Sorted Into Slytherin-A Harry Potter Fanfic

The Boy Who Lived

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. 

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thinand blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, whichcame in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning overgarden fences, spying on the neighbors. 

The Dursleys had a smallson called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had asecret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about thePotters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't metfor several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have asister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were asunDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered tothink what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in thestreet. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, butthey had never even seen him. This boy was another good reasonfor keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing witha child like that. 

When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesdayour story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside tosuggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out hismost boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happilyas she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair. 

None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past thewindow. 

At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, peckedMrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye butmissed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwinghis cereal at the walls. "Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he leftthe house. He got into his car and backed out of number four'sdrive. 

It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign ofsomething peculiar — a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr.Dursley didn't realize what he had seen — then he jerked his headaround to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could hehave been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr.Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat inhis mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive — no,looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs. Mr. Dursleygave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As hedrove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order ofdrills he was hoping to get that day. 

But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind bysomething else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, hecouldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangelydressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn't bearpeople who dressed in funny clothes — the getups you saw onyoung people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. Hedrummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on ahuddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that acouple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be olderthan he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve ofhim! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably somesilly stunt — these people were obviously collecting for something . . . yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a fewminutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot,his mind back on drills. 

Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his officeon the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder toconcentrate on drills that morning. He didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did;they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime. Mr.Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. Heyelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mooduntil lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walkacross the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery.