Petunia Dursley, in the grand scheme of things, considered herself quite a patient person. She could sit by the open kitchen window for hours, ears strained as she listened to the neighbors talk, waiting for the juiciest piece of gossip. And she had always been more than patient with Dudley– one of her many accomplishments as a mother, she thought proudly, was that she had never, not once, snapped and shouted at her son. No, she’d waited out his temper tantrums with a stony expression, waited for him to stop complaining in silence. Even as a child, she was so very patient. She’d outlasted Lily every time one of their fights resulted in the silent treatment, down to the very last one, on the evening her sister told her she was planning on marrying that strange fool of a man. She’d waited for her sister to come to her senses in vain. She’d waited seven years for a letter that never came.

Hell, she’d even been patient with the boy. All of those times that strangeness inside of him reared its ugly head– his unruly hair that refused to be cut, the shrinking sweaters, the cobra at the zoo– she’d never done more than send him to his cupboard. Never raised a hand when she’d been itching to so desperately. Never truly given him a piece of her mind, unlike Vernon.

But now, after fifteen years, her patience was finally wearing thin. This had gone on long enough.

“BOY!” she shouted up the stairs, immediately followed by a dull thud and a crash as something shattered in the boy’s– no, Dudley’s second– bedroom. Petunia pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a long breath. That horrible boy was always making some sort of mess.  A moment passed, and then head of scruffy, unkempt black hair appeared in the hallway.

“Get down here at once.” she snapped, “And clean up whatever mess you’ve made before you do. I don’t need your freakishness dirtying up any more of my house.”

The boy was silent, merely looking at her somewhat blankly before retreating back to his room and slamming the door. A flash of resentment shot through Petunia; he’d been like this all summer. Quiet, despondent, locking himself in that tiny little room and only emerging to use the bathroom and get food several times per day. He was turning into some sort of recluse– he was barely even a human being anymore, Petunia thought with disgust. Not that freaks were fully human like the rest of them, anyways.

But even subhuman creatures had to do their share of work and pay their way. She wasn’t in the business of offering charity to their kind , and the boy’s so-called “sadness” had gone on long enough. It was high time for him to show some respect where it was due and get back to work. She certainly wasn’t going to put up with him lazing around all summer like some spoiled little prince.

She was in the kitchen several minutes later when she heard his quick footsteps come down the stairs, and then into the room as he graced her with his presence. He looked worse for wear, she had to admit. His hair was unkempt and snarled, like he hadn’t brushed it in several days, and there were dark circles under his eyes, as though he hadn’t slept in just as long– probably some sort of glamour magic to make them pity him. But then, she reflected, she had heard him cry out in the night from time to time, as though possessed by some kind of horrible… thing. Perhaps it wasn’t a spell. Perhaps he truly wasn’t sleeping.

No, she decided a moment later, it was most likely all done for attention. Her lip curled as her gaze swept over his skinny frame and landed on his hands, finding them littered with fresh scrapes. A few beads of blood were beginning to pool on his skin. It must have been some sort of strange… thing his kind did. Or some demented form of self-harm. Either way, she wanted nothing to do with it.  “Clean yourself up,” she barked, throwing a kitchen towel towards him before turning away. “I don’t want your freakish blood on my floor.”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he said dully, dutifully going to the sink and turning on the water.

“And when you’re done with that,” she continued, “You’ll be going out to weed the gardens, and then have dinner made by six. It’s time you started earning your keep again, Potter.”

The sound of running water was abruptly cut off as he finished and turned around to face her. “I’ve tried to stay out of your way.” he said, his lips pressed together in a hard, thin line.

“Yes, well, out of the way doesn’t keep the house running, does it?” She snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. “You should consider yourself lucky that I open my home to you year after year, especially after all the hardships you’ve brought upon our family. All we ever wanted was to be normal , but instead we were stuck with you.” She spat the last word as though it were poison on her tongue, and watched as the resignation on his face slowly began to fade into something more ardent– anger.

“You think I want to be here?” He demanded, his grip around the kitchen towel tightening as his temper flared. “You think I choose to come back here every summer? I don’t want to be here any more than any of you want me here.”

Petunia grit her teeth. That ungrateful little brat! Dumbledore may have asked them to offer him shelter until he was seventeen, but no one was forcing her to do anything. All of this, the past fifteen years, was done of her own honorable volition. She’d willingly given up space in her home, food, clothes, part of Dudley’s childhood, and even some of their hard-earned money– and he repaid her with laziness and resentment? How dare he!

“Enough!” She snarled. “You little freak, you should be grateful we’ve even provided you with meals while you locked yourself in Dudley’s second room, pretending to be depressed. I should give you what you deserve and throw you out on the street! But, no, I wouldn’t, because you need our protection. ” She didn’t bother to hide the disgust on her face. “This ends now.”

It was after this sentence that she saw the fire in his eyes start to blaze, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees. She forced herself to quell the fear that had begun to roil in her stomach. Don’t think about the snake, don’t think about Marge, don’t think about the dementors.

“Pretending?” Potter spat the words through his teeth. “Pretending? I knew the lot of you were dense, but I thought you, at least, would understand.” And there was a touch of vulnerability in his voice that for a moment made Petunia feel concerned.

But then the towel tore in half in his hand, seemingly of its own accord, and she steeled herself over again. Her blood was boiling in her veins. “I have no business in understanding anything about the life of a freak.” she said sharply.

“Yeah, well, grief wasn’t freakish when it was for your own sister, was it?”

Every part of Petunia’s body suddenly went cold. “Don’t you dare,” she warned, but the fight was slowly slipping from her voice.

“I’ve had to watch people die right in front of me.” The boy growled, rage creeping into his voice. Petunia reached for something, anything, to protect herself with– if he attacked her with his freakish powers, she was defenseless. Vernon was at work, Dudley was out with friends. “Everyone I’ve ever loved has been taken. My godfather, my parents– how you felt after my mum died, remember that? Not such a great feeling, yeah?” as he spoke, a high-pitched whine started to fill the room. Hairline cracks began to creep across the glass of the picture frames hung against the walls. “Think of that, but imagine you had to look her in the eyes right as she died.”

Anger shot through Petunia, making every muscle in her thin frame tense. The rolling pin she’d grabbed from the counter was heavy in her hand. “Don’t you talk about her!” she shrieked, her voice shrill enough that the boy cringed.

“I will,” he shot back, the cracks in the glass growing longer and wider. “I will, because you didn’t just lose a sister, I lost my mum, and now I’ve lost my godfather, too–”

“You didn’t lose her.” she said angrily. “My sister got herself killed. And whatever your kind like to say about her death being a sacrifice– well, she would still be here if it wasn’t for you. And I’m sure your brutish godfather would be, too.”

The adrenaline of finally letting loose the words she’d wanted to say for so long made all of her restraint snap. The high pitched whining grew steadily louder, and so did the fire in his eyes, but she continued, because she had no more patience left to give and the boy deserved every word. “Your mother died because of you, and every misfortune that has entered our lives since then has been because of you. Your kind. She got herself blown up saving your sorry self, and you don’t deserve to even speak of her, you worthless little freak– ”

The whining came to an ominous, sudden stop. The shaking glass on the pictures stilled. For a moment, Petunia wondered if she’d verbally beaten into submission.

But then the kitchen window exploded.

Petunia screamed, arms flying up to cover her face as the force of the explosion, strong as a bomb, threw her back. Her feet fell out from under her as glass and plaster rained down upon her.

When the dust cleared, Potter was standing in the doorway, breathing heavily, his entire body trembling.

“Get. Out.” She choked out, her voice quiet with barely contained rage. For a moment, he just stood there, and Petunia hurled the rolling pin at him, narrowly missing his head. “GET OUT. Get out of my house, you disgusting, horrible freak!”

Before she could throw something else at him, the boy stormed out, throwing the front door open so hard the walls trembled as he ran out into the street. Good riddance, she thought as she brushed the dust off of her and shakily rose to her feet. Good riddance that he’s gone. Good riddance if he never comes back. It’s not like I give a damn if he gets himself blown up like his parents, not after what he’s done to my family!

But despite the fury now raging in her veins and the fact that her once-pristine kitchen was now in shambles, Petunia felt… surprisingly light. As she looked around at the damage around her, a strange weight seemed to lift from her shoulders for the first time in sixteen long years.

Miles away, a wild burst of magic burned through the veins of one Severus Snape, along with each of the other Death Eaters seated at the long, ornate dining table of Malfoy Manor. The enchantment  shook the very core of his magic, pulsing at the center of the Dark Mark, even reaching away from him and rocking the protective wards surrounding the house. A web of spells began to shimmer at the Manor’s walls, rippling precariously, green and silver with a hint of red. The room, previously hectic with the heated conversations and arguments of the Death Eaters, was suddenly eerily quiet.

As quickly as the strange magic had appeared, it suddenly vanished. The house righted itself and the burning– not dissimilar to the angry call of the Dark Lord that flared through his Mark– began to dissipate, leaving nothing but a stunned silence in its wake. Severus was careful to keep his own features guarded, unlike his compatriots– Bellatrix Lestrange looked absolutely floored, while the young Malfoy heir looked ill.

“Well,” the Dark Lord purred, idly stroking Nagini from the head of the table, “This is quite an interesting turn of events.”

“My Lord,” Bellatrix gasped out, black eyes wide with undiluted fear, “What does it mean? Are you being attacked?”

Snape forced back a snort and fought to keep the surface of his mind carefully blank. Underneath the delicate mask his Occlumency provided, however, his thoughts were running at breakneck speed. He knew what this meant. Knew the repercussions it would bring.

An unnatural smile began to creep up the Dark Lord’s pale, snakelike features. Oh yes, this was going to be fun for him indeed– and a horrible mess for Severus to clean up if he didn’t play this correctly. Nagini, sensing the excitement of her master, began to slither across black wood of the table. Across from him, Draco looked as though he were about to be sick. Severus cursed the boy and his nerves.

“It means,” Voldemort said with a dark chuckle, “that our time has come. It means that the wards around Harry Potter have broken at last.”