Chapter Text
Petunia couldn’t help but look at the bundle that she found on her doorstep, for once glad that Vernon was out of town for the day as her husband would not react well to the sudden appearance of a baby. Not just any baby, but the child of her late sister and her husband.
Part of her couldn’t quite deal with the fact that Lily wasn’t alive anymore. That her little sister had been killed by a world that Petunia had already hated for taking Lily away from her. Now that same world was pressuring her to take care of her son because they couldn’t be bothered to do so.
Scoffing as she looked at the letter that had been left together with baby Harry, she almost wanted to light in on fire. How dare that man do this, she wasn’t there to take care of an unwanted burden.
Looking at the still sleeping toddler, she knew that something needed to be done. There had to be someone she could reach out to. Someone who could help her in settling this, someone with connections in the Wizarding World, but not someone who would be weak-willed enough to let whoever found out what had happened tried to bounce this back to them.
Worrying her lip between her teeth, Petunia recalled the couple she had spoken with at Lily’s wedding. Vernon had refused to attend, but she had at least shown up for the reception where she had talked to Ted and Andy. So horrible mismatched that they were just too cute together.
If she recalled what Lily told her after that, was that Andy was related to that Black boy who was Harry’s Godfather. Why couldn’t he take in his godson, or was he too not willing to take in the child he had vowed to protect?
Shaking her head, she went to look in her purse, Ted had given her a business card before she left for the night. He was a lawyer in both the muggle and in the wizarding world. Someone with a muggle background, being that he was muggleborn, but more than able to keep his head up in the scrutiny that was pureblood politics.
His wife, Andy, was a starting politician. One that threw away all the prejudice she had been raised with and just looked at the world through her own eyes. She wanted a better world for their daughter, and one where people shouldn’t be disowned just for who they loved.
Nodding to herself, Petunia found the business card and punched in the number into her phone.
It rang for a couple of times before a voice she remembered spoke, “Ted Tonks, what can I do for you.”
Swallowing, Petunia gathered her courage, “Ted, it’s Petunia, Lily Evans’ sister. I think that I need your help.”
She explained what she had found on her porch, in early November even, as well as the fact that there was only a letter accompanying the toddler that had been bundled up. Nothing about what actually happened or what needed to happen to Harry now. Just that Dumbledore stated that Lily wanted her to take him.
“Lily would never do that, she knew how Vernon looked towards those differently from himself. I… I couldn’t do that to Harry, I don’t know if I could be able to protect.”
She knew how it sounded, and should anything ever happen that made herself or Dudley a freak in his eyes, she didn’t know what would happen to her or to their son. But that was not on her mind right now. Dudley and herself were fine for now, what she was worried about was getting Harry out of her house in a short while.
Ted hummed from the other side of the line, “Let me call Andy, alright Petunia? But I promise you that we’ll be at your door in less than 3 hours.”
She hummed at that, not even hiding the relief at knowing that something could be done.
—
When 2 hours later she heard a car stop in front of her house, she peaked out of the bindings. Happy when it was a dark blue colored one instead of the silver one Vernon drove around in.
Doors opened as the couple she remembered stepped out, Andy going to the backseat to take out a little girl who seemed to be about 10 years old. This had to be Nymphadora, the daughter Ted and Andy had told her about when they spoke back on Lily’s wedding.
Opening the door, she waved them inside, “Shall I put on a pot of tea?”
Ted and Andy nodded, while Nymphadora went to look at Harry and Dudley who were playing together in the box. Both toddlers had slept in late, for which she was happy. Too many emotions had been rushing through her that she didn’t think she could look after two toddlers properly like this.
As she set the pot of tea down together with her good china set, she bit her lip as she looked at the one couple that she knew that could help her.
“Is… Are they really dead?”
Andy nodded, to which Petunia hid her face in her hands as she started to sob. For all that she didn’t like the wizarding world, and hated the life that Lily found for herself there, that didn’t take away that she was gone now.
“I can’t believe it. I knew something had to have happened for Harry to appear here, but I still didn’t think that it was real. That they were gone.”
Andy dabbed at her own eyes, “I don’t think anyone can believe what happened. We all got the news late last night that Lily and James Potter had been killed by the Dark Lord. But that man had also died that same night.”
Looking at Harry from where he was standing and looking as Nymphadora looked at him, she sighed, “None of us knew how the news got spread. Nor did anyone think to question what had happened to Harry. I’m glad he was given to someone who cared, even if you can’t take care of him.”
Petunia nodded, “I hate that they left him on my doorstep since last night, what if it had frozen during the night, he would have died!”
Andy nodded along to that, pursing her lips as she took the letter that Petunia had put out for her and Ted to look at. It was indeed the handwriting of Albus Dumbledore, almost forcing Pertunia into caring for Harry by the way he worded it.
“The nerve of that man. To ask this of you through a letter instead of knocking and asking this of you.”
Petunia nodded, “I… I wouldn’t mind watching him, but I know I can’t take care of him for the rest of his life. Not only that, but there is so much that I wouldn’t be able to tell him, his heritage and about his father.”
Hesitating, Petunia added, “Plus I wouldn’t know how I could deal with his magic. I know from Lily that children react with their magic in times of crisis or fear. We live in a Muggle neighborhood, I don’t want to think about what implications that would bring. I don’t want to move again, not after the last move when I was pregnant.”
Ted and Andy nodded once more, before they looked at each other.
“I guess we can look after him until Sirius makes an appearance. I know that he loves his godson to the moon and back, he was appointed as guardian if something were to happen to Lily and James.”
Petunia sighed in relief once more, “Thank you.”
Andy shook her head, “We’re doing this for us too, I want to make sure that the little boy of our friends gets all the care he needs now that his parents aren’t here anymore. Not only that, but something feels fishy at the way Dumbledore handled this, he isn’t in any way involved in this. He isn’t next of kin, nor is he appointed as a guardian of any kind. He’s just the leader of the Light Side, where Lily and James’ alliance lay. But that’s about the only connection he has to the both of them.”
Grinning rather sharply, Andy added, “I can’t wait to rub this into his face. He made a mistake and a big one at that. I won’t let this stand, especially not when he left a child out in the cold for a whole night. He’s the headmaster at Hogwarts, he should know better.”
—
When Andy and Ted left, it was with Andy holding Nymphadora’s hand, while Ted was holding onto the bundle that was Harry Potter. Luckily they had expected this to happen, so an extra car seat was installed before they left their own
They settled Harry in the room they had been saving for an eventual second child. Or that had been the idea, until they found out that they wouldn’t be able to get more children after Dora, too much had gone wrong in that pregnancy.
When the news hit them a couple of days later that Sirius had been arrested for the murder of 14 muggles and Peter Petergrew, Andy had bundled up Harry and made her way to Gringotts, she needed to know the truth which was much more easily found at the bank than with the shitshow that was the Ministry.
When she came out of the bank, it was to drop Harry back home with Ted and Dora, before she went into the Ministry breathing fire and frotting at the mouth. She knew that it had been war but that didn’t excuse anyone throwing an innocent man into jail.
It took her two years, but she freed her cousin, she made them release him as having thrown him in on false claims. He hadn’t even received a trial, which was reason enough to be on a warpath. How many other people had been thrown into Azkaban for something they hadn’t done but had been at the wrong place, at the wrong time?
Raising the right questions, and pointing out the issues that their society was dealing with was enough to make a thorn in the eyes of the current minister, as well as Albus Dumbledore. Neither of them could do anything, however, not without turning the masses against them.
As such she stood tall as she was able to rise in ranks more than she had been able to do before, gaining favors and allies as she went. When she was elected as the Ministry of Magic not long after Sirius had moved in with her and Ted as he tried to get used to living without Dementors around him 24/7.
He had taken one look at Harry and Dora, before agreeing that he was better off here instead of somewhere else.
His eyes had grown when Andy told him it was Petunia that reached out to him, when Dumbledore had left him with Lily’s muggle sister and brother-in-law. So very glad that Petunia at least loved Lily enough to do this, to not keep Harry with them.
His godson still recognized him, and that was enough for the newly named Black Lord. He could build on something once he was better himself, once he saw that the world wasn’t as black and white as he always believed it to be.
In fact, it was Sirius who suggested reaching out to Narcissa as she had a son about the same age. Maybe they could have a friendship in a way that would bring children of this generation closer than they had been. Maybe with this generation, it could actually be the start of something new, now that the Dark Lord was gone and dealt with.