Say Goodnight, Vernon

a/n – The entirety of the Harry Potter universe belongs to JK Rowling and her corporate partners and anything recognizable from that world is theirs. My apologies to the companies listed in the story, except for Grunnings. As far as I know, none of them would really hire someone like Vernon in real life.

My condolences go out to the family, friends and coworkers of Richard Griffiths, award winning British actor of stage and screen who played the part of Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter movies who passed away this past week. Mr. Griffiths had a well known reputation of calling out theatre patrons who left their cell phones on during performances and to that I say, well done.

I'm certain his exit interview went much better than Vernon's.

Chapter One – Exiting, Stage Right

11 p.m. 28 March, 2013 – Room 407 The Silent Gardens, Coventry, UK

Turning off the telly before the old bat in 409 complained, again, Vernon Dursley glared at the depressingly empty one room flat as he clutched his chest once again. Picking up the almost empty bottle of gin from Tesco's from the table beside his chair, he grimaced as he swallowed the last of the bottle before tossing it in the general direction of the rubbish bin.

Lumbering to his feet, he felt the pain in his chest increase, and he growled in frustration. Damn the doctors and their false smiles, he knew this was something that The Freak had done to him. The cheeky bastard couldn't leave him alone even after he had taken everything from him.

His family had deserted him, after spending a year in hiding protecting them from the freaks, Dudley had fallen under the spell of that freak girl who was with them and Petunia had left him six months later, kicked him right out of his own house all over a bit of a misunderstanding regarding some tramps from the secretarial pool at Grunnings.

And then, one of the little slags had the nerve to go to someone in Corporate and complain about him, which led to a series investigations and being 'offered' the chance to 'resign' in lieu of getting sacked. That sanctimonious prig in Human Resources had the nerve to imply that the only reason he was getting a chance to leave gracefully was because his bloody nephew, The Bloody Freak, was a major investor in the company and had asked them to allow him a chance to resign.

As soon as Richardson mentioned the little bastard, Vernon had known that the freaks had taken control of Grunnings and soon there wouldn't be any room for any decent people there, just freaks and perverts.

And so it had gone, for the past dozen years, being hounded from company to company by the specter of The Freak. He'd just be settling in and then he'd hear something that clued him in that they were coming for him. He'd had an excellent position with that publishing production firm until he saw that they were getting orders for something to help the freaks gather their magic. Bloody unnatural. They could call it a game, 'Magic: The Gathering', but he knew they were coming for him.

Then there was the job with Vertu. Even though mobile phones were annoying little things, always ringing when they weren't wanted, never leaving a body alone, it was technology and it would shield him from the freaks. But no, they couldn't leave a decent person alone. One day the announcement came down that they were adding wands to the phones, supposedly for something called a touch screen but Vernon knew that the freaks had found him and they were claiming another place.

And so it went, across a dozen years. Hounded from job to job by the freaks, he found himself marginalized and relegated to lower paying jobs in smaller companies, all the while trying to not be noticed or found.

The Freak even tracked down dear sweet Marge and did her in six years ago. They must have paid off the bloody coroner who said that it was poor gentle Ripper and his pups that killed her. Freaks had the whole pack put down because they convinced the authorities that the she'd had a stroke and fallen, and the dogs had eater her.

Couldn't even go to the doctors, the last time he went, years ago, he'd seen a consult sheet at the admitting station with the name Chastity Dursley, the freak that his disowned son had married, on it. He'd had to make do with people that the NHS had blacklisted, most likely because the freaks had asked them to, but at least he was safe from them.

As the pain in his chest intensified, the crushing feeling was making it difficult to breathe as it began radiating down his left arm; Vernon staggered back to the sink and fumbled with the tap.

Not able to get his fingers to close around the glass sitting there, Vernon was able to cup his hand and bring a mouthful of the cold water to his lips.

As he swallowed the cold water, the pain intensified, bringing him to his knees in front of the sink. As he lay there dying, he realized, Vernon latched onto the only happy thought he could.

As he vision grayed out, and the pain mounted, he realized that he was finally free from the freaks.

Shaking himself awake, Vernon looked around for a moment, not realizing where he was.

Seating in a typical less than comfortable chair, Vernon was sitting in a corridor facing a very impressive wooden office door with the words 'Afterlife Counseling, LLC' in gold letters on the door. Looking down, he could see that he was dressed in his best suit with his valise sitting beside the chair so he surmised that he must be on an interview.

Shaking his head to clear it of the dream he'd just had, dying alone in a grubby one room flat wasn't the Vernon Dursley way, he tried to think of the specifics of this particular job. Just as he reached down for his valise to see if he had any notes, his attention was drawn to the door across the corridor as it began to open.

Looking up, his mouth dropped open as he stared in horrified disbelief.

Standing in the doorway, dressed in black robes and holding a wand was his dead sister-in-law, The Freak's dead mother.

"Hello Vernon," she said with a knowing smile on her face. "I'm just subbing for a friend of mine today. Why don't you come in and we can discuss your life and death and what comes next."

Pausing for a moment as cold clammy fingers gripped Vernon's heart, she added, "And your treatment of your nephew. You do remember my son, Harry, don't you?"