Vernon Dursley was not a bad man.
There were dozens of things that people could claim him to be: rude, unobservant, and incredibly critical man. He thought of himself as a clever businessman, one whose ruthlessness was a necessity in the competitive industry of making drills. Directing his own branch of Grunnings' was grueling work, so who could blame him if his temper frayed a bit at times, or he stomped into the living room with a suspiciously full glass of brandy every now and then?
Vernon stared at the amber liquid gently swirling in his cup, desperately wishing it were some of his personal stash of whiskey. As it was, the tea had a sharp, sour note to it that he wasn't quite sure was fresh. His eyes roved over the mahogany table—imported all the way from Tanzania, according to his partner's extravagant retellings—and found a glistening wedge of sunshine glimmering innocently next to his teacup.
Lemon, then. He glanced up at his partner for tea on that particular day, refusing to let anything show on his face, especially the fact that he didn't like lemon in his tea.
His partner took a sip. The man contrasted sharply with the brightness of the tea set and the spotless autumn day. His suit almost gleamed even though it was a pitch black color. Vernon ruthlessly shoved down the twinge of inadequacy when his pudgy fingers stroked the sleeves of his own, well-worn jacket. He raised the teacup to his mouth once more, internally grimacing to rid himself of his straying thoughts.
"This is a truly lovely tea set, Mr. Wilkins," he said instead. "The color is exquisite. Is it china?"
"Namibia, actually, Mr. Dursley." They shared a chuckle, Vernon more out of a pained farce of amusement than anything else. 'Honestly, the jokes these youths are saying these days,' he grumbled internally. Still, it was always best to have the client smiling. A smiling client meant a better deal, and a better deal meant more for Grunnings to work with.
The mantra beaten into him by his old superior, before he'd taken over as Director of the London branch of Grunnings. It was likely he'd never forget it, even after his retirement was set and he could look forward to long summers on beaches in the Mediterranean.
"Really though, it is a fine set," Wilkins continued. "My grandmother owned it before me, and her grandmother before her. She used to thump my father over the head, yelling at him to 'get on with it and make a sweet little girl I can give all this old junk to'. She made do with me, as you might have guessed. Still, it is remarkable, to have a tea set last that long without any signs of damage."
"Please, Mr. Wilkins, Call me Vernon. Mr. Dursley was my father, and I've a long way to go before I reach his level of grey!"
They laughed again. This time, Vernon was able to completely quench the smattering of panic budding in his stomach. Wilkins straightened his tie, a green so bright it put his nephew's eyes to shame, and held out a hand. "Then you can call me Pierre."
The shake finally put his mind at ease. It was simple, he reflected, just a routine discussion about the nature of their agreement. Pierre, a budding director for the international branch of some American quarrying company, had simply stopped by for a quick visit. That was all. Nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever.
Now if only he could figure out why a niggling little sensation in the back of his head told him to look closer at the teacups.
"I'm glad we're getting to work together on this, Vernon," Pierre admitted. "Tulsa might be a fair distance away, but we've been looking through the records for Grunnings, and we think it might have just the kind of deal we need to make our drilling operation work."
"Let's get down to dealing, then, shall we?" Vernon asked. Pierre nodded, and with that, the two of them settled back into a business stance. The tea sat silently, growing colder and colder as Vernon and Pierre talked through contract stipulations, nuances in signing, and which types of drills would be best for which operations.
"Spiral-point, you see, is best for simply boring into stone," he explained to Pierre, who nodded agreeably. "Our newer model, the three-point, is best at crushing it and spitting it out as gravel. I don't know how much of this quarry you want to mine as blocked stone, but you'd make a fair profit off the side from selling the gravel to manufacturers."
"And how much extra would it be?" Pierre asked good-naturedly.
Vernon laughed. "We've actually got a new shipment in from our manufacturers in India. They made a mistake and built a half-dozen three-point instead of the spiral point we were promised, so they've given them to us at a reduced rate." He leaned in closer, prompting Pierre to do the same with a hand. He glanced down and noticed the honey-brown tea shifting slightly from his extra weight on the table. "I don't do this often—if I did, my superiors would mutiny, not to mention the flak I'd receive from the factory staff—but since we got the three-points for so cheap, I'm willing to cut down the prices on them by a little bit. Say, three thousand pounds more than a spiral-point?"
"How much would they normally cost?" Pierre queried. "If it's only a thousand pounds or so, there's no need to drop the price, Vernon. We may not be the most profitable business on the planet, but we have more than enough money to pay the full price."
"The full price would be ten thousand more than a spiral-point," Vernon said with a bit of a dramatic grimace. It had the intended effect; Pierre's eyes widened, and his gentle smile became a bit more genuine. The lingering heat of the tea, combined with the logistics of their deal, made Vernon feel warmer.
"Then I'd happily agree to work with your generous offer." Pierre nodded and gestured to the tea set. "More tea?" The wider shoulders on his suit jacket almost flopped in response, and Vernon had to fight down a snort. Pierre was clearly a lean man, though whether it was because of stress, a lack of eating, or simply exercise he wasn't sure. The big suits that implied power simply didn't fit his frame right.
Not like his own suit, which—while worn and beginning to fade—fit his broad shoulders and paunch perfectly.
"Please," he said, just as the front door clicked open. 'Must be Petunia,' he thought brightly. "Petunia, dear? Are you back from the Polkiss' house already?"
"Yes, and Amberlain gave me a wonderful bunch of geraniums to put in the gardens!" Petunia called back. Really, whenever the boy wasn't around and she wasn't shouting, her voice was practically dulcet. He smiled a little more, this time barely catching it.
"Why don't you come into the sitting room and meet Pierre first, dear? He's come from America to do business with Grunnings, and we've just settled on a deal."
"A deal is only in my case, Vernon," Pierre exclaimed. Petunia turned the corner at the same moment. Her baby-blue cardigan seemed a bit strange, as he'd only known her to wear dark blues, but then again, it matched the beautiful sky outside. "Actually, it's less of a deal and more of a steal. Are you sure you wouldn't want us to pay more? Even half of the ten thousand would be enough for us to pay."
"Nonsense," Vernon chided. "We're still making an enormous profit off your spiral-point requests as it is. I'd feel bad to simply drain more money from your accounts." He didn't feel that bad about it, especially since he would convince the treasurer to later deposit a small portion of the proceeds into his own accounts, but Pierre didn't need to know that.
"So this is your mysterious business partner," Petunia said. "I'm Petunia Dursley, sir. I hope you're having a good time in our home?"
"Pierre Wilkins, and it's been a pleasure," Pierre answered. "I hope you don't mind, but I brought my own tea set for this occasion. My apologies, it's just that I don't often get a chance to show it off in America, and it was my great-great-grandmother's."
Petunia flushed an interesting shade of red, though Vernon didn't mind so much as he sipped the tea in his cup. Again, he'd have preferred the bitter sting of whiskey, but whatever mellow tea Pierre had brought with him suffused another sliver of warmth inside him. 'This tea is actually nice,' Vernon thought. It almost surprised him; he'd never been much of a tea person, always preferring coffee when the choice was given. It had been a running joke amongst his side of the family that there would never be a type of tea that Vernon Dursley liked.
"Now that the logistics are out of the way," Pierre began, almost hesitantly, "do you mind if I got a tour of your house? It looks absolutely lovely."
"We'd be delighted," Petunia declared, so quickly that Vernon had to click his mouth shut. "Vernon, do you mind going into Dudley's room and tidying his floor up a bit. We can't have the house looking alike a mess."
"Dudley—your son?" Vernon nodded jovially. Now Dudley, there was a model boy. Big and strong, with a wit that only needed a little digging and a healthy appetite for adventure. Not the fastest boy in Surrey, true, nor was he the brightest, but he was smart enough to pass through with decent grades, and he stuck on the national boxing matches like it was going out of style.
"If that's the case, don't worry yourself too much, Vernon. It's only natural for young boys to make a bit of a mess every now and then."
Vernon simply nodded and stood, gesturing for Pierre to follow. The next hour was spent in animated conversation about Vernon's house. He pointed to one particular bathroom, recalling the time he'd gotten in a street fight with a mugger. "It was before I'd been married to Petunia, back when I'd still been an assistant at the Grunnings main office," he said. "I ended up fighting the man off, but this was where I had to wash and disinfect a knife wound to the shoulder."
It wasn't the first time Pierre had gasped in that house, either. Vernon moved through the house efficiently, explaining just what important event had happened in which room, Dudley's second bedroom was left well alone, mostly because Dudley had gotten into the habit of keeping everything, even the stuff that had already been broken.
Not many people knew it, but Vernon Dursley was a man of adventure. At the tender age of fourteen, back when he was still whip-thin and lean enough to stick to kickboxing, he'd gone out on his own for a whole two years. His parents begged and pleaded, and he'd even had to dodge the police on a few occasions, but it had been some of the best years of his life. He relayed each and every little tale he had to offer to Pierre, who smiled, sucked in breath, and cheered at just the right times.
Finally, they returned to the main floor, where Pierre glanced at the boy's cupboard. "You still haven't explained what this part of the house is," he said casually. "Does it lead to a basement of some sort?"
It did, but the stairs were hidden behind a wall that had been blocked by a spare, empty bookshelf. Nothing and nobody was down there, and the boy was far too small to move the bookshelf by himself. He told Pierre as much. When he expected an excited, adventurous gleam, however, a spark of confusion made itself known in Pierre's eyes.
"What do you mean by boy?" he asked. Vernon's mouth clicked shut halfway to an answer. That wasn't meant to slip out. "Is there another child that lives here? Please Vernon, understand that I'm not like some people. I don't really mind if you've adopted a son or not, not like some of the others in my division."
"What?" Vernon asked, befuddled. "No, it's nothing like that. Well, I suppose he is adopted. We took him in, you see, after his parents died. Driving drunk, the fools. He's Petunia's cousin, so we try to provide, but he's a bit… well, he can be unruly at the best of times. Gets into trouble a lot at school. We've been looking into schools in the area for when he finishes primary school."
"I see." Pierre's face turned contemplative, though Vernon couldn't help but worry he was thinking about something else. It wasn't like the boy didn't deserve his lot in life, after all. He was one of the freaks, living in a place for normal people like himself and his wife. Whatever devil-worship magic that he and his ilk practiced was none of their concern. If only that strange old man hadn't popped up on his doorstep one day, claiming that there was nothing the weirdos could do and that he'd have to take the boy in.
"Excuse me?" Now Pierre looked stunned, even slightly horrified, and Vernon blanched as he realized he'd been blabbering on the entire time. "Vernon, please tell me you're joking."
Vernon blustered out a denial, then turned to Petunia. Except she wasn't there. Where she'd been only moments before was a blank slate of air. Vernon turned to Pierre, begging for some semblance of normality to return to the conversation, but Pierre's face had begun to twist and shift, changing from the handsome, flat-cheeked young man to a considerably older and greyer woman with a drooping face.
"I think we have enough evidence to damn him," a new voice called. Vernon glanced around, his hand on the cupboard door. "Even without the veritaserum, his mannerisms towards Potter is more than enough to charge with neglect."
"Why stop there?" a second voice said, brash, cold. "We should put him down with abuse instead of neglect. He porbably hits the Boy-Who-Lived. Raising a hand to Harry Potter? Preposterous."
"That's a bit surprising, coming from you," said the not-Pierre. "Honestly with how much you rant about the Boy-Who-Lived, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd want to take him as your wife! You hit your own kid sometimes, Doge, and don't you go denying it. I see the welts on his face when he does something stupid."
"that's his own fault, not mine!" the voice named Doge roared. "I've never raised a hand to the boy in my life. he always ends up getting himself hurt."
The house began to melt and flicker, a combination of static and liquid that knocked the air from Vernon's lungs. He gasped out a pained breath when his beloved kitchen vanished, replaced with a grey-shale floor and a single wooden chair. Vernon yelped.
"I think," a new voice said, cool and calm, "that we should save this discussion for a later date. On that note, Elphias, you and I will be having words when we're done with this meeting."
Vernon knew that voice. Apparently the others did as well, judging by the instant silence that accompanied it. More of the house melted, revealing glistening chandeliers suspended from nothing hundreds of feet in the air. A soft, warm glow suffused the entire room, from the grey floor to the old, worn chair to the massive stands that rose up in a circle around the room. He was there, standing at the highest podium in the room, staring down at Vernon with a hidden fury blazing in his bright blue eyes.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. That was the man's name, so long and so odd that there was no chance Vernon would ever forget it. The man who had dumped Harry Potter on his doorstep seven years back.
"You," Vernon hissed. "You, you bastard man. How dare you—"
"Petrificus Totalus!" The words whipped out of Dumbledore's voice like a glacier cracking in half. Vernon immediately felt his body lock up, and no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much his body was telling him that it was flailing, that it was fighting against the invisible restraints, not a muscle budged. Vernon's eyes widened, about the only thing they could do. He'd seen these freaks do magic before, and they always, without fail, required one of their bloody sticks.
Dumbledore had done so with nothing but the angry slash of a hand.
"You will be quiet while we determine your sentence, Vernon Dursley," Dumbledore growled. "The only reason you're still alive right now is because we require a trial. You're lucky we don't Obliviate you of everything except your motor skills."
"Dumbledore, calm yourself," the original female voice implored. Vernon's eyes shifted to the right. There, in the corner of his vision, he saw an exceptionally pretty young woman, probably only twenty-five or so. "You may be the Chief Warlock, but we all have a say, and we all must retain our professional stance. That goes for the rest of you as well."
"Yes, Minister," was the murmured assent from the other freaks on their podiums. Vernon couldn't count just how many there were, not with his body bound by some abnormal spell, but he could see the first two dozen staring at him with varying stages of rage. There was the man called Doge, whose face was red, slowly purpling, almost fiery in complexion. There was the woman, beautiful and cold, sharp as a blade and unafraid to bare her edge against his neck.
Then there was Dumbledore. Dumbledore, whose fire burned so brightly, so incandescent, that it hazed the air around his body and flared brightly every time Vernon dared to breathe.
"Vernon Dursley, you were apprehended on the night of 14 November, 1988, following the Minister For Magic's supposed encounter with Harry Potter. The encounter was later determined to be a false alarm, but doubts were still raised on your capability of caring for the Boy-Who-Lived. After determining the imprints on your home and the actions and words you have taken towards your charge, we, the witches and wizards of the Wizengamot, hereby charge you with neglect of a minor, punishable by Obliviation, false memory implantation, and ten years inside a medium-security Muggle prison."
Was there no plea for innocence or guilt? Vernon stared helplessly as the evidence against him was discussed fervently, most loudly by Elphias Doge and the people to his left. One particularly disgusting woman with a face like a toad stared disdainfully down at him. Had she not looked like she was nearing eighty, and Vernon had his hands free, he probably would have used what remained of his kickboxing training and sunk a clear jab straight into her face. As it was, he matched her stink eye glare for glare.
Ten minutes passed, then twenty. That soon tripled into an hour, and Vernon eventually began to wonder if he would be bound the entire time. Finally, though, the muttering dwindled to silence, and Dumbledore stood once more.
Vernon Dursley, the Wizengamot has discussed your case and found its verdict. Do you have anything to add before you are judged?"
The binding lifted as suddenly as it was cast, and Vernon stood shakily. His knees prickled and his elbows cracked with tightness, but however agonizing it was to start moving after so long, relief completely drowned everything out. "I am not a bad man," Vernon began, staring at Dumbledore blankly. "I did what I did because that was his lot in life. He should have been placed with you lot, not us."
"Be that as it may," Dumbledore said, "Harry Potter is now missing, you know nothing about where he is, and thanks to you we must spend an exorbitant amount of time and money searching for a boy that should have been your responsibility."
"He should have been yours!" Vernon roared. "He doesn't belong with our sort, with the normal sort! Freaks like you should stick together and leave us in peace."
Dumbledore's brow furrowed, and for a moment utter silence descended across the chamber. Then, with weariness apparent on his brow and a righteous fury burning in his eyes, Dumbledore brought down a gavel. "So be it. Vernon Dursley, you have been found unanimously guilty of your crimes. Obliviators, please step forward."
Vernon watched two men in dark robes approach him. His limbs froze up, then loosened again. They hadn't put the weird bindings back on him.
'They'll regret that,' he thought savagely.
The moment the first of the two came within arm's length he struck, throwing out a textbook jab. It might have been many years since he'd been into kickboxing, and he certainly hadn't gone near a gym of nearly half a decade, but there was still some vestigial muscle left on his figure. Cartilage broke under his nose, followed by a cracked yelp. He pivoted on the balls of his feet and clapped the second man where he thought his ear might be. It obviously worked; both men screeched in pain and fell to the ground, clutching their faces.
"Lower your wands!" he heard Dumbledore call, but he was already moving. Vernon bounced out of the room as quickly as he could manage, which, while not quite as fast as a normal person, was still fueled by panic and adrenaline. A man yelped in alarm as he bustled away, but nobody moved to follow him.
Door after door raced by, and closer and closer came the shouts of anger and distress. He moved through rooms filled with cloaked people, rooms that bubbled his stomach with a warmth he'd rarely experienced, rooms with so many doors that he moved to take the first one in his path instead of the many brightly-marked knobs, and one particular room where his legs slowed to molasses. Nearly ten minutes passed in that room before he made it through the other side. Luckily, the two people that had taken that path—Dumbledore and the pretty freak—seemed similarly slowed, and any spells they tried to cast had barely left their sticks before he slammed the door in their faces.
Reality abruptly reasserted itself as he nearly tumbled down a series of stone steps. An amphitheatre spread out before him, all uniform grey stone the same shade as the hearing chamber. The only outstanding feature in the long, round room was a single archway, standing in the middle, a wispy, silvery cloth stretched over its surface.
Vernon stumbled towards it, looking for any possible exits. There were none; the only door was the one that had taken him through the slow room, and that was beginning to open even as he launched himself across the amphitheatre. The burning in his chest only compounded the freezing chill that emanated from the arch, numbing his fingers and sending spikes of discomfort through his toes.
"Vernon Dursley, step away from the Veil," a new voice said. Vernon glanced up at the figure sitting on a step halfway up the amphitheatre. Silver instruments and notebooks surrounded him, though Vernon couldn't tell for the life of him what they did. "Obliviation is much more enjoyable than unexistence."
"What do you mean by that?" Vernon demanded. No ruddy wizard was going to tell him what he could and couldn't touch, no matter how cold the damn arch was!
The man—he could only tell it was a man by the broadness of his shoulders and the patch of facial hair on his barely-exposed chin—smiled languidly. "The Veil is not something we understand. Things disappear when we put them in, and they don't come out. Ever. Trust me when I say that Obliviation is much more preferable to whatever fate the Veil brings you."
Vernon ignored the man and stomped closer to the Veil. The silvery cloth was familiar, almost nostalgic. He remembered seeing a cloth like that once or twice, when the freak James Potter was alive. He'd carried some silvery cloak everywhere he went, even though he'd never put the thing on. He grabbed for it, allowing the almost-liquid cloth to solidify and tighten around his fingers.
The man stood up, his own cloak flashing a faint, golden color. "Dursley, don't you dare—"
But it was too late. Vernon had already whipped the cloth off of the archway. Wisps of fog emanated from within, and though it was clearly visible, he couldn't see the other side through the mist. He backed away, even as the gentle weight of the cloth settled on his shoulders.
The maan blinked just as Dumbledore and the young woman entered the room. "Croaker, what a surprise!" Dumbledore said jovially. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm doing my job, Albus," the man named Croaker said, a lilt of confusion in his voice. "The Veil isn't going to study itself, and Death isn't like Love or Time—it can't be observed quite so directly. Now, what brings you to the Chamber? As far as I'm aware, not even you have clearance to enter this deep." More lowly, Vernon thought he heard Croaker mutter, "Not that it hasn't stopped you before."
Dumbledore began to speak, but a flicker of blankess spread over his face for a moment. "I… I am not quite sure myself," he admitted. "I have the strangest feeling that I was doing something of paramount importance, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Perhaps I really am getting old."
"Well, whatever it is, don't you go disturbing my work," Croaker muttered. Vernon blinked and stepped closer to the man. He hadn't glanced in Vernon's direction once, not since Dumbledore and the woman had entered the room. Was he simply playing along, or were they trying to catch him off guard?
He hesitantly snapped his fingers in Croaker's face, ready to leap back and deliver a wild haymaker if need be. He wasn't rewarded with even a glance. Dumbledore and the woman simply chatted with the man for a few more minutes, then left, ambling quietly through the slow room much more quickly than they'd come.
"What in the bloody hell?" Vernon asked softly. He didn't dare remove the cloth from his shoulders, just in case he needed to throw it out in Croaker's face. Eventually though, even he left, leaving Vernon alone. He was about to follow Croaker through the door to the slow room when it sealed shut, becoming nothing but a smooth expanse of wall.
So Vernon sat, billowing folds of silken cloth wrapped around his pudgy form, and watched the Veil with a discerning eye. Surely it would only be a little longer until Croaker came back, and then he'd slip back to his home and everything would go back to normal.
"That whole trial was a farce," he muttered. "Honestly, bloody wizards thinking they can try me for anything? Abandoning one of their own folk to good, well-brought people, how shameful." Still, he didn't blame himself. After all, it wasn't his fault that Dumbledore had dumped the Potter boy on his doorstep one night. He'd even givent he boy clothes and food and a place to sleep; much better than what Potter would have gotten on the streets.
Because Vernon Dursley was giving, to a point. Vernon Dursley was not a bad man.