Harry Potter, and the Philosopher's Stone.

Mr and Mrs Dursley, of trailer four, Trailatrache Park, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be harbouring wayward nephews, or believing in "magic", or to even idly daydream about something strange or mysterious, because they didn't put a lot of concentration into the little uncomfortable facts of life, like telling a son that the tooth fairy didn't exist, or that Santa Claus was a figment of an over-active imagination, or telling their son that he had a relation of a similar age, who associated with "those types".

Mr Dursley was an employee of a firm called Plumbings, which plumbed plumbs. He was a big, rotund man, with a barely visible neck, although he did have a well-kept handlebar moustache. Mrs Dursley was slightly overweight, petite and had dirty blonde hair; she kept a telescope from her early childhood dream's remnants which she used for spying on her neighbours. The Dursleys had a small son which they harshly referred to as "Pudgely", and in their opinion, he could stand to lose a few pounds.

The Dursleys had the right sort of things that they should have, but they bore a secret, and their greatest fear was that someone would discover it. They didn't think they could bare it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs Potter was Mrs Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be.

When Mr and Mrs Dursley woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts. There was nothing about the cloudly sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr Dursley hummed as he put on his most clean sanitation uniform for work and Mrs Dursley scratched herself while watching a Jerry Springer re-run. "Pudgley" was passed out on the worn, stained shagpile carpet, a can of whipped cream clutched in one hand and a scotch bottle in another. None of them noticed a large pigeon flutter past the sun-blasted plastic shutter window above the bed, especially not Pudgely.

At half past eight, Mr Dursley picked up his toolbox, pecked an unresponsive Mrs Dursley on the top of her mulleted head, and nudged Pudgley with his foot, as per his usual routine. "Little bastard," muttered Mr Dursley as he left the house. He got into his beat-up car and backed out of the pole-tent garage of his trailer.

It was on the corner of the gate to the outside highway that he first saw something odd - a dog reading a map. For a moment, Mr Dursley didn't realise what he had seen - then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a mangy pup sitting on the corner of his highway exit, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the booze. Mr Dursley blinked and stared at the dog, which was licking its own genitales, and did not return the courtesy. As he drove out onto the highway, he watched the hound in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Trailatrache Park - no, looking at the sign; dogs can't read maps or signs. Mr Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the dog out of his mind. As he drove towards town he thought of nothing except a large mass of bills he was hoping to charge that day.

But on the edge of town, bills were driven from his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. Though not unusual for this district to see flamboyantly clothed prostitutes and homosexuals parading themselves about the pavement, these people were dressed in cloaks. Mr Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes - the get-ups you saw on young people! They had obviously never worked a day in their lives, as they flaunted their young, tight behinds and ripped abs and pecks! He supposed this was some kind of new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the cracked steering wheel and his eyes fell on the posteriors of a huddled group of the weirdos standing close by, whispering excitedly to each other. Mr Dursley was enraged to see that some of them weren't young at all; one of the men had to be older than he was, and wearing some kind of emerald-green cloak, the nerve of him! Then it struck Mr Dursley that it was some kind of stunt – yes, some goddamn charity was trying to thieve his hard-earned cash that would otherwise be spent on booze and cigarettes. The traffic moved on and few minutes later, Mr Dursley arrived in the Plumbings car park, his mind back on bills.

Mr Dursley went about his rounds in his usual fixing routine; his trousers showing just a hint of buttock cheek parting as he tried to screw a new fitting into the u-bend of the toilet he was lying underneath in a house on Niam Boulevard – if he had, he might’ve found it harder to concentrate on the bill he was going to quote for that particular job that morning. He didn’t see the pigeons swooping past in broad daylight, though people in the street outside did; they pointed and gazed as pigeon after pigeon, each grasping a small letter in its clawed feet, sped overhead. Mr Dursley, however, had a perfectly typical, pigeon-letter-ferrying free morning. He had been yelled at by five different people, but still was under that decibel quota and was happy, until he decided he’d stretch his legs on his “ciggie” break, to walk to the opposite pavement and perhaps buy himself bourbon from the bottle shop.
He’d forgotten about all people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the bottle shop. He eyed them warily as he passed. He didn’t know why, but they made him feel uncomfortable. This lot were whispering excitedly too, and he couldn’t even see a collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a small flask of the amber fluid in a brown paper bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.
“- The Potters, that’s right, that’s what I heard –“
”- yes, their son, Harry – “
Mr Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.
He dashed back across the road, bundled into the van, fumbled his mobile out of his ragged pocket, and had almost finished dialling the number for his house when he changed his mind. He flicked the mouthpiece back into place with his thumb and stroked his finely-kept moustache with his free hand, thinking… no, he was being stupid. Potter wasn’t such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter with a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure his nephew was called “Harry”. He’d never even seen the boy. I might’ve been Harvey, or Harold. There was no point in worrying Mrs Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn’t blame her – if he’d had a sister like that…well, all the same, those people in their cloaks…
He found it a lot harder to concentrate on bills that afternoon, and when he finally dropped off the company van, and its keys in his boss’s office, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.
”Sorry,” he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few moments before he realised that the man he had made contact with was wearing a violet cloak, and he didn’t seem at all fussed at being knocked almost off his feet; on the contrary, his face split into a wide, toothless, gnarled smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made otherwise uncaring passers-by stare: “Don’t be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has perished at last! Even Gummles such as you should be dancing in the street on this, happy, happy, day!”
And the old man hugged Mr Dursley around the middle. Mr Dursleys hand, out of shock, slipped onto the man’s left buttock and clenched firmly; in reply, the stranger yelped and scampered off in the other direction.
Mr Dursley stood rigid on the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a “Gummle”, whatever that was. He was understandably rattled and hurried to his car and set off homeward, hoping he was hallucinating, and that this was an alcohol-induced coma.
As he pulled into the pole-tent of trailer four, Trailatrache Park, the first thing he saw, which did not improve his mood, was the same mangy hound he’d spotted that morning. It was now lying on the rise that was in front of the tent-pole garage for his car. He was sure it was the same one; it had that same sort of sneer that it had when it was looking at the signpost to his residence.
Mr Dursley beeped his horn loudly and swore at the thing, but it didn’t even seem to notice, and idly went back to licking itself, as it had before, that morning. Mr Dursley pulled himself out of the rust bucket that was called his car and marched right up to the little hairy quadruped, the maniac glean of revenge in his eye, he rushed up to the unaware pup and gave it a resounding boot to head, sending it yelping in surprise and pain and tumbling backwards down the rise. Mr Dursley was pleased with himself and let himself into his house, deciding not to mention anything about today’s revelations to his wife.
Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over their half-thawed television dinners about Ms. Next Cab’s problems with her teenage daughter’s third pregnancy, and about how Pudgley had learnt a new word (“Tubby!”). Mr Dursley tried to act normally. When Pudgely had been thrown to bed, he went into the lounge-compartment in time to catch the last report on the evening news:
”And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation’s pigeons have been behaving very unusually today. Although pigeons normally are creatures reserved for growing obese on the countries waste and are hardly ever seen in flight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds talking to the air and flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the pigeons have suddenly changed their lifestyle pattern of crumb-binging and taken wing.” The news reader allowed himself a depressed, self-depreciating pinch of the nose. “Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McPuffin with the weather. Going to be any showers of heart-failure stricken avian tonight, Jim?”
”Well, Tim,” said the weatherman, “That’s not my goddamn job, but it’s not only the odd thing that’s been happening today. Viewers as far as Kent, Yorkshire, and Madagascar have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they’ve had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating a little too hard; also, the underground terrorist Muslim faction of Madagascar has put a Fatwa out on me, and well, to that I say, come and get me, you towel-“
But Mr Dursley had stopped paying attention. Shooting stars all over Britain? Pigeons flying? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a faint murmur, a whisper, about the Potters.
Mrs. Dursley came into the TV room clutching a half-empty bottle of scotch and a cigarette, plonking herself in front of the television and kicked over the TV dinner tray. It was no good – he’d have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. “Er – Petunia, dear, haven’t heard from your sister lately, perhaps?”
As he had expected, his wife glared blearily and angry at him through a bluish haze of smoke – after all, scotch was quite high proof alcohol, and she usually pretended not to even have a sister, for that matter, she pretended not to have parents either; another ridiculous claim made in the height of a poisonous buzz.
”No,” She slurred, “’y?”
“Funny stuff on the news,” Mr Dursley said pathetically, gesturing numbly towards the TV set,” Flying pigeons… shooting stars… and there were a lot of dolled-up weirdos in town...”
”’o?” queried his spouse after a brisk swig of amber liquid.
”Well, I just thought… maybe… it was something to do with, you know... her lot.”
Mrs Dursley stared at him straight down the barrel of her crooked-bridged nose, a look of distinct indignation on her face. Mr Dursley was quite aware of the inflictions that could be made on a helpless, sleeping body with a cigarette lighter and little provocation, and decided not to mention that he’d even heard the name “Potter”.