Vernon Dursley had heard the old saying that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. He always thought it rubbish. He was a stout ordinary man with graying black hair. Ordinary was all he ever wanted to be. So why was he at this wizarding house, this safe house? Why was he surrounded by freaks?
The parlor was filled old fashioned future, the kind that would have poplar a century ago when Queen Victoria was alive. Vernon could almost have believed the room was normal. Almost was the word. The portraits moved. They spoke. It wasn't natural. It wasn't right. He had been here a few weeks but he still couldn't get used to this. Vernon sat on a couch with his wife. Petunia Dursley was a slender blond in her early forties. She was beautiful to him more so than ever. She was something normal, something good in the middle all this chaos. He looked on the floor. His large muscular son was sitting with a text book in his lap. Dudley could not attend Smeltings this year.
It was those freaks' faults. Vernon's good for nothing sister-in-law had the bad sense to marry at an absurdly young age. Vernon's wife had done the same but that was different. Vernon had been much older than Petunia. As a result he could take care of her. That James Potter was the same age as Lily. He acted more twelve than nineteen. That fellow Lily had married didn't even hold a proper job. He wasn't established in his field. He couldn't bring home a decent salary. What kind of job was auror anyway? It had sounded like magical nonsense. Vernon now knew it to be some sort of magical cross between being a cop and being an agent of MI5. What had that man been thinking? James put himself and Lily in danger. They gotten themselves blown up.
It was Vernon and Petunia who had been left with the aftermath, a child to raise, an unwanted child. The child name was Harry Potter. Vernon did not want to know anything about the freaks but living for three weeks with some of meant he couldn't help picking some things up. Half of the wizards hailed Harry Potter as some sort of hero. Vernon wasn't sure why.
Vernon heard something strange. His wife's eyes went wide. The front window broke. The glass shattered everywhere. Vernon jumped in front of Petunia to protect her.
A man in long black robes walked into the room through the tall floor length window. This man had a creepy white mask. He was holding that stick, that wand in manner that was like a weapon. Vernon could think of only one thing he might do. He lunged at the man. Vernon didn't even get halfway across the room.
What was the freak with the mask was saying? Abracadabra? No, it was something else, something similar sounding. A green light flashed in front of his eyes. Vernon saw darkness, a great empty void. Was this death?
Everything was black. A light appeared without warning. Vernon found that he was looking at the house he grew up in as a child. He saw himself at three years old then four and then five. The years flew by in front of his eyes in a quick and sweeping blur. He saw his older sister Marge when she was so young not yet ten. How had they ever been that young? It was so long ago. More than forty years had passed yet here he was watching bits and pieces of his own life, the way it was, like he was an outsider. That old saying about one's passing before one's eyes, maybe it wasn't rubbish. Somehow though Vernon didn't think it was supposed to be like this.
Vernon saw the day when he was six that his mother died. He saw his father who had been grey haired and old when Vernon was small. Howard Dursley, Vernon's father had been almost two decades older than Vernon's mother. Howard had retried from the army years before Vernon had even been born. Howard Dursley had been a hard man but Vernon could now see as adult what the younger Vernon had not. The death of his wife had broken something in Howard. Vernon saw the day his father told a seven year old Vernon there was no such thing as magic. The young Vernon had cried upon finding out there was no Father Christmas. He received no more toys that Christmas or any year. From then on presents were few and all were practical in nature. Howard Dursley taught Marge and Vernon to be strong. That you had to be tough to survive.
Vernon snorted at the thought of there being no magic. He only wished that was so. The wizards, the freaks, they were all monsters. They were the ultimate nonconformists. They were the kind who refused to obey any kind of rules. They were insane.
"Are they?" a voice said.
Vernon tried to spin around. He couldn't see or feel his body. He could not move. "Who are you?" Vernon demanded, "What foolishness is this?" When there was no response, Vernon yelled out, "Answer me!"
Vernon's childhood continued to play before his eyes. He saw himself grow up. He saw himself at eleven going off to Smeltings for the first time. He wore the bowler hat and the uniform. It was the exact same style that his son would wear many years later. That school did not change much if ever. Vernon saw himself carrying a cane in the halls of the school. He twirled that thing like it was a dangoers weapon. Oh what fun times he had!
Vernon watched as his younger self grew. He saw himself back home with his father over the holidays. Christmas as teenager was as unpleasant as it had been as a younger child. When Vernon was fifteen though it was different. That Christmas Day he went to a movie with Irene Rowe. She was his first love. The Christmas Day when he was fifteen he had his first kiss.
The years sped on faster. He watched as he graduated from Smeltings, as he went to college, then the day he graduated with a college degree in businesses. Vernon hadn't been stupid enough to think he could start a business of his own. On occasion he had dreamed of starting a company but that was too risky. He did not live in unbelievable dreams. He made himself change. He made plans that were attainable by hard work and effort. In truth an ordinary life was what he wanted most. He wanted safety. He wanted rules. He was a realist. He was the man his father raised him to be.
"But do you have to be that man?" the mysterious voice said. It was male. It was childlike and inquisitive. This voice, this person, he seemed to mocking Vernon.
"Show yourself!" Vernon Dursley bellowed.
The flashing images of Vernon's life faded away into gray fog. The blackness and the smoke colored fog surrounded Vernon. He could see his arms and legs again. He could feel them.
A boy was suddenly standing a few feet away from Vernon. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. This boy looked no older than seventeen about the same age as Vernon's son and that horrible nephew of his.
"Horrible!" the boy shouted. His face went red with anger.
The boy was skinny. He had blond hair and green eyes. There was something familiar about him. Vernon felt as if he should recognize him somehow. Vernon didn't know why but he thought of Petunia.
The boy's features softened. He smiled a sad smile. "I should think you might find me very familiar. I've been told I look a lot like her. I was told all my life that I have my green eyes due to recessive genes from Great Grandma Rose. Her daughter my great aunt Lily had the same eyes."
"Who are you boy?" Vernon asked, "Are you reading my mind? You're one of them aren't you!"
"If you mean a wizard," the boy said, "Yes, I was. In life my name was Darren Dursley. I was born to loving parents Dudley and Anita Dursley in the year 2010."
Vernon backed away out of fright. He fought down the fear turning it into anger. "What do you mean in life? What's this about 2010? It's only 1997. You take me for some sort of fool boy? You're trying to drive mad with your freakish magic ways! I'm not going to fall for that!"
"Is that your only response Grandfather?" the boy said, "You get scared then you get angry. You act out of fear and ignorance. You don't even try to understand. Do know what you did to Harry James Potter?"
"That boy, that freak!" Vernon yelled with furry.
The boy who called himself Darren Dursley shook his head. "You act with prejudice. You hide fear with anger. The pureblood wizards are no different in that regard. They hold to their traditions. They fear that which outside their idea of normal."
Vernon spat at the ground. "I am nothing like those freaks!"
"Did you know Grandfather," Darren said, "that the wizards have a minister of magic?" "Do not call me that!" Vernon snapped, "I am not your grandfather. It is not possible."
"Oh but it is. Many things are possible." Darren tilted his head to the side. He gave Vernon a cool appraising look. "You died in 1997. I died in 2045. Time has no meaning here."
Vernon stared in disbelief. He did some quick mental math. "I'm not saying I believe you. I know it can't be. You'd be over thirty years old. You can't be anymore than seventeen."
"Eighteen," the boy said, "this is how I looked before…" The boy's face blurred like a picture going out of focus. "… I was burned." The boy's face became more and more focused. His body changed becoming older and heaver. Darren's clothes changed into a dark dress, what the freaks liked to call robes. Vernon was about to make a scathing remark until he saw Darren's face. The boy, no Vernon corrected himself, this was a man. His image was so shocking to behold. His face was hideous.
Darren continued speaking, "A group made up of angry muggles and hate filled squibs did this to me. The squibs knew about potions. They knew how to make certain that it would be permanent."
Vernon tried not to look at the man's face. It was positively revolting. It made Vernon want to throw up. He searched his mind for something to say. He spoke the first question that popped up. "What on Earth is a squib?"
The man let out a bitter laugh. "Squibs are non-magical people born to wizarding folk."
"You mean normal people are born to freaks?" Vernon asked.
"To them it's the other way around," Darren said, "The squibs are treated as the freaks because they don't magic. It's like being blind deaf. They are seen as useless. They are the lowest of the lowest of the low in the wizarding world. Some are drived of food. Some are beaten. There are those are merely thrown out of the only homes they have ever know. To be a squib child is a horrible fate. The worst part is some don't know it until they don't receive their invitation to a wizarding school in the weeks leading up to their eleventh birthday. Imagine being the center of attention, the adored heir of a family one day. The next day the child is an outcast, the family pariah." "That's barbaric!" Vernon yelled.
Darren's features blurred again. In seconds his face became that of a teenage boy again. His clothes become the normal jeans and t-shirt. His was once more skinny. He raised his brows in an accusing way that made Vernon think uncomfortably of Petunia. Darren's voice was quiet and at the same time filled with anger. "Is what you did to Harry any better?" he asked.
Vernon shook his head. "I never beat him. I never laid a hand on him. He didn't starve. He didn't suffer malnutrion."
"Did you love him?" Darren asked.
Vernon glared. "That freak! Never! He's just like his good for nothing parents! He'll never amount anything."
"How dare you say that!" Darren shouted, "James Potter was the last of a ancient and noble wizarding family. The Potter fortune is one of the greatest fortunes in both wizarding and muggle England!"
Vernon felt his jaw drop. His brows went high. He felt ready to faint of shock.
"It's a good thing you can't do that here," Darren said, "I do believe you are in for more shocks. Harry Potter is a nexus point. His name, his deeds, his actions are important in many realities."
Vernon's voice was shaky. "R-realities?"
Darren rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me. You don't even know basic muggle science. You are one of the most abnormal people I have ever met.
"Am not," Vernon said weakly.
"You are too. You try to so hard to be normal that you forget that normal is a subjective word. That's if you even knew it in the first." Darren shrugged. "I'm not going to argue with you about that. To get back on topic, alternate realities are alternate chains of events. Every choice you make even the smalls can change the direction that your life takes. All those life changing events actually happen in other realities. Any life you can imagine Grandpa there is Vernon Dursley like that somewhere in the continuum.
Darren grinned. "This is where it gets a little fun Grandpa. There are rich Vernons and poor Vernons. There are famous Vernons and there are unknown Vernons. A nexus point person is different. It is someone who has the power to make great changes in any reality he or she exists in. There are almost no Harry James Potters who are absolute nobodies. Even his death as an infant will deeply impact a world."
Vernon was sure his skepticism was showing in his face. "You trying to tell me that boy is important?"
Darren nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. The dark lord, he-who-must-not-be-named, Lord Voldermort, and Tom Marvolo Riddle are all names for his greatest foe. Voldemort was the one who gave Harry his scar. If Harry is killed by Voldermort then the world will plunge into a dark age which affect both wizards and muggles alike. I am from such a timeline."
"If I'm dead what happened to Petunia and Dudley?" Vernon asked
"The aurors at the safe house came at the nick of time," Darren said, "My timeline is a path that comes directly from yours. Until now I have not met you Grandpa."
Vernon shouted, "I am not your grandpa! For the last time I am not your grandfather. I am not dead. I can't be!" Even though Vernon said this he no longer truly believed it. Without understanding how, he knew he was dead. This boy in front of did look a lot like Petunia. He could see traces of his own son's face in this boy as well. Was this his grandson?
Darren's eyes became unfocused. His voice took on a strange quality as if he was quoting something. "The one with the power to vanquish the dark one approaches…born as the seventh month dies… and the dark lord will mark him his equal but he will have power the dark lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…the one with the power to vanquish the dark will be born as the seventh month dies…"
Darren closed his eyes for a moment then opened them. His voice was normal. "That was Trelawnly's greatest prophesy. It was spoken sometime before Harry's birth. "
"What does this have to do with me?" Vernon asked.
Darren sighed. "I can't tell you that yet. I wasn't supposed to interupt your trip down memory lane." Darren suddenly disappeared from sight. The fog and the blackness vanshied. Vernnon was once more facing images from his past.
"This," Darren's voice said, "is imporrent. I must show you this before you can chose."
"Chose what?" Vernon was getting impatient.
"You will see," Daren said.
Vernon watched his past starting with his first job when he got out of college. The images went fast. They showed that first company Vernon worked for when he was twenty-two. Then the second which he started working for when he was twenty-seven. Finally they showed the third company. Though his job would change many times it was this company he would work for most of the rest of his life. This was Grunning Drills. He was a junior executive working for them at a desk job in London when he first met Petunia Evans. She was a young woman not yet twenty. He was just past thirty. It was not love at first sight. Vernon was too practical for such things. But it was an attraction. He was fascinated by Petunia. It was the way she moved, the way she walked. She was not a conventional beauty but she was beautiful to him. She listened to his words to what he said more than anyone else did. He saw the day he proposed to her in his mother's house. He got down on one his knee. It was probably the romantic gesture he ever did. He could remember being in that position with his heart beating so fast. When she said yes, it was the first time since he was a small child that he wanted to jump for joy. He restrained himself but it took effort.
Vernon saw that rainy day in his car that Petunia confessed to him that her sister was a witch. He thought she meant that Lily was involved some sort of crazy cult. Petunia was so scared that he would hate her. He reassured her that he never could. He witnessed that disastrous double date with Lily Evans and James Potter. When he tried to show off his fine car James bragged about a flying broomstick. Vernon had never heard such ridiculous things in all his life. When they sat at the table in the resultant James stared at menu like he didn't know what the foods were. James then had the nerve to about having a bank vault filled with gold coins. The older Vernon watched as his younger self went extremely red in the face. It was obvious to him back then that James had to be living on welfare. When James denied this, Vernon stormed out of the restaurant in a fury with Petunia at his side. Seeing this from outside his past self Vernon saw something he had not when he lived the event. He saw Petunia's sister burst into tears as Petunia left with him. The older Vernon didn't know why but he was starting to think that James might have been telling the truth about the gold. Some the other things he now knew were true. The broomsticks for example. One of the aurors in the safe house would not shut up about a sport called Quidditch that was played on brooms. How anyone thought that was a sport or even a form of exercise was something that Vernon felt he would never know.
Vernon saw the day he married Petunia. That day was one of the greatest days of his life. It was at the wedding reception however that he got one of the greatest shocks of his life. The reputation was hosted at a fine hotel. Vernon while to speaking to a friend called James a magician. He had spoken the word with a good deal of contempt. James had over heard. The moment Vernon was in the men's restroom James had taken out this odd stick of wood from his jacket. James preceded to wave the wand and speak what sounded like a poor imitation of Latin. Vernon tried to laugh at this silliness, instead he chirped like a bird. It was James who walked away laughing. This was how Vernon discovered that magic was real. It did not however end there. Vernon looked in the mirror only to discover that his face appeared to be covered in makeup. He had violet purple eye shadow. He had blood red rouge on his cheeks. His lips were as purple as the eye shadow. These makeup like substances disappeared the moment water touched them. The chirping noise did not stop so easily. The second he tried to speak he sounded a bird. He had to search the banquet hall for Lily and James in order to get spell reversed.
Petunia was mortified. For Vernon it was worse. He was shocked to the core of his being. A life long belief was threatened, on the edge of shattering. If magic could do this it could surly do worse. The vague memories he had of his mother reading fairy tales when he was a little boy confirmed this. Were real wizards capable of such things? How could wizards be real in a practical and rational world? To keep his mind together and sane, Vernon told himself that magic was rare and unnatural. It was wrong. The more he had told himself this the more he had become convinced he was right.
Vernon watched the day he and Petunia had looked at houses in Surrey. The house at Number Four Privet Drive was nice. Petunia fell in love with instantly. He had taken some convincing but he had finally given.
When a few months later they received invitation to Lily and James' wedding, both husband and wife were in agreement. There was no way they were going. Petunia had to be polite though and send a vase as a wedding gift.
Vernon watched the night that Dudley was born. Vernon had paced the floor of the hospital waiting room. When he held his son for the first time words could not describe the joy and the pride that he felt. Vernon and his wife discussed several names before deciding on Dudley. That name just seemed to fit. It was perfect. His son was perfect. He wanted to give his son everything he never had. At the same he time he wanted to make sure his son grew up strong and tough like him.
"You did Grandfather," Darren said, "Dad had a whole a lot of bad habits and behavior problems he spent most of his life trying to get over."
"Shut up!" Vernon shouted.
The visions of the past went on. It was a happy life at Privet Drive. It was only a slight annoyance when Lily Potter sent a letter about her son's birth. The day after that letter Vernon hadn't even remember that boy's name. Dudley grew into a fine heavy toddler. Petunia believed that fat babies were healthy babies. Vernon saw nothing wrong with that. He himself had never been skinny. Then on the second of November one year his wife found a baby abandoned on their door step. Her shrieks had sent Vernon running down stairs. There was a letter with the baby explaining only that his parents James and Lily Potter were dead killed by some mass murderer. and that they the Dursleys were expected to raise him. Petunia was mad because the baby could have frozen to death on that doorstep. Vernon was mad because he did not want another child to raise, especially not one that wasn't his. What kind of person leaves a baby in the cold night air like that? He made up his mind then there that wizards weren't just dangerous. They were crazy.
"Some are," Darren said, "but so are some muggles. Wizarding children tend to be more durable than muggle kind so the baby Harry was in no real danger."
Vernon remembered what had gone through his mind. That this baby, this Harry Potter had to be one of those wizards, those freaks. His parents had been so it reasoned that he had to be.
"Not necessarily," Darren said, "Squibs remember? Also Lily was born of muggle parents. Both your wife and son carry the latent genes for magic."
"Impossible!" Vernon snarled. "My lovely Petunia is nothing like those freaks! My Dudley is normal!"
"Ha," Darren siad, "I've seen other realties where the gene was active. In some timelines Grandma Petuiana is a witch. In others Dudley got a letter to Hogwarts the same day that Harry did. Ecpet for the magic wizards are not much different from muggles. They love. They bleed. They die."
"What about that He-who-must-not-named fellow," Vernon asked.
"That is complicted," Darren said, "Some say he was a psychopath. The muggle population is much higher. They have much more of those. The serial killers you hear about on the news. Then there are the more accurate theories. Some rightly compare him to Adolf Hitler. To be honest though Hitler was a lot more sane."
Vernon felt the blood drain from his face. He was sure he was pale. "Hitler?" Vernon's father had as a young man fought in World War II. On the rare occasions that the retired Colonel Howard Dursley got drunk he would talk about the horrors of finding the Nazi concentration camps.
"Yes," Darren said, "Harry Potter is the only one who can stop the dark lord, an evil who is worse than Hitler. The pureblood supremacy is in many ways comparable to the idea of the Aryan master race. The wizarding Pureblood idealists believe they are the master race. But what is pure?"
"That, that boy," Vernon said, his voice shaky, "My nephew, h-he is supposed to stop them? How?"
"By killing the head of the serpent, the dark lord himself," Darren said, "Without Voldemort, the Death Eater army falls apart. One charismatic or bullying leader is what is required to build such an organization. The lack of one collapses the whole group. It dies like a snake without a head."
Darren went silent and the images of the past went on. Vernon saw himself that day that Harry Potter first came to Privet Drive. The older Vernon saw how the younger swore to raise the boy in a practical manner. If the boy was raised sensibly enough perhaps he wouldn't show signs of that magic. Perhaps the boy wouldn't be so much of a freak. Vernon would never admit it aloud but he was scared of magic. Admitting such a fear was a sign of weakness. Vernon prided himself in being a man not a spineless weakling. From that day forward magic was never spoken of at the Dursleys' house.
Harry Potter slept in the nursery with Dudley for the first year. As he got older Harry was placed in the cupboard under the stairs first as a punishment for his rambunctious behavior. Later almost by accident the cupboard became the freak's bedroom. The boy was unruly. Weird things often happened around him. Petunia told the neighborhood that her nephew was a trouble maker. Vernon went along with it.
When the neighbors asked about the boy's parents Vernon was taken aback. He did not know how to respond. He didn't know himself. All Vernon knew was that James was a good for nothing fellow who got himself and his wife killed. Vernon did not want sinister gossip about serials killers acouticed with him or his family. He told the first lie he could think of. That the boy's father and mother had died in a car wreck. He didn't know why he added the next part, that Harry had gotten that scar in the wreck. Vernon didn't know where that lighting bolt scar came from. Neither did Petunia.
Vernon watched how his younger acted around Harry. Hard as he tried the older Vernon could not see the behavior problems he remembered Harry having. The more he looked at his Dudley, the more he saw those problems in his son. He watched as the younger Vernon gave a four year old Harry chores as punishment for the slightest of things. Sometimes the younger Vernon gave out punishments for what seemed to be no reason at all. The chores were given out so often that it became a habit. The boy was soon cooking breakfast every morning. He was gardening. He was vacuuming, and mopping the floors. What clothing Harry wore was often torn that Petunia just started giving him Dudley's hand me downs. On Harry these clothes were so large he was nearly swimming in them.
The scenes suddenly stopped following the younger Vernon. The images began be about Harry.
"Hey!" Vernon shouted, "This isn't my life!"
"No," Darren said, "but it is necessary."
The images were of Harry going off to school for the first time. Harry making friends only to watch as Dudley stopped it. It was Dudley and his friends beating up Harry. It was Harry running from the bully that was Vernon's son. It was a Harry who went from energetic to downtrodden. The beatings didn't happen once but many times. Some of those beatings were very bad.
"My son would never do that!" Vernon yelled, "He is a good boy." As Vernon spoke he knew he was not speaking the truth. Everything was seeing was real. All those times he thought Harry had started a fight with someone he hadn't. He had not even been able to throw a good punch. He had been outnumbered four to one.
"My father called it Harry hunting," Darren said, "He would speak of it with remorse, later in life. This boy this Harry was a child who was given to you to raise. You failed him. You failed to even set a good example for your son."
The images continued to speed by focusing on Harry. They showed him being blame for breaking windows and vases when it Dudley who did it. As punishment Harry was sometimes locked up in his cupboard. Any time Dudley was about be punished all he had to do was fake tears to get out of it. Harry had no such option. Harry was punished regardless. The times that Harry cried were never fake. That boy was surprisingly never spiteful. Harry was seldom hateful. The few time he was, were something Vernon could understand. If it had been Vernon in that sitioin he would been a lot worse. Most amazingly Harry was not bitter.
"If his nature had been any different," Darren said, "then you would have raised the next dark lord. His first evil deed would have been to kill you and your family. But Harry was not wicked. He was good. Harry was a boy who just wanted love. Did you love him? No. Unbeknownst to him he was destined to grow up to fight the dark lord Voldemort. Did you train the boy to be anything besides a household slave? Once again the answer is no."
"I did not know!" Vernon protested.
"No you did not," Darren said, "But he was family. He was flesh and blood to your wife and son. He was your responsibly. You failed him. In many ways you failed your son as well."
"I raised my son good!" Vernon shouted, "I gave him the sort of childhood I would have wanted!"
"Did you now?" Darren asked.
Images appeared of Dudley. It was all of Dudley's childhood. He stole things. He broke most of his toys, his expensive toys. He beat ups kids much smaller than him. He blamed Harry for more things than Vernon could count. It was Dudley's fault that any new clothing Harry got was torn. Dudley was rough. He was mean. He was spoiled to the point of ruin. With all the things Vernon witnessed he was amazed that Harry's sprit was not broken. Vernon couldn't believe it but he was almost cheering watching the scenes where Harry stood up to Dudley. This didn't do Harry much good though. The small boy didn't know how to fight back against someone bigger than him. He still got beat up by Dudley. Many were the times when Dudley should have punished yet he never was.
"Now to show you why my father became the man I knew," Darren said.
A scene appeared showing the streets of the town where the Durlesys lived. It was night. It was a scene of a teenage Harry and a teenage Dudley. In an alleyway, Dudley taunted Harry. Harry pulled his wand out and pointed at Dudley's heart. Dudley still made fun of him. Then without warning, Dudley looked terrified. Harry stood more alert. They looked up. These huge black robed things appeared. These monsters were flying. Dudley put his hands in front his eyes. He acted as if he couldn't see. He ran straight for the robed monsters. Harry ran after him yelling. One of the monsters cornered Dudley. It appeared ready to kill him. Then Harry raised his wand. A white light burst from the wand turning into a white stag. The stag attacked the monster. Dudley collapsed to the ground in a heap moaning. The scene faded out. Everything went black.
"I remember that," Vernon said, "I thought the boy attacked him. He saved him. Harry saved my son's life."
Darren appeared a few feet in front of Vernon. Darren was shaking his head. "No. He did something more important than that. He saved my father's soul. That monster as you put it was a Demmonter. Demmnetors have the power make you face your worst memories. My father had no memories he thought of as bad. Instead, he saw what his actions truly were. He saw himself for the bully he was. This started a lifetime of struggling to change. The man I knew him as was honorable but far from perfect."
Darren disappeared again. New images appeared. These were different, not of one person but of people and places. Vernon saw castles and mansions. Vernon saw a busy streets filled with people wearing bright colored robes. He saw a bank with little ugly creatures working there. He saw the inside of what looked like a government building. He saw across all these places families, indivisibles, peoples going about their daily lives and business. All of whom were wearing robes. The mood, the tone of the scenes shifted showing shops closing, buildings being boarded up, and people looking wary. He saw a man with no nose and scarlet color eyes that were silts like the eyes of snake. Vernon liked to think he was a good judge of character. He wasn't so sure of that anymore but he still thought he knew when someone had authority. This man, this freak somehow radiated such power. He was surrounded by many people. The ones standing closet looked aristocratic and proud.
"That is Lord Voledomort," Darren said as the scene faded out into darkness. Darren again appeared in front of Vernon. "The ones that were next to him were his inner circle."
"What do those freaks have to me now?" Vernon asked, "I'm dead aren't I?"
"Yes," Darren said, "but you don't have to stay that way. I am here to offer you a chance to change things to create a new timeline. All you have to do is relive the last two decades of your life. This time you will treat Harry different. Will you do it?"
Vernon thought about this. He had a lot of personal regrets. He now saw clearly some things he never had before. It wasn't Harry's life he wanted to change so much. It was Dudley's. He wanted not to spoil the boy so much. He wanted his son to grow with morals. He wanted Dudley to be honest and hardworking. Finally, several minutes of thinking Vernon said, "Yes."
Darren disappeared from sight. His voice faded slowly away as he spoke. "When you go back, you will not fully remember this. Only your subconscios mind will…"
The last thing Vernon Dursley thought of before waking up in the past was that this time things would different.