Out of the Past, Into the Future (a Harry Potter fanfic)

11 - The News Spreads

Chapter Eleven - The News Spreads

Monday, 1st of November, 1981

4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging

It was a dull day. The sky was a limp shade of grey, not a drop of blue could be seen. It looked like lumpy porridge, but the occupants of the house at 4 Privet Drive, a couple and their young son, didn't seem to notice. The father was humming to himself, almost merrily, as he picked out a tie for work and put it on. It was an exceptionally boring tie, but it at least matched the huge suit he had squeezed himself into. Smoothing down his hair and straightening out his moustache, he threw open the bedroom curtains and went down the stairs to eat breakfast.

His wife and son were already there. His wife could not be so different if she had tried. Skinny, with a long next as opposed to his non-existant one, her hair was as blonde as his was dark. Their son was a mixture of the two of them - he had his mother's hair, his father's build, but both of their bad attitudes, and was currently resisting his mother's attempts to get him into his high chair, screaming as he did so.

The father, who was in fact called Vernon Dursley, ate his breakfast quickly before picking up his briefcase and kissed his wife, Petunia, goodbye on the cheek. He tried to do the same to his son, Dudley, but missed, as Dudley was now throwing a tantrum as he refused to eat the breakfast he had been given. There was quite a lot of cereal on the wall.

This was an average morning for the Dursley family, and as Mr Dursley backed out of his driveway, and drove to the end of the road, he was perfectly content. While his morning may seem boring to you and I, to him it was excellent - the Dursleys took pride in being a perfectly normal, average, boring family and hated anything even the least out of the ordinary.

Mr Dursley's perfectly content mood was shattered as he glanced out of the window whilst waiting for a gap in the traffic. On the street corner, was a cat - a cat reading a map. Mr Dursley glanced back in shock. Had he just seen that? Blinking, he realised it must have been a trick of the light, but of course it wasn't - nothing ever is.

As he found a gap in the traffic and turned the corner, he looked back in his mirror. The cat was now reading the signpost. Correcting himself, he realised it was only looking. As he drove towards town, he shook himself, and put the cat from his mind, thinking only of the order of drills he was hoping to get that day.

But back on Privet Drive, the cat was indeed reading the signpost. It had been reading a map as well, but had hidden it as soon as it had realised it was being watched. It wasn't really a cat though, it was a woman in her animagus form, a severe-looking tabby cat with square markings around it's eyes. The woman in question was called Minerva McGonagall. She was a teacher, and was at this moment particularly grumpy. She was lost.

The place name she had been given by Hagrid could not be right. This place? A muggle suburb? A very strange place to meet. Especially on a day like this ... the very day He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named disappears ... of course, that was why she had come in the first place. She wanted the truth - had he really gone? Had Harry Potter really stopped him? And of course, was it really true about Lily and James?

Minerva McGonagall shook her head slightly to rid herself of her thoughts. Was this actually the right place? Carefully glancing around, she checked that she was not being watched, then checked the map she had discarded in the Muggle garden. Yes, this was the right place. She was in Surrey, and since she had found Little Whinging, this must be the correct Privet Drive.

"Now, what was the house number?" she thought to herself.

It was four, she thought, and so making her way down the street - slowly, as cats do, for she mustn't stick out - she made her way to 4, Privet Drive. She ducked into a driveway as a mother and son - Mrs Dursley and Dudley, though she did not know that - walked past. Well, walked is a broad term. Mrs Dursley was dragging her son up the street, expertly dodging his kicks as he screamed for sweets.