Julie Anne Dursley

Philosopher's Stone Part 1

On June 23, 1980, Petunia Dursley gave birth to a daughter. The name that she and her husband Vernon gave her was Julie Anne Dursley. Vernon and Petunia were proud of their baby, and considered her the perfect addition to their lives. The Dursleys saw themselves as perfectly normal and would not have wanted it any other way.

Privet Drive, where they lived at number four, was a street in Little Whinging, a town near London. It was a rather boring town, and most of its neighbourhoods consisted of boxy houses that all looked alike with gardens both at the front and the back. The majority of the residents in this community were rich and snobby.

Being the head of Grunnings, a drill-making company, Vernon made good money and therefore they had everything they desired. Petunia was a housewife and she spent her days taking care of her child, cleaning the house, preparing dinner and spying on the neighbours. For all their seemingly idyllic existence, the Dursleys had a secret and they were terrified that anyone would find out.

Petunia's sister was a witch. They did not speak, but Petunia did inform her sister about Julie's birth. Approximately five weeks after that, Petunia's sister also gave birth to a child, a boy named Harry. Vernon and Petunia hated the idea of their daughter mingling with a kid like that, and they saw it as another reason to pretend those people did not exist. It was a simple yet peaceful life, until one day everything changed.

On November 1, 1981, Petunia had just kissed Vernon goodbye as he was about to leave for work, when outside on his doorstep he found some sort of bundle with a note. "What the..." he said, "Petunia!"

Petunia quickly made her way to the front door, where she found a baby. The baby had a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead, and attached to the bundle was a note. Vernon and Petunia read the note together. "Something about blood. What a bunch of baloney!" Vernon said, when the two of them had finished reading, "we can't possibly take this kid in!"

Petunia just sighed and picked the baby up. "Trust me, dear, we must. We have no choice." The family was going to make sure, though, that their perfect daughter would always be their number one and that this boy would not negatively affect her in any way.

The boy, whose name was Harry James Potter, was made to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs even though the Dursleys had the room. Over the years, pictures of Julie growing up decorated the living room, but there were none of Harry. The Dursleys did not need any unnecessary reminders of his existence.

Sometimes weird things happened, though. One time Petunia gave Harry a truly awful haircut, just leaving a pluck of hair to hide that 'hideous scar', only for him to have all of his hair back the next day. Another time he had ended up on the roof of the school, but for all he knew he had simply jumped over a fence. It had also happened a few times that total strangers seemed to recognise him on the street. The funny thing was that all of those strangers were wearing robes.

Harry lived a miserable life at the Dursleys, getting no love or any form of positive attention, and was basically used as a slave. When he was younger he had dreamt of some unknown relative coming to get him, but like most dreams that one never came true.

On June 23, 1991, it was the day of Julie's eleventh birthday. She had brown eyes and shoulder length dark blonde hair. She was of average height and in good physical shape, due to her being an avid gymnast. She was spoiled, arrogant, conceited, selfish, narcissistic, petulant, unkind, lazy, manipulative, sly, and fairly intelligent. She could be the politest person on the planet if it served her interest. She liked gymnastics, cooking, reading, taking naps, eating chocolate, watching television and most of all annoying Harry. She took after the example set by her parents and loved to bully and humiliate him. At school, she was the primary reason for Harry's lack of friends, as she was the queen bee and nobody dared to go against her. She never let an opportunity pass by to get Harry in trouble; just the other week she intentionally made him trip while he was carrying a tray. He was sent to his cupboard without any meal.

Harry was woken up by knocking on his cupboard door. "Up! Get up! Now!" Petunia said, smacking the door once more before walking back into the kitchen. Harry groaned and took his glasses when suddenly he heard someone running down the stairs. The footsteps stopped about halfway down.

"Wake up, cousin! It's my birthday!" Julie screamed excitedly. She jumped on the staircase a few times, causing dust to fall on Harry's head, before she ran down. When she saw Harry trying to get out of the cupboard, she meanly pushed him back in on her way to the kitchen.

"Oh, there she comes, the birthday girl!" Petunia said when Julie entered the room. Vernon also wished his daughter a happy birthday, and then Petunia and Julie hugged each other. When Harry entered the kitchen, Petunia immediately told him to cook breakfast ("Don't you dare burn anything! I want everything to be perfect on Jewel's special day!"), before leading Julie to the table loaded with presents.

She did not exactly gasp with delight or do anything else a normal human being would do; she just stared at her presents for a few seconds before turning to her parents. "How many are there?" she asked suspiciously.

"36, I counted them myself," Vernon told his daughter, who met his words with a glare.

"36?! Last year I had 37!" she spat.

"Yes, well, some of them are quite a bit bigger than last year," Vernon tried to calm her down, while Harry rolled his eyes.

"I DON'T CARE HOW BIG THEY ARE!" Julie screamed and she slammed the table with her palms. At this point Petunia stepped in. She gently placed her arms around Julie's neck.

"Now, now. Here's what we're going to do, when we go out we'll buy you two new presents! How's that, Juliebee?" Satisfied with that, Julie grabbed the nearest present and began opening it. The phone rang and while Petunia went to answer it, Harry and Vernon watched Julie happily open up present after present. When Petunia re-entered the room, she looked rather worried.

"Vernon, we have a problem. Mrs Figg tripped over one of her cats and broke her leg. She can't take the boy." Mrs Figg was an elderly woman who lived across the street, at number eleven. Whenever the Dursleys did not want to take Harry with them, such as on Julie's birthday, other family outings or when they went on vacation, they dumped him at Mrs Figg's. Harry hated it there; the house smelled of cabbage and Mrs Figg always made Harry look at pictures of her cats.

Upon hearing the news, Julie's mouth fell open in horror and she abruptly stopped unwrapping the present she was holding. "How selfish of that woman to break her leg on my birthday! Doesn't she realise that my birthday only happens like once a year?"

"So, what do we do now?" Petunia asked, ignoring her shocked daughter.

"We could phone aunt Marge," Vernon suggested.

"Don't be silly, she can't stand him."

While her parents were discussing various possibilities, Julie slowly continued unwrapping her presents, eyeing her parents suspiciously and shooting Harry an angry look, as if it was somehow his fault.

"We could just leave him here," Petunia said. Harry liked that idea. He could enjoy some peace and quiet, watch television at his leisure and maybe even play some games on Julie's computer.

"And find the house in ruins when we get back?" Vernon said.

Petunia sighed. "Looks like we're out of options. We'll have to take him with us to the zoo."

"But I don't want him to come! He always ruins everything!" Julie whined. Petunia hugged her daughter again.

"Don't you worry, popkin. I'll see to it that he won't ruin your special day. Okay?"

Julie said nothing, glaring at her mother instead.

"How about we'll buy you even more presents?" Petunia said quickly.

"How many more?"

"As many as you like, sweetheart."

"Okay, mummy," Julie said after a few seconds, now smiling sweetly at her mother, who, feeling most relieved, hugged her again. Over her mother's shoulder, she shot Harry a nasty grin and then continued opening her presents. It was actually amazing how she could always get her parents to give her anything she wanted, as long as she acted angry or upset enough. Her parents never corrected her and always gave positive attention to her wrong actions, which made it no surprise that Julie was a rather angry, impulsive, manipulative and irresponsible person. After she had opened all of her presents, which took a while, the family headed to the car. While Petunia and Julie got in, Vernon stopped Harry for a moment.

"I'm warning you now, boy. Any funny business, any at all, and you won't have any meals for a week. Get in!"

It was a warm Sunday afternoon and there were a lot of families at the London Zoo. Harry kept his distance from the three Dursleys and actually really enjoyed the day out. Nothing special happened, except for when Julie threw a tantrum in the restaurant when her sorbet was not 'big enough' and she was given another one. Harry could not believe his luck when he was allowed to finish her first sorbet.

After that they went to the reptile house, where they looked at a large boa constrictor. It was sleeping on a rock, and directly behind the glass was a little pond with brown water. On the back wall there was a nice painting of a jungle and the side walls had plants as well as some signs with information.

"Make it move!" Julie said. Vernon looked up from his little guide book and rapped the glass. It did not work. Julie then rapped the glass much harder. "MOVE!"

Harry could not help but sigh. "He's asleep!" he said pointedly, looking at his cousin.

"I don't give a flying flapdoodle, he's boring!" she scoffed, before turning to another enclosure.

"Sorry about her, she doesn't understand what it's like, lying there day after day, having people press their ugly faces in on you," Harry said. Suddenly the snake looked up and blinked. "Can you hear me?" Harry asked incredulously. The snake nodded. "It's just... I've never talked to a snake before. Do you, I mean, do you talk to people often?" The snake shook its head. "You're from Burma, aren't you? Was it nice there? Do you miss your family?" The snake turned its head towards a sign that said Bred in Captivity. "I see," Harry said sympathetically, "that's me as well, I never knew my parents either." Suddenly he heard running.

"Mummy, dad, come here! You won't believe what this snake's doing!" Julie screamed, before planting her elbow in Harry's ribs. She put her hands on the glass wall, while Harry, who had fallen to the ground, glared at her. Suddenly the glass just disappeared, causing Julie to lose her balance and topple into the enclosure with a shriek. With a loud splash she landed straight into the muddy pool, instantly becoming soaked through. Despite his shock Harry could not help but laugh, and he watched as Julie shivered from both cold and fear when the snake slid right above her out of the exhibit, coming to a halt in front of Harry.

"Thanksssssss," it said.

"Er, anytime," Harry replied.

People started screaming and running when the snake headed for freedom, and amidst the echoing screams Julie slowly clambered out of the pond to get out of the cage. However, she could not. She panicky felt with her hands until she came to the realisation that the glass had reappeared, which meant that she was stuck inside. "Mum, mummy! Help me!" she screamed with fear in her voice. Petunia and Vernon, walking by, spotted their unfortunate daughter trapped in the exhibit. Petunia shrieked and ran to the cage, with Vernon following.

"My darling girl! How did you get in there?! Who did this to you?! Is there a snake?!"

Seeing Julie's predicament and hearing her scream for her mummy made Harry laugh so hard that he had a stream of tears running down his face. That is, until Vernon caught him laughing and shot him a very threatening look. Harry's grin disappeared at once. He suddenly realised just what had happened and that he was now in big trouble. While Julie (who was almost crying) and Petunia kept screaming and rapping the glass, a serious fear came over him.

Some twenty minutes later, park service got Julie out of the cage through a hatch in the back and gave the family a blanket for free, which they wrapped around her. She was very distraught and whimpered all the way home, apparently feeling very cold, wet and humiliated. To say her birthday was ruined would be an understatement. When they got home, Petunia immediately put her daughter under a hot shower ("It's all right, sweetheart. We'll get you out of these terrible clothes!"), while Vernon furiously asked his nephew what happened.

"I swear, I don't know! One minute the glass was there and then it was gone, it was like magic!" Harry said earnestly.

Vernon scoffed and shoved Harry into the cupboard. "There's no such thing as magic!"