One Hundred And Forty Nearly Twelve (Completed)

Chapter 27: The Walk Home

Vernon Dursley looked up and down the alley he and his wife had suddenly found them selves in, he was wondering what to do, there was only one way out of the alley. Hermione had chosen the location well because she knew it well; her dad often parked his car on one of his customer's car parks at the blocked end. She couldn't remember how many times she had walked with her mum and dad out onto Piccadilly Circus.

While a rather hysterical Petunia watched him, Vernon ran from gate to gate in the hope of finding one open so that he could hopefully find something to cover up the sandwich board he was unable to remove. By the time he got to the blocked end of the alley he was sweating rather profusely. Giving up he walked slowly back to his still crazy wife, who seemed to be busy stamping her feet and kicking the wall.

"Now look what you did you fat slob," she screamed at him as he walked up to her.

"Me!" Vernon exclaimed "It's you who started all this shit, just because you couldn't get James bloody Potter to look at you."

"It was you who hated Harry, it was you started hitting him," Petunia accused him.

"And what did you expect, you hated the little freak because he was better looking than Dudley and because you hated your sister, I had to put up with that, and my stupid wife throwing her self at another man right in front of me, I'm surprised Lily didn't do this to you before now you stupid cow," Vernon retaliated.

The argument went on for nearly an hour before they were both too exhausted to argue any more. Vernon tried to fill the silence that had finally fallen by trying once again to pull the sandwich board off his shoulders, it was becoming heavy, it was when he tried to sit down on a step that he realised just how bad things were. He found it was not possible to sit while still wearing the board; he would have to stay on his feet until they could get home. That thought made him wonder just where they were and how they were going to get to little Whinging.

Two hours, several slaps across the face from angry women he had tried to beg some money from, and so many people sneering and swearing at them that Vernon had lost track, found them both looking up at a road sign that said, Upper Whinging 19 miles. Little Whinging 2o miles.

Vernon looked at the sign and almost wept, he was regretting ever meeting Petunia Evans, with her stupid obsessions, she was obsessed with cleanliness yet she had made a small boy do the cleaning, she was obsessed with keeping up appearances with the neighbours, but she had dressed the same boy in ragged baggy worn out clothes that their fat son had worn out, she was also obsessed with giving the stupid fat son everything he wanted, her stupid obsessions had cost Vernon a lot of money over the years, and now he felt sure that he was going to suffer a heart attack because of her obsessive hatred of her sister. 'I could have accepted the freak if she hadn't hated him so much' he reasoned with himself 'it would have been easy enough, all I had to do was feed the freak and then ignore him, yes I could have done that'.

As Petunia watched her over sized, under sexed, over bearing husband, she wondered what she had ever seen in him, she could think of no other reason for marrying him than the fact he was ambitious, he would one day be able to buy her the house she wanted. Then she began to wonder why she had hated her nephew so much, she had hated him from the day when Lily had told their parents she was pregnant and they had made so much fuss over their youngest daughter.

The freak sister who had married a very wealthy good looking man who was also a bloody freak. A bloody freak who had slapped her face when she had walked naked into his room and jumped on him while he was in bed, when she grabbed his thing he had slapped her, not hard but enough to make her stop, it wasn't her fault she couldn't leave him alone when he kept asking her to, it wasn't her fault she wanted him so much she was willing to ruin his marriage, it wasn't her fault he rejected her, it wasn't her fault he was staying in the room next to her while they were staying at her parents home.

Vernon moved on as some one else swore at him, Petunia followed and tried to hide behind him when a lady spat at her. They had another fifteen miles before they would be out of the populated area and into the countryside where they might get some respite from all the hateful and the degrading things being said to them.

Another hour of walking found them standing waiting to cross the road at a busy roundabout, a small truck had stopped and the driver was waving at them and smiling. Vernon thanked the stars, their luck had changed.

The driver met them at the back of his truck and asked if they wanted a lift, he asked where they were going and said he could give them a lift to two miles from Upper Whinging, both Vernon and Petunia accepted readily. The smiling driver helped Vernon push Petunia over the tail board of the truck, he then willingly helped Vernon over giving an extra little push as the huge bulk of Vernon toppled over the tail board following Petunia.

The driver grinned 'It serves them right' he thought as he opened the driver door looking at the sign that had been painted there, it read 'R. J. Skillet, waste offal removal'.

Harry apparated with Hermione to Hogsmeade, and then took her into the three broomsticks for some lunch, though it was late in the afternoon Madam Rosemerta was happy to make a special meal for the couple who had rid the world of he-who-must-not-be-named.

Over the meal they laughed at the things that had happened earlier. "When you said time for some payback, I never expected to enjoy it quite so much," Harry admitted just before leaving his empty lunch plate and taking a huge slice of chocolate cake. As they left the pub and headed back for the school they were both laughing and looking forward to reaching Gryffindor common room where they could relate their story to Ginny and the twins.

They both enjoyed the leisurely walk back to Hogwarts, today was the last day of the holidays, tomorrow the Hogwarts express would arrive and the day after they would start another year of school.

Harry knew that Hermione was looking forward to being back in school and in an odd way he found himself looking forward to it as well, he quite enjoyed doing the lessons now and doing them mostly without Hermione having to carry him through it all like she had the last time. Twenty five minutes after leaving the pub Harry rang the huge bell at the gates of Hogwarts School.

Reg Skillet's truck pulled up at the side of the road just a hundred yards from the junction where he would change direction, he had considered taking them a little further away from their destination, maybe even dropping them at the processing plant but finally decided to stick to his word and drop them where he had offered.

"Oy, you two time to get off," he yelled from the relatively fresh air of his cab.

Vernon and Petunia Dursley climbed awkwardly from the back of the truck smelling just about as bad as it was possible to smell. Reg could smell them as they walked past the front of his truck even though he had kept the windows closed.

The rest of their walk to Little Whinging was relatively trouble free as the people they did encounter crossed the road in a vain attempt to get away from the awful smell. Windows in the houses they passed were suddenly slammed closed as were any doors that had been left open.

Two very tired weary and extremely bad smelling Dursleys finally reached home, Vernon wondered how they were to bathe when they were still stuck with the sandwich boards, he need not have worried though because as soon as they entered the house the boards vanished leaving both of them feeling as though they had just lost something, the weight loss made them feel oddly light as they fought for the bathroom, Petunia won that fight when she argued that there was a lot less of her to wash than there was of her hugely fat and now to her grotesque husband.

Their clothes were thrown out and Vernon was made to sleep in the bed they had once forced their nephew to sleep in. It was going to be a very long time before the Dursleys got over their walk home from London, if they ever did.
The abusive letters and hate mail began to arrive the day after when Petunia was once again in the bath trying to get rid of the lingering smell of rotten offal.

Harry and Hermione spent a couple of hours in the common room of Gryffindor tower, telling their story to Ginny and the twins, the room was still full of laughter when they finally left to go home to Gryffindor house, they were met in the entrance hall by Phil who passed them an important looking letter with the seal of Gringotts on it.