Author's note: This bit is based on real life. Make of it what you will. I read George Orwell and Gloria Steinem. I dislike authority and housewives.
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"I'm home!" yelled Vernon Dursley, letting himself in the back door.
His wife, Petunia, hurried up to him. "Where were you?" she asked. "It's gone 2 at night. Surely you aren't working that late?"
Vernon plopped his briefcase on top of Petunia's needlepoint she had been working on all day. "I have something to tell you," he said. He felt a little guilty about what he was about to say—after all, Petunia had been a great wife. She was very loving, if a little bit batty. Her oddball brother's influence there…that "poetry" spell had lasted for three years, and still came back if she was feeling agitated.
Petunia kissed him on the cheek. "Ooh, what is it?" she squealed. "Did you get a raise? Are we taking a trip to Spain?"
"Si, pero no con tu," said a breathy voice behind Vernon. It belonged to a platinum blonde with coffee-colored skin, who was dressed in a short black dress.
In Petunia's poetry-addled mind, she must have sensed something was wrong. But she repressed it, and treated her guest nicely, like a good girl, like a good housewife.
"Can I get you some tea, Miss…" Her hands at her sides were fluttering like nervous pink spiders.
Vernon put an arm around the blonde. "This is Azuela Puta. She is my secretary."
"I'm very glad to meet you, Miss Puta," Petunia said.
"I should not sink so," said Miss Puta. "I am zoon going to be Señora Azuela Dursley. Zis is what Vernon here has told to me." She planted a big sloppy kiss on her lover's cheek.
"I can't take it any more," Vernon said darkly. "I come home and you don't have dinner ready. You're sitting in your chair, reading your stupid poems, and Dudley's crying because his mummy hasn't paid any attention to him…I'm leaving you, Petunia."
Petunia stood with her mouth open. "Vernon, you can't! I love you…and you told me you loved me. I promise I'll change…I'll try to be a better wife, and have dinner ready, and not read poetry any more…"
That was what she wanted to say. Instead, what came out of her astonished mouth was this:
Love is like a red, red roseWhose bloom may fade with time
But on the day we married
You told me you were mine
If you would just come back to me
I'd treat you like I should
I'd try to be a good wife
Do anything I could
Oh my darling, I don't know
How I could live without you
Please believe me
Please don't leave meShe clapped her hands over her traitor mouth, muffling the last words of the poem: "Bphmph you nff if froo!"
Vernon shook his head. "You see what I mean?" He spread his great meaty hands helplessly. "I can't live like this."
"He cannot leeve like zis," Azuela echoed.
"You can't leave like this," Petunia murmured.
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She stood in the driveway, twisting a dishcloth in her hands, staring into the distance. She hadn't done anything. She hadn't said anything. She never did.
When a wolf came up to her and dropped a bundle at her feet, she picked it up. "Oh," she said faintly. "A girl."
She carried the child into the house. "I've always wanted a girl."
Little Dudley stood in the doorway, wearing Power Rangers boxer shorts. His face was set stubbornly. "I wah gandy."
"Not now, darling." Petunia laid the baby on the table. "Ooh, isn't she a sweetie?"
Dudley peeped at her over the chair. "No. Wah gandy now now NOW!"
"No candy," Petunia said absently. "What's your name, sweet thing?"
Dudley, realizing that he was not going to be noticed anytime soon, wandered off to the bathroom, where he immediately dumped out a large bottle of aspirin on the floor.
Petunia cradled the one-year-old in her arms, and sang to her.
A wild animal left you here
So I would take you in
Now you are my newest child
And I will call you…
She searched her brain for a name that rhymed with "in". "Lynn? Karen? No…" She closed her eyes and thought. She fell asleep there, at the table, with the unnamed baby girl in her arms.
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Lady Voldemort brushed back the child's black bangs, revealing the lighting-bolt shaped sign of protection on her forehead. "Her name is Vivian," she whispered to the sleeping housewife. "It means life, and it rhymes with your poem. Take good care of her."
Then she turned and walked out of the house, leading a big black dog on a silver chain.
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That night, on the red-eye to Madrid, the airplane that a certain Vernon Dursley and his secretary, Azuela Puta, were traveling on, was hit by major turbulence, as recounted by one of the three survivors, a teacher named Esther. She only managed to survive by clinging to a huge sofa cushion that had been in the cargo hold. Her daughter Sonia and her husband were also perfectly safe, and only a little frightened.
The pilot choked on an "omelet", and the co-pilot had a panic attack and started thinking he was a poodle. Three people tried to hijack the plane, and a stewardess had a fainting fit. The plane went down in the water. Most of the passengers drowned quickly and relatively painlessly.
Vernon and Azuela were clinging to each other as the plane crashed down. Azuela tried to swim, and got sucked underwater by the suction of the plane. She was chopped to bits by a still-rotating propeller. Vernon tried to go after her and got stuck in a huge ball of flaming wreckage, burning him to a crisp. No trace of their bodies were ever found.
That was the first piece of magic that Vivian Evans ever did. It would not be her last.
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Amanita McMahon, the head of the Ministry of Magic, glared at the temp who had just woken her up in the middle of the night. "I was sleeping quite peacefully," she said icily. "For the first time in several weeks. What could possibly be so —ing important that it needs my immediate attention RIGHT NOW?"
The temp quaked. "Er…She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is dead, madam. According to reports. I thought that might—"
To her surprise, Amanita said a very bad word. The temp's hair began to sizzle.
"I can't —ing believe it." Amanita sourly pulled on her dressing robe and took a swig from the unmarked bottle that always stood by her cot in her office. She slept in her office. It was rumored that she in fact had no home. "This is SO not good."
The temp stared. "Madam, surely the death of I-Dare-Not-Say is a good thing?"
Amanita sighed. "You're a temp, aren't you?" She proffered the bottle to the temp, who recoiled slightly. "If you decide to stay here, I think that you find that things are slightly out of kilter."
She sat cross-legged on her bed. "You see, good without evil is nothing. Good is the negation of evil, simply canceling out evil's effects. Evil can stand perfectly well on its own."
The temp thought about that. It seemed to make sense.
Amanita sighed. "I don't know why I'm telling you this, but the existence of Lady Voldemort is one of the reasons why the Ministry kept working. It is our duty to keep her in her position of power while seeing, at the same time, that she is hated by everyone. Sort of Orwellian, really. Miniluv, Minitrue, Minipax, Miniplenty, and Minimage." She took another swig from the bottle. "God have mercy on her soul."
The temp fled.
Amanita threw the bottle against the wall. It did not break. She hopped down from the bed and inspected the piece of parchment with the thaumaturgical readout on it.
"Well, well, well." She smiled unpleasantly to herself.
