Before Harry could make it over to Ginny the sound of loud POPS, like Pelt Pellets flying in every direction, signaled the arrival of the Order. Harry was not surprised whatsoever to see that Dumbledore was amongst them. Tonks was the first, after Harry, to notice Ginny’s peculiar behavior.
She ran to Ginny, grabbed her, and shook her very hard. “Ginny, use occlumency,” she said urgently.
“DON’T KILL HER!” Ginny shrieked. “DON’T KILL HER!”
“Ginny come to!” Tonks yelled.
Ginny let out a blood curling screech. “KILL ME!” She clutched Tonks’ chemise and beseeched her, “KILL ME!”
“Get her out of here at once,” Dumbledore shouted to Tonks, “or she’ll be lost!”
Tonks attempted to pull Ginny from the room, but Ginny began to claw at her face, drawing blood. Charlie ran to help Tonks remove Ginny from the room. When he reached for her ankles, Ginny began to kick him with amplified violence, screaming “NO!”
Harry could not bear to watch, but he did. He held his wand at the ready, prepared to curse them all into oblivion if they hurt her in any way.
“MAFALDA!” Ginny squealed, contracting as though in great pain. She threw herself to the floor and wrapped her arms around air once more, rocking slowly back and forth.
“Take her now,” Dumbledore ordered.
Ginny looked up at Harry with pleading eyes. He had never felt more forlorn in his life. He wanted to protect her from the Order, but knew that they only wanted to protect her from herself. Once Tonks and Charlie managed to get her out of the kitchen doorway, her body grew slack and she stopped resisting. When Harry realized that she’d lost consciousness, he wielded his wand threateningly, prepared to do anything to get to her.
“Listen to me Harry,” Dumbledore’s voice stopped him in his tracks, “she is just resting now. She has just heard everything that took place at the home of the Prewetts tonight. She needs to rest and I need you to trust me. Believe me,” Dumbledore entreated, gripping his shoulder tightly.
Harry was torn, Dumbledore had never failed him…but this was Ginny.
“Please,” Dumbledore implored.
After slight hesitation, Harry let his wand fall slowly to his side. Dumbledore nodded for Tonks and Charlie to take Ginny away.
“Mafalda?” Harry half-asked the question on everyone’s minds.
“Mafalda has been taken to St. Mungo’s for treatment,” Dumbledore replied. “She has sustained substantial injuries,” he shook his head gravely, “but she remains alive.”
At that announcement, Aunt Petunia began to shake Dudley. “Dudley she’s alive, Mafalda’s alive! Didn’t you hear the man? She’s alive!”
Dudley stopped rocking.
“I want to see her!” Mrs. Prewett wailed, now sobbing tears of relief on Mr. Prewett’s shoulder.
“You shall,” Dumbledore bowed his head regally in ascent, “I beg that you not disturb the Healers attending to her at this time, however, as she is in a critical state.”
“I want go…” Dudley tripped over the words, as though the concept of speech was foreign to him. He stood up shakily, “I want see ‘Falda.”
“You understand that they will be unable to let you in right away?” Dumbledore asked him. “You will have to wait, perhaps many hours, before you may see her.”
Dudley nodded awkwardly.
“Alright,” Dumbledore agreed, “it would be best if you take your father with you. Perhaps you are also in need of some treatment.”
“And Petunia,” Vernon Dursley added shakily.
Petunia Dursley looked from her husband’s dazed face to Dumbledore’s stern one. “I’ll just stay here,” she said at last. “Don’t worry,” she added seeing her husband’s troubled expression, “Harry will take care of me.” Finally, Vernon Dursley decided to leave his wife behind in the care of his nephew.
Dumbledore grabbed a tattered book from the kitchen table and tapped it smartly. “Off you go then,” he said, setting the book in the center of the kitchen table. Mr. and Mrs. Prewett, Uncle Vernon, and Dudley all took hold of the book and were wrenched from the kitchen. The sound of a few POPS indicated that several members of the Order were also going to St. Mungo’s. Harry assumed that they would be there to guard them.
Dumbledore turned to Harry’s aunt. “I’m afraid you know what I must ask of you,” he said ominously. She nodded. “Everyone, I must ask you to leave,” Dumbledore told the crowded kitchen at large.
“Not Harry,” Petunia stipulated.
“Not Harry,” Dumbledore agreed.
Harry settled himself into the kitchen chair across from his Aunt Petunia, curious about the attack despite his worry for Ginny and Mafalda.
“If you wouldn’t mind starting at the beginning…” Dumbledore said while taking a mug from the cabinet and filling it with a steaming liquid from the tip of his wand.
Aunt Petunia nodded, though she remained silent for another moment or two.
“Perhaps you could start with what you were doing at the Prewetts’?” Dumbledore suggested in a voice that did not imply that she had any real choice.
She wrung her hands quite a bit before she finally spoke. “Dudders, Dudley that is, my son…”
“Yes?” Dumbledore urged her as he slid the steamy mug her way.
“Well…he wanted to see Mafalda…his little girlfriend, that is. So Ophelia…Mrs. Prewett I mean, she invited us over for an impromptu welcome-home party.”
“I see,” Dumbledore nodded, gesturing for her to take a sip of her drink, “that explains how you got there, but what took place after that?”
She took a long sip of the smoldering liquid before answering. This time, her answers were much comprehensible. Harry gathered that the drink in her mug was no ordinary cup of tea.
“We were waiting for Joseph Prewett to bring Mafalda home when there was the sound of something crashing into the front door. Two men and one woman came running into the living room where we were seated. At first they were taken aback to find us sitting there, but their surprise did not last very long.”
“They attacked you, correct?” Dumbledore asked after another lengthy pause.
Aunt Petunia shuddered but continued on in her same monotone. “They dressed very strangely, their faces were hidden by masks and they had long black cloaks on. I remember seeing people dressed like that only once before.”
Harry was able to quickly discern that these intruders were Death Eaters, not that he’d had any doubt that they would be. He also had little doubt that his Aunt was recalling the Death Eaters that had killed her parents. A wave of pity hit him.
“Vernon tried to stand up to them and shield us but they made him go flying in the air, like a balloon. Then the woman pointed her wand at Dudley, it looked like she was flicking it and he was thrown into the entryway. They were all laughing, having such a good time. I couldn’t hear Dudders moving…I thought that they had…killed him. But they must have knocked him unconscious.”
“Where were you as this was all happening?” Dumbledore inquired.
“Ophelia pushed me down behind the couch with her,” Aunt Petunia responded. “She kept muttering something about not letting them into the den. I thought she had gone mad. Then they found us…” fear crept into her eyes as she remembered what had taken place, “they did something to Ophelia.”
“What did they do?” Harry asked in abated breath.
“I don’t know,” Aunt Petunia told him as she looked directly into his eyes, “I just don’t know. She was screaming and screaming, like she was in pain…unbelievable pain. She was writhing on the ground when Joseph arrived with Mafalda.”
Harry let out a sigh of relief. Mafalda had arrived just in time to save them all.
“Mafalda took out her wand and started to scream things I didn’t understand. All I knew was that she sent the big man through the window and got the wand of the woman. I thought she had things under control so I helped Joseph pull Ophelia back behind the couch. Then Mafalda took Vernon off the ceiling and set him down beside us. I don’t think she noticed the third masked person. He pointed his wand at her and she started to scream. It was as though he was slashing her with his wand. Her blood started to go everywhere.”
As his Aunt took another sip from her mug Harry sat awestruck. This was the second Death Eater attack that she had survived. It was no wonder she despised magic, it never caused her anything but pain and fear.
“That’s when Dudley came into the room,” she whispered. “He threw himself on the evil man and was hitting him with all his strength. Mafalda collapsed onto the floor still holding her wand and the other woman’s wand. Then Joseph brought her behind the couch with the rest of us. The man Dudley was fighting did something with his wand and Dudders was thrown onto the couch. When we got him behind the couch he grabbed Mafalda and kept rocking back and forth. I don’t think he had seen how hurt she was until just then.”
Dumbledore leaned in and looked meaningfully at Petunia. “What happened after that?”
“The big man climbed back through the broken window and the woman got up as well. They stood by the smaller man and the two men pointed their wands at us. The woman said ‘Nice of you all to huddle into a small area for us’ and they all laughed.”
“What did you do,” Dumbledore insisted.
“I put my hand over Mafalda’s, she was carrying her wand in it, and I said ‘Protego’ loud as I could.”
Dumbledore looked positively gleeful at this news. Harry was more perplexed than anything. Had his Aunt cast a spell? How did she even know that the correct spell to cast would be the shield charm?
“A big bubble surrounded us, so I held onto Mafalda’s hand to keep it in place. The people couldn’t get to us through the bubble. Than people started to pop into the living room and pointed their wands at our attackers. They put them under arrest and I let go of Mafalda’s hand. I felt very weak.”
Dumbledore nodded the triumphant look still in his eyes. “May I ask who taught you that spell?”
Aunt Petunia looked like a school girl that had been caught doing something wrong. “Mrs. Potter did.”
After their interview, Dumbledore sent Aunt Petunia off with Mrs. Weasley so that she could get some rest. He and Harry sat in silence until they could no longer hear the women’s receding footsteps. Finally Harry broke the silence.
“Sir?”
“Yes Harry?” Dumbledore asked, looking kindly towards him.
“Did my Aunt do magic?” The question he had been dying to ask burst forth.
“In a manner of speaking, I suppose she did.” Dumbledore answered
“But how…?”
“Transitive property,” Dumbledore told him.
“What does that mean?”
“I believe that because Mafalda was holding her wand and your Aunt placed her hand on Mafalda’s, your Aunt was able to cast a spell that the wand obeyed.”
“Does that mean Aunt Petunia is a witch?”
“I’m afraid not,” Dumbledore chuckled. “I’m rather certain that your grandmother, James’ mother, is to thank for your Aunt’s knowledge of the wizarding world. For now, I must be off to St. Mungo’s to see Mafalda and her family.”
Harry was torn. He did not want to be selfish and ask for more of Dumbledore’s time when others were in greater need of it, but there were questions burning through his mind.
“Harry, may I ask a favor of you?” Dumbledore said, before walking out of the kitchen.
“Anything,” Harry replied at once.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Dumbledore grinned. “The Prewett’s and Dursley’s are going to need a place to stay…”
“They can stay here,” he instantly assured his mentor.
“Thank you Harry,” Dumbledore said as he turned to leave once more.
“Sir!”
“Yes Harry?”
“How could Aunt Petunia have learned from Mrs. Potter, my grandmother?”
Dumbledore’s eyebrows furrowed at this question, “Were you unaware that your Aunt lived in the wizarding world hosted by the Potter’s?”
“When? How could that be?”
Dumbledore gave him a thoughtful look, “When her parents were murdered, she and Lily were taken in by the Potter family. I presume when Lily and James were in school, Petunia had no one to spend time with save for your grandmother. I know for a fact, your grandmother would have found it highly amusing to teach non-magical folk about magic. She shared Mr. Weasley’s love of Muggles.”
Harry nodded and they said their goodbyes. He sat in the kitchen for many hours after that, pondering over everything he had just learned. Finally Mrs. Weasley took him to his room and tucked him into bed like a concerned mother hen. She kissed his forehead as he drifted off into a chaotic sleep.