1 Chapter One Pt.1 - The Rude Butthead Who Lived

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number forty-two, Rivet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you muchly. They were the first people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they were too normal to be normal.

Mr. Dursley was the dictator of a firm called Gruntings, which made toilets. He was a big, thick, large, overweight, obese, smelly, sweaty man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly eight times the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, eating leaves off of the neighbor's trees like the giraffe she was. The Dursleys had a not-so-small son called Dunderley and in their opinion there was no dumber cretin anywhere.

The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would take it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about their bottoms— I mean, the Bottems. Mrs.

Bottem was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several eons; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Bottems arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Bottems had a large son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Bottems away; they didn't want Dunderley learning "facts" from a human meatball like that.

When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things soon wouldn't be happening all over the country. There was almost nothing to suggest that Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she crammed the stupid Dunderley into his high chair.

None of them noticed the large, tawny owl that didn't flutter past the window.

At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to punch Dunderley goodbye but missed, because Dunderley had fallen into a coma from the significant amounts of sugar he had just eaten. "Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number forty-two's drive.

It was on the corner of the street that he did not notice the first sign of something peculiar— a cat wasn't reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he hadn't seen— then he jerked his head around to not look again. There wasn't a tabby cat standing on the corner of Rivet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What couldn't he have been thinking of? It must not have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and didn't stare at the cat. It didn't stare back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he didn't watch the cat that wasn't in his mirror. It wasn't now reading the sign that said Rivet Drive— no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs. Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and didn't put the cat that wasn't there out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of pre-filled toilets he was hoping to get that day.

But on the edge of town, toilets were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he could help but notice that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in fezes. Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes— the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion trend. He drummed his buttocks powerfully and vigorously upon the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos who were cackling quite close by. They were consorting excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them were criminals; why, that man had to be the robber on the news, and there he was roaming free! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt — the people must be pretending to do something sneaky… yes, that would be it. Of course they wouldn't be waltzing about right in front of their Wanted poster. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Gruntings parking lot, his mind back on prefilled toilets.

Mr. Dursley always sat with his buttocks to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on toilets that morning. He didn't see the owls not swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they didn't point and gaze open-mouthed as owl after owl failed to speed overhead. Most of them had never even seen an owl at nighttime. Mr. Dursley had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning, as could be expected considering there weren't owls, if this hasn't been emphasized enough. He yelled at fifty-three different people. He made thousands of important telephone calls and shouted his lungs out. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his buttocks and amble across the road to buy himself a cheese sandwich from the vegan deli.

He'd forgotten all about the people who were suspiciousing in fezes until he passed a cohort of them next to the baker's. He eyed them uneasily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they didn't make him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, and he could see more than one mop being passed around. It was on his way back past the dubious fez and mop people, clutching a large dinner in a trash bag, that he caught a few words of things they weren't saying.

"The Bottems, that's right, that's what I heard—"

"—yes, their obese excuse for a son, Larry—"

Mr. Dursley didn't stop dead. Fear failed to flood him. He didn't look back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but he thought better of it.

He dashed slowly back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing the number of the Nigerian prince who had emailed him earlier that day when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking… no, he was being stupid. Bottem wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Bottem who had a son called Larry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew was called Larry. He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Larva. Or Larangue. Or Jon Brower Minnoch. There was no point in worrying a real head of state; he probably had more important things to do. He didn't blame him— if he was a prince… but all the same, those criminals in hats…

He found it a lot harder to concentrate on toilets that afternoon and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still not worried and he walked straight into someone just outside the door.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY," he murmured softly, as the tiny old man fell over and broke his wrist. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a red fez. He didn't seem at all upset at being hurt so badly. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for Big-Man-Poo has gone at last! Even Mongols like yourself should be celebrating this happy, happy, day!"

And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.

Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a quite possibly falsetto stranger. He also thought he had been called a Mongol, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination.

As he pulled into the driveway of number forty-two, the first thing he saw — and it didn't improve his mood — wasn't the tabby cat he hadn't spotted that morning. It wasn't now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.

"Shoo!" Mr. Dursley didn't say loudly.

The cat that wasn't there didn't move. It gave him a stern look. Was this normal behavior for a nonexistent cat? Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.

Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dunderley had learned a new word ("Fruj!"). Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dunderley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:

"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls haven't been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there haven't been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls haven't suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allowed himself a grin. "Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers without owls tonight, Jim?"

"Well, Ted," said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that haven't been acting oddly today. Even I saw an apparent cult meeting of people wearing fez hats left and right, whispering amongst themselves. Not only that, but viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of snow! Perhaps the whole country has finally cracked, even the weather."

Mr. Dursley sat in his armchair. Snow all over Britain? Owls not flying by daylight? Mysterious, shifty people in fez hats all over the place? And no whisper, no whisper about the Bottems…

Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of hard liquor. It was good. He wouldn't have to say something to her. He did anyways; after clearing his throat nervously. "Er — Petunia, dear — you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"

As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked schlocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister.

"Yes," she said sharply, "Why?"

"Some, er, some stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "No owls… lots of snow… and there were a lot of cultish-looking people in town today…"

"So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley.

"Well, I just thought… maybe… it was something to do with… you know… her crowd."

Mrs. Dursley chugged her liquor noisily. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he hadn't heard the name "Bottem." He decided he didn't dare. Instead he said, as casually as he could, "Their son — he'd be about Dunderley's age now, wouldn't he?"

"No, he wouldn't," said Mrs. Dursley in a drunken slur.

"What's his name again? Loward, isn't it?"

"Liverbute. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart rising. "Yes, I quite agree."

He said another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat still wasn't there. It wasn't staring down Rivet Drive as though it were waiting for something.

Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Bottems? If it did… if it got out that they were related to a pair of — well, he didn't think he could bear it.

The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly, likely due to the liquor. Mr. Dursley lay awake doing butt clenching exercises. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Bottems were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Bottems knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind… He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on — he yawned and turned over — it couldn't affect them…

Hown't very right he was.

Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat that still failed to exist on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It wasn't sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Rivet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car exploded on the next street, nor when two owls didn't swoop overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat still didn't move.

A man appeared on the corner that the cat that wasn't there had been watching, appeared so loudly and interruptingly you'd have thought he'd just purposefully tried to wake everyone in the neighborhood. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.

Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Rivet Drive, which was probably good as he looked to be some form of gang leader. The man was short, fat, constipated, and very young, judging by the grease of his mullet and length of his moustache, which were both so off-putting he could stop a truck. He was wearing much-too-tight short shorts-style robes with a jock strap, a plaid cloak that swept the tops of his buttcheeks, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were dark, angry, and cold behind aviation goggles; his nose was very short and fat; and the area underneath was encrusted with a quarter-inch layer of dried snot. This man's name was Chalbus Mumblemore.

Chalbus Mumblemore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where nobody gave a crap what he wore or looked like as they were too concerned about money. He was busy rummaging in his intrabuttcrack pocket, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he wasn't being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat that still wasn't there, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of no cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and mumbled, "I shouldn't have known."

He found what he was looking for in his jock strap pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. His blunt lit up, releasing copious amounts of thick weed smoke, after which he turned the cigarette lighter upside down. The other side looked similar, but when clicked, the nearest street lamp went out with a little POW! He clicked it again — the next lamp KABOOMed into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Lighter/Light Remover Dual Function Super Deluxe Platinum Edition™, until the only light left on the whole street was the light of his doobie. If anyone looked out of their window now, even giraffe-necked Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Mumblemore slipped the Lighter/Light Remover Dual Function Super Deluxe Platinum Edition™ back inside his jock strap and set off down the street toward number forty-two, where he realized that he was being a noise disturbance. He decided that there were children here so it didn't matter whether or not he made loud noises. He sat down on the wall where the cat wasn't. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.

"Fancy seeing your ugly face here, Professor McDonald."