A Very Dursley Lockdown

Chapter 1: Toast for Big D

23 June 2020. 5:00 a.m.

Dudley Dursley awoke before dawn. He lay awake next to his wife staring at the ceiling.

It was his birthday.

Dudley Dursley always woke early on his birthday, as his mum had habitually treated the 23rd of June as a combination of Christmas, Easter, the Queen's Jubilee, and (his cousin had said sometimes), the 2nd coming of Christ.

"Well, Big D," Dudley murmured to himself. "Here it is. The big 4-O."

Dudley Dursley slithered out of bed as best he could and put on his slippers and robe. The robe was a hideous electric blue and yellow tartan, and Dudley thought an image of his florid English face in the overly short robe could well have advanced the cause of the Scottish National Party. But his kids had scraped together their pocket money to buy it for him last Christmas, so he wore the thing and went to get the paper, unplugging his phone and dropping it his robe pocket as he went.

Outside, a few stars remained in the sky and the edges of the east just hinted at the beautiful dawn that would soon be breaking.

Dudley unwrapped the paper and held the front page up next to his face and took a selfie with the top headline. He attempted to look stolid and mature, as any forty year-old taking a selfie at 5 a.m. ought.

He flipped the phone around. Though the phone had the largest screen on the market, it looked tiny in his massive hand. He uploaded his photo and tapped out a message that would circle round his face, complete with cake and fireworks graphic.

"PM came through for me birfday. Fanks, Bojo!"

Dudley smirked, thinking of the annoyance his wife would feel on reading his Mockney missive. Birthday present #1 would either be: (Option A) she would stifle said annoyance or – even better – (Option B) she would indulge her annoyance and swat at him with the dish towel, thus giving him an excuse to say, "But it's me birfday!" while quivering his lip and letting his eyes water. With any luck, by lunch, he'd have his wife so annoyed that her native London accent would come through as strong as when she was phoning her sister.

Dudley considered having someone around to bother to be one of the best aspects of marriage.

Once back inside, Dudley flicked on the electric kettle and settled in his chair to read through the top headline: the Prime Minister's announcement of the expanded re-openings.

Such a stupid phrase, really, expanded re-openings. And they wouldn't happen til early July.

As it so often did, his father's voice echoed in his head. "Not til July 4? What are we, blasted Yanks?"

Dudley almost chuckled out loud but stifled it. Wouldn't do to wake the kids up yet.

The kettle whistled. Dudley swished some of the hot water into the teapot and dumped the water into the sink. Then he brewed a pot of tea. While the tea steeped, he thought, he could make some toast. So, he did.

It was, after all, his teapot, his tea, his bread, his toaster, his house, and Dudley Dursley could do just as he liked.

____________________________

2 August 1997. 8:30 a.m.

Vernon Dursley's jowls quivered while he shouted, red-faced, at his tiny top-hatted captor.

Lately, his jowls quivered so often that a musician could use them as a metronome.

Not that anyone in the house played instruments.

Yet.

"I just want. Some. Ruddy. TOAST!" Vernon bellowed.

Dedalus tried to respond but couldn't be heard over the bellowing. He was gesturing at the stack of toast on the table, so Dudley reasoned he was probably saying something like, "But there's toast right there!"

Dudley wondered if bread toasted with magic would make his tongue swell up while having no particular taste, or if it was crunchy and tasted good with butter. The bread had arrived in Tesco bags, so it was possible Hestia had been telling the truth about going out shopping. Or, Dad could be right about the Tesco bags just being another weirdo trick, meant to make them think the food was safe. Or, the bread could be fine, but now that it was magic toast, it could be dangerous.

Dudley wondered if it mightn't be easier to just eat some bread and butter and forget about toasting it.

Now Dedalus was eating a piece of toast and making noises that might have been, "See? It's perfectly safe!" Alternatively, the noises could have been, "I'm committing suicide by eating this toast, and want you to join me!"

He didn't mind Dad's bellowing so much, Dudley thought. But Mum's sniffing and shrieking was getting less entertaining by the moment. Had her voice always pierced through his skull in quite this manner? Or was it just the effect of having lived two weeks together in a small home with no outside excursions?

So far, Dedalus had not been poisoned or transformed by his toast.

Dudley decided enough was enough.

He quietly picked up a piece of toast and buttered it.

Petunia wailed in terror and leapt at him, trying to bat the toast out of his hand.

For quite some time, Dudley had been rather taller than Petunia, and he'd outweighed her most of his life.

Furthermore, he had not become regional heavyweight champion by neglecting his footwork.

He dodged his leaping mother and used his non-toast-holding hand to divert her momentum to seat her, gently, in a dining chair.

He ate the piece of toast.

It was crunchy. Tasted like every other piece of toast he'd had in his life. Dudley picked up and buttered another piece.

The room had gone quiet. Vernon and Petunia were both ashen, quivering, staring at their son.

He eyed his second piece of toast thoughtfully. It was perfectly, evenly brown. Dudley missed the little brown rectangles left by the toaster wires. Magic toast was boring. He wondered if Dedalus could alter the spell to make those little rectangles, if he drew him a good enough picture with one of those feather things.

___________________________

23 June 2020. 5:27 a.m.

Remembering the silly magic toast, Dudley looked at his proper toast with appreciation before biting it.

Was this mindfulness?

Dudley thought it must be and smiled. He felt very wise.