The Magic Shop: If Dudley Dursley had a Magical Daughter

Chapter Three

A/N: Yay, this one is actually longer! I wasn't lying!

Half an hour later, the five Dursleys were cruising along Charing Cross Road, looking for anything that looked remotely like a music shop. 

"What's that?" Azalea asked, pointing to a brick building labeled, "The Leaky Cauldron".

In the rearview mirror, Dudley gave her a strange look. "Just a building. There's nothing in it."

"No, it says, 'The Leaky Cauldron'." Was her father blind?

"No, honey, there's nothing there," Petunia butted in, though it seemed like she was trying to convince herself.

"There!" Marge exclaimed suddenly from the front passenger seat. "The Sound of Magic Music."

"Magic?" Vernon gasped weakly. Petunia and Dudley looked at each other, each slightly pale.

"Park the car, Dudley," Marge ordered, ignoring her brother. "We should go in."

"It doesn't look open," Petunia argued.

"And it was left to Azalea," Marge pointed out. "She can get us in."

Technically, Azalea didn't have a key, but she had a feeling Marge wasn't going to take no for an answer. She would come up with something.

Dudley parked the car in one of the deserted spots in front of the store and turned off the engine. "All right, let's go," he said with a sigh.

The Dursleys got out of the car and walked to the door of the shop. Marge jiggled the doorknob, but it didn't open.

That seemed to be a huge shocker for everyone but Azalea.

"It's locked," Vernon said unnecessarily.

Of course it was locked. Who didn't lock their doors? Azalea sighed and stepped forward, pushing past her grandfather. She examined the lock for a moment, then pulled a bobby pin out of her hair and jiggled it around. The lock opened with a click, and the door swung open.

Azalea smiled at the stunned expressions on her family's faces. She'd learned to pick locks when she was little, after her father had locked the cookie jar in the cupboard under the stairs. She'd never had a real-life application for it, though.

Azalea stepped into the shop and began poking around. The place was totally deserted and decrepit, though it did have a few instruments here and there.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Petunia asked. She still seemed a bit on edge, but Azalea could have been imagining things.

"I don't know," Marge grumbled. "Maybe a sign as to why my husband hid this from me."

"Would you have married him if you'd known he owned a music shop?" Azalea asked, hoping she wasn't overstepping.

Marge scowled. "Probably not."

"Well, there's your answer."

Marge opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. She started rifling through the drawers behind the counter, and was soon joined by Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley.

Azalea walked around the store, examining every nook and cranny. She ran her hands along the back wall, flinching when they hit something unexpected: a slight cutout in the brick. To Azalea's immense surprise, the cutout ran all the way down to the floor. It wasn't a cutout; it was a door. She dug her fingers into the opening and pulled.

The door swung open. Now this part of the store was well-kept. There were pianos, guitars, flutes, trombones, and even a didgeridoo neatly organized into rows. The walls had obviously been painted recently, and the table in the middle of the room didn't have even a speck of dust on it.

However, on every instrument was a large sign reading, "DO NOT TOUCH".

"Dad!" Azalea called. "You have to come see this!"

"What is it?" Marge, who was decidedly not her dad, asked. "Oh, wow." The tone of her voice was flat, almost emotionless. "I guess this is all yours," she said to Azalea. Her eyes narrowed the slightest bit, but that was all it took to make her words seem bitter.

"I guess," Azalea agreed, not very enthused. She was more confused. Why had Uncle Alvin left her this whole shop? She wasn't a musician.

"Let's take the piano home," Grandfather Vernon suggested.

"I'm sorry, what?" Dudley asked. "There's no room in the car for a piano. Can't we take a guitar or something smaller, if we must take anything?"

"There's also the minor fact that it says, 'DO NOT TOUCH,'" Azalea put in helpfully, but everyone ignored her.

"Pianos are more elegant than guitars," Vernon argued. "If you want your daughter to learn a useful musical instrument, it should be the piano."

Azalea opened my mouth to protest, but Dudley cut her off with a stern look. "Fine," he said. "I'll come back here later with a truck to pick it up."

"Great," Azalea said. It was anything but great, but she knew there was no changing her dad's mind. "Can we go now?"

"Yes," Marge said with a sigh. She glared around at the shop. "This place is stupid anyway."