Time Astral | Sirius Black

33||The Dursleys

11 P.M,

There was a huge silence between Dumbledore and Alasia. 

He was standing with his hands resting at his sides while hers were crossed across her chest moodily as they walked towards Number 4, Privet Drive. 

The neighbourhood consisted of a number of almost exact replications of the Dursley residence — row upon row of executive houses for executive people. 

When they reached the illuminated door of Number 4, Alasia went ahead to knock just as Dumbledore did. 

He glared at her they stared at one another when Alasia finally, leapt up on the porch and knocked before Albus could. 

The door was opened by a scowling Vernon Dursley. He blanched at her sight. 

"Hello, Vernon." She grinned. 

"I - you - what are you - "

"Good evening. You must be Mr. Dursley. I daresay Harry has told you I would be coming for him?" Dumbledore said before she could. 

"We," Alasia shot him a glare. "would be coming for him."

There was loud thudding and she assumed Harry was now standing on the stairs, listening. True to the word, there was a faint shadow on the last two steps. 

"Judging by your look of stunned disbelief, Harry did not warn you that we were coming," said Alasia with a wide smile. "However, let us assume that you have invited us warmly into your house. It is unwise to linger overlong on doorsteps in these troubled times."

The home consisted of two floors. Inside, the house was, if anything, even neater than the perfectly presented gardens.

The living room had a boarded-up fireplace, the kitchen was filled with spotless modern top-of-the-range appliances, including a wide-screen television, seems to be mostly pink and white in colour, and was described as being surgically clean. 

"It is a long time since my last visit," said Dumbledore, peering down his crooked nose at Uncle Vernon. "I must say, your agapanthus are flourishing."

Vernon Dursley said nothing at all. Alasia did not doubt that speech would return to him, and soon — the vein pulsing in her godson's uncle's temple was reaching danger point — but something about Alasia and Dumbledore seemed to have robbed him temporarily of breath. It might have been the blatant wizardishness of his appearance, but it might, too, have been that even Uncle Vernon could sense that here was a woman whom it would be very difficult to bully.

"Ah, good evening Harry," said Dumbledore, looking up at him through his half-moon glasses with a most satisfied expression. "Excellent, excellent."

These words seemed to rouse Uncle Vernon. It was clear that as far as he was concerned, any man who could look at Harry and say "excellent" was a man with whom he could never see eye to eye.

"I don't mean to be rude —" he began, in a tone that threatened rudeness in every syllable.

"— yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often," Alasia finished the sentence gravely. "Best to say nothing at all, Vernon. Ah, and  here she is! Petunia, I was beginning to think you weren't in the house at all."

The kitchen door had opened, and there stood Harry's aunt, wearing rubber gloves and a housecoat over her nightdress, clearly halfway through her usual pre-bedtime wipe-down of all the kitchen surfaces. Her rather horsey face registered nothing but shock.

"Albus Dumbledore," said Dumbledore, when Uncle Vernon failed to effect an introduction. "We have corresponded, of course. And you must know Miss Serpens, surely. She seems to make an impression on everyone she meets." Harry thought this an odd way of reminding Aunt Petunia that he had once sent her an exploding letter and that Alasia had threatened to murder them if they so much as touch her godson, but Aunt Petunia did not challenge the term. "And this must be your son, Dudley?"