Harry was eight years old, and he and Dudley were currently running the booming underground black market at school. Being eight, Harry didn't realise that an underground market didn't literally need to be underground and had transformed an abandoned air raid shelter into a rather morbid store. The walls of the shelter had been boring metal before Harry had spruced them up with intricate carvings of snakes. Since Harry had recently read a book on snake carvings around the world, the walls were decorated with an odd mix of Aztec, Indian, and Norse art. On some of the walls were shelves with long-life foods that Dudley insisted they keep in case emergency snacks were needed. Harry had thought very hard about how he wanted the store to only be visible to those who would buy from him, and as a result, no teachers knew of its existence. Going one step further, he thought it would be cool to have a secret phrase. Bob decided on a new one every month and enjoyed being part of the business. He only gave the secret phrase to people he liked, which led to a lot more children trying to be nice to Harry and Bob.
Dudley's job was to guard the door against those without the secret phrase, and to aid in product creation. "I think it would be cool if we had real walkie talkies for cops and robbers. Jack has a set, but he's not allowed to bring them to school."
Harry looked up from where he was drawing Jörmungandr. "How would we make ours special though?"
"Uhhhh…What about if it only fucking works if you're friends with Bob?"
Dudley had recently been adding English swears into his Parseltongue to make up for the swears that Parseltongue lacked. Bob loved it.
"Oh, that sounds cool. Bob will have to keep a list of people who he's friends with."
This led to Harry and Dudley teaching Bob to write with his tail so he could keep track of his friends. Sitting on one of the shelves, in-between cans of beans and corn, was a black and white composition book now titled 'Friends of Bob' in very stretched out English. They all agreed that there should be a written version of Parseltongue but figuring out how to do that was a bit difficult. Dudley and Harry, who had the most experience with reading and writing, had decided that going about it phonetically was the best way. Unfortunately, English letters were difficult to write with a tail, so they set about a way to make it easier and more fluid. The final 'Parselscript' result, while basically just squiggles of different heights, was actually quite pretty and looked very professional.
Although a lot of the things on the black market were toys and things for playground games, such as Barbies with hair that actually grew, real Centurion armour, or stuffed animals that made real animal sounds. Some of the older kids wanted different things though. A few Year 8s had become Friends of Bob and had requested devices to help you remember things for exams, pencils to help you spell better, and some of the single malt scotch that Harry had become very good at creating.
"You should make the memory items out of these." Bob nudged some pink butterfly barrettes.
"Cool. I'll make some snake hair clips for me and Dudley as well."
"Can I have one?
"Bob, you don't have hair."
"You can just stick it on."
"…Okay."
Bob stared at himself in the reflective metal wall of the shelter. "Majestic."
Mrs Thompson looked out at the children on the playground. Parents had become much more daring with what they allowed the children to bring to school lately. Many of the older boys had been sporting pink hair clips throughout the day, something they were saying was 'punk' and 'nonconformist'. Some of the children had brought very realistic sharp swords for pirate day a few weeks ago. Just yesterday, she could have sworn she saw Billy K. wearing actual chainmail on the playground.
Parents these days…
Harry didn't always have control over his powers – especially when he was very excited or very scared. One night, he made the mistake of watching the Gremlins movie, and, unbeknownst to him, accidentally covered Number Four with exceptionally strong and specific protective wards that could summon a microwave around anything Harry determined to be Gremlin-like.
He only realised this at Christmas when Dudley was presented with a stuffed toy which could talk and move its eyes. This was uncanny enough that Harry let out a high scream and a large microwave was immediately conjured around the toy. The rest of the Dursleys then joined in screaming as the toy caught on fire, still moving and speaking inside the microwave as it melted.
With wide eyes, Dudley turned to Harry. "That looked like the end of Terminator!"
Clutching her chest, Petunia gasped. "When did you watch that?!"
It was a testament to the frequency of Harry's magic that the microwave incident was immediately forgotten for the horror of watching age-inappropriate films.
Thanks to Harry, Dudley now had quite a collection of spy equipment, including:
-a watch he could speak into and transmit to an earpiece Harry had
-a set of lockpicks that Harry had made out of twigs and sap that could somehow unlock computers as well as doors
-dress shoes with spikes that popped out of the top when you clicked the heels together
-a piece of paper which you could only write Parselscript on
-a regular martini shaker that he had bought at a car boot sale and kept soup in
-and a gun which Harry had grudgingly made out of an old tin can after Dudley thoroughly explained how much James Bond he had watched and how his knowledge of gun safety was much better now