Harry Potter Morgendorffer Part Ten
Daria is the creation of Glenn Eichler and is the property of MTV Viacom. Harry Potter is the creation of JK Rowling and is the property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers, as are its characters and situations. I don't own them, and neither expect nor deserve financial compensation for this story. I am writing for my own amusement and for ego gratification.
What if Minerva McGonagall had been able to persuade Professor McGonagall to place baby Harry Potter with different blood relatives instead of with Petunia Dursley and her husband: the Morgendorffers from MTV's Daria?
Rated "T" for language.
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There was little to do until Petunia Dursley returned. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall did regale them with stories about Lily and James Potter from their school days. Helen looked surreptitiously at Harry and hoped that the boy wouldn't take after his father. Jake had a moment of envy, thinking how James handled his boarding school days better than he handled Buxton Ridge Military academy. Still, there came a point when both Mr. Sanchez and Mrs. Powter pointedly looked at their watches.
"I wonder where the Dursley woman went off to?" asked Helen. She had a hard time thinking of Petunia Dursley as being any sort of blood kin of hers.
"I don't know," Mr. Sanchez replied. "But unless we find her, I think this is all we can do this evening."
Helen frowned. To say the least, her grand-niece had not made a good impression on her. She was rude, bigoted, and offensive. On the other hand, she was every bit as much a blood relative as Baby Harry. The thought of being related to the younger woman grated on her. She thought of some cousins she'd met when she was growing up in Virginia. Distant cousins, one of the cousins she'd liked had said of them, the more distant they were, the better she liked it.
Petunia was probably lost, since she hadn't come back yet. Serves her right, she thought. If she wasn't family, howbeit newly-discovered family, Helen would have been happy to let her walk the strange streets of Hyde Park and Austin alone.
"We'll have to go find her," she said. Everyone except the babies knew just who she meant.
"Allow me," said Professor Dumbledore. "I've got a locating spell."
-(((O-O)))-
Long before the American officials were thinking of calling it an evening, Petunia Dursley was coming to believe that she'd let her emotions get the better of her. She'd stormed out of the small one-story wooden house in a fury, only gradually calming down. Now she realized that she was lost in a strange neighborhood in a strange city where she didn't know anyone and she didn't have any money. She put her hands in the pockets of her skirt and was relieved to note that she was wrong about the latter. She had five pounds.
She started walking up and down the streets trying to see if she recognized any familiar landmarks. She didn't. Since the streets were laid out on some sort of grid pattern, she'd thought she'd soon regain her bearings but night was falling and she realized that she found the one street that came in at an odd angle. She followed It, thinking that it might take her back to the Morgendorffers' home but first found herself crossing a railway line and then a busy street improbably called Airport Boulevard. She knew that she hadn't crossed Airport Boulevard or any railway lines earlier, so she decided to turn around to trace her steps.
Her plan to cross the train tracks was stopped short by the sight of a flashing crossing signal and lowering crossing gates and the sounds of warning bells, air horns, and the loud rumble of an approaching train. She thought of ducking under the gates and risk a crossing, but the train was approaching too fast and she was not wearing flats. She watched as the engine and the string of goods wagons rumbled past and then faded away into the night.
She'd noticed a convenience store on the angled street and decided to try her luck there. Maybe she could make a telephone call or buy bottled water there. It could be a long night without it.
She walked to the convenience store and walked inside, noting the police car parked out front. She noticed a refrigerated section where various brands of bottled water were for sale and pulled out a bottle. She walked up to the front of the store and queued up behind a girl with purple and black dyed hair who wanted a pack of cigarettes. The man behind the counter, an Indian, Petunia noted with disapproval, rang up the girl and she walked off into the night.
Petunia placed the bottle of water and her five pound note on the counter.
"No," said the man behind the counter, whose name was Ramesh.
"No?" said Petunia.
"I cannot accept this," said the clerk. "I will not sell you the water."
"I want a bottle of water," said Petunia. "I've got money to pay for it. Why won't you sell it to me?"
"This is Austin, Texas, ma'am," said Ramesh from the other side of the counter. "British pounds are no good here. If you have any American money I will happily sell you something but your money is no good here."
Petunia glared at the store clerk. She didn't like being in a position of weakness and people who didn't know their place. She wanted to tell him off right then and there, but had noticed that there was a local copper in the back, a black-haired, dark-skinned copper with a name badge that read Vasquez. He looked like an Indian from a Hollywood film. Was he a Mexican or something? Whatever the case, he had a badge, a gun, and handcuffs, as well as a patch that said Austin Police Department.
The last thing Petunia Dursley wanted to do was to spend the night in a foreign jail. She didn't want to stay thirsty, either, but being thirsty was preferable to being arrested.
"Excuse me, ma'am," said a voice behind her.
She turned around and a grizzled older man with a white beard wearing an American-style ball cap, a tee shirt captioned WINNERS!, shorts, and sandals. He smelled of sweat, old beer, and cigarette smoke, much like that awful boy's father had back in Cokeworth. "I'll buy your water," he said.
He edged around her to place his six pack of beer next to the cash register. Petunia's nostrils twitched: the man needed a bath. "Ring this lady's bottle along with my stuff," he said.
Petunia didn't want to say thank you. She didn't want anything to do with him. She especially didn't want to go anywhere with him. But he had done her a good turn for his own, inexplicable reasons.
"Thank you," she said.
The drunkard gave her a smile and a nod, then lurched out the front door. Petunia waited until she saw what direction he went, not wanting to follow him, even by accident. She walked out the store's front door and looked around her. In despair she realized that she didn't recognize any landmarks that would take her back to where she'd first arrived in Austin. She didn't know where these Morgendorffers lived and it looked to be a long night.
An older-model Japanese-made sedan with Texas license plates pulled into one of the vacant spaces to the left of the patrol car, then stopped. Petunia turned to look at it and saw Minerva McGonagall seated in what was the driver's side-no, the Americans drove on the right like the French—glaring at her. McGonagall lowered her window and said "Get in, you goose."
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Author's note: This is not how I really wanted to write this scene. In the original version, Petunia would have annoyed Officer Sanchez enough that she would have been detained until back-up arrived. Then, as two more patrol cars and a film crew from the television series cops was rolling footage, Petunia would have been filmed while being arrested and put in the back of Officer Sanchez's police car. Petunia Dursley would then spend the night in the Travis County Jail in downtown Austin.
Alas, while I think I could have written the arrest scene well enough, I lacked the knowledge to write a detailed description of what would have happened as Petunia was taken downtown, booked, finger-printed, photographed, and then put into a jail cell with a couple of drunks and a street-walker.
I decided that I'd stick to my level of writing skills and make it easier for the Morgendorffers to locate their missing relative and get the papers signed, so I regretfully opted for Helen Morgendorffer and Minerva McGonagall tracking her down. Nevertheless, I still think this Petunia Dursley got off too easily.