A Different Life

"Ahhhhh!" shrieked Petunia Evans Dursley, dropping the milk bottle. Her husband, Vernon, heard her scream and rushed over.

"What's the matter, Petunia dear?" he asked. Then he looked down and what had caused his wife to scream.

Petunia bent down and picked up the letter resting on the bundled up toddler. Fortunately, her scream had not caused the child to wake up. Her lips pursed as she read the letter. When she was done, she snapped, "My freak sister and her husband got themselves killed by an evil person in their world that wanted to take over. This letter is from the headmaster of the freak school they attended. It tells of their death and explains that I have to take in their child, our niece."

Vernon turned purple. "I will not have a freak under our roof!" he spat. "This brat is not our niece!"

"Well, what are we going to do with her, Vernon?" asked Petunia. "I don't want to have anything to do with that world, but we can't leave this child on our doorstep forever."

"Don't worry, Petunia," responded Vernon. "I'll dump it somewhere and let someone else deal with this." He picked up the bundle that was his niece and got into his car. He drove off with the baby. After half an hour, he stopped in front of an apartment building in another town. As it was still rather early, nobody noticed as he left the baby on the doorstep and drove away.

Half an hour later, one of the tenants was about to take her son to school. When the door opened, the six-year old boy saw the bundle and exclaimed, "Mum, a baby's on the step!"

His mother looked down and gasped. "What in heaven's name! Why is there a baby on the doorstep?" She picked up the child and went inside. Another tenant stepped out the elevator with her daughter. She gasped when she saw the baby and listened as her neighbor explained things.

"I'll take charge of this baby for now, Maud," she said. "Could you take Amy with your son Carl to school? We'll have a tenant meeting this evening and discuss what to do with the child."

"All right, Susan," said Maud Jenkins. She took Amy Clark's hand and took Amy and Carl to school. Susan Clark rocked the little girl, who had finally woken up, and took her to the apartment on the fourth floor. The Grangers on the third floor had a toddler of their own and were willing to donate some baby food, diapers, and a couple of toys for this mysterious baby.

In the evening, most of the adult tenants got together for a meeting. Two of the parents remained to look after the children. "A girl of about one-year old was left on the doorstep of our building today," said Mrs. Clark. "Nobody has any idea as to whom the child is, or where she came from. Something has to be done. Either one of us adopts the girl, or we take her to an orphanage."

Natalia Harper, a young woman of twenty-one who had moved into the building eight months ago, got up and look a good luck at the baby. Her eyes widened when she saw the lightning-bolt scar on the baby's forehead. The girl was obviously Bethany Potter, the daughter of Lily and James Potter and the Girl-Who-Lived, having defeated Voldemort two days previous.

She slowly turned and said, "I think I know who this baby is." The other tenants looked at her and she said, "I believe the girl is Bethany Potter. Her parents went to school with me, and Bethany has the same features as her mother and her father's black hair. I also heard that they died a couple of days ago."

"Then how did Bethany end up here?" asked Mr. Wilson.

"Lily Potter, that's Bethany's mother, told me once that she had a sister, but they were estranged. Apparently the sister was jealous that Lily got into a prestigious boarding school. Since the sister is Bethany's closest relative, I assume the child was left her aunt. But the aunt apparently didn't want her, so I guess she left her niece here."

Several eyebrows were raised and Mrs. (Dr.) Granger exclaimed, "How can anyone do something like that? Just because you don't like your sister doesn't mean you can decide to dump your baby niece someplace because you don't want to keep her."

"Well, we have to do right by this little girl," said Mr. Edmunson. "I really don't want to have her go to an orphanage. It'd feel too much like what her aunt did."

"I'll adopt her," said Natalia. "I've been thinking about adopting lately, and I knew Bethany's parents, so I can tell her about them when she's older."

After a short discussion, it was agreed by everyone that Natalia Harper would adopt Bethany. The child was reported to the authorities and the process for adoption began. After three months, Natalia Harper was the adopted mother of Bethany Lily Potter-Harper. As Natalia had a job in the Ministry of Magic, four of the other women in the building volunteered to take turns baby-sitting Bethany during the day. Natalia paid them, of course, but the four women insisted on being only paid half of what a normal baby-sitter would be paid. A temporary block was placed on Beth so that she wouldn't do accidental magic and arouse the suspicions of her baby-sitters. It would be removed once she was old enough to attend school.

So Beth Potter-Harper grew up with a very happy childhood. She had a loving adopted mother and the other tenants liked her and were mostly kind to her. A couple of the older kids occasionally teased her, but otherwise things were pleasant. By the age of four, Beth had become best friends with Hermione Granger, who was closest in age to her of all the children that lived in the building, other than Matt Wilson, who was six months younger than her. The year after, when Beth started kindergarten, the Grangers moved to a house a few streets over, but this didn't affect the friendship any. Beth and Hermione were in the same primary school and they visited each other after school.