A Very Dursley Housewarming

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)

Assignment #4

Vernon and Petunia Dursley hurriedly moved the tens of boxes from car and into the tiny cottage on the edge of a lake. The wizards they were accompanied by were levitating other boxes from the car into the cottage and after five minutes, the eighty boxes that had been impossibly stuffed into the trunk of the Dursley's car were waiting for their owners to unpack them in the living room.

'Right, well Hestia and I've got a small cottage just over there,' the sprightly salt and pepper haired man pointed to the smaller cottage a good fifty metres away from their front door. 'We'll be around if you need us but otherwise we'll leave you be.'

The man tipped his hat at the trio, while Hestia nodded and they walked off to the cottage chatting to one another quietly. Petunia surveyed the outside of the house and was less than impressed by the vines creeping along its sides or the overgrown shrubs underneath the front windows. Vernon mumbled quietly to himself about the audacity of the Ministry of Magic for sending them out here and expecting them to be grateful before he stopped at the edge of the lake.

Petunia walked meekly out towards her husband and took his hand in hers. Both of them stared out at the darkening lake in front of them, and she knew that he was thinking of their home too. For almost twenty years they had made number four Privet Drive their home, and in a matter of hours they were in the middle of nowhere with a witch and wizard for neighbours.

Their life, with its routine familiarity, had been turned upside down because of the same boy who had changed their life sixteen years ago when she found him wrapped in a blue wool blanket that their mother made for Lily before she left for Hogwarts.

Leaving Vernon to his thoughts, Petunia surveyed their new home. It was nothing like their previous home, in fact the only thing that this cottage and number four had in common was that they were both, in one way or another, houses. Clad in stone and dark wood, it looked more like a hunting lodge than a home for a family. Satisfied that at least it would shield them from the elements, Petunia beckoned Dudley to her and together they unpacked their belongings and slowly but surely their new home felt more like Privet Drive.

The entire time neither of them spoke, until Dudley whispered into the silence, 'Mum, who are these people?'

In his hand was a small golden locket that had been given to her by her mum on her eighteenth birthday. Four faces smiled out at her, and waved at the person taking the picture. It had been years since she'd worn it, when she thought about it, she had only worn it the night she'd received the necklace to be kind to her mother.

The four people in the photo were in front of a brick house that looked a bit like something from Privet Drive. A tall man and a woman who was a head shorter than him were standing next to each other, his arm around her shoulders. Next to them were two small girls in frilly dresses. Petunia's heart ached at the sight of her parents and sister.

She remembered the day the photo was taken. They had just won the auction for the house behind them and all four of them were looking forward to moving into their new house. She and Lily had already picked their rooms and were imagining endless days in their very own house; their mother had yelled at them to come downstairs for a quick photo. It was the last one that they'd taken as a family before her father's untimely death three weeks later from an accident at the canning factory he worked at.

'Mum?'

Hastily wiping a stray tear away with the back of her hand, Petunia straightened her blouse and smiled at Dudley.

'Come on Dudders, we can't have the house looking like this if we want to have visitors over!' Dudley comfortingly held her hand for a moment before he smiled and resumed unpacking the boxes.

Petunia closed the gold locket and clasped the chain around her thin neck. Straightening her back and tying her apron on, Petunia dusted the house clean and wiped the windows while Dudley swept and mopped the floor. She hummed a song that her mother liked to call her cleaning song and remembered Saturday mornings when she and Lily would clean the house from top to bottom before they could head outside to play.

Hours after the sun had set beneath the lake outside, Petunia sat in front of the fire silently staring in opposite directions. There was a small television in the corner but only a scratching sound and a grey screen would show up. Vernon, meanwhile, had grunted at them and trudged upstairs sullenly without a word to his wife and son. Dudley was hunched over a small wireless radio, twiddling with the dials and huffing when the signal would disappear and the crackling resumed.

Every box had been unpacked and every surface clean. They'd had to make some concessions and a vanity table, a few chairs, and an armchair were propped outside. On the mantel were photos of Dudley, her, and Vernon. Not a single trace of the black haired boy could be found anywhere and it was almost as if he had never existed, save for a small wooden soldier that Dudley had placed on his bedside table upstairs. She knew that he'd nicked it from the cupboard under the stairs before leaving.

'Will we ever go home?' the question was such a childish one, but she'd been asking herself that question for hours too.

'I don't know Duddy, this is our home now.'

The boy glanced at the little cottage around him. They had furnished it the same way they had Privet Drive, however the stone and wood walls were staying. They hadn't brought any paint and she seriously doubted the witch and wizard would let them head to the nearest department store.

'Alright then.'

Dudley sat next to her and smiled, slinging his fat arm around her shoulder and leaning his head on her shoulder. Since the dementor attack two years ago, Dudley's personality had changed and she had never appreciated it more than she did now.

With owls hooting quietly outside, the quiet sound of Vernon's snoring upstairs, and with Dudley next to her and a mantel full of family pictures, Petunia felt at home in their cottage by the lake. She would be quite content to stay in this little paradise for as long as they needed to.

Wizarding Geography, Task 3

Write about moving into a new house