Alistor Moody, Life Insurance Salesman
By An Orc
[AN: People have theorised that with his upbringing Harry should have turned out a lot less nice and forgiving. If Harry was ignored instead of bullied, he might have even been rather more like Tom Riddle than anyone might like. This story is a bit like that, but mostly played for laughs]
Warning: Character deaths, injuries, contains some Intellectual property of JK Rowling and her publishers.]
As Minerva McGonagall says, if a cat may look at a king, checking in on Harry Potter is within her remit. Minerva and Albus send someone along to Privet Drive to... put the fear of god into the Dursleys. That man is ... Alistor Moody, Life insurance salesman. "I think you really want this life insurance. It's going to stop all sorts of bad things happening to you" said Moody. "Like What?" asked Vernon Dursley. "Like Me, for starters" Moody rasped. Unfortunately, having Harry raised by relatives who utterly avoid him has some unwanted side effects. Can anyone say Tom Riddle? Well, obviously nobody can. Tom took care of that. That's why he's called he-who-shall-not-be-named. Played for some laughs not a bloodbath.
Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts was sitting reading paperwork in his circular office when an angry Minerva McGonagall stormed into his office.
"I told You Albus, They Are the worst sort of Muggles!" said Minerva her dark green robes swinging to a stop. "They are making little Harry Potter cook and clean, and live in a cupboard. He's only four! You must do something."
"And how, Minerva did you find that out?" said Albus, mentally changing gears, the Wizengamot paperwork would wait.
"I sat on the windowsill and watched. A cat may look a king, so an orphaned wizard is certainly within my remit" said Minerva frostily.
"I'll go and have words with the Dursleys" said Albus tiredly.
"No. They don't listen to you." said Minerva "Someone who can put the fear of god into them would do a better job!"
"Do you have someone in mind" asked Albus slowly.
"Yes" said Minerva "Alistor."
Albus Dumbledore thought about this for a moment "Alistor… is a very blunt man" said Albus.
"Sometimes a blunt instrument is what is required" replied Minerva, and she left.
Number four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. A perfectly ordinary house in a perfectly ordinary street.
The evening streetlights shine down on an old man in a dark suit and bowler with a briefcase and cane as he staggered along the footpath, a cane in one hand. Clonk Tap Clonk Tap Clonk Tap. The clonks happen when his right leg takes a step. The tap, his cane.
The man stopped outside number four, an expensive car in the driveway. He knocked on the door, his head lowered.
There was yell from inside and the door opened.
A fat reddish faced man who resembles nothing so much as a beached upright walrus stood in the doorway, in his shirtsleeves.
"Well what are you doing knocking on my door at night, Can't a man enjoy some peace after his dinner" said Vernon Dursley.
The old man put his right foot in the doorway and looked up. Half his nose is missing, his face is terribly scarred and where his left eye should be, there's a huge scar and a fake-looking glass eye.
"My Name is Alistor Moody, And I'm here to talk to you about Life Insurance" he growled.
"Well I don't need any more, so bugger off" said Vernon and went to shut the door, to have it hit Moody's foot with a clonk.
Vernon looked down at the foot.
"Artificial. I lost it working as a policeman" said Moody "Like my eye."
"Take your foot out of my doorway, you bounder" said Vernon, who'd always wanted to say that.
"I think you really want this life insurance. It's going to stop all sorts of bad things happening to you" said Moody.
"Like What" said Vernon.
"Like Me, for starters" said Moody grumpily.
"You can't threaten me, I'll call the police!" said Vernon.
"I used to be the police, and very, very senior" said Moody "Now let me in, before the boy in the cupboard gets a chill."
"You can't know about that" said Vernon, stepping backwards in shock.
Moody clonked in and shut the door behind him "I am well-informed."
"Petunia ! Contact those freaks!" said Vernon loudly.
"Freaks… I've dealt with freaks before" said Moody, and using his cane, poked Vernon in the stomach till he backed all the way into the sitting room, where Moody sat on the spare chair and opened the briefcase with twin clicks, ignoring Vernon's protests and Petunia's stares, like a giraffe with colic.
"Dudders, go hide in your room" said Petunia. A fat little boy scurried off.
"So. Here is a life insurance contact for Vernon Dursley and Petunia Dursley. You two sign on the bottom line, and as long as the Potter boy is well-fed and rested by the time he starts school at eleven, you two won't have any problems."
"Eleven" said Petunia going pale… "You're a..."
"Retired Policeman. Do you really thing us 'freaks' don't have our own police? The Potter Boy lost both his parents to the worst bastard to ever walk the earth, and was sent to live with his own family… and you treat him like dirt. Sign, or I'll see if I can still make it look like an accident" growled Moody.
Vernon snatched the paper and signed, shoving it into Petunia's hands nervously.
She signed, then started to read the document.
"This says… we'll give him room and board, and no more work to do than his cousin" said Petunia "We're not made of money" she complained.
"Nice car you've got here. Still, There's… here it is" said Moody, rummaging in the briefcase and handed Vernon a slip of brown paper.
"A Bank transfer form. A weekly stipend will be paid into the nominated bank account" said Moody "Fifty pounds a week should do you."
"Eighty" said Vernon instantly.
"Forty, and you get to stay human" said Moody bluntly.
-==0==-
For Harry's fifth birthday, an old man in a raincoat and bowler hat came to see him.
He had a glass eye and a cane.
He bent down to look at Harry, Uncle Vernon looked pale.
"My Name is Alastair Moody" said … Alastair Moody in a rough voice, a bit at odds with the suit he was wearing under his raincoat.. "I'm here to check on you. Dursley, leave the room."
Uncle Vernon left the sitting room quickly.
Mr Moody peered at Harry, looking like he was checking Harry over.
"You getting enough to eat boy?" asked Mr Moody.
Harry nodded nervously.
"And they're not hurting you?" asked Mr Moody, not really asking. Harry shook his head.
"They do that and the life insurance policy will punish them" said Mr Moody, and he chuckled.
Harry wondered how that could work. "They mostly ignore me" Harry offered.
"Well that's an improvement" said Mr Moody "I'll be back next year for your sixth birthday."
-==0==-
Harry Potter's first day at school (Chepworth Primary, Little Whinging) was interesting, Harry thought. He'd got new shoes, not trainers like Dudley, but they kept Harry's feet dry, so Harry didn't mind.
After being introduced to the classroom, Harry sat down and tried to blend in. It was the one thing Aunt Petunia always told him. "Try to blend in, don't attract attention, and eat all your lunch" she'd say, glaring at Dudley, who as a big boy, liked to 'borrow' lunch from Harry sometimes.
Harry remembered the cupboard under the stairs, but it had been years since he'd been given the third bedroom, the wonky desk, and uncomfortable bed. It was pretty brill, really, the third bedroom.
It had a lot of Dudley's broken stuff, and sometimes… in the dead of night Harry would hold a broken toy and wish really hard… and the toy would get fixed somehow. Harry never told anyone about that.
Pride of place on the window sill (and Harry had a window in the palace that was the third bedroom) were his toy soldiers. He'd had them in the cupboard, and they were his…. Dudley hadn't liked them. Or lost most of them and got bored of them.
His aunt mostly ignored him, and his uncle treated him like he had some sort of disease. It was a lot better than the old days, the days and nights of the cupboard.
Harry decided, as he walked home from school for the first time, that reading was interesting. There were words stuck in that paper somehow… and like his uncles' newspaper; they had stories.
Harry hoped that some of the stories would be more interesting than the stuff Uncle Vernon would talk about from the newspaper.
The book at school was about a dog called Spot, who seemed unlike Aunt Marge's Ripper, to be uninterested in biting Harry.
Aunt Marge, Harry mused as he approached Wisteria Walk, hadn't visited much in years. Uncle Vernon had practically pushed her out of the house with a bottle of port last Christmas. Harry'd got clothes… as usual and Dudley had got a neat beeping toy. Aunty Marge had started to call Harry names, when Uncle Vernon, who'd gone all white in the face had "helped" her to his car and taken her home. The voice in his head, the persistent high-pitched one Harry tried to ignore in the middle of the night, had said she deserved to be fed to her dogs.