Disclaimer: Parts of this are based on the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. I don't own the rights to that book, did not write it, and certainly wouldn't ever say so. In fact, I seem to have lost my copy somewhere...

Petunia and Vernon Dursley were very proud of their normality. Mr. Dursley held a job at Grunnings as a manager, the most supremely boring yet normal job in the world. Mrs. Dursley stayed at home as a normal housewife, spoiling their only, normal son Dudley.

The Dursleys put the appearance of normal in the fore front because their greatest fear was that someone would discover the family they had that was not normal: Mrs. Potter. Mrs. Potter was Petunia Dursley's sister, but she didn't talk about her, nor to her. In fact, she had not seen her sister for several years, because the two families were as different as night and day. She knew that they had a son as well, but she had never seen him.

It was with the conviction that she would never again hear about her sister or her brother-in-law that Petunia woke on November first. She went about her usual business of making breakfast and giving her son food (which is not to say that she fed him, because as much of the food went onto the ground as it did into his mouth). Vernon Dursley walked in, gave his wife a peck on the cheek, ruffled his son's hair, and left for work. Petunia was quite ready to have a normal Dursley day, but her first indication that the day would be as unDursleyish as possible was the cat she saw on the windowsill.

Cats were a normal thing, but this cat seemed to be watching her, and it had the most peculiar markings around its eyes, as if it were wearing glasses. This was a silly thought, of course, because cats do not wear glasses, and no cat that did would be welcome at the Dursleys'. She opened the window and shooed it away, putting the thought out of her mind.

One thing that Petunia liked to do was garden, because while she gardened she could spy on the neighbors and occasionally indulge in gossip with the lady next door. Today, as she put compost around her rosebushes, she noted a number of very strangely dressed people gathering near Mrs. Figg's house down the street. They wore what looked like brightly colored cloaks, and Petunia couldn't help but wonder if they were late on a Halloween party. Such nerve, to forget what day it was! After all, if they had a Halloween party, they could have gone yesterday; today was a Sunday, and not a day for such nonsense.

Petunia tried her best to forget about it, and succeeded very easily. She saw the lady across the street invite yet another odd man into her house, who didn't look like he should be there. She observed how the woman from a few houses down was cutting her hedges, and filed the technique away for her own use. When she went back inside to feed Dudley, however, she saw more signs that something was amiss on the news.

"Last night," said the news anchor, "a large explosion caused by a gas leak damaged a house in Godric's Hollow, killing the inhabitants. Their names have yet to be determined, but it is known that the time of death was sometime around nine o'clock."

Godric's Hollow sounded suspiciously like where the Potters lived. She wouldn't be very surprised if their type had something to do with it, killing those people. Of course, now that she thought about it, she wasn't entirely sure that they lived there at all. She thought they might have lived closer to Scotland, near that nasty school. Or maybe some other place, like Spinner's End.

Shrugging that off, Mrs. Dursley began to make tea, and forgot all about the incidents until her husband came home. On the news, mentions of owl sightings and shooting stars made her worry again. Her husband was of no help at all.

"Er– Petunia– you haven't heard from your sister, have you?" he asked. Petunia froze. It was one thing to hear about a bunch of funny things. It was another entirely to hear something funny from her own husband.

"No," she said tersely. "Why do you ask?"

"Funny stuff on the news... there were some funny-looking people in town today."

"So?" she snapped.

"Well, I thought... maybe it was, you know... her crowd."

Petunia did not like this idea at all. She would much rather forget about her horrible sister entirely, and yet the world seemed intent on reminding her family all about them.

Mr. Dursley continued. "Their son– about Dudley's age, wouldn't he be?"

"I suppose," Petunia said. In her mind, the fact that her sister and that– that man bred at all was scarier than any Halloween fright.

"What's his name again?" Vernon asked.

"Harry. Nasty common name."

"Oh yes, yes," Vernon said, and Petunia was glad that he was quiet afterward.

Such unusual circumstances started to add up in her mind. Her husband was the last straw. She knew something odd was going on, but she couldn't bear to think of what it was. The only thought that eased her mind was that she couldn't possibly get involved in it, so it didn't matter. She went to bed and did her best to dream of something normal, like her garden.

But there was nothing normal to be had that night.