Alastair Dursley looked at his watch, and saw that it was five minutes to eleven o'clock. It was nearly time. He gazed at the landscape around him. A lush green lawn peppered with gravestones. Through the mist and drizzle he could just see the edge of a wood in the distance. It was simultaneously beautiful and miserable. So appropriate for burying his father.
At fifty-one years of age, Alastair had seen a lot, but nothing could prepare him for the loss of his father. His mother had left long ago when he was ten; he had very few memories of her. The most vivid was of her leaving, hurling insults at his 'whale' of a father. Alastair had not seen her nor heard of her since. She was not mentioned in the Dursley home.
His father had worked long hours at Grunnings, the drill company, leaving Alastair to emotionally fend for himself. It wasn't that didn't care for him, but his grandfather, who was the CEO of the business, demanded long hours from all of his staff. Alastair grew into the mould of the quiet, introverted intellectual. He was in the top ten each year at school, for which his grandmother lavished praise on him, while his grandfather regarded him with a look that was at once puzzled and slightly disappointed. Nothing was ever said, but Alastair suspected that it was because he had ended the family tradition of being a champion fighter of average or lower intelligence who would use family connections to gain a management position in Grunnings.
Alastair remembered his grandparents' funeral. He was sixteen years old. His grandfather had had a heart attack while driving over the speed limit to Blackpool. He lost control of the car, killing both himself and his wife in the passenger seat. The funeral was a very small affair, just himself, his father, and the crotchety old woman he had to call his Great Aunt Marge. No tears were shed; Dursleys were either stoic or indifferent.
Alastair was silently amazed that his father had lived to seventy-nine. From the photos that almost filled his grandparents' house, he knew that his father had been wider than he was tall as a child. He ate like a pig and drank like a fish. The only redeeming feature of his life, health-wise, was his boxing. But now he was snuffed out, in the family tradition, by a heart attack.
Alastair was distracted from his thoughts by a loud crack that seemed to come from the distant woods. He looked up and saw a small crowd of about twenty five striding purposefully yet solemnly towards him. A part of him was glad; it is always awkward being the only attendant at a funeral; the rest of him was apprehensive, for he had no idea who these people were. As they came nearer, he noticed that the group was led by an old man whose hair was black, turning grey, and a woman who could only be his wife, whose red hair was also turning grey. They seemed to be followed by three generations of descendants, almost all of whom had red or black hair.
When the group finally reached the burial site, the old man leading the group nodded to him in greeting and said, 'My deepest condolences,' in a voice almost seemed to say that he had done this many times before.
'Thank you,' Alastair replied quietly before looking the man curiously and asking, 'I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are.'
'Of course,' the man replied apologetically, 'my name is Harry Potter. Your father and I were cousins.'
'Oh,' was Alastair's fairly lame reaction to this revelation. 'My name's Alastair.'
'Nice to meet you, apart from the circumstances,' Harry responded.
An awkward silence fell between Alastair and the Potter family. The minister started the funeral service. Neither Alastair nor Harry spoke about the man who was being laid to rest; Alastair felt that it would be extremely awkward to give a speech about his dead father to a small crowd of seemingly distant relatives whom he had never met before. Alastair studied the Potters' faces. His second cousin once removed had a strange look on his face; appropriately sad but hidden underneath was a hint of someone seeing justice done. Mrs Potter and the three who were obviously their children were disguising the looks of retribution with great difficulty. The rest were sad for the occasion, but also a little unsure as to why they were there.
When the service ended, Harry nodded at Alastair in finality, before leading his family away, back towards the woods. He watched them go, and noticed that they seemed to disappear into the mist before they had walked far enough. He shook his head, and went home.
Like his mother, he never saw them or heard of them again.