Petunia. Teddy would grow to call Harry and Ron and Hermione and Ginny by their first names like they were friends, but she would always be ‘Aunt Petunia,’ to him, to everyone. She completely doted on the boy, of course she did, who reminded her so much of Remus despite the fact there was not a single drop of true Lupin blood in him. Maybe it was the love and pride Remus had felt towards the boy he had so readily accepted as his son that had stayed with him. She baked Teddy chocolate cakes and watched as he devoured them with vigour and proclaim chocolate was his favourite, and cooked him meals and had him for sleepovers where she would put him in the hotel’s best guest suite – well, it was the best, but it was never used for paying guests, but friends and relations. Petunia had left two rooms at Knoxley untouched when she made it a Bed and Breakfast. James Potter’s old room, which was also Harry Potter’s old room, and the room which used to belong to Sirius Black. Harry would come and stay in his old room from time to time, and Sirius’ room served as the place where Teddy Lupin would always stay, unaware of the fact the room belonged to the man his father had loved so fiercely, once upon a time.

When Harry and Ginny announced they were expecting their first child, a terror and joy gripped Petunia as though the child was her own. When James Sirius was born, with a shock of black hair, smirking from birth, she burst into tears. She cradled him in his arms and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Lily and James’ first grandchild, who they would never get to meet.

As the Potter-Weasley clan grew, Petunia’s walls at Knoxley became more burdened with photographs. Of course, there was always the wall in the living room where the laughing faces of those they’d lost cackled silently from the safe havens of the worlds inside photo frames, but rooms became filled with pictures of baby James (who they called ‘Jamie’) and then Albus (named Albus Remus, though Petunia secretly thought those names should be reversed) and then Lily.

When Lily Potter was born, Petunia didn’t cry. She laughed. She smiled and laughed and then, yes, she did cry a little. She cried because the girl had a mane of ginger hair and wide, blinking green eyes. She cried because the girl was called Lily.

Lily Petunia Potter.

‘Aunt Petunia’ was a difficult thing for a baby to say. It was why, possibly, Harry had looked up at her all those years ago and said ‘mama.’ It was why, probably, Harry’s children came to call Petunia Nanny.

Molly was ‘Grandma,’ though she had about a dozen grandchildren by the time Lily was born and had been ‘grandma’ for quite some time. But Harry and Ginny agreed that Petunia couldn’t quite be ‘Aunt Petunia’ to their children, when that was exactly what they called her.

One day, and it was an accident, truly, Albus had called Petunia Nan , and it had stuck. She was Nan or Nanny or Tuney . They called Molly Grandma and referred to Lily Evans as Gran , but Petunia was treated as their grandparent. Every time she heard that word or saw it written at the top of a card or the bottom of a letter, her heart swelled with pride.

This was life, this was living. Getting through hell, war, sorrow, death, for this. Fulfilment. Love .

***

Petunia never asked for fame, but in the end, everyone in the wizarding world knew who she was, what she did, how bravely she loved.

Parents would tell their kids stories of the nights they stayed with Petunia Evans during the war, how they curled up on the bed in her living room after a hellish day and awoke the next morning to the smell of pancakes cooking, a cup of tea made just how they like it next to their bed.

Fortescue’s ice cream parlour in Diagon Alley wrote to Petunia and asked whether they could have a new flavour called ‘Petunia’s Carrot Cake,’ and Petunia smiled, wrote back, flattered, and agreed, but made them promise they wouldn’t put honey in the recipe. The flavour was the parlour’s best seller for three summers in a row.

Of course, everyone in the Potter-Weasley family knew Petunia, whether as Nanny or Tuney or Aunt Petunia . She baked cakes for weddings and hosted dinners when she sensed someone was lonely and children whispered that she was magic.

“But we’re all magic,” Jamie pointed out when he was ten and Lily was seven, and she had suggested Petunia was magic.

“Yes,” Lily agreed. “But none of us could do what she does. Don’t you think she’s a little more magic than us?”

“She doesn’t have a wand.”

“I don’t think she needs one to be magic, not like we do.”

Everyone at the ministry knew Petunia Evans, as the Minister for Magic, Hermione Granger, would always have a plate of biscuits on her desk (just like the headmistress of Hogwarts) and anyone who dared to take one in meetings would always remark on how delightfully buttery they were. Minister Granger would smile and thank them and say that if they would like the recipe, to write or visit Petunia Evans at the Knoxley House Bed and Breakfast.

Of course, Petunia still received visitors to the hotel, day in, day out. When Teddy reached thirteen, she began paying him to help out during the holidays, and he would always look forward to making the beds and washing the pans, unlike all his friends at Hogwarts who didn’t know how to do a chore without lifting their wand. Petunia paid Victoire Weasley to help as well, and by the time they were fourteen and fifteen, Petunia knew to set them on the same tasks, gave them the same rooms to clean and lunch breaks at the same time. Again, she knew she was meddlesome, but she was right about Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione, so surely she could be right about this one?

Petunia was known by all the students at Hogwarts, too. If her family weren’t raving about her cakes or biscuits or hugs to the students, the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor would. Petunia always sent Harry far too many cakes at home, so he’d take them to work with him. When he started giving them out to students at his DADA support sessions, students started intentionally failing the class to try the cakes. He began giving out her baked goods as rewards for outstanding effort, and suddenly his class averages skyrocketed. It was amazing, Petunia always thought, what a little bit of sugar and butter could do.

All this, she thought, because Lily had followed her into a restaurant bathroom all those years ago.

***

Petunia was now standing on the threshold of Knoxley, Marlene and Dorcas behind her, waving wildly at Harry, Ginny and their children.

“Write as often as you can!” Petunia called to Albus. “To all three of us!”

He smiled and waved back, but his movements were nervous. She didn’t blame him. He didn’t have the blind confidence Harry had when he went to Hogwarts all those years ago now. They were off to King’s Cross tomorrow, for Albus’ first journey to Hogwarts. Lily was already impatient to go, fed up with being the last to attend, as eager to learn and stubborn as her namesake. Petunia wouldn’t be going to London with them. She knew, from her own experience, how it was Harry and Ginny’s moment, to wave goodbye to their children on the platform, watch them begin the next step of their lives.

Harry and Ginny lived in Godric’s Hollow now, a bit of a way away from Petunia. It stung a little, when they moved, but they visited at least twice a week. Petunia was never without company. Harry and Ginny would come with their kids, Ron and Hermione with theirs, every week a different Weasley would drop by with their children – George, Percy, Bill. Charlie would come by too, though not as often as Petunia had to enforce a strict ‘no dragons’ rule at Knoxley after a Welsh Green destroyed Petunia’s best oven glove (all was well, though, Charlie sent her a new, hand embroidered oven glove as an apology and it was her new favourite.) Molly would come for tea and Marlene and Dorcas would come for a proper dinner and a reminisce about the days during the first war and Harry’s childhood. But, more often than not, Petunia’s most frequent visitor was Teddy.

Petunia was sure, when Teddy started dropping by constantly the summer after he finished Hogwarts, that he just wanted the first of every batch of cakes Petunia made. But he brought her things – often, he would bring newspapers, one muggle one and The Daily Prophet , or a book of crosswords or a pot of marmalade. He had a different hair colour every day, but he’d settled on an eye colour now. They were a warm chocolate brown, the kind that twinkled when he smiled. Petunia knew, even though he had never told her, that Teddy had seen a picture of his father, in his handsome youth, and decided that he would keep a part of Remus Lupin with him wherever he went. His mother, of course, he had his ability to change his hair and nose and freckles from. He’d gone through phases of having green eyes just like Harry and his children, trying to fit in with the Potters where he had such little family. He’d had grey eyes for a while, like his grandmother, like the Black family, like Sirius. No one had explained to Teddy why Harry and Petunia both cried when he changed his eyes to grey.

“Wotcher, Aunt Petunia!” Teddy’s jaunty voice radiated through the dining room. His hair was his favourite turquoise blue today, and he had a wide smile plastered across his face like he knew something everyone else didn’t. He stepped in through the open doorway and immediately hugged her.

“Hi, Marls, hi Dorrie!” he said, enthusiastically hugging Marlene and Dorcas as well. Teddy was kind and open and didn’t shy away from sharing out the incredible capacity for love he had. He was, Petunia imagined, exactly the way Remus would have been, had he not been twisted into a creature of occasional melancholy by full moons and a bad childhood and two too many wars.

“I think we probably have to head back,” Marlene said with a smile. She ruffled Teddy’s hair and wrapped an arm around Dorcas’ shoulders. “Do you need any help clearing up, Tune?”

Petunia looked around at the plates and glasses scattered around the dining room. Today was Harry and Ginny’s fourteenth wedding anniversary, and they’d had a bit of an informal party. Teddy had said he hadn’t been able to come, as he had some business he needed to attend to – which was odd, as he was the least elusive person Petunia had ever had the pleasure of knowing, but at least he was here now.

“I can help, don’t worry,” Teddy insisted, and ushered Marlene and Dorcas out the door. “I know it’s a big day for you tomorrow, all the students who forgot to buy One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi will be flocking to your shop tomorrow, no doubt. Better stock up.” He gave them a lopsided smile and hugged them both again.

Dorcas laughed as he wrapped his arms around her. Teddy was close to six foot five now, and Dorcas was five foot four on a good day, so he almost knocked the wind out of her. “So like your father,” she said, and took Marlene’s hand to walk down the driveway to apparate.

Petunia watched Teddy go still a little at those words. So like your father – the words Harry had grown up hearing day in, day out. He looked so like his father, laughed so like his father, strutted around so much like his father. But neither Harry nor Teddy had known their fathers, and so they had almost invisible shoes to fill. It was too much pressure to put on a boy. Though, Petunia supposed Teddy was a man now. He had grown up so quickly. One day he would leave Petunia’s house holding his grandma’s hand, thumb in his mouth, the next he would return taller than the door frames with a muggle driving license. So far, he was the only person other than herself Petunia had trusted to drive her mini.

When the crack of Marlene and Dorcas apparating back to Hogsmeade sounded from outside, Teddy turned to Petunia and gave her another hug.

“I thought you weren’t free today?” Petunia said.

“Oh, yeah, I wasn’t,” he said. “We went to Diagon Alley. Had to buy some stuff, y’know?”

Petunia gestured for him to come into the kitchen and she stuck the kettle on. “Oh, very nice,” she said, subtly as she could manage. “Who’s ‘we?’”

“Uhhh…” Immediately, Teddy turned away from Petunia immediately.

“Edward Remus Lupin,” she said, raising a brow. She knew exactly who he went to Diagon Alley with, but she wanted to hear it from his own lips.

“Victoire!” he exclaimed, as though he’d been bursting to say the word for years and only now did he have the air to say it. “I went on a date with Victoire Weasley to Diagon Alley and I bought her books.”

Petunia laughed. “You certainly know the way to a woman’s heart, pumpkin,” she said, patting his cheek. “But don’t let Marlene and Dorcas know, they’ll be beside themselves if they knew another bookshop was used in your romantic endeavours.”

“Why are you not shocked right now?” Teddy demanded, almost offended by her calm demeanour. “You’re literally the first person to know! Not even my grandma knows!”

Petunia laughed. “Oh, Teddy, my dear boy. Where was it you got to know Victoire? Hm?”

Teddy’s shoulders sagged as he took a seat at the kitchen table. Petunia placed a plate with a chocolate biscuit and a slice of lemon drizzle cake and a cup of tea in front of him. “Aunt Petunia,” he said, with child-like sincerity and intensity. “Are you saying you set me up with Victoire six years ago ?”

“Oh, yes, pumpkin. I had an inkling, and I acted on it as far as I could. You kids did the rest, as you always do.”

He bit into his biscuit angrily, but it’s quite hard to look angry eating a biscuit, especially one as good as Petunia’s, so his brow softened a little. “Why am I getting the sense that this isn’t the first time you’ve done this?”

“Because it’s absolutely not,” she told him matter-of-factly, reaching for the flour in the cupboard above her head and measuring it out for bread. “Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione, I like to meddle, my boy, I’m surprised you didn’t know that. The amount of nudging I had to do, though…”

“So you are singlehandedly responsible for the existence of half the Potter-Weasley family?” Teddy’s mouth was agape now.

“Oh, no,” she said, lightly. “I only nudged them together. They would have found each other eventually. Love, I believe, always finds a way.”

***

One year later.

Petunia had Scorpius Malfoy to dine at Knoxley for the first time a year later, at the end of his and Albus’ first year.

He was a sweet boy, unnaturally quiet, pale and wide-eyed, with what seemed like an unhealthy habit of chewing on his lip. But he lit up when Albus spoke to him and, throughout the dinner he had with Petunia, Albus, Jamie and Lily, opened up a little and even managed to muster the courage to ask Petunia to pass the salt.

“So, Scorpius,” Petunia said when she was clearing the plates away. “Tell me about Slytherin. Is it Slytherin? I’m afraid my Hogwarts knowledge is a little rusty. There’s four houses, aren’t there?”

“Yes,” Scorpius squeaked. “Slytherin, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.”

“And I know Gryffindor is for the brave and courageous or whatever, but what about Slytherin?” She smiled at both Slytherin boys. In truth, she knew a little about what each house stood for, but she knew Albus especially was a little self-conscious of the house he had been placed in.

“Oh, well, they’re cunning and ambitious,” Scorpius said. “And… uh… oh, well, most of the death eaters came from the house, back in the war. So we don’t have the best reputation.”

“Well, that’s just ridiculous,” Petunia said, scraping the scraps from dinner all on one plate now. It had been a quiet weekend at the B&B, so they had the house practically all to themselves. “Cunning and ambition did you say? Well, that’s very useful. It will set you up very well in life, undoubtedly! No better or worse than bravery!” She smiled at Jamie, who was already in Gryffindor and a proud supporter of his house, and Lily, who, like her namesake, would undoubtedly, inevitably be sorted into the house of the brave at heart. Albus had always been different, quieter, more sensitive, and Petunia had always known he wouldn’t follow the same path as his father and grandfather before him, Like Jamie had.

“What about the other houses, then?” she continued, shuffling back from the kitchen with a freshly baked summer fruits pie in one hand and a loaded cake stand in the other. “I know Teddy was in Hufflepuff, wasn’t he? And Ravenclaw, for the smart students?”

Everyone around the table nodded. Little Lily looked up at her with those great green eyes of hers – her father’s eyes, her grandmother’s eyes, the eyes of so many Evans women before her. “What house would you have wanted to be in, if you went to Hogwarts, Nanny?”

Petunia almost dropped the cake stand. When Lily had written home in the early days of Hogwarts, back when Petunia hid her resentment and pretended to be interested in the world she had been denied entry to, Lily had told her about the houses of Hogwarts. She knew more about the school than she cared to admit, hoarded the knowledge Lily had offered her in their childhood.

A thought sparked in Petunia’s mind. Ravenclaw, for the swift of mind , Lily had written, gushing about her friends in the house and how they always got the top marks. Of course, it was eventually Lily who would become the top student in the year, so maybe the reputation of the house meant nothing. But Petunia, who, when her parents had paid her no mind, had relied on the praise and encouragement of her teachers at school and valued her sharpness of mind and headstrong nature, wanted nothing more than to be in Ravenclaw. Among the thinkers. Among those who may have understood her, back in the days when she only had herself and what she knew to rely on.

But now? God, she was not that girl anymore. She was not bitter, was not cruel, and she knew very little, in truth. She didn’t rely on much, for when she had relied on others, the world had cruelly ripped them away from her life, and when she had relied on herself, those around her had slipped away. The only thing she had to rely on was love.

Hufflepuffs are the nicest of the lot, I think , Lily had once written in one of her letters. For the fierce of spirit and stubborn of heart .

Petunia was not the girl she was. All she had to rely on was her ability to love, and her heart which loved so stubbornly.

“I think I’d like to be in Hufflepuff.”

Albus nodded. “That makes sense. Their common room is down by the kitchens. I think you’d like it there.”

Nothing had made Petunia smile so widely in weeks.

***

Four months later.

Petunia threw the biggest Christmas she had ever thrown in her life that year – the year that Lily and Hugo, the youngest of the Potter-Weasley children, started at Hogwarts.

Molly, Arthur, every single one of their children and grandchildren and respective partners attended. Petunia let some of the kids bring their friends if they were faced with the prospect of spending Christmas alone at Hogwarts, and of course Teddy and Andromeda came along, though Teddy was now officially Victoire’s boyfriend so they counted as proper family now. Marlene and Dorcas were coming as well, of course, though only for drinks in the evening.

Needless to say, Petunia had her work cut out for her, but she wasn’t without help. Harry and Ginny and their kids stayed for most of the holidays, as Petunia had shut the B&B down for Christmas and she had plenty of spare bedrooms. Ron, Hermione, Rose and Hugo also came along on Christmas Eve to help out with the mammoth task which was preparing for a proper Potter-Weasley Christmas (hosted by an Evans.)

They ate and drank and stuffed themselves silly and they were certainly merry. They pulled crackers that made it rain confetti which cleared itself up and wore stupid muggle paper hats at Petunia’s insistence. Scorpius Malfoy, brought along by Albus, seemed almost overwhelmed at the amount of laughter that was being passed around the massive dining table at Knoxley. When everyone was in the process of pushing the chairs aside to make a dancefloor before Marlene and Dorcas arrived, Petunia noticed Scorpius slink into the kitchen, looking half dazed.

“Are you alright, dearie?” she asked, popping her head around the door, a couple of glasses in her hands she was pretending to wash up as an excuse to check on him.

He started at her presence. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Thanks, Mrs Evans.”

Petunia smiled at him politely. “I’m not married, dear. Never have been!”

Scorpius went red. “Oh! Sorry! Miss Evans.”

She fought the urge to laugh. “No, no, dear. All of this to say is that you can just call me Petunia, or Aunt Petunia, or Nan. I don’t mind.”

Scorpius nodded absently. “Right. Sorry.”

“Oh, don’t apologise!” she insisted, and noticed his redness was starting to fade, but his eyes were a little bleary. She cocked her head at him. “Would you like me to stick the kettle on, dearie?”

Scorpius seemed to release all the tension in his body. “Really? That would be great.”

“How do you take your tea? Or I have hot chocolate?”

“I’ve never had hot chocolate before?”

She had to cough to hide the gasp she let out. “What?”

“Oh, my dad’s not big into treats or chocolate or anything like that. I only ever really got cake on my birthday.”

Petunia whirled on him. “I hope you’re joking, dearie.”

Scorpius shrugged. “Nope.”

“No, no, I won’t have it!” she announced, furiously pouring hot water into a mug with plenty of hot chocolate powder in and extra sugar and cream. She began placing copious amounts of marshmallows on the surface. “I will send you boxes of my best cakes during the holidays, your father be damned!” She had heard enough about Draco Malfoy from Harry during his Hogwarts years and, it seemed, he hadn’t lost his bitter nature.

Scorpius was stuttering now, and Petunia had to make him sit down at the table so he could safely drink his hot chocolate. “I don’t understand,” he said. “You barely know me.”

“Oh, I know plenty about you. You have impeccable table manners, dearie, and I hear enough lovely stuff from Albus’ letters he sends me. Doesn’t shut up about you, that one!”

“Do you… do this for everyone? Just sort of… send them cake?”

“I send them cake, I take in waifs and strays, I offer spare beds up to those who need it. I don’t have a wand and I don’t have much to offer the wizarding world, but this is what I do.”

Scorpius smiled. “Professor Potter was right about you,” he said. It was odd, hearing that. Professor Potter , but it made Petunia’s heart do a happy little leap. “You are truly magic.”

***

It was the end of the night. Marlene and Dorcas were singing Happy Xmas by John Lennon in the living room, Dorcas’ head on Marlene’s shoulder. Harry and Ginny had their heads pressed together and were slow dancing in sync with the picture of Lily and James on the wall above them. Most of the Weasleys had gone home, all the kids were in bed, dreaming of turkey leftovers and boxing day parties.

Teddy had bade a passionate, loving farewell to his girlfriend before she left with her parents, and was now sitting at the kitchen table. Petunia was making him a hot chocolate, like how she’d made Scorpius one earlier that day, like how she’d made Remus hot chocolate over and over again until the day of his untimely death.

She placed the mug in front of him, frowning at his furrowed brow. “Drink. You’ll feel better. Your father always reckoned chocolate was the best cure of melancholy. He always felt better after a mug of hot chocolate.”

Teddy sighed. He looked like he was debating whether he should open his mouth or not.

Eventually, he looked up, Remus’ chocolate brown eyes focused on hers. For a moment, the colour of his eyes flickered from warm brown to an ugly, muddy brown, similar to Petunia’s, but unfamiliar.

“But he wasn’t my father, was he?” Teddy said.

Petunia could feel her heart shatter. She could feel, all the way in Godric’s Hollow, where Remus was buried alongside the friends and loved ones he had lost, rolling in his shallow grave.

“Teddy…”

She didn’t try to deny it. He’d figured it out somehow, he was a smart boy, a smart man now. She sighed, and placed a hand over his own.

“He may not have given you his blood, but he gave you his love, his name, his pride, everything that matters. That makes him your father.”

Teddy frowned. “All these years… you all lied to me.”

“It was for your safety, pumpkin. We didn’t know where your biological father was, whether he’d go searching for you if you had the knowledge of your parentage, whether you’d go searching for him .”

“I’d never-”

“You were a curious boy, Teddy, you still are. You would have gone digging, don’t deny it. I don’t blame you, I would have done the same. But your mother had to make a very difficult decision because of who your biological father was, and the trust he betrayed.”

Teddy scrubbed a hand over his face, eyes back to brown now. He looked up at her, pain-stricken face slack and questioning.

“How did you find out?” she asked.

Teddy shrugged. “I found a picture of my mum and a man I didn’t recognise in her things. I asked my grandma, and she sat me down and said maybe it was time for me to know.”

“And she told you everything?”

“Well, not everything,” he said. “She didn’t tell me how my dad – Remus Lupin, that is – came into all of this. Why. Why he said he was my father, why he married my mum. I want to know about him. I owe him so much. And you’re right, he’s always going to be my dad.”

Petunia squeezed his hand. “He loved you so much.”

“I want his story.”

“The full story?”

“The full story.”

Petunia took a breath, and told Remus Lupin’s son everything about him. She left out not a single detail, at least not a single detail she knew, anyway.

She told Teddy of Remus’ childhood, his werewolf bite, what she knew of his parents, his mother, her famous casserole recipe. She told him of Remus’ Hogwarts years, the friends he made, the bonds he formed. She told him about Sirius Black and the unconditional, unfathomable love they had for each other, until the end. Maybe it was an unkindness, to tell Teddy that there was no way his father loved his mother in the way most people’s parents did.

“He was gay?” Teddy asked. Not unkindly, just a question.

Petunia nodded. “His relationship with Sirius wasn’t completely public, which was why he was able to say he loved your mother and married her so quickly.”

She told Teddy of that day they drove back from Hogwarts when Dumbledore died, the way they smoked a pack of cigarettes between them in an hour flat debating what Remus should do about Tonks and her request. She told Teddy how desperately Remus had wanted a family, how guilty he felt about possibly betraying the memory of the man he loved, how he never stopped loving Sirius Black. She told Teddy that Remus had loved bravely, felt such pride that he had a son, a child that bore his name.

“He would have raised you, as though you were blood, never seeing you any differently,” Petunia assured Teddy. “I know he would have done.”

Teddy was crying now. In that moment, Petunia saw Harry Potter in the face of the boy at the kitchen table, sobbing over parents he never got to know because of a war against a man who didn’t know how to love. She wrapped her arms around Teddy and let him cry.

“Remus Lupin was my best friend,” she said to him. “And never in my life did I see him so proud, so overjoyed, than when you were born. Blood means nothing, Teddy. Love is all that truly matters.”

***

Two years and ten months later.

Lysander Scamander had seen lots of mad, crazy things. Of course he had. His mother and father were both famed magizoologists, their house was practically a menagerie. He was used to feeling out of place, a creature with two legs where most things in his house had at least eight, a boy with a twin brother he spoke a language of their own with in a school full of strong-minded individuals. He knew belonging, too. He knew that he belonged in his family of odd, fearless people, knew he belonged among the creatures and students he stuck out against. He knew when something was out of place. He knew when something belonged.

But never, not in his entire twelve years of life, had he seen someone so out of place, yet so effortlessly belonging to their surroundings.

He heard her coming first. A click of heels like she was a hippogriff or a unicorn, but her feet were clad in brown leather Mary-Janes and didn’t end in hooves. He smelled her, too, flour and cinnamon and flowery perfume, like she was a kitchen with windows thrown wide open out onto the countryside.

She was maybe sixty, her face small, her eyes wide and milky, like a doe’s. She smiled absently as she walked, like the very thoughts inside her head were enough to make her grin. She held a smart navy handbag between her hands, callused and still dusted with sugar though immaculately manicured. Her coat was tan and the buttons had clearly fallen off and been sewn back on a hundred times. There was that word, rattling around in Lysander’s mind as he saw her. Muggle . But no, this couldn’t be a muggle. She didn’t blink at the moving portraits, knew exactly which trick steps on the stairs to miss, and seemed to know exactly where Professor Potter’s office was as she bolted down the corridor.

She seemed to be a muggle in every aspect, in dress, in hands and eyes and unbothered smile. But there was something magical about her.

And when she smiled a little wider at Lysander and said, “Oh, sorry, pumpkin, are you waiting to go in?” Lysander squawked a frightened, no and she nodded and ducked into Professor Potter’s office.

Options and possibilities darted through Lysander’s mind. This was not a woman who looked like she belonged in Hogwarts or with a wand between her hands. But she was not a muggle, not a squib.

Then it hit him. He’d heard about Petunia Evans, the woman who supplied Professor Potter with his famous reward cakes and biscuits. The woman who had taken in so many students' parents and grandparents during the war.

The woman who was a muggle, but was as magic as they came.

***

“You’re here.”

Harry sounded surprised, and pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose. He was sitting at his desk (somewhere, in the depths of Petunia’s photo drawers, there was a picture of Remus sitting at that desk), hunched over a pile of papers, a cup of gone-cold tea by his elbow.

“Of course I’m here,” she said, and smiled. “I thought you might want a little company. I would have thought you’d be at home with Ginny.”

He stood, lifting the stone cold mug from his desk. “Neville’s just had another baby and so he can’t do night rounds for Gryffindor tower and…”

“It’s Hallowe’en, Harry,” she whispered. “Surely McGonagall would have understood.”

They both glanced out the window at the misty, dreary evening.

The knowledge that it was forty years since Lily and James Potter were murdered hung between them like a dew-strung wire.

He dragged a hand over his face. “I know,” he said, his voice breaking slightly. “But I was the only one who could do it. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t want to spend tonight with your friends? With Ginny?”

Harry sighed. “Gin’s in Lichtenstein, writing an article for the Prophet about their Quidditch team. The kids… I don’t want to burden them, it’s Hallowe’en, they should be having fun with their friends. Ron’s visiting Charlie in Romania and Hermione… well, Hermione’s the minister for magic.”

“She would have come, if you’d asked.”

“I wouldn’t have asked her. Besides, I’ve got you.”

She smiled. “Of course you do. Let me make you another cup of tea, surely you have a kettle somewhere around here.” She took his cup from him and poured the contents down the small wash basin hidden away in a cupboard at the end of the office.

“I think I have Moony’s old whistling kettle, but I could have just put a heating charm on that cold one or got someone from the kitchens to bring a new cup up for me…”

“Nonsense,” she insisted. “A cup of tea is like a warm hug. And I insist I be the one to give you a warm hug now.”

Harry smiled a lopsided smile, a boyish smile which was like a painful, beautiful reminder of his childhood. It seemed like just yesterday yet also a millennium ago, those years when it was just Petunia, Remus and Harry, trying to figure out how to stop a baby from crying. Now, Harry had children of his own, children who were swiftly becoming their own people, the next generation of Potters. Slowly, the generations of this family were becoming less and less affected by war. Lily and James fought and died. Harry fought and survived. His children wouldn’t even have to face an enemy worse than a too-long essay. Petunia would go to the ends of the earth to assure that.

Petunia stuck the kettle on and went rifling around in Harry’s cupboards for mugs. He had quite a few, as she knew he would offer tea at his catchup classes or meetings with other teachers. In total, he had six mugs and six plates. Petunia had brought six cakes with her. Maybe the universe knew.

Petunia pulled the six mugs down, set the six plates out and poured six cups of tea to go with the six muffins she had made. She placed them all on Harry’s small table in the centre of his office. He didn’t question her, of course he didn’t. He knew who the chocolate muffin and mug of hot chocolate was for. Knew who was meant to have the fresh berry muffin and black coffee. Knew who would have wanted the chocolate fudge cake and milky earl grey. Knew the carrot cake and the camomile tea with honey was for someone no longer with them, lost forty years ago.

They sat in silence for what felt like hours. When the clock struck midnight, Harry said he needed to go and do the rounds around Gryffindor tower, but Petunia was welcome to stay and sleep here until morning.

He kissed her on the forehead and traipsed off towards the door, wiping at the tears in his eyes. Well, Petunia supposed, it was no longer Hallowe’en.

It was, however, forty years to the day now that Petunia found Harry Potter on her doorstep, a note tucked into his blanket.

Petunia took a deep breath, and thought she could smell Lily for a moment – cinnamon and rain and flowers. But she knew she smelled the rain from the storm-soaked earth outside the window, the flowers from the vase of lilies on a shelf by the door. She knew she could only smell cinnamon from the untouched slice of carrot cake on a plate in front of a chair which should have been filled by Lily.

It had been over forty years since Petunia had first felt the burning ache of death. But she still couldn’t let her ghosts go.

***

 Nine years pass.

Petunia Evans was nothing if not reliable. She was always at the end of a phone, ready to write a letter, behind the wheel of her mini, if anyone needed her.

So, when Teddy Lupin called her crying at two o’clock in the morning on a musky June night when he was twenty four, saying that he’d bought a ring and was planning on proposing to Victoire, but didn’t know how to ask her, Petunia was the one who helped him write a script. She was the one, when Victoire turned up with tears in her eyes claiming she had no idea how to plan a wedding, who made a plan of action and insisted she be the one to bake their wedding cake – chocolate, of course. She was the one who explained to Victoire about Teddy’s blood father, the sacrifice Remus Lupin made, that the name she would be taking in marriage was not a name Teddy has inherited from blood, but from love. She was the one who smiled and told Teddy that Vic had said ‘Victoire Lupin’ had a better ring to it than ‘Victoire Weasley’ anyway, and she felt no differently about the name.

She was the one, when the day came for them to get married, who made the speech alongside Harry, where Remus and Tonks weren’t there to say how proud they were of their son.

And when, a year later, Teddy and Victoire’s daughter was born, Petunia was the one to ask what her name was, and furrowed her brow when Teddy said, “Mona.”

“Mona?” she questioned.

Teddy had smiled. “It means ‘moon.’ Though, we think that we won’t be calling her ‘Mona’ that much. We thought we could shorten it to ‘Moony.’”

And yes, she was the one who cried the most when Mona ‘Moony’ Lupin was born.

When Albus Remus Potter, the most insecure and quiet but loving of the Potter children, wrote his Nan a letter that started with I just wanted to tell you that I’m gay and ended with him gushing about his platinum blonde, devilishly handsome boyfriend, Petunia sent both Albus and Scorpius a box of rainbow cupcakes. She sat them down and told them that if anyone gave them crap about their relationship, about who they were, she would personally run them over with her mini. The boys laughed, and Petunia told them she was serious.

“I know what it’s like to be different,” she told them. “In this day and age, if someone’s being a bigoted little bitch, maybe they deserve to be run over by a sixty-five year old woman in a mini faster than sound.”

Albus and Scorpius just blinked at her. She realised that was probably the first time they had ever heard her swear.

When Rita Skeeter (a bigoted little bitch who deserved to be run over by a sixty-five year old woman in a mini faster than sound) launched a press attack on not just the entire Potter-Weasley family, but the Minister for Magic too, it was Petunia who (unable to drive into Diagon Alley and run the woman over) sent a box of lemon muffins laced with the strongest laxatives money could buy. When Hermione found out, she laughed so hard she had to excuse herself from a meeting about broomstick regulations.

It was Petunia who, no matter what, took in whoever needed company at Christmas. She would cook for the entirety of the Potter-Weasley family, the growing collection of boyfriends, girlfriends and partners, and one year she even allowed Charlie to bring his best behaved dragon, and it lit the Christmas pudding rather well, actually. She continued running the B&B, bidding good morning to the faces of those she’d loved and lost on the wall every day when she woke up. She cooked and cleaned and reminisced, lived in the moment but refused to forget the beauty of the past and the hope of the future.

It was Petunia who, year in, year out, without fail, placed flowers at the graves of the four people she missed the most. On their birthdays, on the days they died, on days where the cherry blossom began to bloom and Lily would have liked to see it. On nights of Harvest moons and mornings of crisp, brisk breezes, perfect for flying. On evenings where, somehow, she thought she could hear the laugh of a man with an ego the size of the sun or a heart the size of a boulder. The smell of hot chocolate and cigarettes or cinnamon and rain.

Sometimes, a memory would hit her, of a wedding in a garden or promises of wedding cake to two people so stupidly in love but so cruelly torn apart. Sometimes, it wouldn’t be the memories that would overwhelm Petunia’s emotions, but the dreams. The soft, muffled voices of souls now dwelling in heaven, a place that eagerly awaited Petunia’s arrival. She could see Lily and James and Remus and Sirius sitting around a table made from laughter, drinking from cups of hope in a hall built of peace. As she got older, flashes of heaven reached her more and more.

***

For a few years now, Petunia’s heart had been tugging itself out of her chest.

It wasn’t that tug of belonging she so often felt. Not a tug of love, not a tug of hate, an emotion she rarely felt but had felt with such malice before. It was not a tug of fear or horror or sorrow. She was tired. She had been for a while.

The wall of pictures in her living room, of those who had been torn from the world too quickly, hadn’t gained a photo in over twenty years. She had been so terrified, ever since she framed pictures of Remus with tears streaming down her face, that it would be Harry or Ron or Hermione or any number of reckless, too-brave Potter or Weasley children next on that wall. Petunia looked up, and hoped, selfishly, that maybe, the next person to go on that wall would be herself. Maybe then she wouldn’t have to feel the sharp, too-frequent pain of loss once more.

Lily was laughing on the wall, in time with her granddaughter, her namesake, curled up in an armchair at Knoxley, cackling at something her mother had said. James had his arm around Lily in the picture, his brow furrowed with a fierce, determined love. Jamie had Mona sat on his lap, and his eyes were alight with glee. Harry and Ginny sat side by side, watching their children and nieces and nephews run about the house of Harry’s grandparents, rampant with teenage delight, the glory of childhood they never fully got.

Remus Lupin and Sirius Black had their arms twisted around each other on a sofa, and below that picture on the wall, Albus Remus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy sat on that same sofa, the same look of infinite love in their eyes.

Petunia sat, as though behind a camera, and watched, observed, smiled. She was seventy-one now, past her best but trying her best.

Who would’ve thought that the girl who had called her magical sister a freak and believed she didn’t belong in this world that gave the chosen few wings and then a cruel downfall, would grow into the woman with moving pictures on her walls and memories of miraculous magic. Who would’ve thought that the woman who lost her sister and brother in law and was given a baby despite the fact she didn’t even recognise her reflection, would become the woman now, a mug of tea resting on her knee, the laughter of her family like a symphony around her.

Petunia looked up at Lily. She’d never know whether this is what Lily would have wanted, whether, if she had the choice, she would have had Petunia be the one to raise Harry. But Petunia hoped, in the deepest pit of her wilting-flower heart, that maybe Lily was content with how fate had decided to run its course.

“I did alright, didn’t I?” Petunia asked Lily, out loud, eyes focused on Lily’s from across the room.

Harry looked up. His eyes were just like Lily’s, though they’d been his for longer than Lily ever got to blink at the beautiful world with those bright green eyes. He was almost fifty now, over twice the age his parents lived to be, older than both Sirius and Remus were when they died. It broke Petunia’s heart, in the same way it made her so, perfectly happy.

“Aunt Petunia,” Harry said, softly. “You did more than alright.”

James Potter was everywhere in this room. On the walls, in the shaggy black hair of his son and grandsons, the full hearts of people who didn’t need to know war because of his sacrifices. The house he had grown up in, where he had been loved, and himself loved so fiercely. Harry or Albus or Jamie would smile, and Petunia would remember that man in a dim Italian restaurant, the man who laughed politely at her jokes despite the hatred she harboured in her heart.

Sirius Black’s spirit made several dramatic entrances. The shrugging of a leather jacket over Marlene’s shoulders. A burst of laughter, a cackle, the crackle of a record being changed on a record player and the discordant opening of a song he’d loved. The shrill cry of little Moony when the stuffed black dog toy she slept with every night was taken out of her little hands.

Teddy laughed, and Petunia heard Remus’ laugh, smelled ink and chocolate and thought of her best friend. The wind blew through the room, and rustled the pages of the book open in Al’s lap, one of Remus’ favourites. Dorcas and Teddy were locked in a fierce debate about whether Proust was a wizard or not. Outside, the night was dark, there was no moon, the stars were shining as though they were being watched by an audience. Remus existed in the quiet corners of Knoxley and hidden corridors of Petunia’s memory.

Lily – little Lily – was standing next to Petunia, a plate of biscuits held out to her. She smiled her grandmother’s smile when Petunia took one, eyes wide and encouraging. Petunia noticed how Albus scrunched up his nose when he laughed, just like Lily did. Jamie bit his nails when he was nervous, a trait passed down from grandmother to grandson, despite the fact they would only ever meet in the next life. Lily was everywhere.

Petunia’s heart was full, despite the ache that sat on her chest. She knew this, despite the fact she now knew death like an old friend: death was not the end.

And she was not afraid to die.

***

Petunia was now sat in a doctor’s office, the only sound the quiet hum of the whirring monitor next to her.

She gulped, and looked up at the doctor.

“So?” she asked.

The doctor’s face twisted into a sympathetic, apologetic grimace. Petunia knew what that meant, but she had to hear it herself.

“How long do you think I have left?” she said. Other, braver souls wouldn’t have asked. They would have lived each day as though it was their last. But Petunia wanted peace. She was tired, she had been tired for a long time.

The doctor sighed. “Maybe six months,” she estimated.

Petunia nodded, thanked the doctor, and placed a small box of biscuits on her desk. The doctor smiled, tears in her eyes. They all knew her at the hospital now. But there wasn’t much point in Petunia coming back. There wasn’t anything they could do for her.

Petunia sat in the front seat of her 1976 racing green mini cooper, parked askew in a bay outside a run-down hospital, heavy with the knowledge that she was going to die.

But, like everything else in her life, she shook it off, and put her car in gear, heading for the main road.

But she didn’t drive home. She drove all the way to a village with a funny name, with a churchyard with higgledy-piggledy graves. Her nephew lived in this village, but she wasn’t here to see him.

She entered the churchyard, careful to close the gate behind her, and crouched down beside a gravestone, a single flower in her hand. She lay it at the bottom of the grave, smiling, a tear slipping down her cheek.

She traced the name at the top.

Lily Potter .

Petunia took a ragged breath. “I’ll see you soon, Lil.”

***

After.

Petunia Evans died a peaceful death. She met her sister halfway between the world she left behind and the heaven she walked into. It was her time.

When news of her death swept the wizarding world, every wand in Britain was raised in the air. The country was lit with stars that clung to the end of wands. Tributes were made, carrot cakes were baked, recipes were followed and written out, children were sat down and told about the woman who baked for soldiers and knew how every person she ever met took their tea and raised the saviour of the wizarding world as her own, but didn’t stop there.

She was a woman who had loved and loved and loved until she managed to get some love back. Truly magic, fiercely kind.

They didn’t bury Petunia in Godric’s Hollow with Lily and James and Remus and Sirius. She was with them already. She was buried in the peaceful garden at Knoxley, the house where she had fed an army twice over, baked a thousand different cakes a hundred times over, and raised a boy who had been fated to be abandoned, if it wasn’t for her. Ivy grew over her headstone as the years went by, and there was always a flourishing petunia plant in a pot beside where she lay.

Teddy and Victoire Lupin moved, with their three daughters, Mona, Dora and Petal, to Knoxley house, to take over the hotel (and the mini) as a going concern. Yes, maybe their cakes weren’t quite as good as Petunia’s, and maybe they forgot to turn down the sheets at a crisp angle, but their home was filled with as much happiness as Petunia’s was, thanks to the lingering love she left behind in the halls of Knoxley.

Harry Potter, who became Headmaster of Hogwarts not long after Petunia passed, made just one change to the school. Outside the entrance to the headmaster’s office, where there was a beautiful view of the village and valley behind it, Professor Potter hung a portrait of his aunt.

She would tell a student passing if their shoelace was undone, chastise a boy pulling on a girl’s pigtails, remark that it smelled like they were making apple pie for dessert today. The students called her Aunt Petunia, and she spent her days poised on a dining chair, an apron around her waist. Of course, the people who had known her knew that this masterpiece of paint and magic wasn’t anywhere as wonderful as the real woman was, but it was a comfort, for her voice to sound out like a bell in the corridors every now and again.

Harry stood there now, after dark, in front of the portrait of his aunt. It was Hallowe’en. He wished, more than anything, that she was there to boil the kettle and cluck and smile that Aunt Petunia smile.

“How did you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?” she replied.

“You loved. Always. You never stopped.”

“It wasn’t hard. Love stays with you.”

“And will you stay with me?”

Petunia smiled. “Oh, my boy. I’ll stay with all of you,” she said. “Always.”

And that was enough.