The bell of the little shop jingled, and the merry owner looked up from the counter at the man who had just walked in. He looked, more or less, like the average guy: tall, with the air of a person who used to be rather muscular but had recently failed to show up at the gym, faired-haired and blue-eyed. His smile was warm and his voice pleasant when he wished the woman a 'good afternoon'; Dudley Dursley did not appear particularly threatening, but the shopkeeper followed him with the corner of her eye out of habit as he picked his way through the various stands and bookcases. A cross between a bookshop and gift shop, her little business offered ample chances for tiny thieves to pocket elephant-shaped erasers and fancy notebooks.

Dudley, on the other hand, did not seem interested in any of her treasures; he ignored the luminous-ink pens, the adorable smartphone cases complete with silicon bunny ears, the 3D tea-party stickers and the notebooks of recycled, yellow-ish paper with flowers sketched on the cover, even though his young daughters would have adored any and all of these. He stopped at the postcard stall instead, examining closely the pieces of colourful paper with an expression that bordered on disapproval.

"Let me know if you need any help," the shopkeeper hurried to smile.

"Yes..." Dudley muttered, and, in the woman's opinion, the softness of his voice contrasted his thickset build. "Yes, thank you..." he repeated.

His small eyes traced the different postcards, one, two, three times, as though he were attempting to memorize all the well wishes and the pictures that accompanied them: a sparkly, bon-bon pink one congratulated the new parents of a baby girl, while another showed Winnie-the-Pooh offering Piglet a blue balloon that wrote 'Happy Birthday' on it; closest to him was a more disturbing one, with the photo of a wedding cake, which, instead of the traditional bride and groom figurines kissing or holding hands on the top, had the groom's head buried in the icing; explosive letters spelled 'Harry Divorce' on the base of the cake. A fleeting spark of laughter appeared in Dudley's eyes, then it was gone. The shopkeeper would have hated to brag, but she had always considered her postcard collection quite full and original, and the frown on this new customer's face was hurting her feelings a little.

"I don't suppose you have any Christmas cards?" he asked, nervously.

"I- I beg your pardon?" the shopkeeper repeated, perplexed, for it was the end of May.

"It's my little girl's birthday today, you see..." Dudley said, as if this was a perfect explanation to his bizarre request.

The shopkeeper stared at him for a second open-mouthed, and then concluded she must have heard wrongly: "Birthday cards are at your left. If your daughter is a bit older, these purple ones are a favou-"

"Yes, but do you have any Christmas cards?" the blond man asked again, and this time there was a tone of urgency in his voice. "Please... Hannah," he tried the name on the woman's tag, "it's the fifth shop I'm visiting today and closing time is in less than an hour."

Hannah remained on the same spot for another moment, before she remembered the first phrase of paragraph 1 of chapter 1 of tome 1 of The Good Shopkeeper's Handbook: the customer is always right.

"Of course," she said, adding a smile to her sentence just on time. "Let me check the back."

She turned on the spot and disappeared at the back room of the shop. A lot of noise could be heard while she was searching, and Dudley held his breath until a triumphant cry came from the adjoining room. Hannah stuck her hand out of the door, brandishing a piece of paper in Dudley's face.

"Will that do?" she asked, emerging whole and settling behind the counter with the air of a person who just accomplished an impossible mission that saved at least a douzen lives.

It was the classic Christmas postcard of a snowy village decorated for the holiday season, but, for the end of spring, it would have to do.

"It's perfect!" exclaimed Dudley, giving Hannah the impression of a rather large child once more.

It was hard to tell who was more content, the customer or the shopkeeper, during the process of wrapping up and payment of the little snowflake. Hannah accepted the few pennies, enjoying the shared knowledge that the postcard being handed over was far more valuable than that- the man had searched five other stores before finding her.

"Well, here you go, sir, and happy birthday to your daughter," she smiled, thinking that, for once, she would have more interesting stories to tell than her friend who worked in retail. "Family tradition, is it?" she made a guess.

"Of sorts."

He had no idea what was so important about that Christmas card. It never had been, and now that there were truly important, truly pressing matters at hand, all he could think about was that card. The moment professor McGonagall's figure disappeared at the end of Privet Drive, Dudley had simply grabbed his keys and phone and had sprang into the car in order to hunt down a postcard to the other end of London, while his wife and daughters were still sitting, awestruck, on their living room sofa.

Dudley had never told them about the funny accidents of his cousin, Harry, that seemed to correspond to the funny accidents of his two little daughters, May and April, when they were roughly the same age, because, well, who would have believed him? These two girls and their mother, Emily, were the best thing that had ever happened to him, he couldn't possibly lose them over a hope-turned-suspicion. Besides, what if he were wrong? But now he knew. That... witch had said there was a place for May at Hogwarts, and Dudley would bet the fridge April would have one in two years as well.

"Will we really have owls as pets?"

"Can I have a broomstick?"

"What if I went with May to Hogwarts just to get an idea? It's only fair!"

He could hear May and April bombarding Emily with myriads of questions their mother could not answer in the room next door, as they prepared dinner. He would usually cook, as he was pretty talented at it, but right now he was not only the member of the family who could cook without any casualties, but also the one with ties to this new world in which they would soon be included.

"Is Uncle Harry really so famous?"

"Did he kill a giant snake when he was my age?"

"Are we really not allowed to say 'Volde-'?"

"Shhhh!"

His wife and kids knew very little about Harry, though the girls suspected him to be a MI6 agent, like a shabby James Bond with glasses. Apparently he was a sort of celebrity- or hero. He had never really asked. Despite convinced that Harry believed it, he had never hated him, but he had also never been jealous either. His mother had told him so little about wizards; the picture his mind had created had nothing to do with what professor McGonagall had painted. Perhaps the pig-tail and that toffee had left their own scars as well.

The sickening smell of burnt dough confirmed that dinner would be scorched, celebratory Christmas cookies with raw frosting, so he urged himself to hurry.

Dudley cleaned his throat, even though he was about to write, not speak. He wanted to start with something like 'today was the best day of my life', but it sounded childish even to his own ears. He raised his pen and wrote on the back of the postcard:

Harry,

May has just been accepted to Hogwarts.
Thankfully, professor McGonagall believes April will be able to attend too.
They're over the moon and have a million questions that Emily and I can't answer. I've never been so proud.
They can't believe they're related to the famous Harry Potter, and right now I'm not winning any Dad Of The Year awards for not letting them know.
I was wondering if we could meet any time soon, maybe at that Diagon Alley, and talk for a bit. Guess Albus will be classmates with May next year.
I totally get it if you don't want to, so no need to answer back.

Dudley

P.S.: I'm sorry.