Chapter 4: Parent Teacher Conferences

Meanwhile Miss Anderson stood at the back of the room making sure everything was in order for parent teacher conferences. She was most eager to meet her students' parents. As a first time teacher she wasn't certain what to expect, but she felt very excited and slightly nervous at the thought of meeting everyone. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. She opened it smiling. The first parents in were Veronica's. She took great pleasure in telling them that Veronica had won the spelling bee and what a great student she was. They smiled a lot and said that they were very proud of her. Most of the conferences went like that. The parents were pleasant, nice, and very polite. In the rare cases when Miss Anderson had to tell parents that their child wasn't doing as well as she thought that they could, specifically in the case of Piers, Malcolm, Gordon, and Dennis, their parents shook their heads sadly and confided in her that they agreed and just didn't know what to do about it. As the night rounded to a close Miss Anderson realized that she only had one conference left on her list. She had not met with Mr. and Mrs. Dursley yet. She straightened out her skirt, grabbed Dudley's file, and took a deep breath. Dudley was, by far, the most apathetic student in her class. She was hoping that by meeting with his parents they could find a way to motivate him to work harder. She heard a knock at the door and welcomed in the Dursleys.

"Hello," said Miss Anderson smiling, "I'm Elisabeth Anderson. You must be Dudley's parents." She shook hands with both of them. They introduced themselves as Vernon and Petunia. She smiled again.

"It's very nice to meet you both. Please have a seat." They all sat down and she took a deep breath again. Right off the bat she just didn't like them very much. Vernon was a large boring man with a very thick mustache and she couldn't help but think about how much it looked like a large caterpillar resting on his upper lip. His wife was thin and blonde and mostly let her husband do the talking. They made small talk for a few minutes before Petunia asked,

"Isn't Dudley just wonderful?" Miss Anderson paused for a moment trying to think of a way to answer tactfully.

"He's very…interesting." Was what she ended up with and it sounded lame even to her, so she added, "He seems to be very popular." Petunia beamed and Vernon smiled.

"That's my boy," he said proudly.

"There is one problem though with Dudley that I'm sure we can resolve," Miss Anderson started to say but Petunia interrupted her.

"Problem? How could there be a problem, you just said he was popular."

"Oh he is Mrs. Dursley. The problem is not with his friends but his school work. To be perfectly frank he has a terrible work ethic and no respect for my authority or classroom rules. He doesn't work hard, he's very apathetic, he doesn't study, he doesn't do his homework, and he refuses to participate in class." Vernon scoffed.

"Does he get good grades?" he asked.

"Well," she hesitated, "He's passing, if that's what you meant."

"Well then I don't see a problem!" Vernon boomed. "If he's passing then why even bring it up? I know Dudley's not the sharpest drill bit in the box but that's no reason to make him sound like such a disgrace. I don't see this as a problem." Miss Anderson was slightly appalled by his response. She thought that Dudley's behavior was something that needed to be dealt with. Petunia cut in.

"Look Eliza,"

"Elisabeth," Miss Anderson corrected.

"Oh Elisabeth, having friends and fitting in is more important than having good grades. I'm sure my Duddykins is trying as hard as he can. If that's not good enough for you then I think you need to get off your high horse and just accept him the way he is." She pursed her lips and sat back. Vernon smiled at her.

"Right you are my love. I couldn't have said it better myself." Miss Anderson stared at the two of them for a moment and then said,

"Well, if that's how you feel then I guess we're done here." She stood up to shake their hands and they stood up too. As they were about to leave Petunia stopped.

"What about the other one?" She asked.

"Excuse me?" Miss Anderson had no idea who she was talking about.

"The other boy, you know, Harry."

"Harry? He's not your son," she started to say but Vernon cut her off.

"He's our nephew." He looked disgusted, as if he wished that weren't the case. A light bulb clicked in Miss Anderson's brain. She did remember reading that in his file.

"I'm sorry Mr. and Mrs. Dursley but I'm not allowed to discuss people's children with anyone but a parent or legal guardian." They both looked at her like she was stupid which, in retrospect; Miss Anderson felt she really must have looked.

"We are his legal guardians," Vernon countered. She glanced down at Harry's file and saw, to her astonishment, that they were right. Now feeling extraordinarily embarrassed she tried to regain some of her composure.

"I'm so sorry I didn't remember that. Please have a seat again and we'll talk about Harry." Rather resignedly the Dursley's sat down again.

"Let me start by saying that Harry is a wonderful boy." She stopped because they were both giving her such hateful glares.

"Is something the matter?" She asked, starting to feel frightened. Vernon's fat finger pointed right at her.

"Let's get one thing straight missy," he threatened. "There is nothing, I repeat nothing, wonderful about the boy. He is an ungrateful, messy, freaky, leech of a human being who doesn't deserve to stay under our roof. I don't want to hear you say anything good about him when you had nothing good to say about my son. You got that?"

Miss Anderson was frightened by him, but more than that she was shocked. She was absolutely appalled that anyone would say something like that, out loud; to someone they had never met, about their own nephew. All the same she had wanted to say something about Harry to his parents and she wasn't going to let a bully like Vernon Dursley stop her.

"Well I'm worried about him. He's very quiet. It worries me because he seems very intimidated by the other children and he doesn't seem to have any friends. Specifically I think your son and his gang frighten him the most. Maybe you could talk to Dudley about including him more in," But she stopped because Vernon had stood up and his face was getting redder by the second.

"If my son and his friends frighten the boy then I say good, let them! I don't ever want to hear of you telling my son that he needs to include Harry in anything or of Harry tattling to you that he's lonely! I don't care about the boy, I don't care about his happiness, and I don't care about how many friends he's got! I say if he's that miserable he should go somewhere else and leave the rest of us in peace!" And with that he stormed out. His wife muttered something incomprehensible that might have been an apology and followed him out the door. Miss Anderson stood rooted to the spot, absolutely horrified. She couldn't imagine living under the roof of such a tyrant and decided she would be even nicer to Harry in the future. As he got a hold of herself again and picked up her papers, she wondered what on earth could have happened to Harry's parents.