"How are things going Petunia?" Albus Dumbledore asked.
"Mrs. Dursley, if you please. Life here at Privet Drive is rubbing along acceptably, it would be better if Vernon and I weren't experiencing difficulties getting pregnant."
The old man's blue eyes twinkled even as his voice took on an apologetic note. "I'm sorry I must have forgotten to mention the wards have a side effect. You will be unable to have more children until after the wards fall when Harry is seventeen. It's probably just as well, this way you have plenty of resources for Harry and Donnie is it?"
Petunia was stunned silent.
"Good day Petunia." He said then apparated away. Harry standing beside her, somehow knew that what the old man said was very bad and that it somehow related to him. He knew he was supposed to not remember but somehow he had blocked it, before the strange old man made him feels so strange and kind of sick.
The months that followed were the worst of Harry's life. When his uncle was told of Harry's escapade with magic that day he was spanked and locked in his cupboard without supper for the first time. His aunt let him out to use the bathroom at bedtime but otherwise didn't acknowledge him in any way. The next morning his uncle let him out and said, "Your freakishness has cost this family a lot, boy. So you'd better start to contribute more to this household and lighten the burden on your aunt, understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Oh and after what you did at pre-school yesterday no more pre-school for you. Bad enough we have to move Dudley to a new school. Learn to control it boy, and we'll let you go to school next year. Got it?"
Terrified because he was sure he couldn't learn to control the strange things that happened around him, Harry gave the only answer he knew would satisfy his uncle "Yes, sir."
Petunia went numb and ignored her nephew, and the unkind things her husband and son did to him for months until Harry's fifth birthday. On that day, Dudley pushed him down the stairs and put Harry in the hospital. Once she was reassured that Harry wasn't in any danger, she came home and gave Dudley the first and what she hoped would be the last spanking she ever had to give him. She told Dudley that as long as Harry was recovering he would have to do everything around the house to help that Harry did and sleep in Harry's room, because Harry would need the space of his room while he recovered. Also that he was grounded and would have no TV, no computer and no toys. Vernon tried to protest but Petunia shut him up by saying, "I saw him deliberately push Harry down the stairs Vernon. I may not like the boy, but I will not allow our son to get away with attempting to murder his own cousin! Do you want Dudley to be the sort of person who grows up and gets sent to prison?"
"Of course not!"
"Then let me discipline him!"
Vernon left it to her, he loved his wife. She was far more intelligent than he, and she could be quite terrifying when angered. Most of the time she was submissive, sweet, passionate and everything he'd ever wanted in a wife. He knew without a doubt, she was the reason he was as successful as he was. But when angered the last place he wanted to be was between her and whatever she was angry at, even if what she was angry at was his own son.
Petunia felt shaken. She had lost herself in mourning the children she was denied, and had failed to notice what her husband and son were doing. But that would change, she would no longer allow herself or her family to take the anger they felt at the magicals, who had put them in this situation, out on Harry. He was after all a child, he had no more choice in the matter than they did. She didn't love him. He was now a constant reminder of their stolen dreams as well as a reminder of her dead sister, but he wasn't to blame for it either. No Petunia blamed the man her sister had followed and obeyed. She blamed the man who placed Harry in their home under those thrice damned wards. She blamed Albus Dumbledore.
At ten, Harry could never remember a time in his life when his Aunt ever said she cared about him. His Uncle flat out hated him until last year. But despite his dead parents and a not so good home life, he figured it could be worse. He'd briefly experienced worse before he was five when that odd old man had said what he did to Petunia about wards and no babies, whatever that meant. Harry knew the old man had done something in an attempt to make him forget, but Harry had a very good memory and that day had been traumatic enough that he had gone over it until he could remember almost everything. What he remembered most was what that man had said about babies, years later Harry figured out that made the infertility somehow his fault so he wasn't surprised that things got worse. He was never quite sure if his fifth birthday was the best or worst day of his life.
That day his cousin had shoved him down the stairs. He'd broken his right arm in three places, his collarbone, his left thigh just above his knee, and his left ankle, and two ribs. He had also punctured a lung and gotten a severe concussion. When Harry was released from the hospital a week later. He came home and for the next three and a half weeks it took him to recover, it was almost as if he and Dudley had switched lives. When the doctor gave him a clean bill of health, his Aunt called a family meeting. Petunia seldom laid down the law, but when she did that was it. Most of the time she let Vernon have the illusion that he wore the pants of the family, but when it came down to it all the males at #4 Privet Drive knew Petunia was boss. That day Petunia laid down the law.
"I feel that there is much we need to discuss about how things have been and how they will be in the future.
"Harry has been subject to too much scorn and bullying from both you, Vernon and Dudley. That will stop. There will be no more calling him boy or freak his name is Harry and you will both use it. Harry, we haven't been honest with you. We were told to keep certain things from you. It, those odd occurrences around you when you are upset, are caused by magic."
Vernon's sputtered, "Pet" was ignored.
"Both of your parents were magical. You are also magical. Normally the magical world is separate from the rest of the world. That is the way we like it. But sometimes someone is born in the regular world that has the powers of the magical world, your mother was one of those. On Halloween the year you turned one, an evil wizard came to your parents house and killed both your parents and he tried to kill you. No one knows why you survived, but this is where our worlds collide.
"My sister listened to the recommendations of that odd old man Albus Dumbledore, it got her and your louse of a father killed. Dumbledore was the one that brought you to us. He was the one to trap us all in this house and he is the one responsible for all the bad that has happened to this family. I do not like magic, in fact I hate it, but you cannot help what you were born. You did not ask for your parents to die, nor did you choose to be placed here with us instead of with a family in the magical world. I'm sure if you were in the magical world such things would be a blessing not a source of shame. I do not place any blame on you as you were given no say. From this time forward we shall make the best of it. But know that Albus Dumbledore is responsible. He placed you here without asking if we wanted to have you, he made no provision to see that you wouldn't be a burden on us, and he is why your magic makes you different, not normal. He's the one who said you shouldn't be told. "
"I'm sorry Aunt Petunia."
"You should be." Vernon muttered, but he subsided after a quelling glance from his wife.
"I will not ever love you or treat you the same as Dudley. You are however a human being and under my care therefore you can expect decent treatment from everyone living under this roof. You will have food, clothing, shelter, education and medical care. You will be treated with respect for your person and given appropriate privacy, we expect the same in return. In return for our care, you will be expected to do chores and attempt to keep your magic outbursts at a minimum. Understood?"
"Yes, Aunt Petunia."
"Vernon, over the years I have overlooked the way you have treated Harry but I will no longer do so. There will no longer be disrespectful name calling from you. If you can't say anything nice say nothing at all. No more spankings bordering on beatings, that teaches nothing! Except bullying! There are better ways. You will be allowed to give Harry three hours of chores a week. Taking care of the yard or washing the car that sort of thing but they must be age appropriate. Ask yourself if you would expect Dudley to do it before you assign it. No telling him to do a man's work when he is a boy.
"Dudley, I know that you are big and strong and like to have your own way. That is normal. However bullies only get so far in life, and if they are a big enough bully they get sent to jail. When you pushed your cousin down the stairs, that was the kind of bully that winds up in prison. You got a small taste of what that Harry's life is like this past month. Prison is worse. Is that what you want, or do you want to be like your father, a strong, successful, business man?"
"Like Dad."
"Then Dudley curb your impulses to bully others, and work on your manners and your schooling."
"Yes, Mum."
"Dudley and Harry, you now know about magic. You also need to know that there are laws forbidding this information being passed to anyone else. There are people who can come and wipe the memories from your mind. Albus Dumbledore has done so in front of me twice, and he wouldn't hesitate to do it again, so you cannot say a word to anyone outside this family. Understood?"
"Yes Ma'am."