Chapter 1

The Boy Who Survived

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley were very proud to say that they were prefectly perfect, thank you for asking. They were the last people you would expect to be involved in anything paranormal or strange, solely because they just didn't believe in that kind of foolishness.

Mr. Dursley was the director of Grunnings, a company no one knew of, but everyone bought from. He was a big man, who had large porportions of himself going in every direction. Although he did have a very bushy mustache, the burly man had begun to lose some of his head hair (to his dimay). Although he tried to come off as a large, quite grumpy man. Once you began to know him, he was a very sweet man who bowed to his wife's whims and will.

Mrs. Dursely was a thin woman, who liked to spy and meddle in others affairs. Her hair was muddy brown with streaks of grey starting to form, in a shoulder length cut and not a hair out of place. The Durselys had a small son named Dudley together, who in both their opinons was the most perfect child anyplace, anytime, and with anyone. As they had no other to compare him to.

The Dursleys were content. They had everything they could ever want or need. But hidden in the depths of their being they had a secret that they would never tell however much you could bribe them or egg them on about telling you. They would never have imagined what might happen to their perfect family, if someone stumbled upon the Potters.

Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, though you would never know, she pretended she never had a sister. You could barely find evidence that she had her own family at all in their home. The Potters had their own son too. Henry or something. The Dursleys wouldn't know or care.

When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up that dull, typical Tuesday morning, they had no reason to think that their secret would catch up to them.

Mrs. Dursley, starting to hear Dudley fuss, rose out of bed to soothe him. After tending to her child, she went downstairs for her daily morning routine. She put a kettle on, to make a cup of tea for herself and a cup of coffee for Mr. Dursley. She cooked a light breakfast for herself, got Mr. Dursley's breakfast ready and started to warm up some milk formula for Dudley. When sitting down to wait for the formula to be done, she sat down and let her mind wander.

When she refocused her eyes and got out of her daze, she realized that she has been staring at a tabby cat across the street, that has been staring back for a while. Her attention was brought back to the kettle as it started to shriek and scream indicating it was finished preparing the hot water. When she glanced back, she saw that the feline had disappered.

"Filthy animals", she muttered under her breath. If she had taken a closer look she would had noticed a peculair marking around the cat's eyes and within the eyes, a glimmer of intellegence. Later when Mr. Dursley was getting ready to go to work, he noticed the same cat sitting near the front of the house.

Attempting to shoo the tabby away, as he knew that the Mrs. didn't take to animals in the very least, he noticed the cat was staring at a piece of paper that seemed to be moving. A bit frightened, he backed off as when he got a bit too close, the feline whipped its head around and glared at the portly man, and he caught that glimmer of intellengence that Mrs. Durdley had missed. Shaken, he climbed into his car, and promtly forgot the animal as he began his work routine. He didnt even notice all of the owls and the like, flying around at 9:30 in the morning.

Around noon he took his lunch break and, being in a good mood, decided to walk to a sandwhich shop a block away. But on the way even Mr. Dursley couldn't ignore all the funny looking people just standing around blocking the way. Just standing there, not doing anythig but excitedly chattering in a foreign language. When he tried to squeeze through them he accidently knocked one of the more elderly of the group. He swiftly turned around, to accuse that it was the others' fault he got knocked over, thinking that he would have to put up a fight about whose fault it was.

But instead of being angry, the older man laughed it off and with a heavly accented voice squeaked. "Even Muggles like you shoud be rejoicing, for today is a great day to be alive! You-Know-Who has been defeated! After all this time!" And hurridely skipped back to his group.

Mr. Dursley was suprised that he didnt have to yell at some stranger in the street for something that was obviously his fault. He went and got himself a tuna sandwhich, and was eating when he caught a snippet of the strange groups' chatter in English.

"...Yes, Yes! The Potters, it was…"

"...Their son? Harry, his name…"

Mr. Dursley stopped mid-bite. Fear and paranoria flooded his body. Not his Potter? No, no that's impossible. Potter is a very common name. It just couldn't be. Shaken he threw away his sandwhich, suddenly losing his appetite.

Going back to work he tried to get back in the swing of things. But his mind just kept wandering back to the Potters. What had happened? He couldn't talk about it to his wife. She would get very upset at even a mention of her sister. He decided to just let go of it, and try not to think about it. He spun his chair around and began to work on his computer again. He didn't notice that even more owls were flying around than that morning.

Driving home after finishing his work, he let his mind relax and begun to wander and untangle everything that had happened that day. He had bought a bouque of flowers for the Mrs. He felt as though he would need to be on her good side in the days to come. He had brought her favorite orchids.

He came through the door expecting her to be playing with their son in the living room. Instead he saw her, on the couch, their son in his crib screaming for attention. He was stunned that she had let him be alone for so long that he even wanted attention. Usually she was smothering him with love, dressing and redressing him, playing and keeping his every whim fufilled. He went over and picked up his child. Dudley quickly quieted and feel asleep on his father. Mr. Dursley walked over to his wife wondering what had happened, that would have her ignore her child for more than five minutes.

As he got closer, he noticed that she was holding a letter and across from her on the coffee table, lay a basket filled with blankets. Curious, he took Dudley and slowly moved him to his shoulder so that Dudley could still sleep and he could have a free hand. Taking his free hand, he moved the blankets inside and saw a child that slightly resembled his wife, who has been silent since Mr. Dursley came home. Questions rolled through his head. He looked over at his wife about to voice his confusion. Taking a closer look at her face, it seemed to be frozen in a tear streaken form. Stunned that she was showing a different emotion than her usual poker face, he withdrew. He waited for her to say something, do anything. He put Dudley, still alseep, in his crib and picked up the mystery child, getting ready to see if he will accept any of Dudleys' formula. After feeding the curiously silent infant, he put him to bed, in one of Dudley's older rocking cribs that Dudley himself wasn't too fond of.

After putting him to sleep, he sat by his wife and attempted to comfort her in whatever ways he could. He made her a stong cup of chamomile tea and got an old comfort blanket of hers. These seemed to ease her nerves as, she opened up about where the chlid came from and who he was. Her voice cracked as she begun telling the tale of how her sister and her husband had been killed by some crazy 'cult leader or another'. He had come into their house, murdered the Mr. who tried to protect his wife and child.

"Always knew he was no good for her, couldn't even protect her decently." She said through shaky sips of tea. She seemed shaken, as if she was upset about her sister who, she had tried to ignore for most her adult life, had been brutely murdered. As Mrs. Dursley came to the end of her third cup, she became drowsy and entered a troubled sleep. She was carried to bed by her husband who after putting her in bed, went down stairs to watch this new infant. As he stared at this sleeping child, who was much quieter than his own, he began to wonder. What will this mean to his family? Watching the infant sleep he noticed a bloodied line that had begun to form a scar. Running along his forehead, was a lightning shaped wound stopping right in-between his closed eyes. But as he began to be drowsier and drowsier, watching and retracing the scar with his pudgy finger, he came to a conclusion. That he will make this child's life the best he could. No matter what.