Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number sixty-nine, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly skibidi, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything sigma or mewsterious, because they just didn't hold such ohio nonsense close to their gyatts.
Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Moggings, which made skibidi toilets. He was a big, alpha man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very chungus gyatt. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time mewing and rizzing up her neighbours. The Dursleys had a small son called Diddy and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere in ohio.
The Dursleys had everything they wanted, including a colossal gyatt on display in their skibidi rizzing room, but they also had a sussy baka secret, and their greatest fear was that another alpha would discover it.
They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Brainrotters. Mrs. Brainrotter was Mrs. Dursley's sus-ter, but they hadn't met for several years. In fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sus-ter, because her sus-ter and her good-for-nothing husband were as unskibidi sigma as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Brainrotters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Brainrotters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another skibidi reason for keeping the Brainrotters away, they didn't want Diddy oiling up with a child like that.
When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray and not very skibidi Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing sussy about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mewsterious things would soon be happening all over ohio. Mr. Dursley mewed as he picked out his most unskibidi tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a mewing Diddy into his high chair.
None of them noticed a large, skibidi owl flutter past the window.
At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his sigmacase, rizzed up Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to rizz up Diddy good bye but missed, because Diddy was now having a tantrum and throwing his baby oil at the walls. "Little alpha," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number sixty nine, Privet Drive, the most skibidi place to live, in his sigma opinion.
It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar, a mewing cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen with his very sigma eyes then he jerked his gyatt around to look again. There was a tabby, mewing cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in his skibidi sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the sigma light. Mr. Dursley blinked and mewed at the cat. It mewed back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he rizzed up the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive… no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs(they were not skibidi or sigma boss enough to). Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his delulu mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of skibidi toilets he was hoping to get that day.
But on the edge of town, skibidi toliets were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of rizzily dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in unskibidi clothes, the fanum tax you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new, unsigma fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these sigmas standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve and unskibidiness of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt, these people were obviously collecting for something, something clearly not skibidi sigma, yass, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Moaning parking lot, his sussy baka mind back on skibidi toilets.
Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the sixty ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on skibidi toilets that morning. He didn't see the alpha owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped over their gyatts. Most of them had never seen an owl even in ohio. Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly skibidi, owl-free morning. He mewed at five different people. It was giving Freddy Fazbear, -1000 aura. He made several important telephone calls and mewed a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his gyatt and walk across the road to buy himself a large bombastic bun from the bakery.
He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them, the betas, next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him feel unskibidi. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single mewing tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a chungus doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.
"The Brainrotters, that's right, that's what I heard…"
"— yass, their son, Harry —"
Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded his unsigma, beta mind. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.
He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to mew at him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished oiling up when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stratched his gyatt, thinking . . . no, he was being stupid. Brainrotter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Brainrotter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew was called Harry. He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Griddy. Or maybe Gyatt. There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sus-ter. He didn't blame her, if he'd had a sus-ter like that . . . but all the same, those people in those sussy cloaks . . .
He found it a lot harder to concentrate on skibidi toilets that afternoon as he was feeling incredibly unskibidi and was still worrying about the sussy betas. When he left the building at five o'clock, he was still feeling so unsigma that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.
"Sorry, I'm so demure that I'm not mindful at all," he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing an unskibidi violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at his gyatt almost being knocked to the ground. 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, and mew all day, for You-Know-Rizz has gone at last! Even Moggles like you should be celebrating this happy, demure and cutesy day!"
And the old man rizzed up Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.
Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been rizzed up by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Moggle, whatever that was. He was rattled by how unskibidi he felt. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he thought imagination was the most unsigma, unskibidi thing there was.
As he pulled into the driveway of number sixty nine, the first thing he saw and it didn't improve his mood, was the tabby cat he'd spotted mewing that morning. It was now sitting on his skibidi garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.
"Eww, go away you mewing beta! You don't belong in such an alpha house like mine!" said Mr. Dursley loudly.
The cat didn't move. It just gave him a skibidi look. Was this normal mewing cat behavior? Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull his gyatt together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his cutesy and sigma pookie.
Mrs. Dursley had had a normal, sigma day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her unskibidi beta daughter and how Diddy had learned a new phrase ("Baby Oil!"). Mr. Dursley tried to act sigmaly. When Diddy had been put to bed like the mini alpha he is, he went into the rizzing room in time to catch the last report on the evening mews.
"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very skibidi today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are sussed out on why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The mewscaster allowed himself a small mew. "Most mewsterious. And now, over to Jim McGriddy with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?"
"Well, Ted," said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting skibidily today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been mewing in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of preppy shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early it's not until next week, sigmas! But I can promise a wet night tonight."
Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Preppy shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Skibidi people in cloaks all over the place? And a mew, a mew about the Brainrotters...
Mrs. Dursley came into the rizzing room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er, Pogtunia, dear… you haven't heard from your sus-ter lately, have you?"
As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked sussy and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sus-ter, as it would make them lose aura.
"No," she said skibidily. "Why?"
"Sussy stuff on the mews my pookie," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls . . . shooting stars . . . and there were a lot of sussy bakas and betas in town today . . ."
"So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley.
"Well, I just thought . . . maybe . . . it was something to do with...you know...her fam."
Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name "Brainrotter." He decided he didn't dare. Instead he said in his best sigma alpha voice, "Their son, he'd be about Diddy's age now, wouldn't he?"
"I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly.
"What's his name again? Howard, isn't it?"
"Harry. Beta, un-skibidi name, if you ask me."
"Oh, yass," said Mr. Dursley, his gyatt sinking horribly. "Yass, I quite agree."
He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom rizzing up her reflection and oiling up, Mr. Dursley griddied to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for a mewing, sigma alpha male to come out.
Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Brainrotters? If it did, . . . if it got out that they were related to a pair of Betas… Well, he didn't think he could bear it, he already lost a bunch of aura.
The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly like the skibidi person she is, but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting, demure thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Brainrotters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Brainrotters knew very well what he and Pogtunia thought about them and their unskibidi people... couldn't see how he and Pogtunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on he yawned skibidily and turned over, it couldn't affect them. . . .
How very wrong he was.
Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy, beta sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a sigma statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as mew when a car door slammed unskibidily in the next street, nor when two sigma owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.
A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground like a sussy baka. The cat's tail twitched, its eyes narrowed and it mewed.
Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, clearly an alpha, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his incredibly demure belt. He was wearing long robes, a very mindful purple cloak that swept the ground, and cutesy high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind preppy half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Alphadore.
Albus Alphadore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a beta street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize his sigma actions were being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still mewing at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amewse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."
He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a sigma silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again, the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Fanum Taxer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the still mewing cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Alphadore slipped the Fanum Taxer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number sixty nine, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.
"Skibidi seeing you here, Professor McGoofygall."
He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had disappeared like a beta. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was doing the griddy and wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly sigma and alpha.
"How did you know it was me?" she asked.
"My dear Professor, I've never seen a skibidi sigma cat sit so stiffly."
"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a sussy brick wall all day," said Professor McGoofygall.
"All day? When you could have been celebrating like the mewitches and the rizzards? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."
Professor McGoofygall mewed angrily.
"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no, even the most unsigma, beta Moggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their mews." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark rizzing-room window. "I heard it. Sigmas of owls . . . preppy shooting stars. . . . Well, they're not completely beta. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars all over Britain! I'll bet that was Delulu Diggle. He was never very mindful or demure."
"You can't blame them," said Alphadore sigmaly. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."
"I know that," said Professor McGoofygall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our gyatts. People are being downright careless and beta, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Moggle clothes, swapping rumors, gossiping about all the aura lost."
She threw a sharp, sideways, alpha glance at Alphadore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Rizz seems to have ghosted away at last, the Moggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Alphadore?"
"It certainly seems so," said Alphadore. "We have much to be rizzful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"
"A what?"
"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Moggle sweet I'm rather fond of. Don't worry, its skibidi and alpha so you can eat it without losing aura"
"No, thank you," said Professor McGoofygall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Rizz has gone-"
"My dear Professor, surely a skibidi and mindful person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Rizz' nonsense for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Volde-lemonade-ort. We have lost so much aura, Professor McGoofygall flinched, but Alphadore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Rizz.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Volde-lemonade-ort's name."
"I know you haven't," said Professor McGoofygall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Volde-lemonade-ort, was frightened of."
"You flatter me," said Alphadore calmly. "Volde-lemonade-ort had alpha powers I will never have."
"Only because you're too, well, noble and skibidi to use them."
"It's lucky its dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new sigma earmuffs."
Professor McGoofygall shot a sharp look at Alphadore and said, "The owls are nothing next to the mewsterious rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's unsigmaly ghosted everyone? About what finally stopped him?"
It seemed that Professor McGoofygall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard unskibidi wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Alphadore withsuch a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Alphadore told her it was true. Alphadore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer. "What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Volde-lemonade-ort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Brainrotter. The rumor is that Lily and James Brainrotter are, are, that... they're… dead."
Alphadore bowed his head. Professor McGoofygall gasped. "Lily and James . . . I can't believe it . . . I didn't want to believe it . . . Oh, Albus . . ."
Alphadore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "Iknow . . . I know . . ." he said heavily.
Professor McGoofygall's gyatt trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Brainrotters' son, Harry. But he couldn't. He couldn't kill that sigma little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Brainrotter, Volde-lemonade-ort's power somehow broke, and that's why he's gone."
Alphadore nodded glumly.
"It's...it's true?" faltered Professor McGoofygall. "After all he's done . . . all the people he's unskibidily killed . . . he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding . . . of all the things to stop him . . . but how in the name of skibidi sigma heaven did Harry survive?"
"We can only guess," said Alphadore. "We may never know."
Professor McGoofygall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Alphadore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very sussy watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little images were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Alphadore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagriddy's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"
"Yass," said Professor McGoofygall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?"
"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only fam he has left now."
"You don't mean you can't mean the unsigma, beta people who live here?" cried Professor McGoofygall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number sixty nine. "Alphadore, you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less skibidi. And they've got this son Diddy, I saw him mewing his mother all the way up the street, screaming for more baby oil. Harry Brainrotter, come and live here!"
"It's the best place for him," said Alphadore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a very skibidi letter."
"A letter?" repeated Professor McGoofygall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Alphadore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These beta people will never understand him! He'll be a rizzler, a legend. I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Brainrotter Day in the future! There will be books written about Harry, every child in our world will know his very sigma name!"
"Exactly," said Alphadore, looking over the top of his half-moon glasses like it was totally serious, no cap. "It would be enough to turn any boy's gyatt. A rizzler before he can griddy and mew! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can't you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that sussy baka stuff until he's ready to take it?"
gProfessor McGoofygall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yass, yass, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Alphadore?" She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it.
"Hagriddy's bringing him."
"You think it is sigma to trust Hagriddy with something as important as this?"
"I would trust Hagriddy with my gyatt," said Alphadore.
"I'm not saying his gyatt isn't in the right place," said Professor McGoofygall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not a careless beta. He does tend to be a little delulu… what was that?"
A low skibidi sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily skibidily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky and a huge sigma motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.
If the motorcycle was skibidily huge, it was nothing to the man sitting in it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild , long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his gyatt in his almost bursting pants were like two jigglypuffs squeezed into a beta. lhis vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.
"Hagriddy," said Alphadore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that very sigma motorcycle?"
"Borrowed it, Professor Alphadore, sir," said the giant, climb- ing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Backa lent it to me. I've got him, sir."
"No beta problems, were there?"
"No, sir, house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Moggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."
Alphadore and Professor McGoofygall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a skibidily shaped cut, like a fanum tax of lightning.
"Is that where … ?" whispered Professor McGoofygall.
"Yass," said Alphadore. "He'll have that sussy scar forever." "Couldn't you do something about it, Alphadore?"
"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left gyatt-cheek, that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well give him here, Hagriddy we'd better get this over with."
Alphadore took Harry in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys' house.
"Could I, could I say good-bye to him, sir?" asked Hagriddy. He bent his great, shaggy mouth over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery mew. Then, suddenly, Hagriddy let out a howl like a wounded beta.
"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGoofygall, "you'll wake the Moggles!"
"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagriddy, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his gyatt in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it… Lily an' James rizzed up an' poor little Harry off ter mew with Moggles!"
"Yass, yass, its all very unskibidi, but get a grip on yourself, Hagriddy, or we'll be found," Professor McGoofygall whispered, patting Hagriddy skibidily on the arm as Alphadore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry sigmaly on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's very alpha blanket and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle, Hagriddy's gyatt shook, Professor McGoofygall mewed sadly. The sigma twinkling light that usually shone from Alphadore's eyes seemed to have gone out.
"Well," said Alphadore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."
"Yeah," said Hagriddy in a very muffled voice, "I'd best get this gyatt away. G'night, Professor McGoofygall, Professor Alphadore, sir."
Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagriddy swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and skibidied off into the night.
"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGoofygall," said Alphadore, nodding to her. Professor McGoofygall oiled up in reply.
Alphadore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Fanum Taxer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a mewing tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number sixty nine.
"Good luck, Harry," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his gyatt, he was gone. A breeze ruffled the sigma gyatts of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect skibidi delulu things to happen. Harry Brainrotter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was a rizzler, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being rizzed and oiled up by his cousin Diddy. . . . He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed, skibidi voices: "To Harry Brainrotter! The Boy Who Rizzed!