FicWad

The Baghera Lord

By Lord Maurya


Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. No Profit is being made by this fan fiction.

"Speech"

'Mentally Talking'

^Parseltongue^

A/N: This chapter is for character build up mostly but will lay out the tone for story.




Chapter 5: Petunia Marianne Evans

Petunia was a 29 year old woman with a great appreciation of quality in life above all. She was very ambitious woman; she could go to great lengths just for some good phrase for herself. It wasn't that she was self centered or something, no, the need of other's approval and praises for herself was because of long rooted cause (her insecurities) which started from her maiden family, which is the Evans family and later increased in the Dursley family. You see the Evans family played a major role in making Petunia the woman that she had became. For that to see we would have to check some History:

In the summer of 1956, Mr. Evans had married Marianne Rosaline Johnson, a beautiful redhead woman he had gone college with. They lived in Cokeworth and led a lovely life together, after nearly three years later they had their first child; Petunia Marianne Evans. Petunia who had inherited mostly her fathers looks; with blond hair & blue eyes, was abeautiful child. Her parents loved her and life was beautiful for Evans family. Barely a year later Marianne had again gone to labor after eight month of pregnancy, but this time the birth was not without any difficulties. For the newly born Lily Rosaline Evans was barely able to come out alive through it; her being able to live was nothing short of miracle. As the new addition to family and with near escape from death, Lily easily got the position of most dotted child afterward. As the years went by the relationship between two sister developed, they became best friends and confident of each other; Petunia became 'Tuney' and Lily became 'Lils'.

But it all changed for Petunia on summer of'69. On that unpleasant day, they met Severus Snape, a boy who lived nearby. He informed Lily that he had been observing her for sometime and that magic was real and she was a witch. 'The dysfunctional Snape family' was infamous in Cokeworth; for the abnormal dressing sense of Severus's mother and his father who was always drunk; but Lily was curious and wanted to learn about magic, with her lively personality she easily made friends with Severus who was always a loner for being poor and his family's abnormalities. After that day the elder Evans slowly started to believe that magic was indeed real and that their youngest daughter was a witch. After meeting Severus Lily started to spend most of her time with the Snape boy, learning about magic and potion making, her time with Petunia started become less and less. For that reason alone, Petunia didn't like Snape, but one day she held her pride and asked Snape to be included in their potion making session. But Snape didn't help her, he told her that she was a pathetic muggle and there was no place for her type in their world. When Petunia informed Lily of this, Lily didn't believed Petunia and accused her of being jealous. This led to an argument between the sisters and their remaining ties began to loose.

Whenever Lily wasn't around Snape would torment Petunia for being a pathetic muggle and would threaten her with some potion or other. By the time Lily received her Hogwarts invitation letter the two sisters barely spoke to each other, but holding a foolish hope against her better judgment Petunia wrote a letter to the headmaster of Hogwarts seeking admission; to which he politely declined in his return letter saying that she was a muggle and can't do magic. When Snape learned of this letter he mocked her about it and received a slap on his face from her. Seeking revenge, Snape laced her drink with a potion which he said in his gloating that she will know of it when it worked. Again Lily didn't believe her. Then Lily started Hogwarts and only returned at holidays where their parents would always say how proud of her they were leaving Petunia in shadows. The potions' effect started nearly three month later when Lily was at Hogwarts, it started with very subtle changes therefore nobody pointed it out, but by the end of Lily's first year at Hogwarts Petunia's whole appearance had changed; where once Petunia was an elegant girl with blond hair had blue eyes, now stood very thin blond girl with a long neck and an angular face. After that she hated all thing magic; because of magic her best trait was also taken away from her and she was helpless to do anything, this fueled her increasing jealousy of Lily and she started refer Lily as freak.

After the end of Lily's fifth year at Hogwarts, the Snape chapter of their life was simply wiped out by Lily; but by this time Petunia had convinced herself that she hated Lily and become so self-conscious with her looks that she started to hang with wrong crowd for popularity which led to an off and on affair with their leader, one Vernon Dursley. In her seventh year Lily started her to date James Potter, a boy she previously always referred as an arrogant fool and self-centered person. Lily was barely out of Hogwarts when James had come asking for Lily's hand from their parents, to which they happily agreed. And by the end of September 1979, Lily Rosaline Evans had become Lily James Potter.

At nearly the same time a drunken night at Vernon's flat had resulted in Petunia being pregnant which led to a start of loveless marriage. In November 1979, a two month pregnant Petunia Marianne Evans had become Petunia Vernon Dursley. After that the Potters and Dursleys parted to their own ways. On 23 June 1980 Dudley Dursley was born. Two months later Petunia had learnt from her mother that Lily had also given birth to a boy. After working as a subordinate for nearly two year, Vernon had gotten promoted and thus purchased a house in Privet Drive, Little Whinging which was areputable place to live. She had just settled in her life with a kid and new home that tragedy struck; on 15 June 1981 her parents were murdered by a group of wizarding criminal giving her another reason to hate magic, Lily hadn't even attended the funeral of their parents which just enforced Petunia's view for Lily.

She had started to move on after her parent's untimely demise when on the morning of November 2, 1981 she received another unpleasant surprise; on that morning she had opened her front door only to found a toddler wrapped in a blanket with a letter explaining that her freak of a sister had died and the boy had somehow survived while defeating some powerful evil figure & that as long as she sheltered the boy in her home he would be safe. She didn't know what she felt of her 21 year old sister's death but she couldn't find it in herself to abandon the child her sister had given birth to. She had managed to convince Vernon to take the boy in, but in the end her bitterness and jealousy toward her sister had won over her conscience and she had turned a blind eye on Vernon's treatment of the boy over the years. On few occasion Vernon had even struck the child but she didn't partake in any physical abuse. But she also didn't stood up for him as she should have, partially because she was afraid that if Vernon lost his outlet for anger that she would be his most likely target. She had no illusion that Vernon wouldn't struck her. They didn't love each other, her marriage to Vernon was just a role that both played because Dudley was in the equation.

But know that she was laying on her bed with the boy... no Harry by her side, remembering the life she had led, questioning what if? She couldn't help but question her every action against Harry, who didn't even know why he was hated by them. Despite their treatment he had turned out to be a kind boy. In her grief she had turned to him and he had stayed by her side to provide any comfort he could. But now that she had chance to doing the right thing she resolved to do everything for him. She would makeup for her mistakes, she would pay her penance.

Her grief wasn't for her husband that relation was just a name; she knew that there was no love between them and she was sure that he was cheating on her for few years because he didn't came her to sexually please him for a long time. Her grief was for the death of her son, her child who had a whole life ahead of him that was destroyed because of a drunk driver. The accident would have claimed her life but she wasn't in the car with her family, no she was with Vernon's clients' wife doing shopping on French streets.




Harry's POV

For Harry life was changing at fast pace and he didn't know what was happening these days, everything was strange & happening so fast; one day he was coming to terms with Leona as his bonded mate and next he knew he was holding his aunt as she cried on his shoulder telling him that Vernon and Dudley and died in some car accident at France. He was shocked by the news, for he had sometime childishly wished his uncle would die because he was the main reason for all the misery in Harry's life but he didn't wanted Vernon to die. He was further shocked that night, he was about to turn for night after leaving his aunt in her room, when barely 15 minutes later his sobbing aunt had come to his cupboard; he remember the scene vividly like it happened yesterday.

*Flashback*

"What happened aunt Petunia?" Harry asked.

She didn't spoke for few minutes but when she spoke her voice quite and it was barely audible," Would you... would you... come with me?"

"Come? Where aunt Petunia?" asked a confused Harry while standing from his cot, his aunt's only answer was to hold his hand and slowly drifting him upstairs with her to her bedroom where she motioned for him to climb on the bed & then laid on the other side after a minute she said in a voice which was broken and her eyes didn't met his as she answered his unspoken question, "I can't... I can't... sleep here alone... stay here tonight" while holding him tightly. After sometime Leona settled herself on his foot but his aunt didn't acknowledged her.

*Flashback Ends*




The next day a funeral service was held and the same thing happened again at night. Since then he has been sleeping in her bedroom every night. There were also some changes about his aunt, for one now she always call him by name, she cooks the while he helps her. He wouldn't ever admit it to her but he liked sleeping with her, it was almost like she cares for him. He didn't have a clue what has changed and wouldn't have known what to do for his grieving aunt without Leona's help but for now he would go with the flow and see if the change remains.




A/N: This chapter was basically about character build up and Petunia's reasoning. While some would say that Harry is too mature for his age but I would say that his situation has matured him enough. In the long run this story will go for a Harry/Petunia ship as well as several others. Regarding Harry's prior treatment by his aunt there is a magical reasoning as well which is an error on Dumbledore's part. It will be explained further as Harry discovers his magical power.

Tolerate the grammatical errors as English isn't my main language.

Hope you will like it and will share your ideas and views via reviews...

Until we meet again,

Lord Maurya.