Hexad (hiatus)

Harry Potter and The Bleak World - Chapter one

Book one!!
Chapter one of this spectacular book-in-a-book: the boy who lived.

notes:
rewriting this YET AGAIN. except this time I actually make changes.

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The Dursleys, number four on Privet Drive, were a small family of three. A mother, a father, and a son. And they were perfectly normal. They were the last people you'd expect to see in relation to anything weird, and the last to be seen anywhere near anything weird, very simply because they refused to tolerate any of the nonsense.

Mr Dursley was a fine, working man. He was always presented as a large man, with very little neck, a large mustache, and quite usually, a tight-looking suit. Mrs Dursley was a thin woman, with charming blonde hair, and she was often craning over a fence due to her long neck. Twice the amount of neck anyone usually had, she had. The youngest Dursley, their little son, Dudley. To them, there was no finer boy in the world, though many would beg to differ.

They were the most normal on the street. But they too had a secret they hadn't wanted anyone to know. Dare it be said, their deepest fear.

The Potters.

Mrs Potter was Mrs Dursley's sister, though it had been long since she'd acknowledged the fact. They had no reason to meet, and nearly a decade since they had any reason to get along. They would never again, she swore, because Mrs Dursley took it the way any woman would. She pretended she had no sister, no Mrs Potter, no Mr Potter, and no idea who the Potters even were aside from the most unDursleyish family to ever be met. It was, in fact, a fear of there's that the family would ever step foot on Privet Drive, and it made them shudder to think about whatever may happen should they dare.

Mr and Mrs Dursley knew the Potters had a little family of their own, and a small child, just a month or so apart from their own sweetie in age, and that was all they knew. This, they used as another excuse to not have to meet the Potters. They didn't want their darling Dudley mixing in with it. They didn't know what trouble that baby could be; For anyone to insist they even meet was absurd.

One grey Tuesday morning, the Dursleys woke as they always did. To the cries of small baby Dudley, wanting his breakfast. Mrs Dursley found it a fine morning. In fact, today was a great day. Nothing about the colourless skies made the day worse or better, and it made all the sense in the world that no odd or mysterious thing aught to happen. Mr Dursley picked out his best tie- the most boring but the most expensive-- and Mrs Dursley babbled away happily about some recent gossip, pretending as though she were not trying to peek through the open curtains of her neighbours while she wrangled Dudley into his high chair.

The morning was so fine, that not a single one of them noticed the owl fly past the window. By the time it was half-past eight, Mr Dursley headed out to work. It was a dashing day in the making for him; That was, until a tabby cat looking to have been reading a map caught the side of his eye. He turned around, full force, and rubbed his eyes when he saw the cat had no map at all, but was rather simply sitting there. No map anywhere to be seen.

What had he been thinking? Maybe just a trick of the light, he told himself. He stared at the cat, and it stared back. He went to his car, and drove up the road. The whole time, he watched in the mirror as the cat read the sign that said Privet Drive-- no, not reading it. Staring at it. Cats can't read. Mr Dursley gave his head a slight slap and shook his whole body two times over for good measure. He clearly wasn't fully awake. While he sat in the morning traffic, ignoring the senseless music of the radio, he thought of the large order of drills he had been hoping to get today. For a little bit, that was all he thought.

That is, until, crossing the street, right as he was the first car in the line, there were a number of people dressed in cloaks. He couldn't stand the "trends" these days; All these young people wearing ridiculous clothing! No sense at all, of style nor in general. Mr Dursley nearly jumped out of his car when he saw what looked to be a man older than himself in a cloak the colour of emeralds! But then it struck him, it must be something new that was popular. Yes, even he used to be engrossed in what was most popular... blissfully unaware of how silly he looked. Or, perhaps, all these people were in some new neighbourhood group. Nonetheless, he'd ask Mrs Dursley about it later; She was always hooked on the latest news and trends.