Some seventeen years previously, an owl (not unlike the sharp-eyed bird who accompanied young Harry to Privet Drive that fateful night) bore a letter to the Evans home in Little Whinging.

The letter was bound for the Evanses eleven-year-old daughter. Petunia was an awkward child -- tall and gangly with stringy blond hair and overlarge front teeth – but, more importantly, she was an unusual child. Inexplicable things happened around her. Of course, no one would have thought to blame her when a pitcher of iced lemonade exploded in the hands of her condemnatory neighbor, Mrs. Lovell, nor would anyone have suspected her in another unfortunate incident, when the seams of Lily’s favorite teddy bear unknit themselves in the course of one night. In Petunia’s wake, vases broke, curtains tore, and china shattered. Naturally, no one but the little girl paid these odd occurrences any mind.

The letter came in with the morning post, accompanied by a stack of postcards all from Mrs. Evans’ harebrained sister, Luvina. The letter in question was on the bottom, addressed in shimmering green ink and stamped with a gaudily-colored crest.

“Mummy, Mummy! Pe’unia’s got a letter!” Four-year-old Lily skipped wildly around the kitchen.

“What is it, Petunia, darling?”

“Nothing,” the startled girl stammered. “Just an invitation.”

“Is not! Is not!” Lily said in singsong voice, now making wide arcs around the kitchen and leaping into the air in twirling pirouettes.

“Shall I tell you a story, Lily?” Petunia asked frostily, seizing the little girl’s tiny hand and dragging her out of the kitchen and up the stairs into their shared bedroom.

“Read me the letter!” Lily chirped.

“We’re not going to talk about the letter – I mean, the invitation – to Mum and Dad, understand?”

“That’s no invitation,” Lily said sagely, grabbing it. “What is this, Pe’unia? What is it?” She traced the outline of a lion on the seal.

“Lily, no! Forget you ever saw this!” Petunia twisted her little sister’s arm and wrenched the letter from her protesting fingers.

Lily’s cherubic face crumpled as she dissolved into tears. Sometimes, Petunia hated Lily for making her the person she was; she convinced herself that Lily was the root of all of her unhappiness.

As Lily scampered tearfully from the room, Petunia tore the letter into shreds and threw it out the window, letting the pieces rain down on the flowerbed below. But when she returned to her bedroom after dinner, the letter was sitting on the bed, intact. She burned it in the fireplace with old newspapers and correspondences, but the next morning, the letter was lying on bedside cabinet, the green script twinkling innocently in the early morning sunlight. Petunia stowed the letter in a shoebox. She developed a habit of moving the letter from place-to-place lest anyone discover it. She made no more attempts to destroy it, for the letter was plainly indestructible; she should have known then what she was working against.