July,8th 2018
A.N: I want to thank Back_to_lou from twitter, for Beta-ing this story so there would be less and less grammatical errors. xx
I can remember that day, the day that my life began to change.
The gossiping in our neighborhood had escalated to its highest level, and that because a couple moved to the house N° 3 a week and half ago. Of what I overheard Aunt Petunia talking with three neighbors when I was tending the garden, four days after the new arrivals moved, apparently the couple were not young, the women was about 50 and the man no much older than her maybe 54, and from what the neighbor from N°5 gathered (which I call MI5 neighbor, for her ability to have any informations about anyone who piques her curiosity), the new neighbors are originally from Leicester, and they moved to London 10 years ago where the husband Tobias Snape worked as a hats and bags designer, but he is opening his own shop for customized hats and bags here in Surrey. As for the wife Eileen she still works as Librarian in a prestigious boarding school, they only have only one unmarried son.
That evening after dinner I witnessed the first argument between my aunt and uncle which was not about me or about aunt Marge dogs. It seems she recognized the new neighbors as the parents of that "awful boy" from her childhood town and the husband was an alcoholic who abused his own wife and son, and the wife was a freak too, when she said the last sentence, uncle Vernon face was so red that I thought he would explode then he start saying that they need to call the authorities and they don't want someone like them in near their perfect family or their neighborhood but aunt Petunia didn't agree with her husband because if they alerted someone, questions will arise of how they knew of the Snapes which will lead the neighbors to think they were somewhat associated and this is something which she want to avoid. Finally they agreed that aunt Petunia will drop some hints when she will have tea with MI5 neighbor in two days, maybe that will pique the curiosity of the woman.
Which she evidently did, because five days later when aunt Petunia was back from one of her meetings with the neighborhood book club, she told her husband that her plan worked but not like they want to; It appears that Mrs Oslac (MI5 neighbor) found that Mr Snape was indeed alcoholic but he had redeemed himself and it has been 12 years since he is sober and he even volunteered at "Spitalfields Crypt Trust charity" when he lived in London each time he was free from his job at the shop frequented by the royal circle ,as for Mrs Snape, it has been found that the women was a distant relative to the Queen and that the prestigious boarding school she works in, is for the most talented and gifted children and they only get there by invitation and she even attended it with their son who works there as Chemistry professor and he has doctorate in the field , which made every women in the club wish her child would be invited to that school. All in all, the gathered informations made Mr & Mrs Snape good peoples in the books of Private Drive gossip mill…err.. book club.
And with that Aunt Petunia informed Vernon that they have nothing to do against the Snapes and they should only observe for any misbehavior or freakiness and stay alert. She also said that they need to welcome the couple to the neighborhood because next Sunday, there will be a welcoming party hosted by the Oslacs for the Snapes which all the neighbors are invired to, and Mrs Watterson from N° 7 remarked that the Dursleys are the only one who didn't do a welcome gesture to the Snapes yet. With that I found myself dragged from my cupboard with instruction to wear a cleaner shirt then a plate of cupcakes and cookies was pushed into my hands and I was out of door heading to N°3, why? Because aunt Petunia dint want to be recognized by Mrs Snape yet and she believed that in the party the older women would be too distracted to remember her from her childhood. Plus she needs to get the welcome gesture out of the way.
Humff…. Anyway, here we go.