The Children Who Lived and The Philosopher's Stone

Chapter One - The children who lived.

The Dursley family, of number four Privet Drive, were very proud to say that they were exceptionally normal, thank you very much. Exceptionally normal indeed. They were the very last people you would expect to have anything strange or unusual around them because they just couldn't do with such nonsense.

Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings. He was a large, beefy man with almost no neck, although he did have a large moustache and not to mention a mean streak. Mrs Dursley was very tall and thin and had so much neck, it seemed she had stolen the extra bit from Mr Dursley himself. The extra length was very useful due to the fact that she spent so much time looking over her neighbours' fences. The two of them had one small son named Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer child anywhere in the world.

The Dursleys had everything they could want, but they also had a secret. They couldn't bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs Potter was Mrs Dursley's younger sister and they hadn't seen each other for several years, save once when they met Dudley. On a normal day, Mrs Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister. This was because her sister's family was about as unDursleyish as possible. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbours would do if the Potters showed up on their street and came to the door. The Dursleys also knew that the Potters had a set of twins, a little girl and a small son about a month younger than Dudley, but they had never met them. The children were another reason to keep the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with children from that sort of family.

Our story begins on a cloudy grey Tuesday morning. There was nothing in the weather that would suggest anything strange and unusual happening all across the country. Mr Dursley grunted and hummed as he got dressed for work while Mrs Dursley gossiped on the phone while trying to wrestle a screaming Dudley into the highchair.

Not one of them noticed a fluffy owl fly past the window.

On his way out, Mr Dursley, briefcase in hand, tried to kiss Dudley, but the child was so deep into a screaming fit that Mr Dursley thought it best to stay out of throwing range as Dudley swiped his cereal off his tray. When he got to the door he kissed his wife, got into his car and backed out of number four's drive.

It was at the end of the street when he noticed the first peculiar thing—a cat reading a map. For a second he hadn't even realised what he had seen—but then he jerked his head to look back. There was a tabby cat sitting at the end of Privet drive, however, it was not holding a map. He shook his head. Must have been a trick of the light or even his imagination he thought to himself as he stared at the cat. The cat stared back. As he drove away, Mr Dursley watched the cat in his mirror. It was reading the sign that said Privet Drive—no, looking at the sign, animals can't read maps, signs or anything at all! He gave his head a shake and put his strange and unusual thoughts out of his mind and replaced them with dreams of large orders worth tons of money he was hoping to get.

As he sat in the daily awful traffic jam, he couldn't help but notice all the strangely dressed people who were walking about. People in cloaks and funny hats. Mr Dursley hated people who dressed in strange clothes. As he drove past he assumed it was a stupid new fashion craze the young people had created. He gripped his fingers around the steering wheel as his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos who were standing close by, talking excitedly in hushed voices. Mr Dursley was enraged to see that some of the people weren't young at all; one man had to be extremely older than he was and he was wearing a sparkly emerald green cloak! The nerve of these people! But before he got too upset, he thought that it must be some stupid stunt and that these people must be collecting for something... yes that was it. Traffic began to speed up and soon Mr Dursley was in the company car park. His mind went back to money.

In his office, Mr Dursley always sat with his back to his windows. If he didn't, he would have found it hard to concentrate on anything that morning. He didn't see the owls, but the people on the street did. Most people have never seen an owl even at night time, however, Mr Dursley had a feather free morning. He made calls and shouted a bit—even managed to fire someone, he was in a very good mood until lunchtime; he fancied himself a sandwich and headed down outside for a walk. He had forgotten all about the strange people in cloaks until he spotted some standing right in front of the door he needed to go through. He glared angrily as he passed. He wasn't exactly sure why but the whole lot of them made him uneasy. This lot was whispering excitedly too and this time he caught some bits of what they were saying.