September 25, 1988
England, Little Whinging, 4 Privet Drive
"Bye, Piers!" we called to Polkiss after finishing our outdoor training.
"Still, Harry, I want to hear what Mum tells you too!" Dudley resumed the conversation our training had interrupted, ruffling his straw-colored hair.
My cousin's hair was already light brown, and after August at camp, the top had bleached almost white. Aunt Petunia had said it was time for Dudley to get a haircut, though, and had quietly wondered why my own hair had somehow changed its style on its own without growing longer. Yes, now when I looked in the mirror, I saw a green-eyed Sasuke with a scar. I had been systematically rubbing the 'lightning bolt' with my ointment made from Rowan Decoction. It wasn't 'Seiketsuhontai', of course, but there seemed to be some progress. The scar had become less noticeable and paler.
I hoped that by the time I turned eleven, the stupid brand of the 'Chosen One' would disappear completely. It wasn't normal for a mark received in infancy to remain swollen and overly vivid even at almost sixteen. Besides, Harry had said the scar hurt and nearly festered. Of course it would hurt if nobody treated it! I took wounds seriously. And then there was all the frenzy around the hero—'Show us the scar!' and everyone recognizing him everywhere. If it really disappeared, I'd tell people it was on my backside. Heh.
"Well?" My cousin tugged my jacket sleeve, knocking me out of my thoughts.
"I think Aunt Petunia worries about you a lot and is trying to keep you away from the magical world. It can be very dangerous. It looks as though an adult wizard can do practically anything," I explained quietly after making sure there were no half-Kneazles or suspicious people on the street. "You remember what happened to Piers, right? He's one hundred percent convinced that we were at camp together and became friends there. And your wizard didn't even take out a wand. He just looked him in the eyes for two minutes, and that was it. Of course, not everyone is as skilled as Snape-sensei, but a Muggle—an ordinary person without abilities—is almost helpless against a wizard. One morning you could wake up and suddenly decide that, for example, you hate me..."
"But that's because we don't know anything either! We don't know what they can do. Maybe if Piers had kicked your wizard behind the knee and run away, it wouldn't have been so simple," Dudley reasoned very sensibly. "And Dad promised to buy me a tape recorder. We could make recordings of what really happened."
I'd never even heard of such a device before, but I wasn't about to expose my ignorance!
"That's exactly why we're training." I clapped my cousin on the shoulder. "You're right. Forewarned is forearmed. But Aunt Petunia is still scared. She doesn't want to drag you into it. She needs to be prepared first. Besides, I'll tell you everything myself."
"All right," Dudley said reluctantly, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Let's go home. I'll help Dad in the garage while you're questioning Mum. I'll keep him busy."
"You're a real friend, Big D." I smiled, and my cousin sniffed.
"Harry, um... When you become some really powerful wizard, you'll still be friends with me, right?" he asked with a frown. "I'm just an ordinary Muggle, or whatever you lot call it..."
"Listen, brother..." I stopped and swallowed. I looked at this still slightly chubby eight-year-old boy with serious gray-blue eyes, and my heart ached. "I will never abandon my friends or my family. Whether they're ordinary people, wizards, or demons. And I'll protect you even at the cost of my own life."
This time I would be able to.
We walked the rest of the way home in silence.
* * *
I caught Petunia-san alone in her room.
"Aunt Petunia, I wanted to give you this photograph." I held out the wizarding photograph of Lily Potter.
"Lily..." Aunt Petunia breathed and sat down on the bed. "Where did you get this?"
"Mr. Snape gave it to me on my last day there. He asked the school to make copies of my parents' pictures from the graduate records. Sorry I didn't show you right away. I was getting used to school, and Aunt Marge came to visit..."
"It's all right, it's all right, I understand," she answered distractedly, gently touching the moving photograph with one finger. "I remember this picture. She was eighteen here."
Aha. So students really did attend 'Hogwarts' until eighteen!
"I was thinking... You're very beautiful, Aunt Petunia, but... I helped Mr. Snape, and he let me take this for you. He said that if you use only a little at a time, it will last a long while. I wrote down the instructions too..." I handed her a small bottle and a scrap of paper torn from my notebook.
"'Beauty Potion'?.." she read from the label and blushed a little. "Harry..."
"Mr. Snape said this potion works on Squibs too. You're a Squib, right? You said so when we were talking at Mr. Snape's. I just don't know what that means," I said, acting a little. One of the first things I had looked up was exactly what a 'Squib' was.
"A Squib is..." Aunt Petunia closed her eyes. "A child without magic who is born into a wizarding family is called a 'Squib'. Unlike an ordinary person, a Squib has some abilities, but they are minor. Muggle-Repelling Charms don't affect Squibs, they can interact with magical creatures, and they can see enchanted buildings. But a Squib cannot cast spells or use a wand. Once, I wanted very badly to attend Hogwarts..." She sighed. "And later I wanted to protect my sister... But I'm only a Squib."
"Aunt Petunia, you said a Squib is born into a wizarding family," I pressed on. "Then your parents?.."
Petunia-san clearly hadn't expected me to move that quickly and looked a little lost. She thought tensely for a while, then quietly sighed.
"I suppose you should know. Besides... a lot of time has passed. I don't think you've studied the Second World War in history class yet, but perhaps that's for the best." Aunt Petunia sighed again. "My father was once named Hans Valentin Hube. He was born in Germany into a magical family and studied at a wizarding school called Durmstrang. Around the same time, a certain Gellert Grindelwald studied there, the man who was later called a Dark Lord." Petunia-san grimaced. "That future 'Dark Lord' already had unpleasant tendencies in his youth. Father never told us the details, but Grindelwald did something to him—tested some curse on him or used him in some ritual—and as a result, Father became a Squib. Grindelwald was expelled in his final year, and Father... was cast out by his family. Naturally, he was expelled from the school where magic was taught as well. He almost never talked about his youth. I only know that once he reached conscription age, he began a career in the army. He fought in the First World War, then in the Second. He wasn't exactly an insignificant figure in the Third Reich... Then he discovered that Gellert Grindelwald was behind the whole war, whether because he found it amusing to set Muggles against one another or for some other reason. Father became disillusioned with those ideals and staged his own death in 1944, then moved to the British Isles. 'Evans' was my mother's surname, and he changed his first name to Harry..." Aunt Petunia fell silent.
"And what happened afterward?" I dared to ask.
"Afterward?.. Squibs live a long time too and don't age quite the way Muggles do, though Father always seemed... old. Perhaps that's why I chose a man much older than myself as my husband... I don't know whether Father had a family before that, but my parents married in 1956, and I was born in 1958. He said he'd spent a long time searching for a suitable wife—my mother. Unfortunately, I turned out to be a Squib too. But after I was born, Father performed a magical marriage ritual with my mother. Lily was born a witch." There was so much longing in her words that I involuntarily shivered.
"It's a family secret. There were trials for the Nazis... And in the magical world, even involuntarily ending up on the side of a 'Dark Lord' promised nothing good and could cast a shadow over the entire family. Lily and I learned all of this when she was in her fifth or sixth year... You see, Harry, you're still little, and many adult things may be difficult for you to understand. But your mother, how should I put it... because she was considered 'Muggle-born', she was at the very bottom of the wizarding hierarchy. Your father's parents even came to see us. They were something like aristocrats. They even swore a magical oath of secrecy. When they learned that Lily was actually a half-blood from a respectable pure-blood magical line, they allowed their son to marry your mother..."
"Then is Dudley a Squib too?" I asked. "Blood doesn't just disappear. It's inherited, isn't it?"
"Possibly," Petunia shrugged. "Both Dudley and I inherited Father's light hair, and his nose too. But there were wars in the magical world Lily lived in as well. My sister died so young for ideals I still don't understand. Every wizard has a whole pile of relatives behind them, while people like us are completely defenseless."
"Aunt Petunia, could our neighbor Miss Figg be a witch or a Squib too? Her cats are half-Kneazles—magical creatures. And they're watching our house. Watching me and Dudley."
"Is that why you asked me why I used to leave you with Miss Figg?" Aunt Petunia narrowed her eyes. "So those filthy cats that trample my hydrangeas are spying on us?"
"Yes." I nodded.
"Come to the kitchen," Petunia-san said decisively as she rose, carefully putting the 'Beauty Potion' and its instructions away in a cabinet. "Martha gave me a good recipe a long time ago, and for some reason I kept forgetting to use it. We'll brew a potion for those furry beasts."
"Huh? A potion?.." I stared wide-eyed at my aunt, who smiled bloodthirstily.
* * *
The 'potion' turned out to be indecently simple. Aunt Petunia boiled ground black pepper in water, poured the cooled liquid into a spray bottle, and assigned Dudley and me to 'defend the territory'. Equipped with gauze masks, we conscientiously sprayed the entire fence, the places where we'd seen the half-Kneazles, and the tree that offered a convenient view of our front garden.
I hoped that would scare the animals away for at least a while. Remembering how Kiba reacted to strong smells, though, I thought it would definitely work. At least near the house, we wouldn't have to worry about furry spies.
The only problem was that the rain and fog meant we'd have to renew such defenses fairly often. But Aunt Petunia said she had plenty of pepper, and we could also buy lemon or lime oil and apply it to the windowsills. The house would smell nice and fresh, while cats disliked that smell too. So that was what we decided to do.