(AN:  Thanks to Moey, who leaves me the best comments in her beta reading!  Thanks also to Frankie Beeblebrox who listens to me whine once in a while.  This is the sequel to my previous story, Blind Date, I suggest reading that first before reading this.  I also don’t own this world, cause if I did, I would go and play at Hogwarts instead of writing fanfiction!)

 

 

 

How in the world was he ever going to ask her?

            Vernon Dursley was never a man lacking for self-motivation.  Not even thirty yet, he was already looking to be made a director at his company, Grunnings, owing to his superior management skills and talent at handling clients.  His ability to keep drill part deliveries running smoothly despite the incompetence of many foreign supplies, (especially those ill-mannered Americans), was just what his superiors thought would be useful in dealing with some of their less than punctual employees.  Through his hard work, perseverance, and attention to detail, (not to mention a forceful personality and ability to be rather convincing if necessary), he was to receive a well paying position, a nice vacation package, and even a car.  Vernon Dursley was well on his well to having all the items that a self-made, respectable British young man wanted in his life…save one.

            He had yet to ask Petunia Evans to marry him.

            His best mate, Roger, who had several months ago married Petunia’s best friend Andi in a whirlwind, surprise ceremony, was already hounding him about it.  Vernon had disapproved of their marriage from the start, one weekend they just ran off and got themselves hitched.  In his typical vulgar way, Roger was proclaiming the virtues and wonders of the married life, how Vernon would love it if he just got around to doing it, and how Petunia was just the right girl for him.  As if Vernon didn’t know Petunia Evans was perfect for him.  What other woman in this day and age would willingly give up a job to feed and take care of him, keep his house, and if they should be so blessed, raise his children?   Petunia was everything in a wife that Vernon wanted: sweet, proper, attentive to the views of others, and all together, perfectly practical.  He would be stupid, nay blind not to take his chance.

            But when it came down to it, he just couldn’t get those blasted words out of his mouth.

            He didn’t know if it was the thought of his mother, hoyden that she was, that stopped him.  She had been harassing him since the time he had actually announced he was seeing Petunia, demanding that he marry her at once and provide her grandchildren before she died.  The idea of giving the old bat the satisfaction rather rankled deep inside.  But his poor sister, Marge would often call and tell him of Mother’s new lament that Vernon didn’t have the guts to go through with it, that he would remain a bachelor for all time.  She would die with no grandchildren, as Marge had forsaken such earthly happiness to see to her DUTY in taking care of her mother.  Vernon rather though his Mother didn’t deserve such pleasure while she lived, but it was a rather silly reason not to marry the girl.

            He then considered if it wasn’t his cautious nature, making sure that the timing of the question wasn’t right.  After all, he had only just now gotten word on his job title, and it was so soon after Roger and Andi, maybe waiting would be much more tasteful-didn’t want Petunia to think that he was trying to ride their coattails.  He hadn’t even met her family yet; wouldn’t it be a bit rude to propose before asking for a girl’s hand?  But then again, how many people actually do that sort of thing in this day and age?  When it came down to it, Vernon was scared, scared to death of asking her.

            Because, he knew deep down in his soul, she might just say no.  And that would be an answer he could not abide with.

            So he sat there, at this comfortable little table in a nice little restaurant, where he took Petunia every Friday night after going to the cinema.  She was picking at a lettuce salad as he absently mangled a piece of steak with his knife.  He was too busy trying to pluck up the courage to say something to bother with cutting the thing properly.  Petunia eyed him warily as he did so, raising an eyebrow as she asked, “Is everything all right, Vernon?”

            “What?  Oh, yes, it’s fine, just things on my mind, office things.”  He smiled haphazardly at her, and continued to saw at his now pulverized meat as she sipped a glass of wine thoughtfully.  She was getting worried, he could tell.  But how in the world could he say those simple words, ‘will you marry me?’

           

            Petunia Evans picked listlessly at her salad, ignoring the fact that she had eaten hardly any of it as it was sitting wilting on her now warm plate.  Not that she had been hungry to begin with, but her thoughts that evening had taken whatever appetite she had possessed and thrown it quickly away.  Her mind was elsewhere, drifting into worried thoughts of her own, as she sat and pondered quietly to herself over her soggy romaine.

            How in the world was she going to tell him?

            Up till this point, Petunia had skillfully avoided the entire issue of her sister.  Vernon, despite his single mindedness in the workplace, had never pursued the matter with any great detail, and she supposed that he just didn’t stop to consider that when she said her sister was ‘gifted’ that it was anything other than what most normal people thought it meant.  He assumed her sister was going to a school where they taught you advanced mathematics and how to build lasers, performing miracles of science that would advance industry.  Petunia had cultivated this idea.  It was safe to do so.  Lily was away at school, he had yet to meet her parents, and besides it wasn’t as if they were at a point in their relationship that she would have to reveal her biggest and most horrible secret.  But now things were changing, and Petunia knew she was running out of time.

            Vernon was getting a new job title, and he had started discussing things such as purchasing a house, perhaps settling down.  Petunia was thrilled at first when he began to speak so-this mean only one thing!  But her excitement was soon tempered by the realization that as of yet, Vernon Dursley still knew nothing about her.  Yes, he knew Petunia Evans, a prim, proper, and very practical schoolteacher, a nice woman who knew how to cook, dress, could keep appearances, and was always in the know with those bits of social information that would always help someone in Vernon’s position.  But he had no knowledge of the rest of her, the part of her that was scared to death of being seen.  She wasn’t so sure she wanted him to find out just yet.

            Petunia knew she might not have a choice soon.  Lily was returning home from her blasted school in a week.  Her parents, already long petitioning to meet this young man she had taken up with would now insist now that her sister was home and she had no more excuses for putting it off.  And the Evanses, if they accepted Vernon, would have no qualms about hiding Lily’s true nature anymore, especially if he was to be a member of the family.

            Petunia didn’t want him to have to find out from someone else that her sister was a freak of nature.

            But how was she supposed to break it to him?  How was one to just up and say that their sister has magical abilities, can turn you into a newt if she wishes, perhaps hex your cereal or curse your coffee?  Vernon would consider her to be stark, raving mad.  He would think she was a lunatic.

            He would leave her alone, and that was the one thing Petunia was most afraid of.

            Vernon himself seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, and Petunia felt the slightest bit guilty.  His new job required a whole host of new duties that she was sure were weighing on his mind, and here she was mulling over her own problems.  There, he nearly mangled that steak there.  He always ordered the steak here and had never mangled it before.  With concern, Petunia asked gently, “Is everything all right, Vernon?”

             “What?  Oh, yes, it’s fine, just things on my mind, office things.” He smiled reassuringly at her and returned to picking at his steak.  Petunia cursed her sister then for complicating her life so.  Here she was obsessing over her blasted strange sister, and Vernon was worrying himself away over something real, something stressful…something blessedly normal.  This, perhaps, she could fix.

            “You want to talk about it?”

            Vernon colored then, a rather uncomfortable shade of purple, one he turned when he rather not speak about something.  “Well…not really, just concerns about the new job, that type of thing. Will I fit it?  Will I do well?  You know how it is.”  He took a bite of shredded meat, and chewed it rather vigorously.  Petunia felt her heart twinge.  Her poor dear was worried he would do well in his new title.

            “Oh, Vernon, love, I’m sure you will be fine!  I mean, how could you not be fine?  You will be the youngest director in the company!  They don’t just give those titles away to just anyone, now do they?”

            “No, I suppose they don’t.” Vernon smiled slightly, the old pride reviving a bit.  “I guess you are right, Petunia.  I shouldn’t worry so.”  He reached across the table to pat her hand.

            “No, you shouldn’t.  Besides, I think you are amazing, even if you don’t think so, and that should count for something, correct?”

            Vernon beamed.  “You’re right, dear.  Absolutely correct!  I shouldn’t worry about such things at all!”  He took another bite of what remained of his meal and smiled happily at her.

            “How can a man worry with a woman as wonderful as you around?” Vernon mused.

            Petunia smiled happily at him, even as her insides twinged just a little bit with fear of how that opinion would hold up after he knew the truth.

 

            Vernon was still beaming when they left the restaurant and returned to her flat.  She thought that he was amazing, yes she did.  If she thought that, perhaps she wouldn’t mind having him as a husband then.  Well, it was settled.  As soon as they got in he would ask her to be his wife.  Yes, no hesitation this time around, Dursley!  He straightened his mustache absently as he considered all the ways he could go about asking her.  Perhaps as she brought out the tea for the two of them, or maybe he could put on a romantic record, dance her around her tiny living room, swoop to one knee, and then ask her.  Yes, he rather liked that last idea.  Maybe as he said goodnight, he could pretend he forgot something, and drop to one knee then, yes, maybe…

            Lord, he sounded as silly and romantic as Roger did.  But for this moment he really didn’t care overly much.

            Petunia had let the two of them inside her neat, clean flat, and had gone about hanging up their jackets and straightening up the loveseat for him to sit on, as she bustled into the kitchen to make some after dinner tea.  Vernon watched her go, calling as she went, “You want me to put some music on, dear?”

            “That would be lovely.” Petunia called back, and he could hear her put the kettle on the stove.

            He flipped on the radio intending to turn on a music program, but clicked across a news report that stopped him for the briefest of seconds.

            “The Home Office today has announced that it is looking into a series of strange disappearances of citizens across Britain.  Over the last several years men and women across the country have inexplicably vanished from homes and businesses, many of the victims having no traceable reason for disappearing.  The cases have gotten a great deal of scrutiny in the wake of last weeks apparent disappearance of a Birmingham family, with no trace as to where they had gone to, and leaving behind a three year old child who had no recollection of the whereabouts of his parents.  No official statement has been made by the Home Office concerning these incidents, and foul play has indeed not been ruled out.”

            Vernon shook his head as he listened.  “Have you heard about that Petunia dear?  All those people just up and going missing?”

            Petunia made some sort of affirmative noise from the kitchen.  Vernon proceeded to change the station to something a little more romantic.  “I read it in the newspaper,” he continued, “seems there’s been a few of these happenings of late, real strange ones.  I used to think it was just useless lay-abouts trying to get out of some sort of marital payment or taxes or something.  But I don’t know, seems something nefarious is going about.”

            Petunia came out of the kitchen with a tray of sweets and set them down on the coffee table in front of the love seat.  “It’s getting to the point where average, normal people can’t even be in their own homes safely nowadays.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not some crazed cult or the like, and Scotland Yard and none of the local police can figure it out.  That’s the only way the Home Office would take it on I would think?”

            “Perhaps it’s spies,” Vernon said thoughtfully.

            “Spies…why would they be attacking honest citizens?”

            “Perhaps it’s a Russian plot to brainwash average Britons, you know, breed that sort of Communist sentiment.”

            Petunia chuckled.  “As you say, Vernon, I don’t think it’s that nefarious, but…”

            Vernon shook his finger.  “You wouldn’t think so, but…”

            There was a click at Petunia’s window just then, a clear and audible tap.

            Both Petunia and Vernon turned then to stare at the window, he in curiosity, and she in horror.

            “Why, whatever could that be?” Vernon puzzled as Petunia went over quickly to look out the darkened glass.

            “Err…why it’s just some pigeon, must have been attracted by the light.  I’ll shoo it away.”   She rapped at the window smartly, and something dark fluttered off.

            “Strange that, birds aren’t usually big nighttime flyers, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pigeon at night.”

            “Well, you know, get the odd one here and there, isn’t that unusual,” Petunia tittered nervously and firmly shut the curtains to the window.  She turned back around and smiled at Vernon.  “There now, no nasty bird, Let’s sit and have some tea, shall we?”  She smiled brightly and rushed to the kitchen where the kettle had just started to whistle.

            Vernon shrugged, and sat at the love seat.  The strains of some feel good, romantic song by some American group he didn’t even recognize filled the tiny sitting room as he munched on a small sweet thoughtfully.  How to go about this?

            Petunia returned, tea tray in hand, setting it next to the sweets, and pouring each a cup.  Happily she sat down next to Vernon, handing him his, and then sipped from her own.  Vernon noticed how fine her hands looked, fine and thin like those of a sparrow.  On impulse he took the one not balancing the tea saucer and held it, her fingers still warm from the hot drink.

            “Petunia…” he began, finding his throat seizing up at just that moment.  He coughed a little, then set his own tea down, trying desperately to fight back the rising fear in his own insides.  “Petunia, I was wondering if you had considered much about your future.”

            Petunia looked slightly perplexed by this question.  “Well, of course Vernon, how could I not?”

            Vernon felt his face redden; that was a rather silly question.  “Of course, of course…but I meant…well…what have you thought about perhaps a future…err…with me?”

            Petunia’s face went very still then, and her features even paler than normal.  Her pale blue eyes were wide with…perhaps shock, he hoped not horror…as she stared at him, and he could feel her hand suddenly tremble.

            “Me?  You want to marry me?”  Petunia sounded amazed.

            “Well, I suppose I do, else I wouldn’t still be here, would I?” Vernon tried to laugh it off, but felt his own heart skip a beat.

            Petunia’s tea saucer rattled then just slightly, and she quickly set it on the table before she made a mess.  “It’s not that I’m not thrilled, but…Vernon, you really want to?  It’s not just because you feel lonely now with Roger going off and marrying Andi all the sudden, is it?”

            Vernon knew she would think that.  “No, dear, it’s nothing of the sort.  I even talked it over with Roger, he thinks it’s grand, and besides, I would figure by now you would know that I’m rather fond of the idea myself.”  He smiled shyly at her.

            “Oh, Vernon…I…I just don’t know what to say!”

            “Yes would be a pleasant response.” Vernon held her hand just a bit more tightly.

            “Well, yes, of course it would, but…we haven’t been together long, not even six months, and what will our families think?”

            “I hope they will be thrilled with it as well.” Women always did worry about what families thought.

            “Yes…but…” A tapping sounded again at Petunia’s window, and this time it was louder and more insistent.

            “Bloody bird,” Vernon murmured as Petunia turned somewhat dazed towards the closed window.  “Sit here, I’ll go handle this. Pigeon or no, he’s not ruining this, the biggest moment of my life.”

            It took a moment for realization to hit Petunia as Vernon stood to move towards the window.  “Vernon, no…I’ll…”

            But too late, Vernon had opened the curtains to be greeted by the largest owl he had ever seen perched stately on the window sill, and tapping angrily on the glass.

            Vernon yelped and backed away from the window, his eyes going wide and his big frame nearly tumbling over a chair behind him.  “Petunia, it’s an owl!”

            Petunia had run to grab Vernon’s shoulder before he crashed into one of her figurine laden shelves.  “Vernon, really, it’s all right.”

            Vernon pointed a shaking finger back at the window.  “But…it’s an OWL!”

            “Yes dear, owls are birds, and they tend to hunt at night.  It must think I have something for it.” There was a tight edge to Petunia’s voice, and she wouldn’t look him in the eye.  “Now, go sit, have some more tea, and I’ll see if I can’t get it away from here.”

            “Is that a letter it’s carrying?” Vernon wasn’t going to let this owl thing go.

            “A letter, how absurd, who would send a letter on a bird?  Must just be some trash that it’s gathered or something, it couldn’t possibly…” Petunia was already moving towards the window, oblivious to the fact that the bird was rather pointedly trying to present a white paper envelope with Petunia’s name in bright purple ink on the front.

            “But dear, the paper has your name on it.” Vernon gasped, more in amazement and confusion than fear.

            Petunia stared down at the window.  The bird with the letter stared back.  Petunia let out a low whimper.  The bird ruffled its feather’s at her and tapped the window again.

            “You think it wants in then?” Vernon whispered.

            Petunia, unable to fix any of this, sat on the couch and sobbed.

            More confused than ever, Vernon stared first from his sobbing girlfriend, then to the owl, his head twisting between the two as if it wanted to pop off.  Finally, unsure if what he was doing was wise, he went to the window and opened it enough for the creature to enter.  It did so, hopped the sill, glided to the coffee table and landed beside the tray of sweets.  It then presented its leg to Petunia, with the letter on it, and waited patiently, eyeing a particular sweet carefully as it did so.

            Petunia stared at the thing with watery and over-large eyes, her face twitching in anger and resignation.  She reached towards the bird, took off the letter, and the owl proceeded to nick the sweet in it’s small beak, take to wing, and fly out the window, stray feathers flying in its wake.  Petunia merely sat and stared at the letter, Vernon stared at the window, his mouth open and agape.

            After several moments he turned to stare at his girlfriend, pointing fixedly at the window.  “Petunia, dear…that was just an owl that flew into your window, you know?”

            Petunia nodded and sniffed loudly.  “Yes, Vernon, I know.”

            “And it delivered you a letter, like…a ruddy homing pigeon.”

            Petunia reached for a disposable tissue in a box by the love seat and blew her nose.

            “What sort of strange person would send you letters at night with an owl?” Vernon was all befuddled.  This was odd.  It was most peculiar.  It was most unlike his Petunia at all.

            Petunia’s voice was small and soft then.  In fact he could barely hear it.  “My sister,” she muttered, “my sister is the one who sent it.  I keep telling her not to, but she can’t send anything any other way from school.”

            “Do what?” Vernon felt his head begin to hurt.

            Petunia began to sob openly then, and Vernon, at a loss as to what to do, thought that despite his own confusion and slight edge of worry over the events of the last five minutes, perhaps he should sit with her and comfort her, as obviously she was upset.

            “Oh, dear, Petunia, don’t cry.” He moved towards the small sofa, sat beside her, and wrapped his comforting arm around her thin and shaking shoulders.  “It’s not as bad as all that.  It’s just a bird, and you did mention to me once your sister had one.” He had assumed she had a parrot or a canary though, not some great, country bird-of-prey.  “Now, why don’t you just calm down and explain it all to me, won’t you?”

            Petunia stopped to gulp for air, blow her nose, and wipe the streaming tears away from her now very pink face.  “Oh, Vernon, I don’t know if I should, and if I do, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

            Vernon was surprised to hear this.  He was a rather open minded man, he though, well at least on reasonable matters, and Petunia had proven to be nothing but a perfectly normal, logical young woman.  How could anything be that crazy as to prove to be unbelievable?

            “Try me!” he said quietly as he smoothed a stray and damp strand of hair out of her face.

            “Well…” Petunia’s mouth pulled tight as she tried to fight back another wave of tears.  “My sister Lily is…a witch.”
            “Yes,” Vernon encouraged.  Oh dear, he never realized that there was any sort of animosity on the part of Petunia towards her younger sister.  Yes, she rarely spoke of her, but…

            “No, Vernon, not that she acts like a witch.  Lily really is a witch.  She can do…magic.”

            Vernon blinked uncomprehendingly.  “I’m afraid I didn’t hear you right, Petunia, you said…”

            “MY SISTER CAN DO MAGIC!” Petunia fairly screamed, jumping off the couch and pacing the room then.  “Lily can do things no normal human being can do.  She’s a strange, freakish…abnormality!”  Petunia was crumpling the letter in her hands tightly, squeezing it into a little ball in which she used to shake it at Vernon.

            Vernon was rather stunned by this display.  Petunia was so even tempered, so good natured.  She never, ever lost control around him about anything.  Now here she was screaming at him about her sister being a witch and being unnatural.  He wondered if perhaps he hadn’t misjudged this woman he had fallen in love with this entire time.

            “It started when I was eight years old.  I was teasing Lily, you know how sisters are.  I took away her favorite toy because she was pestering me and wouldn’t leave me alone.  Next thing I know the toy had come alive and was wiggling in my hands.  Lily laughed at me, thought it was funny, said that the toy didn’t like me and wanted to get away.  I was horrified and told Mother, but she thought I was merely trying to get Lily in trouble and had an over-active imagination.  How ironic I would be the one accused of that.”  Petunia fairly spat out the last words.

            “But it didn’t stop there.  No, over the years more incidents happened, always when she was agitated with me over something.  I would get more pudding at dinner, and suddenly half of mine would end up on her plate.  Or as she got older, my makeup would end up strange colors, or my hair.  I’d find my locked diary mysteriously undone and rifled through, things that no one was humanly capable of doing.  I would tell my parents, but they would say that Lily couldn’t POSSIBLY be doing all those things that I was accusing her of, and even if she was, she was just doing it to be like me.  She would grow out of it soon enough.  I couldn’t wait for her too.  It was driving me rather mad having that pest for a sister.”

            “She was just starting to become someone I could tolerate the summer after she turned eleven, and then she got a letter, a letter delivered by an OWL!”  Petunia glared out the window in the direction the owl had flown off in.  “It was from some school, a magic school, which told her she herself was a witch, a magic user, and she could go to this school with other magic users, and they would all learn their weird powers together!  My parents were jubilant. They couldn’t believe that Lily was so ‘unique’.  They didn’t bother to mention that all those things I had told them about her over the years were right, that she was doing all those impossible things.  Instead they got her a trunk full of potions and wands, bought her that blasted owl, and sent her packing for Scotland somewhere, to do God knows what God knows where.”

            “And every year it was the same.  She would come home with all her new spells and tricks, and try to show me all these strange things she had learned, and it was all so…horribly wrong.  No one I knew could do these things, and she was being taught, no encouraged to use these abilities, and to forsake everything normal and decent in this world to go run off and live in a world of make believe!  And my parents seemed fine with this.  In fact I couldn’t say a word to them on the subject.”

            “So, when I got old enough, I left and went to university.  It was safe there, normal, people learned things that you used in the real world.  There weren’t potions, there was Chemistry; there wasn’t wand waving, there was literature.  I could learn a real job, a useful one teaching, not how to raise strange three headed creatures or the properties of imaginary plants.  My parents encouraged me, yes, but I felt they always saw me as rather plain and boring next to Lily, with her tales of adventure in her weird little world.  And so I moved away to the city after graduation, and took my job teaching.  And I still try to stay close, but now…”  She stared down at the balled up letter in her hands.

            “I had never had a lot of boyfriends before you, Vernon.  I was rather too afraid of what I would hear from them if they learned the truth.  And I couldn’t tell them, I was made to promise never to tell normal people about the existence of those other folk.  But…I had hoped to tell you, thought perhaps I could before you met Lily, and was rather looking for a time and place to bring it up.  But it never exactly appeared, and now…well I couldn’t hide it now that an owl had shown up, as if it were a normal, everyday occurrence.”

            Vernon was sitting very still and very pale on the love seat, watching Petunia carefully as she turned to look at him, drained and flushed.  He wasn’t sure what to say at this point, his mind was a bit too full to comprehend all this.  Instead, he looked down at his own clasped and shaking hands.

            “Perhaps I should go then, Petunia,” he finally said, “I need to sort this out for a bit, and…I don’t know if I’ll sort it out tonight.  But it’s rather a lot, you know, finding out that your future sister-in-law is…a witch, as you call it.  I have to think these things out for a bit.”  He rose from the love seat then, and began to move towards the closet where Petunia had so thoughtfully hung his jacket earlier.

            Petunia made no move to stop him.  “I see.  Well, I’ll speak to you at a later date then, Vernon?”

            Vernon nodded rather absently.  “Yes, a later date then, dear.  I’ll keep in touch.”  He reached inside the tidy closet, drew out his blazer, pulled it on, ran nervous fingers through his hair and down his mustache, and nodded at her.

            “Well, good night then, Petunia, and…try not to get too much worked up over all this.”  He reached for the door then, opened it, stopped to take a brief, worried glance back out her window, and then left.

            Petunia watched the door for a long moment, standing stiff and tall, biting her lip trying not to cry.  She waited for it to open again, and when it didn’t, she sat back down on the sofa and tried to stiffly a sob.

            She opened her hand and studied the white envelope in front of her.  It was typical, normal paper stock, probably something Lily had taken with her to school.  She smoothed the paper over her knees, glaring at the purple ink on the front, and flipped it over to slip a finger under the flap that glued the whole thing shut.

            She read the letter quickly, her face hardening as she did so.  Angrily, she cast the letter down, and then burst into tears yet again.  On it the letter said:

            Dear Petunia,

I can’t believe I’ll be home in a week from Hogwarts.  I so hate leaving this place, it’s been my home and refuge for so long now.  With things they way they are in the world right now, I don’t know how I can say goodbye.  But I am looking forward to seeing you and Mum and Dad soon, and I have such wonderful things to tell you about.

One of those things is concerning the boy I brought home over Christmas, you remember him, James?  Remember we were made Head Boy and Girl together?  I didn’t like him much really till then…all right, perhaps a little, but really he was such a troublemaker and show off.  In any case, we had started dating, remember, and well…he’s asked me to consider marrying him.  Not right now, of course, we have yet to figure out what we are doing with the rest of our lives, and things are rather worrisome at the moment.  But give us a year or so, perhaps I will say yes.  In any case, he wants to come by a lot more this summer, and get to know you and Mum and Dad.  What do you think of all this?  I told him if in a year, if things change and we still want to marry, I would, but I don’t know if I’m being too rash?  After all, I’ve got to get used to being in the real wizarding world now.

Mother says you have a new boyfriend.  I hope I get to meet him when I get home.  I’m so happy for you Petunia.  Perhaps then we both can get married.  Imagine how thrilled Mum would be over that.  Let me know what you think about what James and I have been discussing, I need some sisterly advice here.  Please?  Thank you, and love always.

Your sister-

Lily