Broken Ties

Dahlia: August 1989

Growing up at the Number 4 Privet Drive was not an experience that Dahlia Lily Potter would wish on anyone. It's especially an experience that she wished she could have kept from her baby brother and sister, Harry and Lettie.

Dahlia was three years old when her and Harry were left on their Aunt and Uncle's door step on a cold November night. She vaguely remembers being rudely awoken by an ungodly shriek, causing her to hold tighter to the one-year-old beside her. The sight of her aunt's blonde hair and long neck must have been much different than how her mum usually woke her. Though, there's not much she is able to remember of either of her parents now. She knows that Lily Potter had red hair and green eyes, only because of Aunt Petunia's scathing remarks that she 'looks just like her drunken wretch of a mother.' She vaguely remembers, or thinks she remembers, her mother's voice. The lullaby that she sings to Harry and Lettie must have come from somewhere. James Potter is even further from her subconscious' reach, though she thinks that Harry might look like him. She's pretty positive that their father wore glasses like Harry and Lettie.

In the beginning of her years at Privet Drive, Dahlia mourned and missed her parents desperately. She clung to every scrap of memory that she had of them. She would comfort Harry from nightmares of a 'green light' while wishing it was her mother there to comfort them both with a warm hug and a soft song. She remembered the green light too, but she also thought she remembered her mother screaming, her father yelling, a cackle, and children crying. She didn't like to remember the death of her parents, so she tried to push it from her mind as much as she was able. The nightmares that plagued Harry thankfully rarely came for her.

Dahlia was five when her world came crashing down for the second time in her short life. Her parents were alive. Alive and well, presumably. This was discovered on a freezing December morning when Aunt Petunia had Dahlia put out their used milk bottles. She was most surprised to find a newborn baby, her sister , on the front steps, green eyes and a tuft of raven hair looking out of a navy blanket.

Aunt Petunia had stared at the infant in horror for two straight minutes after Dahlia brought her in. She supposed her aunt must have felt as if she was experiencing Deja vu. Dahlia knew that she and her brother had been dropped off at the Dursleys' home in the exact same manner two years earlier.

The letter that accompanied Lettie provided her name, Violet Rose Potter, and detailed how (surprise!) Lily and James were not actually dead , but in hiding. Whatever that was supposed to mean. They had sent Dahlia and Harry to Aunt Petunia for their safety, so that they could be raised away from whatever had forced the Potters into hiding. Apparently, it was still not safe, so they were having to do the same to poor Lettie. Of course, they knew that Petunia Evans Dursley would raise her nieces and nephew well in the stead of her younger sister.

It's safe to say that Petunia and Vernon Dursley did not take well to the Potters foisting their 'unwanted brats' upon them. Lettie was thrown into the cupboard under the stairs along with her brother and sister, making what was already a tight fit even tighter. It's honestly a wonder that the three children managed to sleep somewhat comfortably in the cramped space, on a crib cot no less. If Dahlia didn't know any better, she would think that such a thing was only possible by magic. As it was, especially due to even the thought of magic being punished in their house, she knew that it must have only worked due to the small size of the three.

It was not an easy way for Dahlia to grow up, but it was the only way to keep her siblings safe. If not for Lettie and Harry, Dahlia would most likely have run away by the age of five. This was not something she could do though, not without putting her brother and sister in danger. So, Dahlia worked to keep Harry and Lettie safe and as happy as feasibly possible. If that meant wearing her cousin Dudley's cast offs and working grueling chores from wake until sleep, then that's what she would do.