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95. Aunt Petunia
🕑 Added 2025-05-02 11:20:40 +0000 UTCOnce everybody had returned home, Severus, Lily and Harry flooed from the Dragon's Tale to Spinner's End to stay until Severus and Lily needed to be back at Hogwarts.
"I really like what you've done with your house Sev," Lily said.
"Anything would have been an improvement over what it was," Severus said grimacing at the memory of his childhood home. He had torn down the ugly, dark wallpaper that had characterized the downstairs rooms in his childhood and painted both the living room and dining room light colors, replaced the woodwork in a lighter oak, replaced the shades with venetian blinds and new sheers and drapes. He had expanded and tightened all the windows all through the house to keep out the cold air and completely modernized the kitchen. He's also removed the bookcase that had hidden the stairwell and rebuilt it in a golden oak. Upstairs, he'd modernized the bathroom, painted and bought new furniture for the three bedrooms. He had both the back and front porches rebuilt, had the house painted and the fence around the front yard repaired.
Harry came back down the stairs. "I'm all unpacked. Do you need help with anything?"
"No, I think we have everything under control, but lunch will be in another hour," Severus said. He had asked Tita to make sure Spinner's End was stocked with enough groceries for two weeks.
"I think I'll go for a walk around the neighborhood if that's okay?"
Severus nodded. "That is fine. Enjoy your walk, but be back in time for lunch."
"It's really nice not to have to worry about allowing Harry to go outside by himself because You-Know-Who is after him," Lily remarked after Harry had left.
"I know," Severus replied as he walked into the kitchen to see what he could rustle up for lunch.
"When do you want to go to Diagon Alley for Harry school things?"
"I think next week is soon enough. I will need to replenish some of the school stores and my private stores."
"Do you know what you need for both?"
"Yes, unlike Slughorn I check regularly and keep a list I update frequently."
Lily giggled. "Remember the time he was out of Lionfish Spleen when it was the main ingredient of the potion we were brewing that day?"
"Merlin help me! How could I forget that?"
"I'll never forget it! He looked absolutely nonplussed when you pointed out there was no Lionfish Spleen in the student stores."
Severus shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder how we managed to learn anything from him." As he spoke, he was putting together tuna and mayonnaise sandwiches, a salad made with fresh vegetables and crisps.
Blinky had been bringing fresh vegetables from the garden behind his quarters at Hogwarts which he and Harry had planted last spring. He had been looking after it, keeping it weeded and watered. Severus had told him to be sure and take some of the vegetables for himself as there were too many for him and Harry to eat and he did not want to see them go to waste
Harry came in back door just as Lily was setting the table for lunch and Severus was bringing the food to the table. "I'll go wash up and be right down to help you." He returned in a few minutes and got a pitcher of milk out of the refrigerator for himself and set a teapot down by Lily and another by his dad.
"I thought you drank mostly coffee Sev," Lily remarked.
"Just in the mornings usually," he replied.
"Yeah the elves won't let him have any at all if they think he's getting too crabby," Harry joked.
"Humph!" His dad snorted. "Where did you go while you were walking?"
Harry shrugged. "Just around the neighborhood. I went past grandpa and grandma's Evans old house and I went to the park up the street where you and mum first met."
"It hasn't changed that much from when we lived there," Lily said. "They painted it another color and …there aren't all the flowers in the front yard like mum had." There was a catch in Lily's voice.
Lily's parents had been killed in a traffic accident shortly after she married James. Severus had gone to their funeral, sitting in the very back of the church and standing in the very back of everybody else at the graveside so James would not see him and cause a scene. Lily must have spotted him because she had sent him a Muggle thank you card a couple of weeks later.
"Do you think you could take me to the cemetery where they're buried?" Harry asked. "I'd like to take them some flowers."
"We can probably do that this afternoon," Severus answered.
"Where are your mum and dad buried, Dad?"
"My mother was buried in the family mausoleum in the cemetery in Godric's Hollow, but my father …" he shrugged. "Perhaps his drinking buddies and the bartender at his favorite bar took up a collection for his burial. If not, he is probably buried in the indigent section of one of the local cemeteries."
Lily cast a warning glance at Harry so he wouldn't ask any more questions. She knew his father was still a sore subject with Severus.
"I can't recall Aunt Petunia ever mentioning my grandparents while I was living with them."
"Well, they weren't really all that fond of Vernon and thought she could have done much better than him and she could have, but she took it as another sign of their favoritism of me over her even though they liked Potter even less than Vernon."
"Did she have anybody else interested in her?" Harry asked curiously.
"She never really gave herself a chance. She met Vernon; they started dating and then got engaged and married."
"I think she looked on Vernon as her salvation to normalcy," Severus remarked. "And he did not head directly out the door when told about Lily being a witch."
When they finished eating, Lily got up and began to clear. "Since you made lunch Sev, I'll do the wash up."
"I will be in my lab downstairs in that case. I still have a few potions I need to brew for Poppy."
"I'll help mum," Harry said. "She can wash and I'll dry."
After Severus went downstairs, Harry asked, "So what's the story on dad's dad?"
