A/N: Howdy! I wrote this AGES ago and posted it as a chapter of my story 'Harry Potter and the Vanishing Plot of DOOM' ... but that story got deleted, much to my annoyance ... not to worry, vengeance shall be mine ... muwahahahahahahahahaaaa ...
Ahem ... anyways! Here's my story ... enjoy it or suffer my wrath! And then review, if you have time :)
DUDLEY DURSLEY and the Ordinary Stone
-- CHAPTER ONE --
The Boy Who Wasn't Going to Die Anyways
Mr. and Mrs. Potter of Godric's Hollow were proud to say that they were perfectly strange and weird thank you very much. They were the last people you would expect to be involved in anything mundane or ordinary, because they just did not hold with such nonsense (or rather, lack thereof).
Mr. Potter had some outlandish job, too absurd to mention, that resulted in him having quite a lot of money. He was a lean, bespectacled man with messy jet-black hair. Mrs. Potter was slim and ginger-haired, with mysteriously attractive almond-shaped green eyes. The Potters had a small son called Harry and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.
The Potters had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They did not think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Dursleys. Mrs. Dursley was Mrs. Potter's sister, but they had not met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Potter pretended that she did not even have a sister, because her boring sister and her gas-bag of a husband were as unPotterish as it was possible to be. The Potters knew that they had a small son too, but they had never seen him.
When Mr. and Mrs. Potter woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts, a man had already arrived on a street corner.
Nothing like this man had ever been seen in Godric's Hollow. He was tall, thin and middle-aged, judging by his greying, normal-length hair. He was wearing a grey suit and sensible dress shoes. His eyes were dull and unremarkable behind his plain prescription glasses, and his nose was not worth mentioning since there was nothing unusual about it at all. This man's name was Alfred Bumbleton – and he was nondescript to the last degree.
Bumbleton rummaged in his pockets and withdrew what appeared to be a silver cigarette lighter – this is because it was, in fact, a silver cigarette lighter. He also pulled out a cigarette, placing it in his mouth as he raised the lighter and clicked – but nothing happened. He clicked again, but still with no result. Twelve times he clicked his silver cigarette lighter, but not once did even the slightest trace of a flame appear. With a scowl, he shoved the dud lighter and the un-smoked cigarette back into his pocket, muttering curses under his breath all the while.
Alfred Bumbleton did not seem to realise that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his commonplace name to his leather dress shoes was unwelcome. But he did seem to realise he was being watched, and turned to see that a rather severe-looking woman was peering at him from a parked car across the road. For some reason, he seemed to recognize her. "I should have known," he grumbled as he shuffled across the street.
"Fancy seeing you here, Mrs. McMonacle," he said, as the lady rolled down her window.
"How did you know it was me?" she asked.
"My dear lady," he chuckled, "I can see you through the window." The woman ignored him; she seemed thoroughly put out about something.
"Do you have any idea how long it took me to get here this morning? Three and a half hours! The motorway was completely jammed … the radio said there was a car accident near Nottingham."
Bumbleton said nothing, but was tapping his foot, looking slightly agitated.
"But that's nothing compared to the rumours that are piling up," continued McMonacle. "They're saying that there was a big drill convention last night … and that Mr. Dursley was there with his wife, representing his company." She shot a sideways glance at Bumbleton, but he was still just tapping his foot. "And they're saying that there was an open bar, and that Vernon had one brandy too many, and that on the way home he lost control of the wheel and …"
Bumbleton had stopped tapping his foot for the moment, and bowed his head.
"Oh my goodness!" gasped McMonacle. "Vernon and Petunia – dead? Oh Alfred …"
"Yes," said Bumbleton, nodding gravely. "They were as good as dead as soon as the car crashed into that whale-meat delivery truck." He paused and stroked his chin, looking somewhat puzzled. "It should have killed Dudley too. But … it didn't. No-one knows how, or why – but somehow that little boy survived."
"Air bags, perhaps?" suggested McMonacle. "I guess we'll never know …"
"Wait, I remember now!" exclaimed Bumbleton, snapping his fingers. "He wasn't in the car with them." McMonacle rolled her eyes, and then Bumbleton asked, "Can I borrow a lighter, Margaret?"
"Sorry, I don't have one," came the reply. Bumbleton cussed under his breath, and checked his regular, not-so-exciting wristwatch.
" I don't suppose you're going to tell me why we are here of all places, Bumbleton?" queried McMonacle.
"I've come to bring Dudley to his aunt and uncle," he answered. "They're the only family he has left now."
Mrs. McMonacle looked aghast. "You don't mean – surely you can't mean the people who live here?" she cried, jumping out of the car to point at the Potter residence. "You won't find two people more unlike us! And their son – well, actually he's not too bad … uncommonly well behaved for an infant … but honestly! They don't have a car, or a television, and – and they had their newspaper delivered by an owl! Dudley Dursley come and live here …"
"It's the best place for him," said Bumbleton firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter." McMonacle knew better than to argue - Alfred Bumbleton had a rather annoying habit of spreading nasty rumors about people who crossed him.
"Well … OK," she conceded grudgingly, "but how is the boy getting here, Bumbleton?" She eyed his briefcase suddenly, as though she thought he might be hiding Dudley inside it.
"Hackridge is bringing him." McMonacle nodded approval – Rupert Hackridge was renowned for his punctuality and reliability.
A moment later, a motorcycle roared up the street. If the motorbike was big, the man sitting astride it certainly was not. He was barely half the size of a normal man, and so very neat – short hair and clean-shaven.
"Hackridge," said Bumbleton. "Right on time, as usual. And where did you get that motorbike?"
"I borrowed it, sir," said the little man, jumping gracefully down from the motorbike. His voice was courteous and precise, not at all scruffy or lower class sounding. "Young Steven Block lent it to me. I have him here, sir."
"No problems, were there?"
"No sir – 'twas simply a matter of paying the babysitter her $15 and sending her home."
Bumbleton and McMonacle bent forward over the bundle of blankets in Hackridge's arms. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy fast asleep. Under a tuft of blonde hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a little bunny rabbit.
"He'll have that scar forever," declared Bumbleton.
"Couldn't you do something about it?"
"Hang on." Bumbleton licked his fingertip and smudged away the mark on the infant's head. "Oh – it's just dirt. Lucky for him, 'cause that would have been quite an embarrassment come high school. Well, let's get this over with."
Bumbleton took Dudley in his arms and turned towards the Potter house. He walked up the path to the front doorstep, took a letter out of his briefcase, tucked it inside Dudley's blankets after laying him down gently, and then came back to the other two.
"Well," said Bumbleton finally, "that's that. Now we must go and do … whatever it is that we do."
Bumbleton sat in his car as the others sped away – they seemed quite glad to be leaving this strange place. He tried in futility to work his broken cigarette lighter, which he eventually threw out of the window. With a last glance towards the Potter house, he murmured "Good luck, Dudley," and drove away.
A breeze ruffled the tangled, multi-coloured hedges of Godric's Hollow, the very last place you would expect ordinary things to happen. Dudley Dursley rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was a novelty, not knowing that at this very moment, people reading the tabloids all over the country were mentioning in passing to their friends and colleagues: "Poor Dudley Dursley – the boy who wasn't going to die anyways!"
A/N: Well, that's the end of THAT chapter ... dusts hands ... no, literally, that's it! I'm still working on chapter 2 ... I've been surprisingly busy during the holidays ... oddly, much busier than I was during school, hehehehe ...