Petunia was four years old, sitting under the beautifully decorated Christmas tree with her family.
She tore open one lovely package, only to see her parents faces drop horribly.
"What's wrong, Mummy?" she asked, and her mother answered that this present wasn't intended for Petunia. It was for Lily, who then reached over and grabbed the beautiful porcelain doll out of Petunia's loving grasp.
But Lily, having grabbed too roughly, cracked the beautiful doll's head.
Both Petunia and Lily started crying at once.
"She breaked my dolly!" Lily had sobbed, "it was mine!"
Petunia had tried to say that she hadn't meant to. Lily had been the one who grabbed. But it had still been Petunia who was blamed.
"Petunia, we know you didn't mean to break your sister's doll. But it wasn't very nice of you to open it in the first place. And, it wasn't right for you to break it out of jealousy, either. I want you to apologize to Lily."
Mutely, Petunia shook her head.
"She broke it," Petunia insisted.
Her parents shook their heads, and glanced at each other.
"Now, I want you to think about what you did for half an hour. We'll wait with the present opening until you've thought things over," her father said sounding very disappointed.
Petunia awoke from yet another nightmare, of the first Christmas she could remember. Apparently it was a family trait to get terrible nightmares when stressed. Her mother had always had the same complaint.
And stressed, Petunia thought bitterly, she certainly was.
Today was Christmas Day, and there was a pile of presents at the foot of her bed that she was lying on in the Leaky Cauldron. On the bed next to her, Lily was grimly tearing wrapping paper off of one of her many presents. Petunia noted that Lily's pile was far larger than her own.
Petunia, Lily and the Marauders had been staying in the Leaky Cauldron for the past week of break.
Their days had consisted mostly of more spell studying and other preparations, though James and Sirius had convinced even Petunia to join them on a tour through Diagon Alley once or twice, and could proudly report that she had even laughed a few times.
Now, however, the day had come. They had planned this well. At the crack of dawn, Peter, Sirius and James had headed off to Hogwarts (all having Apparation licenses already) under James's invisibility cloak.
With them they had the Marauder's map and one of James's and Sirius's two-way mirrors. That way, if they saw the Slytherins leaving two of them would follow immediately and the other would alert the rest.
The day was planned in shifts. At one, if the Death Eaters hadn't showed up, Remus, Lily and Petunia would take over.
Petunia hadn't liked this plan at all. She had wanted to be there if any action whatsoever took place, but James had argued convincingly. This way the group not on duty would get to rest. And besides, Petunia had been outvoted.
"Why don't you open your presents?" Lily asked timidly, looking over at Petunia who lay still in her bed, eyes wide open.
"No!" snapped Petunia, "Do I look like I have nothing better to do than open Christmas gifts?"
Lily looked down. Over the break, Petunia had gotten the feeling that Lily was trying to make up the years of neglect to Petunia. And Petunia told she would have gratefully accepted this, had it not been for the fact that Lily had stolen the only man Petunia would ever love. The flaws in her logic were obvious, but she ignored them.
"I guess I'll go invite Remus over," Lily said, then she attempted to laugh and added: "all his mates have left him behind, he must be feeling lonely."
Sure, Remus must be feeling lonely. As if she couldn't think of a better excuse to leave.
"PETUNIA!" came a loud cry, and Petunia jumped out of bed to get to where it came from.
"Remus? Lily? What happened? Are you alright?"
Petunia skidded to a halt. They looked fine, just standing there ashen faced and grim.
"It's time," Remus said slowly.
"Okay then," Petunia answered, surprisingly calmly. "I'll see you later then."
The three Disapparated to where Sirius and Peter stood waiting.
It was merely a matter of minutes before they caught up with James, who threw off the cloak when he saw them coming.
Petunia hurried forward and grabbed the invisibility cloak from James.
"You guys follow at a safe distance then. I'll go closer and listen," she whispered and flitted off.
When she reached them, Petunia realized with a jolt that this situation reminded her strongly of what she had witnessed during the summer.
There were the McNair siblings, walking side by side. Snape stood there as well, silently, seemingly lost in thought. Parkinson was behind him, talking to a muscular boy Petunia could have sworn was called something like Crab. Behind them, a boy who could have passed as Crab's brother (was his name Gual?) spoke with a lumpy pair that Petunia recognized as Amycus and Alectus, a brother and sister whose surname she couldn't recall. Walking at the very end, just behind these two stood a boy who had to be Sirius's brother, Regulus, deep in conversation with a boy Petunia did not recognize.
Straining her ears, she was able to catch bits of their conversation.
"... Immortality, I've heard," said the dark boy Petunia didn't know.
"But how, Nott?" Regulus whispered back.
"Search me. I thought Malfoy mentioned something about souls to that girlfriend of his."
"Who? Bella?" Regulus asked.
"No, the other Black sister, Narcissa. Bella's been promised to Rudulfus Lestrange, I've heard."
"How do you find these things out?" Regulus asked, sounding admiring, "I mean, they're my cousins!"
"I have my ways," Nott replied.
So she hadn't imagined the resemblance between Bella and Sirius, Petunia thought. Poor Sirius. It really was his whole family he was throwing aside for his friends.
Regulus and Nott had distanced themselves, and Petunia could no longer hear anything.
Then, out of nowhere, Malfoy appeared. The group assembled and they all Disapparated.
"Where are they?" Lily gasped.
"They Disapparated," Petunia replied calmly.
Luckily, Petunia and James had been reading up on how to track people. Finding out where they had gone was really very simple. James spoke the spell, and they all followed the Death Eaters.
There had only been ten of them to begin with, but now they had been joined by the same group of ex-Slytherins Petunia had witnessed that evening while camping.
Also, it seemed that a group of Durmstrang students had joined the masses, as there were about fourteen perpetually scowling students wearing robes that looked like the ones she'd seen in pictures of Durmstrang.
"That makes thirty," Sirius whispered.
"Look!" Petunia hissed, pointing as a wizard appeared. He was almost good-looking, but there was something strange about his face that made it appear snake-like, waxen and frightening.
And when he looked around, not seeing the group of teenagers huddled together under the invisibility cloak; Petunia saw his red slits for eyes.
She hated him so much.
"You will stand guard outside," Lord Voldemort hissed through clenched teeth.
"You will not let anyone through. Or else... Black! Come here!"
Scared and startled, Petunia, Lily, James and Remus all looked at Sirius.
But it was Regulus who had been called. Perhaps he had not been attentive enough, or perhaps Voldemort just wanted to make a point. When Regulus crawled up to his master and kissed the hem of his robes nervously, a wand was pointed at him.
"Crucio!" Voldemort yelled in a loud, ringing voice, and Regulus fell flat on his back, whimpering and jerking with the pain.
"I'm sorry!" he whimpered over and over again clutching his stomach.
"No more! Please..."
But Voldemort was not pitying. He just smiled maliciously.
Petunia took one look at Sirius, before laying a comforting arm around his shoulders. Sirius shook it off, and muttered something that sounded like "he deserved it."
Petunia was shocked, this was unlike Sirius. And it was all Voldemort's fault. So this was the man, no, the monster they were up against.