Author Notes: Well, I said I wouldn't do it, but here it is, another fic. My muse made me write this. It wouldn't let me write anything else until I got this down pat. So now this is my mp (main priority) now, so I might meander a bit on the other stories; so sorry if I do do that. Anyway, I hope you like this; it's taken me ages to write! Oh yeah, and I had to break the first chapter of the real book up into three parts because my version's so long!
Chapter One: The Squirt Who Be Alive… Still: Part One
Once upon a time, there lived a couple who were very normal. As normal as normal could be; and more. In fact, they appeared to be so normal, that they were not normal at all. No, in fact they were quite strange, for the very fact that they were so normal. This was very strange.
The normal couple were called Mr and Mrs Dursley, a normal name, with strange qualities. They lived at number four (a very normal number) Privet Drive, an all in all normal street.
Mr Dursley was the director of a normal firm with a not so normal name; Grunnings. Grunnings was a normal firm, and it made drills. Mr 'Normal' Dursley's company was the only thing about his life style that was not normal. Well, it was a drill company, for God's sake. Called Grunnings! That was not normal (no offence to anyone who works at a drill company called Grunnings). But apart from that, Mr Dursley was very normal. He could have been called Normal Norman, were it not for the fact that his christian name was Vernon, no Norman. Mr Normal Vernon Not Normal Norman Dursley was big and beefy, although this story is set in such a time when he could not eat McDonalds every day, because J. K. Rowling isn't really allowed to advertise in her books, and I doubt she'd promote McDonalds anyway. Mr Dursley was a man, which was perfectly normal seeing as he was a mister, and his name was Vernon. Oh yeah, and he was an unusual form of giraffe; one which instead of having its neck in between its head and torso, it was, instead, horizontal, and in between Mr Dursley's nose and upper lip, in the form of a very large, abnormal moustache. So I apologise for lying earlier; there were two abnormal things about Mr Dursley's otherwise overly- freakin'- normal lifestyle, not counting the fact that it was abnormally normal.
Mrs Dursley was also very normal. She was thin and blonde, and her neck was in the right place, 'stead of in place of a moustache. In fact, Mrs Dursley was so normal that she could have been called Normal Norma, were it not for the fact that he christian name was Petunia, not Norma. Mrs Normal Petunia Not Normal Norma Dursley hadn't made much of her life, so all she had the ability to do was look over garden fences, which was very abnormal.
Now, it just so happened that fat met thin, and, surprisingly, fat and thin fell in love. Either that, or they were too normal for anyone else, and, out of desperation, fat pushed himself into thin and several months later a baby popped out of Mrs Normal Petunia Not Normal Norma Dursley. Now, if the Dursley's neighbours had been nosey perverts like Petunia, and had decided to peer over the fence and see what Mrs Dursley's screams, and Mr Dursley's shouts of "PUSH! PUSH!" were in aid of, they would have seen that after minutes of screaming and pushing, there was a small boy with a tag around his neck. The tag said:
'Call me Dudley and treat me as if there were no finer boy anywhere! Now!'
And the two proud Dursley parents did just that. (WARNING: the previous scene contained unsuitable material and should not have been viewed by any one under the age of 60.)
Now, listen carefully. The Dursleys were rich, and had everything they could possibly want. But they also had something that they didn't want; a secret. For you see, their façade of normalcy was just that; a façade. If you ripped off the covers (not that you would want to see the moment that Dudley Dursley was conceived) then you would find that every day, pushed to the back of their minds, but nevertheless, still a living, breathing threat, was a secret that they wished no one to discover.
This unbearable secret I am talking about is Mrs I'm Not So Normal Norma After All Dursley's sister, Mrs I'm Not Normal Norma Either Potter. The Dursleys and Potters had not had contact for several years; in fact, Mrs I'm A Fake Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good for nothing husband were as far from what the Dursleys were pretending to be but were really not as it was humanely and inhumanely possible. When they thought about what their neighbours would say if the Potters turned up in the street, Mrs Dursley went into convulsions and Mr Dursley started sweating and came out in a terrible rash. Man, would I like to see what would have happened if the Potters had really turned up the street! Well, you never know… The Dursleys were also on the receiving end of the completely normal fact that the Potters had a small son, too. If Petunia had peered over their garden fence, she would have seen the Potters cradling a boy with a tag around his neck, reading:
'Call me Harry. I'm small and special, but will probably grow up to be very stupid.'
We shall see … Anyway, they didn't want Dudley meeting anyone special, so that was another good reason for keeping the two families apart.
When Mr and Mrs Secret Keeping Dursley awoke on the perfectly normal Tuesday our story starts (although it seemed to have started long ago, I tricked you- it is only, just, beginning), there was nothing about the normal sky outside (not inside, that wouldn't be normal, and this story is about normal stuff, not abnormal stuff) to suggest that abnormal and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country (ok, I'm wrong again. This story is about abnormal stuff). Mr Dursley hummed a normal tune as he picked out his most boringly normal tie for his abnormally named work at Grunnings, and Mrs Dursley gossiped away (at this point, if you are interested, we come to the end of the first page in the real book!) happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair (which is normal, seeing as he's a baby. The screaming bit, I mean. Not being happy about wrestling him; that's just cruel). None of them noticed a large tawny owl flutter past the window (strictly this should be neither of them noticed, as Dudley may have noticed and not reacted because he may of thought it was completely normal). This was not normal.
At half past eight, by the normal kitchen clock, Mr I'm Normal And You Better Believe It picked up his normal briefcase, pretended he was a chicken, and pecked Mrs Dursley on the cheek (which was definitely not normal! Oh no, wait, he tried to peck her, but being the uncoordinated bastard that he is, missed because Dudley was doing something very normal for a baby; painting the walls. With cereal and milk, that is).
"Ugly little tyke," chortled Mr Dursley as he left the normal house. It is at this point that I wish to remind you that none of the Dursleys' neighbours were as nosily perverted as Petunia, and so there was no one hiding under the Dursley kitchen sink, recording the lives of the Dursleys in a little orange exercise book. Therefore, the dialogue may not be one hundred percent accurate. Mr Dursley may have just said 'little tyke' instead of 'ugly little tyke', but I found it necessary to express my views of Dudley as 'ugly'. Mr Dursley got into his normal car and backed out of number four's normal drive.
On his way to work, Mr Dursley began to hallucinate. He saw a cat reading a map, and then thought it clever to have a staring competition with the cat, instead of watching the road; thus only narrowly avoiding a collision with the town's long term resident acorn tree- oh, and two or three old men tap dancing across the road, but they pale in significance when compared to the tree. Mr Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove towards town he thought of nothing except a large order of normal drills he was hoping to get that day.
But on the edge of town, normal drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the normal morning traffic jam, his mind turned to breakfast… BREAKFAST! How could he have forgotten? A small sob escaped from Mr Dursley's lips as he thought of the wonderful traffic jam on toast that he could have had that morning… Then something else caught his eye; something that wiped all thoughts of breakfast out his head (bearing in mind that these were rare times. When he wasn't thinking about breakfast, I mean. At those times, he was usually thinking about lunch, or dinner; either that or he was having staring competitions with cats and decapitating old tap dancing fogies). At first he thought he had imagined it, but NO! WAIT! There it was again! A PIGEON! Mr Dursley let a dry chuckle escape from his lips, and then he could hold it back no longer. He burst into raucous laughter, flecks of spit hitting the windscreen. "I mean, come on, a pigeon! You don't see one of those everyday. And they're so funny!" Mr Dursley said aloud, then burst out laughing again (come on, if you didn't think he was bonkers before, this has got to count for something). He stopped abruptly, however, when he saw what he saw next. And let me tell you, what he saw next was not normal; in fact I would go as far as to say that what he saw next was abnormal. So abnormal, I might add, that I'm not surprised that he stopped laughing abruptly when he saw what he saw next.
There were people- get this- who dressed strangely. And, I mean, God, the word 'strange' was not in the Dursley vocabulary book, save if you pull back the covers, but we so don't want to go there again. Anyway, these people were dressed in cloaks. Cloaks. Mr Dursley presumed it was some new fad- tut tut, what does he know? Cloaks are so last year. No, cloaks can mean only one thing. Dare is say it? I dare not. At least, not yet. You'll have to wait a bit, for that. All in good time, my friend, all in good time.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these abnormals standing nearby. It struck Mr Dursley that these people were probably collecting for something. Hmm… yes. Collecting. We'll let him think that for a while. The traffic moved on, and a few normal lengthed minutes later, Mr Dursley arrived in the normal car park pf the abnormal firm uncommonly known as Grunnings.
Mr Dursley always sat with his normal back to the normal window in his normal office on the ninth normal floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on normal things, like, er, drills, for instance, because the scene behind him was very, very … yup, you guessed it. Abnormal. He didn't see the owls (at this point you may be interested to know that we have only just reached the end of the second page of the real book; don't say I didn't warn you it'd be long!) swooping past in broad daylight (which was not a very owly thing to do), though normal people down in the normal street did; pointing and gazing, they found it hard to draw their eyes away as owl after owl sped overhead. Mr Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, swooping- owl- after- owl- free morning. He felt very proud of himself; he had yelled at four, no, make that five- he had forgotten about the one who took ages at the coffee machine- different people, made some 'important' (well, hello, a guy's gotta eat!) phone calls, and exercised his lungs a bit more by… yup, you guessed it. No, not being normal, you dippy, that wouldn't make sense! The word I was looking for was 'shouting'.
Then, in a very un- Vernon like fashion, he decided to stretch his legs. Ok, ok, so the guy was just going to buy a bun from across the road, but knowing him, he could have easily abused his powers by ordering the guy who took ages at the coffee machine to go and get it for him. But, like I said, he didn't. and that was when he found out just how strange a morning he had been missing out on.
Author Notes: So, do you like it so far? Did I have you chuckling all the way through? Or did you find it crappy? Let me know! By reviewing! Please! Just in case you were wondering, this is about the first two pages of the normal book. The English version, that is. Long, huh? That's why I had to split it into three parts. The first chapter, I mean. This chapter's quite short; only 2000 words or so, but the next two chapters will probably be longer, so I can get to the end of the chapter. Once I get to that milestone, I won't be stopping. I'm going to get right to the end of the book. However long it takes. And then I'll do book two. Then book three. And eventually I will do books four, five, six, and seven, but they're a lot longer (at least I presume seven will be longer) so they'll take more time. Anyway, let me know what you think of this one, and I'll update soon. Coming soon in chapter twelve of Must Be Love: meet Nadine Hamlet! Lol, cya soon, and please review!