White Heather for Protection

Just Des(s)erts

Petunia set the cutlery down on the placemat, aligning the forks and knives just so. There, perfect. Fish and chips with a hearty side of shepherd's pie for her big strong men. Triple decker chocolate cake cooling in the fridge. A perfectly normal lunch for her perfectly normal family.

"Vernon, darling! Duddikins! Lunch is ready!" Petunia stated in a slightly louder tone than usual. She certainly didn't shout. No respectable lady did.

"Yes Pet!" her husband bellowed from their room. She didn't have to wait long before Vernon and Dudley descended the stairs to make their way to the dining room. It was a point of pride for her that her men never found dissatisfaction with her food. They rarely had a meal without second and third helpings. Her Dudley was growing so quickly!

As they sat for the meal, she enquired politely about their day so far. They merely made grunts in reply around their mouthfuls of food, but that was alright. It just meant that they had had perfectly normal days. As it should be in their perfectly normal lives.

Petunia's thoughts took a dark turn as she remembered just two years ago the blasphemous abnormalities that existed under her roof. Even when she had taken those urchins into her care out of the goodness of her heart, they had repaid her with ungratefulness. Well good riddance to bad rubbish! She still occasionally had nightmares about her poor husband being stuck, unconscious and pale, to the wall of their living room the last time those fiends had stayed here. It had taken days before he'd been released. And what a mess her living room had been! It seemed that for everything she tidied up, something else had upended itself.

She shivered, pushing those horrid times out of her mind. Those demons were gone now. Her home was once again the epitome of normal.

"Mummy! I want pudding!" Dudley whined cutely. Petunia laughed. It was so adorable how her 14-year-old son still relied on her so much. She hoped he would always be like that. She never wanted her son to grow out of this stage.

She went to the fridge and brought out the whopping chocolate confection, cutting it into giant slices. None of those miniature things at tea parties for her men.

"Muuuumm! Where's my cake!"

"Coming dear!" Petunia hurried with the plating and carried the cake to the table.

Suddenly, a loud bang came from the front porch, startling her into almost dropping the cake. She sighed in relief when she steadied herself. She would never have heard the end of it from her Duddikins if his dessert had been ruined.

She heard Vernon growl as he went to investigate the noise. Probably one of those awful Jones-Duncan brats. Always going about the neighbourhood with their tattoos and piercings. What hooligans. What were that disgusting 'couple' doing with their children? Just went to show that two men weren't suited to raise anything.

"GET OUT!" she heard her husband scream as she entered the dining room with the cake. She saw the people standing in her pristine home and promptly shrieked, dropping the tray in her hands.

"Hello Tuney."

She grew dizzy, ignoring her son's loud protest at the splattered cake. Grabbing the nearest wall to steady herself, she tried to regain her bearings. What was he doing here? That awful Snape child, who was always chasing Lily's tail like a desperate mutt. He was just as ugly as she remembered, maybe even more so. His nose was still too large and too bent. Skin too sallow. Hair too greasy. And yes, teeth too crooked, from the way he bared them at her threateningly.

She turned away, not able to keep her eyes on him any longer. Her gaze fell on the other dark-haired man beside him. He looked eerily familiar, like someone she had seen on the telly... She paled even further as she made the connection. "Sirius Black, that escaped murderer!" She shrunk back in fear, shooting her son a panicked glance. The monster seemed to light up in wicked glee in the face of her terror.