Nineteen Years Later: An Alternate Ending

Mr. Vernon Dursley and Mrs. Petunia Dursley of number four, Privet Drive were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.

Unfortunately for them, ‘such nonsense’ had a way of creeping into the lives of the Dursleys. You could even say that much of their life for last three decades had involved dealing with things that were ‘strange or mysterious’, much to their dislike.

You would think finding a one-year-old kid on your doorstep was sufficiently strange. In the very least, they thought it was as strange as it gets, but then things started getting stranger and mysteriouser. The new kid, Harry Potter, started finding new ways to make their lives miserable. Initially, it was little things like growing hair overnight and letting loose a snake on their son Dudley. Then, Harry’s mysteriously unkempt buddy gave Dudley a tail. No, not a ‘tale’ of monkeys and crocodiles. A literal pig’s ‘tail’ protruding out of Dudley’s bottom. Soon, strange and mysterious things were trying to kiss Dudley to death. By the time Harry told Dursleys that their life was in danger and they should go into hiding, Dudley was willing to believe him despite his father’s concern that Harry was just trying to get hold of their house. Thankfully for them, Harry Potter got on with his life and killed somebody else.

For a while, the Dursleys thought their life could once again go back to normal, and for a few glorious years (to them), it was. Dudley got married, and had a son they named Piddly. When he was two years old, Vernon Dursley threw his grandson in the air hoping to catch him mid-air. Piddly rose three feet in the air and just remained there. His grandfather waited for a few seconds before sitting down in his chair in despair; Piddly immediately fell down and everyone blamed Vernon for being careless with the kid.

Vernon resolved to live in peace with the fact that Piddly suffered from the M-word, but his resolved was tested every day. To his horror, his son Dudley seemed to delight in the child’s abnormality. He told the kid tales of Uncle Harry, of owl post from a weird school, and a train from platform nine and three quarters at King’s Cross, how weird people shouted down their phone and popped out of their fireplace. Vernon disapproved of Dudley’s enthusiasm for nonsense, but kept his quiet. Meanwhile, Piddly was getting enamoured with the school named after a wart on a hog where he would learn how to be weird.

The owl post came, and Piddly danced the whole day. Two days later, a professor from the Hogwart’s School for Witchcraft and Wizardry came to explain the muggles all about the school for magic, or at least as much the muggles could be expected to understand.

Piddly was excited to finally meet someone from the school; Dudley was nervous, his previous interactions with wizards had not been particularly good. Piddly’s mother and grandparents were rather sceptical to begin with, but even they had to admit that for a weird fellow from a weird school, the professor was conducting himself in a dignified and courteous manner.

“I am impressed by how relaxed you are upon hearing about a school for learning magic,” said Professor Neville Longbottom.

“My cousin went to the school, he used to live with us, so it is not much of a shock,” replied Dudley.

“Oh! Which year did he graduate? I might know him.”

“I am not sure he graduated at all,” roared Vernon. “His cousin Harry was a problem child all along.”

The professor looked at them quizzically. “Harry?,” he cried, “Did you say Harry? You don’t mean Harry Potter, do you? Wait, you guys are the muggles Harry Potter grew up with? I wish Minerva had told me this before she sent me here.”

While Vernon was irritated by the professor’s reaction, he was not particularly surprised. People suffering from the M-word never appreciated how much the Dursleys had suffered on account of Harry Potter. He wanted to lash out at the professor, but stopped when he noticed the wizard smile as he pull something out of his pocket.

“Your uncle Harry and I were together at Hogwart’s,” said Neville to Piddly. He looked relaxed, even gleeful. “We were both in Gryffindor’s House, I am now the head of that House. He was a naughty kid, he and his friends cost us a lot of points with their nocturnal roaming. I tried to stop them once but his friend Hermione petrified me. Petrificus totalus, now that’s a simple yet effective spell.”

Vernon was rapidly losing his comfort with a man who seemed so happy reminiscing about being petrified with spells. Neville now held in his hand what looked like a gold coin. Dudley asked him what it was. The professor explained it was a coin of Dumbledore’s Army and he was using it to summon Harry Potter.

“What army? You never said you were in the Army, you said you taught herbs at that place,” Vernon shouted.

The professor opened his mouth to reply but closed it as he heard the familiar ‘pop’. It was quickly followed by a second ‘pop’.

*

Harry Potter and Ginny took in the scene with some confusion. The Dursleys looked at them with bewilderment. The professor smiled. “I believe some introductions are in order. Piddly, this is your uncle Harry. And that’s your Aunt Ginny. Harry, this is Piddly, the son of your beloved cousin. I was just telling him how Hermione petrified me when I tried to stop you guys from roaming about illegally at night.”

Harry just stared at Neville in amazement. It was Ginny who spoke. “They are muggles. Why are you telling them all this? Whatever happened to that International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy?”

“Why do you think I am here, Ginny? Just before Hogwart’s is to re-open, why am I sitting here talking to a ten-year old and his muggle family,” the professor asked Ginny with an exaggerated innocence. He then turned to Piddly and said as if explaining a difficult concept to a student, “If you want to understand what the victims of Petrificus spell look like, why, just look at the expression on your uncle’s face.”

Harry Potter just stood still for a few seconds. “No,” he finally said, softly. Then he repeated the ‘no’ with some excitement in his voice. He looked at Vernon in delight and said a loud ‘no’. Then, he turned to Petunia, who had been quite all this while. He laughed loudly and bellowed ‘no’ at the top of his voice. Finally, he turned to Dudley, who simply said ‘Yes’.

Ginny meanwhile had already seated herself beside Piddly. “Welcome,” she said to him in a conspiratorial tone, “Welcome to our world”. Piddly looked delighted. Ginny then added in a slightly louder voice, “And don’t you believe this man trying to tell you how he was the good boy trying to stop his naughty friends. He was the worst.”

“What do you mean, ‘I was the worst’? I was the proverbial good boy. Everyone knows that. And you can ask any student, I always abide by the rules and I try to be fair to all,” Neville defended himself, but even Vernon noticed that his voice was already faltering.

“And what would the students today know about your deeds in the day, Professor? Would they know about you riding illegally on invisible beasts, breaking into the Ministry of Magic, and smashing their entire collection of Time-Turners to smithereens?” Ginny was in her elements now. Neville would soon be regretting using the coin.

“You were there with me, so was Harry,” cried Neville, before realising what he was saying.

“I never said I was a good boy. Or good girl. I wasn’t. But you were the one who pulled the sword out of the hat and slashed off the head of a snake in front of the whole school.”

“That snake was bad.”

“It hadn’t harmed you. Or anyone you knew.”

“It had killed Snape.”

“When did you find that out?” asked Ginny gleefully.

Neville paused to think when he came to know that the snake had killed Professor Snape. The whole thing was somewhat fuzzy, but Ginny was correct in guessing that when Neville had killed the snake, he did not really know anything about it.

“Harry asked me to kill it. ‘Kill the snake’, that’s what he said to me, you can ask him. Back me up here, Harry.”

“I did,” Harry offered with an easy laugh. “I told him that if he got the chance, he should kill the snake. Well, Neville got the chance, and he killed the snake. It was the most exciting moment of my life, and I have had a few adventures.”

“When do we get to kill snakes with swords?” Piddly asked with enthusiasm brimming from his voice. “Hopefully, never,” answered Professor Neville Longbottom.

“Yeah! The school has all cleaned up,” said Ginny with a wry smile to Piddly. “They don’t hang students with chains and torture them, so you will miss the dungeons Neville and I were routinely sent to. As a student, your Professor Neville was leading a low-level mutiny against the school.”

Piddly looked at Neville with respect bordering on reverence. Neville felt uncomfortable with the child’s expression and explained, “Well, that was before Harry and his friends returned to school and there was a full-fledged war.” He looked again at Piddly and frowned, he was not sure he had said a smart thing.

Ginny turned to Vernon and said, “You really don't have anything to worry. My son Fred is in the third year. The school is all safe now: no one killing unicorns to drink their blood, no basilisk to kill you with their eyes, no dementors in school, no werewolves, no dragons to steal eggs from, no kidnapping of students by mermaids, no professors attacking headmasters, no grave-braking, no tortures.”

Harry laughed. “If you are trying to assure Uncle Vernon, you are doing a spectacularly bad job.” Ginny laughed too. Harry turned to Piddly and said, “It’s all good, kid. You are in for seven years of fun and adventure.”

“I would prefer if you forget all the stuff they said about me,” said Neville. “I don't want you to be spreading stories about me in the school.”

“Just stay away from the wicked influence of this naughty professor here,” said Ginny with a wink. She held Harry by the elbow and turned, there was a small ‘pop’, and they were gone.