Chapter Text
The town of Little Whinging in Surrey, just south of London, prides itself for being a completely ordinary English town, thank you very much.
Every aspect of life conforms to rigid normalcy. The residents all dress in ordinary clothes, drive British-made cars, go to jobs that keep the local economy running, and attend church services every Sunday.
Everything is completely normal. Some might even describe Little Whinging as boring.
Not for long though.
The morning of 6th November 1981 is a chilly one with the beginnings of frost coating the immaculate gardens of the houses that stand along Privet Drive. In the kitchen of Number Four, Petunia Dursley sips from her cup of tea, the first of the day. She flips through the newspaper, looking out for any gossip or scandal she could share with her neighbours later.
It is all part of her morning rituals, before she goes to grab the milk and begin making the usual large breakfasts for the men of her household.
Setting her teacup down, she gets up and heads for the front door.
She opens it, looks down, and almost receives the fright of her life.
There on her doorstep, amidst the bottles of milk, is a basket. Bundled inside, is a baby with golden caramel skin and a scar shaped like a lightning bolt. It is asleep, and pinned to the blanket is a letter that is addressed to her.
Right off the bat, Petunia Dursley’s ordinary morning comes to an abrupt end.
There is no doubt about it, this baby was left on her doorstep deliberately.
She unpins the letter, opens it and begins to read it. Her thin, bony hands grip the parchment tighter the more she reads. It takes a lot of her self-control to not crush the letter into a ball and throw it out into the garden in her rage.
A storm of emotions assault her heart. Her sister is dead, and now the people of the world that she had spent years trying to forget wants to dump Lily’s spawn on her doorstep, expecting her to take him in and raise him like one of her own?
No, she absolutely could not!
Vernon Dursley immediately knows that something is wrong when he doesn’t come down to the sounds of bacon sizzling and the kettle running. Instead, he comes down to his wife pacing around the living room, looking incredibly upset and flustered.
“Petunia, love, what happened?”
His wife wordlessly points to the basket sitting on their coffee table. Vernon immediately notices the baby sleeping soundly inside. Petunia then pushes the letter into his hands. He reads it, and just like his wife before, he is overcome with incandescent rage.
“Those motherfuckers!” Petunia is too upset to chastise her husband for such crude language, “How can they expect us to take in their mess?! Look Petunia, I’m sorry about your sister, but those magical fuckers have done nothing for you. We’re absolutely not raising the little freak.”
“But what can we do, Vernon?” Petunia asks desperately, “The letter says that the boy will provide some form of protection against those - ”
“Petunia, dear,” Vernon gently grips his wife’s shoulders, “whoever this Dumbledore figure is, he is just manipulating you to take the freak in. If we’re in any form of danger, we will go to the police. Or even better, I’ll invest in a gun. If any of those fuckers dare break into our home and point those branches at us, one shot and the problem’s solved.”
Petunia appears much calmer now, “So what do we do with the boy?”
“Send him back to his kind,” Vernon replies resolutely, “Didn’t you visit someplace called ‘Diagon Alley’ before?”
“That was years ago, when Lily was eleven,” Petunia explains, “I don’t know where to find it, though. I only know that it is somewhere in Charing Cross.”
“That will do,” Vernon nods, “I’ll take the freak to Charing Cross later today and look for the first respectable place to leave him there. Now, try to forget about it, Petunia, and go make breakfast. The little tyke should be up soon.”
Petunia nods. Making breakfast, yes, she could do that. And it will be a welcome distraction from the terrible shock she received, courtesy of the baby who even after all that noise from her husband, still remains fast asleep.
Once breakfast is done with and their precious Dudders has been sent off to school, Vernon calls in to his secretary at Grunnings, saying that he won’t be coming in today to tend to a family emergency.
In a way, Vernon isn’t lying, but he couldn’t let anyone know the true reason of his absence.
Either way, the matter is easily settled, and Vernon takes the baby to his car, and speeds off to London. He arrives at Charing Cross in record time. Parking in a nearby parking garage, Vernon takes the basket out and begins his search.
According to Petunia, she and her sister went to this place called the ‘Leaky Cauldron’, which is supposed to be in a derelict, abandoned shopfront. After some searching, he finds it, and almost sneers in disgust when the empty shopfront morphs into the magical pub that apparently, ordinary people cannot see because of some statute that kept this freakish world hidden from their own.
Vernon enters, and holding his stomach down from the sheer unnaturalness of the atmosphere, he heads for the back door, leading to a courtyard with stonework walls. From there, he waits. Petunia told him that he needed someone with their freakish magic to enter. Even so, he doesn’t have to wait long, as an old man in strange robes enters the courtyard, taps on a certain stone brick and enters through the gateway that opens thereafter. Vernon follows suit, and very nearly empties his stomach contents.
If the unnaturalness was evident in the Leaky Cauldron, it is disgustingly potent here. The commerce district Vernon finds himself in is, in his humble opinion, the capital of freakishness. People dressed in strange robes and hats, owls flying overhead, all manner of weirdness being bought and sold. It is almost too much for Vernon to handle.
The faster he finishes his job, the better.
His goal is to find a respectable place to leave the freak in. That way, someone with good standing and morals will take him in, thus relieving the Dursleys of the burden. And while this entire district looked like it houses more rabble than respectable, Vernon hits the jackpot when he spots a towering, marble-columned building at the other end of the street. Upon closer inspection, he discovers that it is a bank, just the right place to dump this freak and be on his way.
Vernon climbs the steps, ignoring two hideous-looking creatures in sets of armour and armed with battle-axes. He enters into a massive bank floor, furnished with opulent fittings and décor. He stays away from the queues, instead quietly creeping over to an empty corner and placing the basket there.
The deed is done.
Vernon smirks triumphantly. No one spotted him or asked any awkward questions. He can now return to his abode and proclaim to his beloved wife that he had done it. The freak is left to the hands of his kind, and they can resume their perfectly ordinary lives without worrying about freaks wielding tree branches.
He leaves the bank, unaware that two pairs of eyes watching him disappear into the crowds.
The two goblin guards turn to one another, their eyes holding non-verbal communication. One nods, leaving his post to enter into the bank and pick up the basket left behind by the Muggle.
They need to inform the director about this.
To Be Continued.