(I don't own Harry Potter.)
(Child abuse tw.)

Magic is a tricky thing and flourishes in many ways- the unfurling of flower petals under the pale glow of the full moon, the golden threads (nevertheless unseen) that tangle your hands together with the hands of your new best friend in primary school, the queasiness in your stomach that flutters and stops you from boarding that train or stepping off this curb-

It builds new worlds too, atom by atom, bricks stacking into place and clouds skidding across newly blue skies, as time lines criss-cross and the outcome of this predicts the outcome of that and perhaps-

Perhaps in another world, Petunia Dursley opens the front door and sees the swollen-eyed, tear-stained baby on her stoop and resolves to let the bitterness dwell in the past, buried in the ground with her estranged sister. Perhaps she smooths Harry's unruly hair back and winces at the scar raised there, still red and bruised around the edges. Perhaps she goes and buys a new crib that very morning, leaving Dudley home with Vernon, who's confused and blustering, but accepts it.

Perhaps Petunia looks in Harry's bright green eyes, Lily's eyes, and promises him that she might hate the world he comes from (might envy the world he comes from), but he's her duty and he's her nephew and she will take care of him like she will her own, because it's what Lily would have done for Dudley and she knows it. (Perhaps in yet another world, when she thinks it, another Petunia feels a pang of guilt deep within her stomach as she closes the cupboard door and latches it).

Perhaps this Petunia shrieks when Harry performs accidental magic at three or four or five- she's upset and she shows it, but after the initial burst of anger that flares through her, she swallows it back and tells Harry it's okay, he can't help it, and someday when he's older, he will. And she explains to Vernon about magic, what she can, and sends a scathing letter to Dumbledore, because how is she supposed to explain that which she knows so little about? (She never wanted to know anything about it, not anymore, not after his reply to her last letter.)

And Minerva McGonagall shows up one day, dressed like an elderly spinster with cat's eye glasses on a chain, and she tells them all, gathered in the living room, about magic. Harry's eyes are round as saucers behind his glasses and Dudley is similarly awed. Petunia sees him giving Harry jealous looks when Harry's back is turned and she resolves to explain to him later that magic is just a thing, just a tool, just a skill, like any other. He does not need magic to be special.

Perhaps in this world, Harry isn't spoiled, isn't pampered, but he's not thrust under the stairs and told to pretend he doesn't exist. He never has to dodge a soapy frying pan, never has to duck and run from Harry Hunting. He is not seized and shaken and told to squash his freakiness. He knows that he is not their son, he is their nephew, but he feels like perhaps he is in the Dursley family. His Hogwarts letter comes addressed to "Harry Potter Dursley" and when Aunt Petunia sees the emerald green ink, her eyes get very squinty and the tiniest bit damp.

Or perhaps not.

Maybe none of that happens.

Maybe Harry grows up unwanted, unloved. Maybe it's just like we already know it is. Maybe it's worse. Maybe Harry shows up at Hogwarts with too-patched, too-big Muggle clothes under his robes and faded bruises on his elbows and a complex as big as the Rocky Mountains settled on bony shoulders. Maybe he ends up in Slytherin. Maybe he still ends up in Gryffindor because Draco Malfoy is a ponce and he doesn't want to lose the only family he thinks he could find.

Perhaps Molly Weasley doesn't let Dumbledore put her off with placating words and empty gestures about the wards. Perhaps she tells him, in a series of Howlers, each one angrier than the last until his beard is scorched and his ears are ringing, what she thinks of blood wards that might keep the Death Eaters away, but crush the boy living under them. Perhaps she points out that he should test the efficacy of them, because the chances of them defending Harry from more than a gnat are slim, because he'd rather call the Giant Squid family than the Dursleys.

Perhaps she's right.

Perhaps Harry is moved into Ron's bedroom after first year, over-awed and eager, eyes as big as Hedwig's behind taped spectacles. Ron mumbles it's nothing special with burning ears and slump-shouldered shrugs, but it's the best thing Harry's ever seen. Perhaps Arthur Weasley catches Dobby in a hedge- not just catches him, recognises him.

Perhaps Malfoy Manor is raided. Perhaps Ginny never goes through her first year with empty eyes and whispers in her ears and paint down her front. Perhaps she never shares her soul with Voldemort, watching him push her out as he fills himself in. Perhaps Harry finds out there is a name for speaking to snakes- not from Dueling Club, not in front of the entire school, but comfortably ensconced in the Burrow's front garden, surrounded by the twins giving him curious looks at the snake twined around his wrist.

Perhaps Voldemort never comes back. Perhaps he does, but he has no Horcruxes, and he is brought down before anyone can ever raise him up again. Perhaps a rumple-haired boy with bottle green eyes and a lightning scar etched across his forehead brings him down with one spell. Perhaps Harry never dies. Perhaps nobody else does.

There's a lot of possibility in a "perhaps."