Chapter Text
The neighborhood of Little Whinging prided itself on its sameness. Every hedge was trimmed, every lawn mowed, and every front door painted a sensible shade of brown, taupe, or beige. It was, in short, exactly the kind of place where nothing suspicious, exciting, or remotely illegal could possibly occur.
Which is precisely why the Dursleys chose it.
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of Number Four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings (not a “former hitman”). He drove a company car, yelled at interns, and sold industrial drills -- clearly not a front for smuggling priceless artifacts through offshore warehouses. And Mrs. Dursley hosted tea parties, traded juicy gossip, and absolutely never used coded language to arrange a black-market exchange in Zurich. Anyone who suggested otherwise would find themselves abruptly uninvited from the next Tupperware brunch.
Their son, Dudley, was a spoiled, loud-mouthed boy who enjoyed punching things, breaking things, and -- oh yes -- studying pressure points and firearm disassembly in five languages. And their nephew, Harry, a skinny, bespectacled boy, could sketch a Fabergé egg from memory and name seven techniques for disabling a laser security grid. Because... art club, obviously.
They were a perfectly normal family.
Except for the passports in six different names.
And the emergency exit tunnel beneath the garden gnome.
And the secret safe built into the wall behind Dudley’s “Dino Smashers” poster.
And the time Vernon insisted on flying to Prague to “test drills” during a Europol raid.
But aside from all that, absolutely, totally normal.
It was only on a trip to New York -- purely for informational purposes, because anyone would tell you that the Dursleys were avid supporters of a “well-rounded education” -- that things began to get weird.
You see, Vernon and Petunia Dursley were many things. Criminals. Spies. Con artists. Lovers. Survivors.
But even they weren’t quite ready for magic.
.
From the dawn of the sixteenth century, the Evanses had a long and storied history as experts in the art of temporary possession. “Sharing is stealing” was just as much their family motto as “finders keepers” and “We don’t take it personally, we just take it.”
Not that anyone knew that, of course.
To the public eye, the Evanses were a family of horticulture enthusiasts, jetting around the world for botany conventions and field research on the properties of Lavandula angustifolia. Petunia Evans was the elder of the two daughters. She had a long neck and a sixth sense for gossip, and was definitely not the same teenaged girl who once rappelled through the Louvre with a vanishing rope and made off with the Star of Hyderabad. Her younger sister went by the name of Lily Evans, and she followed Petunia around like a little duckling. She certainly never used her Tuesday book club to swap forged documents with an ex-KGB fence named Maureen.
The Evans sisters were as close as could be. They were clever. They were adventurous. They were perfectly normal. Just ask them.
Of course, things got slightly more complicated when Lily turned out to be a witch. And even more complicated when Lily actually told Petunia the whole, entire truth. While other families avoided the topic of magic, Petunia took notes. She asked questions. She learned just enough to be dangerous.
And when Dudley and Harry began to show signs of the same talent -- oh, the possibilities were endless.
As it turned out, magic was very helpful in slipping through laser grids, dodging thermal sensors, and neutralizing security guards without so much as a bruise. Dudley had a knack for accidental disillusionment charms (very useful during bank jobs), and Harry could unlock just about anything with a touch and a grumble. Petunia called it “practice.” Vernon called it “the family business.”
But none of that was suspicious. Not at all. They were just a family of four who traveled often, kept irregular hours, and occasionally showed up in the background of MI5 surveillance photos.
Which brings us to the Grangers.
The Drs. Granger, of 12 Grimble Road, were also proud to say that they were perfectly normal. Normal, that is, for intelligence agents in deep cover. They went to quite a lot of trouble to have their neighbors believe that they were the last people anyone would expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious. They were frighteningly good at their spycraft.
When he wasn’t tailing suspicious characters in his heavily-modified sedan, Dr. Richard Granger was the partner of a dental practice and manufacturer called Granger Family Dentistry & Technologies. As an MI6 front operation, in addition to providing genuine oral care, they made dental equipment as a means of dodging well-meaning but potentially vexing tax inquiries. He sported a pair of oversized glasses like those giant magnifying lenses used for checking teeth, an essential part of his disguise.
Dr. Helen Granger was tall and refined, with high cheekbones and a penchant for firearms. When she wasn’t at the firing range honing her considerable skills, she spent her time at the practice of which she was also a managing partner, performing interrogation techniques that may or may not have been in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Their daughter, Hermione, had inherited her father’s steel-trap memory and her mother’s fondness for high-yield explosives—though she preferred to call it "chemistry." With her heart-shaped face and large, bushy hair, you wouldn’t have guessed she had joined MENSA International at age eight, or that she had once hacked into the Maltese government’s external server with nothing but a calculator and a pair of paper clips.
All of them, the Dursleys and the Grangers, were very polite. Very tidy. Very British.
And then the letters arrived: three of them, carried by owls who most certainly did not pass through customs.
One for Harry Potter.
One for Dudley Dursley.
One for Hermione Granger.
When the Hogwarts letters arrived, the Dursleys didn’t flinch.
Petunia inspected the supplies list with the cold precision of someone who once bartered cursed emeralds from a necromancer in Marrakesh. Vernon recognized the name "Ollivander" and muttered something about wand cores and price inflation. Harry and Dudley exchanged knowing looks and began mentally planning the best hiding places for unauthorized spellbooks.
Meanwhile, across town, the Grangers were having a very different reaction.
Dr. Helen Granger suspected a prank, possibly MI6's idea of humor. Dr. Richard Granger called in a favor to have the owl tested for surveillance devices. Hermione, on the other hand, had already begun packing, citing “a statistically significant increase in unexplained phenomena over the past six months” as probable justification for this "boarding school" situation.
Magic? Ridiculous.
...And yet, Helen was fairly certain the toaster had moved on its own that morning. Again.
Regardless, the children were off to Scotland. One family watched them go with eerie calm and a checklist titled “Hogwarts Opportunities: Magical Skillsets for Extraction Work.” The other waved goodbye while quietly placing tracking chips in Hermione’s boots.
After all, it was just a school.
A magical one, sure. With ghosts, trolls, and secret dungeons. But how much trouble could three frighteningly capable, morally flexible eleven-year-olds really cause?