Chapter 2 – The Dursleys

Vernon Dursley esteemed himself a prim and proper man. He was respected in his professional endeavors and gleamed with pride over his well-groomed family. Today was his wedding anniversary, he had been married to his wife Petunia for five years, and had plans to treat her to dinner while a neighbor agreed to sit for their three-year-old son, Dudley. He even went into work extra early this morning to make it home with plenty of time to spare.

Today he resigned to be nothing but grateful for his lovely wife. He remembered the day he met her, how receptive she was to his values, and how quickly she said yes when he proposed. He always said he felt truly blessed that she didn't cause problems, the likes of which the friends he went to school with complained of. In fact, he'd only ever hit her once in the five years they'd been married. It was for attempting to send her sister and her husband a picture of their son, and subsequently finding out that she had received a birth announcement from them when their daughter was born, even though he had been explicit about that family in particular not having their address or whereabouts.

When Vernon met his wife's sister, Lily Evans, and her soon-to-be husband, James Potter, at his lavish church wedding, he refused to let his wife interact with them. She had warned him ahead of time about them - what they were to be concise. He didn't want them to attend but she feared too much what her parents would think. It was no matter in the scheme of things, his in-laws died not long after. Petunia didn't protest when Vernon told her to tell her sister to leave their wedding, they were after all, in most respects, already estranged.

Aside from her familial affiliation with people like the Potters, he felt his wife was the cream of the crop. She knew her place, took great care of him and their son, and was genuinely gracious for the life and home he had built for her.

Vernon was a tall man with dark hair and a mean natural facial expression. He commanded a presence, was not wide or overly heavy set, but dense with a thick frame. The only thing noticeably small on him were his beady, dark brown, hooded eyes.

He grew up in an extremely conservative catholic household with two parents. His father was forty-eight years older than himself and had passed away when he was seventeen. His mother, however, was only nineteen when she had him, but had died in a bicycle accident shortly after his sister Marge's wedding ceremony when she graduated from school at sixteen. Marge was a few years younger than Vernon with a mean streak that could rival him. She had a great disdain for those who don't abide by the rules of authority. Vernon grew up watching his mother and sister get strapped for their indiscretions, his mother more than Marge. Him though, never. His father was strict and demanding with exceedingly high expectations of his family. These values stayed with Vernon; it was what he strived for with his own.

His sister marge was married until her husband passed away of liver failure shortly into retirement, she was thirty at the time. This didn't bother her, she was beyond the age requirement to remarry, and took to raising her bulldogs and joining the board for the all-girls catholic academy her husband had helped their subsect of the church establish. She never had children, but it was no matter because she usually despised them. The only child she took a liking to was her nephew.

Vernon respected his religious community above all else, and assumed his role enthusiastically by attending university and becoming a chief executive for his firm before the age of thirty-five. He met Petunia in his late twenties shortly after a woman he courted for too many years turned down his marriage proposal. He deemed the rejection a gift from God when he met Petunia. He hoped his son would follow well in his footsteps, but ultimately didn't fear any less of him.

Needless to say, the man was confused when Petunia called his office that morning just after his morning coffee in the executive lobby and begged him to come home immediately. He grabbed his coat and headed out after leaving a note with his secretary to advise he would be out of the office.

On the way home, he noticed something especially strange about his local community. There were people walking the street openly wearing what looked to him like the kinds of dress up costumes kids wear to play make believe games. He looked down at a paper on the ground by the parking lot of his building that had AZALEA POTTER written as the headline, but it blew away in the wind before he could pick it up.

Potter, he thought, considering his wife's sister, but surely it wasn't that uncommon of a name. Azalea sounded familiar. 'My mum would have liked that,' he remembered Petunia saying fondly at the picture on the birth announcement before he smacked her and tossed the card into the fireplace. It wasn't Azalea, was it? Aster, Angelica... some flower name it had to be, but Azalea? Was it? That's not common, he thought, but shook it off. People looked uncommonly happy and relieved, like war had ended but he knew not which.

Vernon pulled into his driveway, annoyed that he had to return home without a shred of work done, and walked into the living room to a crying wife.

"Petunia, darling, what's wrong?" He asked, now worried. She sobbed harder now that he arrived.

"My - my - my - sister was... murdered. Her and her... husband," she choked. Vernon stood back looking confused.

"By who?" He asked, but he was more upset that his wife was this upset about her sister's death. He was both rather relieved and sickly satisfied.

Petunia handed him a letter that he read through in disbelief. He looked up at her reproachfully as she pointed to the sofa opposite him with a little girl, about their son's age, curled up asleep in a ball.

"You didn't!" He yelled. She nodded.

"I'm sorry, please read it again. We have to keep her..." she pled, eyeing the girl and her husband nervously.

"No! I'm taking her to an orphanage right now," he roared. Petunia shrieked, "No! Vernon, we can't, we have to keep her, but we can make sure she grows up right, can't we? We can make sure she's not like them," she begged.

He considered her for a moment. "You agreed to this? Is it binding?" He asked menacingly. Her face got small as his grew increasingly mean.

"It is... binding... it's magically binding... yes..." she stammered and he hit her across the face. Petunia sobbed into her hands and screamed apologies, but the little girl didn't stir.

Vernon walked his wife into the kitchen by the wrist, pushed her against the counter, removed his belt for not consulting him first. The last he'd witnessed a grown woman cry the way she was as he threw the strap was his mother. It gave him an itch of regret but he was absolutely feral in rage. He proceeded to empty the closet under the stairs and had her carry all the contents to the garage.

Petunia was twenty-three-years-old, long, lanky, and thin boned, opposite of her husband. Her hair was blonde and curly, face noticeably elongated, but appeared more so by the length of her neck. She wasn't unattractive by any means, but didn't have a sweet demeanor in the slightest, except around her son. She was meek with her husband and knew better than to cross him. This wasn't usually a problem as she was compliant and agreeable to his expectations. Up until today, she enjoyed the comfort of her much more normal life than the one she was raised in. There was nothing to hide or have contempt for, she was provided for and found fulfillment in being a mother.

Her husband, Vernon, was now suddenly frightening to her, more than the intimidating demeanor she had grown used to. He had never beaten her before, only slapped her, and she decided in that moment when heard him slide his belt back through his pant loops, that she'd never put herself in a place for him to do it again.

Once she was done moving items to the garage, Vernon carried down the extra toddler sized mattress in his son's playroom and dropped it onto the floor in the closet. He had to push to get it to fit in the small area.

"I don't want her upstairs with us, put her things in here, she'll sleep here," he demanded as he tested the pull string light which dimly lit up the dust on the walls and shelves. Petunia looked horrified, but the piercing look Vernon gave her, combined with the still unfastened belt he'd loosely put around his waist, made her oblige without contention.

Vernon returned to work and worked late into that evening, not minding his anniversary at all. Petunia put her sleeping niece in the closet later that evening after she had spent most of the day unconscious on the sofa. Vernon noticed when his wife hesitated to close the door all the way, and shoved it closed harshly before locking the latch.

Petunia was still in shock. It was too much for her to grapple with in a day. Her only sister was gone forever, she signed off on them keeping this little girl for the next fourteen years, and her husband beat her for it. This girl was identical to Lily, she was no doubt going to be one of them. She knew in her bones that her husband would never forgive her for this.

Vernon watched her change for bed and resented the marks he'd left on her from earlier. He took his wife's face in his hands and looked at her intently when she crawled into bed. "I realize this is all a traumatic ordeal. I hope you'll quickly realize that the world is better off with less of that flock. We will raise her, but she will grow up by my rules and standards. If I see you cry for your freak of a sister, or show this little mistake of an offspring affection, I will see to you, do you understand?" He asked sternly. Petunia nodded and swallowed back a huge wave of grief. She turned away from him and cried silently when she heard him drift to sleep. Her mind converted everything she was feeling into anger and would no sooner find an outlet on which to release it.