Petunia's Revenge

That rat was evil. Petunia watched as it slowly opened its mouth and hissed at her. It was sitting on the shoulder of Peter Pettigrew, one of Lily's friends from school. It was summer vacation, and tomorrow morning would be time for them to head back for their seventh year.

Six years. Six years it had been since Lily had received that letter, the letter that would cast Petunia into her shadow forever. And every summer she would come home and invite her friends.

The Marauders and Lily had changed a lot since their first year, except for maybe Sirius, but they all doubted he would ever grow up. Things were so much different now... before, when they were young, everyone had been equal, there was no one above the other. But that had changed, James and Sirius were now obviously the leaders of their gang.

And then there was Remus. He had probably changed the most out of all of them, in both appearance and personality. During their second year, Voldemort had made his very first mass killing. Remus's parents had died, and he was never quite the same, his ever-solemn eyes were evidence of that. He was now nearly as tall as Sirius, and he had ditched the glasses long ago, when a girl from Ravenclaw he had had a crush on told him they were very unappealing.

Peter was, to put it nicely, the scapegoat of the group. Often when the rest of the Marauders went out on a prank, Peter would be the one to cover up for them. He never seemed to mind, though, he always had that sweet smile. In fact, he was the one that Petunia minded the least. Except for that rat.

Peter insisted on keeping the rat with him wherever he went. It's name was Binky, and it always sat on his shoulder or traveled in his pocket. It was an old rat, so old that its fur came out in patches. Every year when Lily's friends came to visit, Petunia would hope for word of its death, but it never came. That rat was immortal.

And now, as Lily and the Marauders chatted on as if nothing was happening, Petunia watched as the rat sat hissing and spitting at her, it's glaring beady little eyes staring at her face. It probably was just afraid of her and wanted her to leave, but Petunia fancied that it was waiting for her to let her guard down so it could lunge for her neck.

Petunia headed for the garage. Ever since she was a little girl, the garage was her safe haven, away from her lunatic family, away from Lily. She lay in her hammock; fuming. Why couldn't she have a normal family, one that would realize what a freak Lily was and that she was the normal one? But no, her family thought Lily was the special one. It made her sick.

She heard her mother calling her; it was time to eat supper. "I'm not coming!" she shouted, sounding more like a spoiled child than anything. "I'm not hungry."

"Well, okay," said her mother, "but it's your favorite."

Petunia made a "Humph!" sound. As if her mother would remember what her favorite was. She'd probably gotten it mixed up with Lily's favorite again.

As time went by, however, Petunia started to get hungry. The boys would be heading over to the Potters' house soon, and then they would wake in the morning, head back over to pick Lily up to go to Hogwarts, and be gone. But for now, they were still there, and as much as Petunia hated to go back in and have them harass her, she was extremely hungry, and needed something.

She decided to go around the house to the side door that led into the kitchen. They would probably be somewhere else in the house and wouldn't notice her. She crept to the side of the house and walked in the kitchen. But there was someone there.

Remus looked up from his bag of chocolate frogs he was eating to see Petunia Evans coming in. He had always been a bit scared of her, but he felt sorry for her because he knew she felt left out. He didn't want to hurt her feelings by running out of the room, so he would have to think of a quick excuse to leave. It would have to be believable. He thought fast. "Uh," he said. Well, so much for that.

Petunia stared hungrily at the chocolate he was eating. She had to be really hungry to want to eat anything from the wizard world. "Hey, can I have one of those?" she asked hopefully. Remus's face clouded. "No, I need these," he muttered, running out of the kitchen.

Petunia grimaced. They were bad for your health, anyway. Suddenly, she had an idea that made her forget all about being hungry. She would pay them back for all those years of torture they had inflicted upon her.

Every year, when the Marauders with James's parents would visit right before school started, they would leave their school things in the Evan's spare room. Then, when they came to pick Lily up, they would grab their stuff as well. That way they didn't have to lug it everywhere.

Knowing that they wouldn't even check on their things until the next morning when they came, Petunia ran upstairs to the spare bedroom. Inside she found the boys' and Lily's school trunks, neatly packed and ready to go.

The first thing she did was find their wands and carefully hide them so that they wouldn't use the easy way to get out of her joke. Even though they weren't allowed to do magic during the summer, Lily had conveniently not mentioned this to Petunia, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway, but Petunia didn't know this.

She opened James's trunk first, finding his red-and-gold boxers lying on top. She stifled a gag as she saw where his mother had stitched his name on the back of them. She then found the other boys' underwear (Sirius had smiley faces; Remus had polka-dots; and Peter had pink hearts,) and intertwined them together, making large knots. She then took Lily's bras and tied them to the rest. After that, she tied all their robes together, making certain to tie them so tight it would take hours to get them loose. She hummed as she used tacks to pin them all over the walls.

If she had stopped to think, she might have realized that what she was doing was not completely normal, something she always tried to be. But, she didn't stop, and she worked well into the night, after the Marauders had left.

When she finished, she stood back to admire her work like it was some great masterpiece, chuckling to herself. They would never make it to the train station on time. She walked back to her room, quickly falling asleep, dreaming dreams of dead rats.

The next morning she awoke to the cry of:

"What the-? BLOODY HELL!!!!!!!!"

And, although they called Mr. and Mrs. Potter in to undo the knots themselves, something Petunia hadn't thought of, and although they eventually found their wands and made it to the station on time, Petunia felt very proud of herself. Because she had accomplished tricking them in a completely normal Muggle way, something she knew they would never forget.

Vengeance was hers.