Title: "Those Ever-Fateful Hogwarts Letters"
Genre: Gen, Humor
Rating: G
Summary: Dudley and Stella Dursley have an eleven year old son. It's July. A humorous one-shot.
Written August 1, 2004; please read and enjoy. :)
Disclaimer: Harry P. and Co. belong to JKRowling and whomever she has sold them to. I'm just playing, I hope no one minds.
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Dudley and Stella Dursley of Number 26 Lilac Lane, Little Whinging, Surrey, were quite pleased with their son. He was stout and robust, a bright-eyed, red faced boy with a will of his own and a voice to match. He was everything Dudley had ever thought a boy should be. And if sometimes strange things happened around him, well, strange things sometimes happened in this world, and it didn't do to get worked up about them, or to think too much about them.
And so it was, when the mail arrived that July morning, Mr. Dudley Dursley was understandably a little shocked at the unstamped envelope of yellow parchment that was sitting innoxiously amidst the comfortably mundane window-style bills and bright adverts on his threshold. Dudley took one look at the neatly calligraphic, green ink address, took a second look, and promptly keeled over in a dead faint.
He awoke a short time later with his boney wife hovering over him, her hands fluttering with distress. His prone body was taking up the entire front entryway, and letters and papers were strewn all about him. He took several seconds to orient himself, and then looked sharply around for the letter that had caused his distress.
"Where…where is it?" he asked, dazedly.
"Where is what, dear? Oh my, are you alright? What happened?" His wife was very unhelpful.
"What is this, Da? Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1? Work robes?" Dudley Dursley turned around slowly to see, to his horror, his 11-year-old son George standing behind him, the ripped open envelope abandoned on the floor, its contents in one pudgy hand, an apple being absentmindedly munched on in the other. George had already reached the second page.
"Give that to me!" Dudley bellowed, and with surprising quickness for such a large man, lunged to his feet and made a grab for the letter. George danced aside, a grin on his face as he gleefully avoided his father's attempts to rip the letter from his fingers.
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Mr. Dudley Dursley sat sullenly on the overstuffed couch in his sensible living room, his wife on one side of him, and his wide-eyed son George on the other. He stared unwelcomingly at the woman in front of him who was chatting brightly. She had shown up at the door wearing outdated but passable clothes, and without having had the courtesy to have arrived by car, as far as he could see. She had introduced herself as "Susan Bones-Dowering, a representative of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"I'm here to answer any questions you may have about our fine establishment, and to ease you and your son's transition into the Wizarding World," she had said with a broad smile. And she started in immediately, brightly extolling the virtues of her alma mater. She regaled them with tales of how much she had enjoyed her years there, and how much her children were enjoying their time there currently, and only when she pulled out a polished wooden stick he immediately recognized as a wand and offered to demonstrate some magic for them, did he stop her.
"Wait," he said. "What about all that evil stuff? All the bad stuff that happens around wizards? Like Dementiods, and stuff?"
"Dement...dementors? Oh, there haven't been any problems with them since the International Azkaban Act of 1999. Don't worry; all dementors are safely contained in a top secret holding area in Siberia."
"What about that evil wizard guy? The one who kept trying to kill….uh…people. Vold—Voldie—what's his face…
"Ah, his name was Voldemort," she went a bit ashen, but recovered quickly. "He's dead and gone! He was defeated in 1998 by Harry Potter. You know Harry Potter, of course," she said with a smile. Dudley grunted, his eyes sifting around.
"Who's Harry Potter?" George chose this moment to pipe up.
His father tried to shush him, but Mrs. Bones-Dowering looked at him with surprise and said, "You don't know Harry Potter? Why, he's your 1st cousin once removed! He's your father's cousin, your grandmother's sister's son. He grew up with your father. And he's the greatest wizard alive. Great man, Harry Potter." She smiled fondly down at George.
"Never heard of 'em," George said.
Dudley cleared his throat. "I haven't spoken to Harry Potter since we were 17. I had no idea he was even alive still."
"Oh, well, an even better reason for George to come to Hogwarts!" and she went on to tell them some interesting information that did not quite increase Mr. Dudley Dursley's desire to send his son that freak school, but rather, quite the opposite.
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Dudley Dursley had felt, if not quite content, at least mollified by his decision about George's schooling. After Mrs. Bones-Dowering had convinced Stella and himself of the dangers of untrained magical teenagers to the lives and property of the people around them, liberally supported by harrowing tales of emotional, accidental magic run amuck, and Dursley had remembered that equally harrowing incident with his large aunt suddenly getting much larger and floating away, he and Stella had agreed that, for the safety of themselves and the neighborhood, they had better let George go to Hogwarts.
But now that Dudley was standing in a strange, unnerving place, with Stella and George nervously at his side, Mrs. Bones-Dowering at his back, cheerfully urging him on, and he himself actually staring down a goblin, of all things, and about to exchange his perfectly good 20 pound notes for something as unknown and unreliable as wizard gold, he was having second thoughts. He swallowed, carefully controlled his urge to rub at the old scar on his bum, and moved forward.
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The Great Hall was filled with excited children. Sections of them periodically broke into cheers as nervous little first years were liberally distributed amongst them by the Sorting Hat. Professor Severus Snape, Potions Master, Head of Slytherin House, and Deputy Headmaster, sat back in his seat at the head table with an expression of calculating interest as plump Professor Sprout called out the name "Dursley, George!" The rotund boy walked forward with feigned confidence, sat on the stool and allowed the ragged hat to be set on his head. It stayed there for several seconds, deliberating, and Snape carefully kept his gaze schooled on the round boy and avoided looking around.
"Slytherin!" the hat finally called out, and Snape cocked an eyebrow. Well, well. Then, and only then, did he look over past Headmistress McGonagall to his bespectacled colleague on the other side of her. The Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor (for a record breaking 10 years running), and Head of Gryffindor House was looking rather green around the gills. What did he have to be concerned about? Snape thought. He doesn't have to deal with having the muggleborn brat in his own house. Nevertheless, the World Quidditch Champion and Defeater of Dark Lords Extraordinaire did not seem too thrilled at having the offspring of his despised cousin at Hogwarts and under the influence of his classic nemesis. This will be interesting, Snape thought with a smirk. He clapped politely as the boy sat down at the Slytherin table. This almost made up for having Potter here at all, and the galling situation of having to teach yet another generation of arrogant Gryffindor Potters, but with these having the disproportionately advantageous protection of having their father as their House Head. Of course, with the addition of multiple Weasley cousins, they at least caused enough trouble for Potter that Snape thought Potter was almost, almost getting his just deserts for having had offspring at all.
This would be an interesting year, indeed.