Interesting. Starting off with Petunia's POV, something one doesn't see every day. (Oddly enough, Vernon's POV is something we know a lot about from canon, thanks to "The Boy Who Lived" (PS1).)

Good choice, to have Petunia rather than Vernon pick up the phone; I imagine that Vernon would just hang up, a la [I]Prisoner of Azkaban[/I], then start yelling, while Petunia after the Howler might show a few scraps of consideration.

About time that Hermione tried telephoning Harry; he'd have explained by now what went wrong with Ron's first and only attempt at contacting him that way.

It's a standard (and often funny, if it's not happening to you) bawling-out technique to rake up someone's full name when chewing him/her out, but it's not something we've ever seen Hermione do in canon, that I can recall. (Mrs. Weasley, yes, but not Hermione.) If Hermione were inclined to do this, I'd expect her to call Ron "Ronald" instead of just cranking up the volume when she yells at him.

Something to watch out for later in the story, perhaps. I look forward to seeing her do this a bit more, if she does.

"Stop what?"

"Apologizing for everything."

Harry started to say, "I'm sorry," but stopped himself and said, "All right then."

:)

Considering that Hermione spends 10 months of the year at Hogwarts, including the Easter holidays, and often the Christmas holidays, it's a wonder her parents don't protest more in canon about not having any time with her.

Nice that Harry is wising up about not making life more difficult for himself than it needs to be at number four (even though it might be very satisfying to tell the Dursleys off every day, and twice on Sundays).

Interesting suggestion of Petunia being a little more human than usual. Possibly her gruff tone with Harry here was because she was annoyed with herself for noticing his depression and thinking of him as a hurt kid rather than a burden?

Remarks:

- The train station is "King's Cross", not "King's Crossing". (I'm still annoyed with myself for not taking time to go there the first time I was in London.)

- I don't think "aunt" should be capitalized in "your aunt"

- "Right so often that mankind's memory runs not to the contrary." I'll bite. Who is Harry quoting?

Another excellent chapter! I like how you portrayed Harry in this chapter, very interesting!

I'd say that so far this is the most in canon Fic I've read in a while.  It's the little details that are connecting with canon that makes it better.

-cami

So I guess Aunt Petunia is being more civil to Harry because she knows his godfather died? This chapter was odd to me because the Dursley's are so awful, I can't see them having any consideration at all. But I suppose somewhere they are human.