"PERFECTLY NORMAL"

PROLOGUE

Mr. Vernon Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, would readily admit that having a small yet homely house, an unpretentious yet durable car, a not stunningly beautiful yet charming wife and a bit boring yet decently paid and perspective job he was quite content. In other words, Mr. Vernon Dursley was perfectly normal. Of course, if being absolutely honest, the same couldn't be said about Mrs. Dursley; but Mr. Dursley secretly prided himself of carrying on the mandatory romantics of their relationship by never prying into her past; well, except Googling the old mill she once mentioned as her father's workplace. Admittedly, Spinner's End seemed as proletarian as they go, so Vernon was but glad she preferred to spend family holidays with his family and didn't bring him to her family's gatherings she absolutely couldn't avoid. As for the rest, since Petunia Dursley née Evans had her meaningless degree in French literature, kept his house warm and welcoming and bore him a healthy son, as far as Mr. Dursley was concerned, she could refuse to open the door at Halloween, mumbling how nothing was funny about ghosts and witches roaming the world freely, all she wanted.

And so, on a totally ordinary morning, when he was finishing his usual coffee, ignoring the news programme trying to feed him some exaggerated sensation concerning abnormal activity of British owls, Mr. Dursley chose not to argue when his wife suddenly dropped her own cup, rushed to the phone and informed his office not to expect him due to family emergency.


Mr. Dursley went to bed early, considerably unsettled by both the tricky parts of the new set of nursery furniture he failed to finish assembling and his random unsuccessful attempts to comfort his wife, who seemed to glue herself to sad but otherwise unremarkable news reports on an unexpected gas explosion killing thirteen people.

It was past midnight when Vernon was woken by a cold hand clutching his upper arm and urgent desperate whisper "You know I love you, don't you?"

He nodded dutifully and shot a quick glance through half-closed curtains, trying to determine what was upsetting his wife so, but everything was quiet outside. Too quiet, actually. And too dark.


Little by little the faint glow of street lights came back to life and the Dursleys drifted to exhausted sleep only to be jerked awake by a soft whimper. Mrs. Dursley rushed to the crib, where her son proved to be sleeping peacefully. But the whimpers not only didn't stop, but grew into a heartbreaking wail, which was obviously coming from the outside.

Mr. Dursley went downstairs, closely followed by his wife, and carefully opened the front door, to be greeted by a sight from a nineteenth century sentimental novel: on his doorstep there was a basket containing a baby half strangled by his swaddles and sporting an ugly fresh wound in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead.

Without giving it much thought, Mrs. Dursley promptly picked up the screaming bundle, which immediately quieted, snuggling closely to human warmth, chocked out "Mummy" in a small broken voice and finally opened huge green eyes.

"Harry!" Mrs. Dursley exclaimed, growing even paler if it were even possible, "Lily! What have you done to her? Come back and talk to me, you pathetic freaks!" The last part was screamed desperately into the cold autumn night, and the baby started crying again. Petunia took a step back into the house and started whispering calming nonsense to the tiny ear, while blinking back her own tears.

Vernon settled on examining the basked more closely and finally produced an old-fashioned letter sealed with some pompous coat-of-arms, written in what seemed to be genuine ink and with such calligraphic precision as though the writer had been enjoying the process immensely:

'Dear Mrs. Dursley,

we are sad to inform you that you sister, Mrs. Lily Evans-Potter passed away this night, following her husband, Mr. James Ch…'

Vernon tore the letter in two, dropped it back in the basket and kicked the latter in a childish yet clear display of what he thought of whoever considered this a proper way to break such news. Then he shut the door and gave his now silently crying wife a tender kiss, embracing her with one hand and reaching tentatively to stroke the child's fluffy dark hair with the other.