“Words, just words,” came a voice from behind the door, and Petunia shuddered.
The voice was female, thin, somehow unpleasant.
Like a saw on Styrofoam.
“If you kept quiet, you might pass for smart.
Well, thank goodness no one but me heard you.
Hey, you there?
Maybe you’ll let me in, dear?
We have much to discuss.” Petunia trembled.
She suddenly recognized the voice because she had heard it on recordings before.
One summer, they had fooled around with a tape recorder, recording various skits on cassette.
Like one of them was an actress and the other a journalist.
Or they were both singers performing a popular song of the day.
Or they acted out scenes from Shakespeare, whom they both loved.
Then they would play back the tape and laugh, not recognizing their own voices.
Petunia’s voice on the recording sounded exactly like that.
Petunia got to her feet, having no idea what to do, when the one behind the door sighed, muttered “well, if you won’t do it the easy way,” and then came a clear and distinct: “Alohomora!” And the heavy bolt slid out of its slots by itself and fell to the floor with a clatter, and the door opened.
Petunia screamed and nearly fell.
Fortunately, a table was behind her, and she managed to stay on her feet, painfully hitting her hip against the corner.
On the threshold, looking quite frightening in the dim light from the hearth, stood Petunia.
She wore a green robe decorated with images of snakes, a hat with a coquettishly curled brim on her head, and in her hand she held a wand.
In short, she looked exactly as the real Petunia imagined herself when she dreamed of magic.
A witch.
“Sorry, I’m used to talking face to face,” the witch smiled amiably.
“May I come in?” Petunia trembled and forced out: “No!
You cannot!” “But I can,” the witch countered, amusement in her voice, and stepped over the threshold without difficulty, entering the room.
“Sweetie, I am you.
There’s nothing I cannot do,” she declared, with a flick of her wand transfiguring a stool into a luxurious armchair and sitting down in it, her back to the open door.
Two Petunias stared at each other.
One was a frightened, exhausted girl in an old house dress, her hair disheveled and her knees scraped.
The other looked like a true lady of the magical world.
Tapping her wand, she sat cross-legged, exuding an air of complete control over everything around her.
How pathetic I am, thought the real Petunia.
I threatened to show them all, but in reality I’ve fallen into traps twice already, escaping only by a miracle, and the third time was quick to come.
The first time, the ghost saved her, sensing the approach of that brute even while asleep.
The second time, the brute tripped itself up by blurting out a genuine stupidity.
But both times, the brute knew exactly where to strike.
In the case of the fake bartender, it was somewhat explainable.
Life on a remote farm in itself means a lack of many things.
As for the fake sister, she had accurately guessed Petunia’s cherished dream.
And now that dream stood before her in the flesh.
“What are you?” she asked, trying with all her might to hide the tremor in her voice.
“I am you,” the witch repeated and smiled as if savoring her fear.
Unlike the previous two, she spoke freely, not limited to the number three, and clearly felt in control.
“I am Petunia Evans, a Hogwarts graduate.
Top student of the school.
Twelve ‘Outstanding’ on TRITONs.
Head Girl.
Head of Slytherin House.
Quidditch team captain and MVP for seven consecutive seasons.” Petunia’s eye twitched.
She easily recognized all the accolades listed.
Every single word of it was from her own secret fantasies, which she had never voiced to anyone.
“And who were you expecting?” the witch suddenly asked mockingly and continued without waiting for an answer: “What, did you think McGonagall would come third?
She’d look at you like this over her glasses” she mimicked the exact look, and it was quite accurate — “and say she’s simply astonished that you weren’t admitted to Hogwarts earlier?
Maybe she’d even hand you an invitation to special accelerated courses for former Squibs?” And she laughed derisively.
Petunia remained silent.
She had nothing to say in response.
That was exactly what she herself might have imagined.
“Or maybe Dumbledore himself?” the witch snorted.
“To knock on your door and apologize for not recognizing your magical potential six years ago?
Then take you on as a personal student, and give you the Philosopher’s Stone for your birthday?” Petunia frowned, not understanding what the Philosopher’s Stone had to do with it, but then she remembered.
At home, at her parents’ house, in a hiding place under a floorboard where no one — she hoped no one — would ever find it, lay her trophies.
Mostly various magical knickknacks that were hard to part with.
A Sneakoscope, several pretty Puking Pastilles, a unicorn card, a self-inking quill — in short, the kind of things she could quietly steal from her sister out of petty revenge for all the ‘good’ things.
Among them were several collectible cards from Chocolate Frogs.
On the back of Dumbledore’s card, it said he had worked with the famous Nicolas Flamel, known on both sides of the Statute.
For some reason, the memory of the things she had stolen from her sister gave her courage, and she snapped back: “No, I’d rather the Founders came and declared me the lost daughter of Salazar Slytherin.” For some reason, she was irritated by this display of affiliation with the snake house.
Petunia herself had thought of Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, but not Slytherin.
That’s where Snape studied, and people like him!
The witch grinned: “Oh sure, and then Godric Gryffindor will get down on one knee and propose to you, right.” She propped her head in her hand and asked in an unctuous tone: “Do you still keep his Chocolate Frog card under your pillow, dear?” Blood rushed to Petunia’s face, robbing her of all ability to think.
Only one thought remained in her head: “How did I know?” the witch repeated, not even hiding the fact that she was reading her mind like an open book.
“I told you.
I am you.” After these words, silence fell.
While one of them tried to collect herself and her thoughts, the other, comfortably settled in the armchair, conjured a tea set and a bowl of cookies with her wand.
“Help yourself,” the witch generously invited and, taking a sip, put on an expression of profound enjoyment.
“In this backwater, you’ve probably forgotten what real tea tastes like.” Petunia mechanically took the second cup, turned it over in her hands, sniffed it.
The cup was warm and fit comfortably in her hands; the tea smelled like real Indian tea, the almost empty packet of which still lay in her carpetbag.
Not knowing when she would be able to indulge in its taste again, Petunia guarded the remaining leaves like the apple of her eye.
The aroma of tea helped her forget the shameful truth that had surfaced and focus on what was really important.
She kept turning over the witch’s words ‘I am you’ in her head, twisting them this way and that.
It seemed that there was an additional, secret meaning in those words.
Perhaps even the key to everything happening.
But she couldn’t figure it out and grew increasingly nervous.
She raised the cup to her lips, about to take a sip — and it was true, she hadn’t had good tea in so long!
— when something in the hearth cracked loudly, and she suddenly noticed a dark spot in the cup.
It turned out to be her own reflection.
Blurry, murky.
Couldn’t make out the features, just the general outline of a head.
But it was still her reflection in the cup, not someone else’s.
Petunia tore her gaze from the cup and looked at the witch.
Their eyes met, and Petunia felt a strange sensation like a tickle inside her skull.
She immediately lowered her eyes, staring again at her reflection in the cup, then raised the cup to her mouth, pretending she was about to drink… …most wizards are helpless without their wands.
And even a Muggle can win, if… Petunia swung her arm sharply, splashing the tea straight into the witch’s face, and immediately lunged at her, aiming for the hand with the wand.
But due to her injured knees and exhaustion, she wasn’t fast enough.
The witch dodged, leaped from the armchair, which instantly lost its form and turned back into a stool.
The stool crashed into Petunia, knocking her off her feet and nearly throwing her out into the street, and then ropes appeared out of thin air, wrapping around her body and immobilizing her.
Now their positions were reversed.
The real Petunia, bound hand and foot like a ham in a butcher’s shop, lay by the threshold, while above her, with a triumphant smile on her face, stood the Petunia-witch, her wand at the ready.
“Good try, but failed,” the witch sang mockingly.
“A lowly Muggle can never compare to a wizard, never!” “You’re not a witch!” Petunia spat.
“You’re a doppelganger!” Petunia hadn’t read about this creature in her sister’s magic books, not at all.
The magical literature available to her was extremely scarce on the subject, or more precisely, there was no information about this creature in the DADA textbooks at all.
So all Petunia had to go on was ordinary fantasy literature.
Authors, of course, also disagreed about the nature of a mystical double, but according to the most common version, banishing it was quite simple: just touch it.
The Petunia-witch clapped her hands.
“Nice to know you’re as smart as me.
After all, you are me.
But it won’t help you much.
Just one spell and — let a miracle happen!
The humble Muggle will suddenly awaken to a magical gift!” “Lily will see through you!” The witch laughed.
“Foolish girl.
She won’t notice the swap.
After all, you ruined your relationship with her yourself.” These words stabbed into Petunia’s heart like a knife.
She immediately remembered all those nasty things she had said to her sister, and all her vile deeds, which were not limited to petty theft.
Right, the doppelganger was absolutely right.
She had ruined everything herself!
Maybe that’s why Mr.
Cori wanted to help her?
Perhaps he too had once ruined a relationship with his younger brother and had never been able to make it right?
Petunia took a deep breath and, twisting her whole body, forced herself to sit up a little.
If she was going to die, at least she would pretend to sit rather than lie there like a sausage on a counter.
The witch watched her movements with a smirk, making no attempt to interfere.
Apparently, this whole struggle amused her.
Well, of course.
A surge of envy and anger awakened extra strength in Petunia; she tightened her abdominal muscles to sit up, then pulled her legs under her to achieve some semblance of balance, even if she was curled up like a shrimp.
“At least tell me, why all this?
Why is it so important for you to take my place?” “Exactly, ‘your’ place,” the double said, looking at Petunia with a strange gaze from under her hat.
“I want to take your place because it’s the key.” Petunia frowned.
Oh, these riddles!
Did she have to play mind games with someone she was about to kill?
“What key?
To what?” A loud crack came from the hearth again, as if the stones it was made of had decided to give way and crumble all at once.
Petunia leaned sideways, peering around the witch’s back, and saw the flame roar upward, reaching the ceiling in an instant, then coalesce into the shape of a tall humanoid figure.
Without waiting for the fire spirit to attack, the witch traced an intricate pattern in the air and sent a stream of ice particles toward the enemy, but they vanished instantly, melting before reaching their target.
The wand fluttered again without stopping, leaving a pattern in the air that resembled a capital letter ‘M’.
“Arresto Momentum!” the witch’s voice rang out, and the fire spirit, having taken its first step toward them, suddenly slowed down; one of its legs hung in the air, and it stopped.
“And now take this!
Avada K—” Petunia, pushing off the floor with her feet like a coiled spring, leaped — where she found the strength — and crashed straight into the witch’s back.
The witch flailed her arms awkwardly, breaking the spell pattern; the wand flew out of her hand and rolled somewhere under the bed; the witch wobbled and fell into the tub with a piercing shriek.
Dark, dirty water splashed out, engulfing the body, and the shriek was cut off, replaced by desperate gurgling.
Lying on the floor, drained of all strength after her desperate lunge, Petunia listened as her double thrashed about, trying to get out but unable to.
With each moment, the sounds of struggle grew quieter and quieter until they ceased altogether, and the water in the tub settled once more.
“And she melted like a lump of sugar in a glass of tea,” Petunia whispered and lost consciousness with a clear conscience.