Title: Cast The First Stone
Author: Anita M. Blake
Warnings: Explicit language, racism, homophobia, slash
Pairings: Eventual Theodore Nott/Harry Potter, mentions of Dean Thomas/Ginny Weasley, Dean Thomas/Seamus Finnegan, Ronald Weasley/Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson.
Summary: Non-magic. Vernon used the right methods to instil his prejudices in one Harry James Potter. But his ideals and hatred left little room for the real world, and when reality comes crashing down on Harry, will he adjust or will his heart and mind be closed forever?
----------------------------------------------------------------
"We're here, we're queer, get used to it!"
----------------------------------------------------------------
One: A Different (But Thoroughly Normal and Highly Unfreakish) Sort of Beginning
Wednesday, November 2, 1981
Vernon Dursley prided himself on being the right, normal sort. He had a well-paid job and was high up in his company, Grunnings; he had a loving wife who would settle for him, a moustache he prided himself on keeping very well-trimmed, and a beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed boy of one. He was happy and contented with his life.
He drove a normal sort of car on a normal sort of street - cobblestone, if you please, the good old fashioned British style of street, and so the only type of street worth living on, if you asked him. He had a normal sort of house with an award-winning garden: the normal, nosy neighbours were always trying to work out Petunia Dursley's secret to how she got his shirts so clean and white, and how she coaxed the grass into growing that particular shade of emerald-green.
The weather was normal, too. Overcast. Rain in some parts. Take care on the roads.
It wasn't even an unusual day - a Wednesday, a good, firm Wednesday, neither the end nor the beginning of anything, save our story.
However, when he had gotten into his normal car that morning and turned on his favourite, regular radio station, Three Talk Radio, he could tell that something was amiss. Something was not normal.
Vernon chose, at that precise moment, to look around at Mr Wallace's front porch. He saw, quite easily as it was out in the open, a rainbow-coloured banner proclaiming "Gay Pride Day".
Grunting in disgust, Vernon rolled his eyes and swung his BMW out into the street, away from the cul-de-sac. Effing queers, he thought.
---
Lily kissed James swiftly, but soundly, on the cheek.
He stroked her hair a little, loving its texture and admiring its colour;
"I'll see you soon, Lil!
Take care of the Prongslet while I'm gone.
Don't let him get into too much trouble… wouldn't want him ending up like me."
They both smiled as they embraced tightly.
He pulled on his black coat, and set off for work in the rain.
---
The day at the office was no easier on his blood-pressure. By eleven o' clock, two - not one, which was bad enough, but two - of his most prized clients had cancelled all of their orders for drills and had moved to a closer and cheaper alternative to Grunnings. Vernon had been denied an early lunch-break, and when he finally did get to eat, all the doughnuts bar the rainbow-coloured ones had all been sold out and eaten.
There were even a few ruddy crumbs on the shiny black marble surface.
In before him had been some young sort, a tall, pale man with dark hair and, would you believe it? A pink shirt. He'd probably bought the bloody rainbow doughnuts, too.
Vernon grunted in disgust. He'd just have to go hungry that lunchtime.
---
The sky was pitch-black by the time he got home.
Lily and James danced around the kitchen to the sounds of only their laughter,
his hands running up and down her still-slim, now marked waist;
the marks of her pregnancy, their triumph against the odds.
James tripped over a discarded bottle; a baby cried from the other room.
"Now, James, look what you've gone and done."
She wasn't really angry.
---
The day seemed to last forever; at last, he was clocked out, in his cool, plush BMW, and stuck in a ten-mile long pile-up. Unbeknownst to our Vernon Dursley, who had been trapped in the cage of ignorance to the world called His Office, cars had been piling in and out of the surrounding areas all morning and afternoon. Most all of them had been proudly adorned with buttons and banners and bumper stickers proclaiming their Gay Pride.
"Bugger," swore Vernon, faced by a solid, immoveable and unpartable red sea of blinking indicators and those dratted hazard lights that only pansies ever actually used beyond their driving test, foggy nights or when they wanted to quickly pop into the local Woolies to buy some pick-and-mix.
---
"Let's go out, get some fresh air.
Just a drive; you, me, and baby Harry.
"It'll be an escape from this house for a bit, Lils.
We can go and see Sirius.
He'll love to see the troublemaker again."
A laugh.
"He only saw him yesterday!"
He kissed her gorgeous, flame-red hair; she was perfect to and for him.
"I know. But he loves the brat."
Lily snatched the keys off the table and, with a tinkling sound, threw them into the air for James to catch.
Quick as a striking snake, he snatched them out of the air with a precision few could boast matching.
---
Petunia Dursley was in the kitchen, right where he left her, when Vernon Dursley blundered over the welcome-mat ("Better get rid of that, Pet, it's bloody annoying"), red-faced and blustering. The baby in Petunia's arm burped; he was clearly a Dursley, right from the mop of dull blond hair and the ruddy face to the chubby feet.
Petunia and Vernon together was Lewis Carroll's dream come true; they looked like the Walrus and a long-necked, overly nosy Carpenter. Little Dudley could have been a young Tweedledee.
"Da!" The youngest Dursley stretched out his arms to his father, a grumpy pout upon his face.
"Not now, Dudders," he intoned gruffly, his moustache trembling along with his chins. Vernon eased himself onto the kitchen chair and rested his heavy palms on the table with a sigh.
"How was your day, Vernon?" Petunia crooned over the sound of the radio (at its lowest volume) and the baby on her hip's heavy breathing; he overexerted himself trying to reach for his father.
"Bloody awful! We lost the Brown and Nobel orders, both of them, and there was some kind of Queer-fest going on all day…" Petunia stiffened. He noticed. "What is it? They haven't tried to… convert you, have they?"
"No, it's nothing, I was just remembering something that happened the other day. My sister, Lily, tried to call me. I didn't pick up when I saw the number, of course. Wishy-washy liberal nonsense, wouldn't want to be involved with any of it; especially not now we have Dudley to look after." Vernon looked, for once, thoughtful. "Didn't they have a kid, too? Herman, or some stupid nonsense like that, wasn't it?" "Harry," Petunia sniffed. "Harry Potter. About Dudley's age. It's such a shame he'll be brought up around all that rubbish. I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out bent at the end of it, with that sort around him all his life."
"Terrible shame about the name, too," Vernon Egbert Dursley chuckled, popping biscuit into his mouth.
---
Petunia Dursley,
This is your nephew, Harold James Potter - Harry. Your sister, Lily Potter and her husband James Matthew Potter have sadly passed away in a motor vehicle collision with a lorry on the M24. The driver fell asleep at the wheel, and all but Harry were killed instantly.
There is a light among the dark: Harry has a small scar on his forehead which may never heal, but no other damage has been detected.
I beg that you take your nephew into your care until he is of age; that you love and raise him as your own son. I am aware of the tensions between your two families, but blood is thicker than water and even family feuds.
If this is impossible, my address can be found on the reverse, but I feel that the best place for young Harry is with his family, where he is safe and sound.
My sincere consolations, and highest thanks,
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
---
Fifteen years later, Harry Potter woke up.
Author's Note: Name change, slight edit to the chapter. Please review! If you didn't find it intriguing or promising, I would appreciate your viewpoint, and if you did, I would appreciate that, too. No matter what your thoughts, I would love to hear them. Thank you so much for even giving this fic the time out of your day to glance at. I appreciate it.