History, Repeated
By: Harmione4Ever
Rating: M for referenced physical and emotional abuse, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, death, rape, infidelity
A/N: I think it goes without saying that I do not own the rights to the World of Harry Potter. I am fortunate that the lovely JK Rowling has allowed her fans to write their own bits of fiction using her world, so long as we don't seek to make a profit off of it. This is my first attempt at writing a bit of fanfiction. I wanted to do a short story, to see if I can make a longer one work. The idea for this little work popped into my head while I was cooking, and has been bouncing around my head ever since. Please rate and review. I am a first-time writer, and would appreciate some constructive criticism.
30 May, 1998
Surrey, England
"Did you hear about the Potters?" Vernon Dursley overheard a blonde woman in a sky blue cloak on his way back to his office. He had just stepped out at lunchtime to buy himself a beef and onion pasty, and was on his way back. It had been a fairly normal day, just the way Mr Vernon Dursley of number Four Privet Drive liked it, thank you very much. He had started the day at Grunnings in his normal, orderly way. He had talked on the phone with an overseas client, who Vernon hoped would be making a large order of drills for his construction firm. He had a meeting with the board of directors, where he made a presentation about the quarterly sales and profits, and the board seemed impressed. He sat with his large backside to the equally large window in his corner office, so he failed to notice the unusual sighting of owls flying about in broad daylight.
After hearing the woman in the cloak mention something about the Potters, Mister Dursley had a strange feeling of deja vu coming on. Potter was a fairly common surname, was it not? Vernon put the thought from his mind for the rest of the workday. On his way home, however, he saw them. People in colorful cloaks were everywhere. They were not young people either, one fool looked as though he was at least one-hundred. Vernon heard them talking about the Potters, and how it looked as though You-Know-Who was gone for good. As he sat in the shelter awaiting his bus ride home, the thought of the Potters continued to niggle at him. Vernon would have driven himself back to his home in LIttle Whinging, but he had a motor vehicle accident in his brand-new company Land Rover only two weeks ago. He felt a strange sensation in his chest right before the accident, but he had attributed it to a bout of indigestion from the vegetarian pot pie that his wife had made him for dinner the night before. Petunia, his wife of nearly forty years, was on him constantly about his health. This vegetarian diet was not proper for an English gentleman, no sir. It was a diet suited for the aging hippies. At home, Vernon continued to dwell on the Potters and the apparent disappearance of this You-Know-Who, and what this all meant. There was a report of the many owl sightings on the BBC news that evening, and reports of shooting stars and large fireworks displays were coming in from all over the country.
The feelings of deja vu hit Vernon like a sledgehammer to the sternum, and he broke out in a gushing cold sweat. He raced into the kitchen, grabbed a glass and the bottle of Scotch and poured himself a healthy measure before taking a large swallow. As the whisky made its way down his gullet, he heard the faint clicking of the solarium doors opening behind him. Dudley was not living at home anymore, he left a couple of weeks after the freak had left the house for the last time the previous summer. He was no longer on speaking terms with his father. Petunia wasn't home, either. She had a relapse into taking opiate pain-killers, and was currently on a thirty-day detox programme at a facility in the Midlands. The live-in maid had quit suddenly two weeks prior, and had not given notice. She was a lovely little thing, and Vernon had taken to visiting her in the guest bedroom a couple nights a week. Her soft, tender body was far too tempting for a man as virile as Dursley. He searched the wastebasket in her bedroom after she left, and found what appeared to be a pregnancy test. The little pink plus sign was visible, an indicator that the bitch was now carrying proof of his infidelity. Well; if Petunia had gone cold on him in bed, what was he to do? A letter from a solicitor in London arrived in the post that morning, informing him that his sister Marge had passed away and Vernon was to inherit her dogs.
"Hello, Vernon" came a somewhat familiar voice from behind him. Turning around, Vernon was face-to-face with what he thought to be a ghost. The figure before him was tall, with green eyes and a mop of unruly dark brown hair. There was the slight hint of a scar in the middle of his forehead, shaped like a bolt of lightning. "Why are you in my house, boy? You're not welcome here!" Vernon bellowed after draining his glass. "I'm here to bring you in under arrest, Vernon. You are wanted by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for the physical and emotional abuse of a child. You are also charged with the possession and distribution of child pornography. Those pictures you took after you routinely beat me were found in the homes of several known sexual predators. You are a disgusting, pathetic excuse of a human being. I place you under arrest. You will be tried in the magical world, rather than the Muggle world. Your crimes against me warrant trial in our world because you endangered the last living member of a Most Ancient and Noble House. I have taken my place in wizarding society now, and I will have satisfaction for what you did to me." Vernon dropped the glass onto the tile of the kitchen floor and fell onto his knees with his hands in front of his eyes, which were now red and brimming with tears. The feeling of indigestion crept back into his chest again, but was now spreading down his left arm. He felt short of breath, the room was unbearably hot. He fell over onto his his back, looking up at the young man. Harry recognised the symptoms, a heart attack. In an effort to see that justice was served, he muttered several incantations with his palm flattened on the obese chest of his uncle. Vernon cried out in his agony, his face contorted in pain. Despite the efforts to save him, Vernon Dursley died on the floor of his kitchen in Little Whinging. Harry phoned the emergency services, and used a mimic charm to give the impression he was Vernon and having a heart attack. He left the cordless phone next to Vernon, the operator saying that the paramedics were on their way. Before they arrived, Harry had apparated away, he had other things to do.
He appeared in the kitchen of a lavish house in Kensington. A young lady embraced him tenderly, her bushy brown hair carrying the scent of vanilla and parchment into his nose. She knew what happened in Surrey, she could feel it in their mind-link. At the end of the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament in their Fourth Year, Harry had told her his truest feelings for her, that he had loved her since the moment they met on the Hogwarts Express as First Years. Hermione said that she had felt the same way, and they had been inseparable every day since. His best friend, his lover, his soul-mate, his wife, Hermione was his everything. They had married in a small ceremony at the village church in Godric's Hollow before the Horcrux hunt began. That had been the previous September, and they had been on the move ever since. It had all culminated in the climactic Battle for Hogwarts. There had been man killed on both sides. In the end, Harry had squared off against Voldemort, and emerged victorious. In the end, it was the Killing Curse cast by Voldemort rebounding upon him that had killed him. Now, the fight was truly and finally over. For the first time in his young life, Harry knew what peace truly was. Hermione, Harry, Neville and Luna were celebrities for their year-long quest to find and eliminate all of the Horcruxes made by Voldemort. Now, it was time to build the life Harry and Hermione wanted. Laying in their king-sized bed in the house in Kensington, Hermione whispered to Harry "You're going to be a father, Mr. Potter." Harry was over the moon, and time seemed to stand still when he kissed her. Placing his palm on the curve of her little belly, he gazed into her warm cinnamon eyes and whispered "I love you, Mrs. Potter. I always have, and I always will."
All over Britain, there were parties and feasts, as there had been for three weeks. In an echo of a similar time almost twenty years earlier, people raised their glasses high, and toasted "to Harry Potter! The Boy-Who-Lived!"