AN: None of the characters - not even Mr. Smith, sadly - are mine. Mr. Smith was not actually supposed to be anywhere near Privet Drive, but he decided he liked it and refused to leave. Either that or my concept of suburban Britain had become hopelessly inseparable from the Dursleys. And, before I change the category to crossover - can anyone guess who Mr. Smith is?

Now published with good spelling.

Time on Privet Drive

By Antigone's Sister

Prologue: The Beginning

The occupants of number 4, Privet Drive were proud to say they were very normal, thank you very much.

They lived in a perfectly normal neighbourhood, their son went to a perfectly normal school, in a perfectly normal bus, on which Petunia sent him off every day with the other perfectly normal mothers of the neighbourhood. And Mr. Smith.

Mr Smith, of number 8, Privet Drive, was not normal. In the Dursleys' opinion, he was even less normal than Mrs. Dursley's sister's son, who lived in the cupboard under their stairs, and who was...well. You know. Not really - normal.

For his part, Mr. Smith might have been forgiven for putting his son on the bus himself, since no one had ever seen his wife, and local gossip, which always favours a mysterious, handsome, and available stranger, though that she had probably died. Most likely of a long and tragically lingering illness, or else of a sudden and unexpected accident that had broken Mr. Smith's heart, and had forced him to move himself and his son far away from any tragic and painful reminders.

Mr. Smith certainly looked like someone recently widowed often enough. Mrs. Number 9 had sworn she saw him staring up at the sky one day with an expression of enormous pathos, which had cried out for catharsis, hopefully in the form of a dashing adventure that had hubris involved at some point – Mrs. Number 9 was taking a course in Greek literature, and felt it raised her standing in the world not a little – and Mrs Number 14 said that he'd looked at her just like that when she went to bring him a lovely meatball casserole as a housewarming present.

Sometimes, however, Mr. Smith completely failed to behave like a properly mourning widower. He'd run out of the house at full tilt to grab his son of the bus, and proceed to swing him around like a complete loon before taking him out for a banana sundae, or a trip to the movies, or even, on one memorable occasion, a detailed demonstration of how to make a simple but powerful bomb right out on their front lawn. As if corrupting their children weren't enough, strange bangs and smoke sometimes came from Number 8, with no more explanation than a shouted "Sorry! I'm really sorry!" from out of the upstairs window. Or their strange blue garden shed. Or, once, from out of the chimney. Nobody liked to think what he was getting up to up there. And to top it all off, he never left for work. As far as anyone could tell, he didn't seem to have a respectable job at all.

Mrs. Number 9 said he was obviously an enormously clever inventor, and worked for the government, but after his wife died got permission to work at home to take care of his son. Mrs. Number 2 said he was obviously insane. Mrs Dursley said she agreed, but thought something rather different, for a time.