Mr. Vernon Dursley of Number Four, Privet Drive, was more than usually purplish about the jowls that Saturday morning in midsummer, but for once it had not been caused by shouting at his good-for-nothing, abnormal nephew Harry Potter. In fact, he was more than usually quiet, except for the occasional moan that escaped his puffy lips each time he tried to chew even the tiniest bit of toast or bacon.
“Vernon, please, let me call a dentist,” pleaded his wife, bringing a fresh cloth with ice to press against the side of his fleshy face, which was even fleshier on the right side today because of the swelling.
“No, Petunia, I’ll be all right,” protested Mr. Dursley. “It’s just a little sensitive after I bit down upon that bone in the stew at the Smiths’ last night. Damn that Smith! I ought to sack him! Imagine inviting us to dinner and serving us a common stew”and with bones in!”
“And in such a tatty little flat,” agreed Mrs. Dursley. “If he had wanted to impress you, you would think he would have had his mousy little wife cook something more substantial”and not serve it on chipped plates!”
Their teenage son, Dudley, who had no trouble chewing anything, and had already chewed quite a lot of toast, bacon, eggs, fried potatoes, muffins, and coffee that morning, snorted, “They served you stew”on chipped plates? And he thinks he deserves a salary rise? You ought to sack him, Dad, and good riddance!”
Mr. Dursley tried to smile, but only managed a lopsided grin. “That’s my man,” he said proudly. “Two years left to go at Smeltings and already thinks like a director.”
“And he got two O levels,” beamed Mrs. Dursley, giving her bulky son a peck on the cheek as she dropped another stack of toast onto his plate.
“I’d be proud to have you follow in my footsteps at Grunnings, Dudders, and you’ll not have to start in the mailroom like other”OW!”
Mrs. Dursley jumped, and Dudley spat muffin crumbs across the table. Mr. Dursley pressed the ice against his cheek and squeezed his eyes shut as a bit of egg dribbled out the side of his mouth.
“Oh, Vernon, dear, I can’t let you suffer another minute. I’m calling a dentist.”
“I said no, Petunia! I won’t have some ham-handed quack poking about in my mouth! And it’s Saturday! They’ll all be out on the golf course, or whatever it is that dentists do for fun.”
“Well, I’ll phone until I find one,” said Mrs. Dursley firmly.
“By then it’ll have cleared itself up. Don’t worry about me, Petunia, it’s only”OOOHH!” This time Mr. Dursley spat into his napkin, and there was a bit of blood mixed in the egg. Green suddenly mingled into the purple of his face, and he whispered thickly, “You know best, Petunia, dear.”
Dudley Dursley had just turned sixteen, and as such, was a year short of legal driving age. But, since he was so large, he could quite easily pass for much older, and this meant he drove his parents’ car as often as he could. And most often without permission. After his parents were asleep, Dudley would sneak out of the house, release the brake, and roll the car quietly down the driveway and out into the street. Usually his friend Piers would meet him to help him push the car down the block so they could start it, then they would spend most of the night driving around, picking up girls, and throwing soda bottles, food wrappers, and lighted cigarette butts from the windows. So far, they hadn’t been caught, but there had been a few close scrapes”like the night his freakish cousin Harry had seen Dudley and Piers siphoning some petrol from a neighbor’s car to put in theirs. Dudley was sure Harry would tattle on him, but he hadn’t. Harry had come home from his freak school that summer all mopey and moany about some other freak dying, and usually stayed in his room all day. Sometimes he would sneak out at night and walk the deserted streets for hours on end. The night he had seen Dudley stealing petrol, he had almost smiled for the first time since he had been home, and Dudley had thought for a moment Harry was going to use … the “M” word … on him. But he hadn’t. In fact, the next morning, Dudley tattled on Harry for being out after midnight, and good old Harry had hell to pay for that. It was brilliant.
Today, however, young Dudley was proudly at the wheel in broad daylight. His mother did not drive, and his father was in such a state with his toothache that he did not trust himself to drive. So he had tossed the keys to Dudley and mumbled, “You may drive me to the dentist’s office, then you may wait for me at the ice cream shop in the high street nearby. You may not go joyriding about while I’m having this dratted tooth fixed. You will pick me up at precisely two o’clock and drive me straight home. Is that clear?”
“Absolutely, Dad,” said Dudley with a smile. Of course he planned to go joyriding about, and if he waited anywhere on the high street, it would be at the Pirate Cove Pub.
After a short journey, during which Dudley was a model driver and even used hand signals, he drove up to the curb at a handsome, modern professional building that housed the offices of several dentists, physicians, chiropractors, and other health care specialists. He allowed his father to get out of the car and was well out of sight before he put the pedal to the metal and left rubber on the pavement.
Mrs. Dursley had begun at “A” under “Dentists” in the telephone directory, and had called them all until she had found one who kept Saturday hours. At precisely twelve-twenty-five, Vernon Dursley walked through a glass door lettered:
Beyond was a tidy waiting room where no one was waiting. However, at a reception desk behind a glass partition, sat a young girl with long, bushy, brown hair, wearing a white coat, and working diligently at a computer terminal. When she saw Mr. Dursley approaching, she turned away from the computer, slid the glass partway open, and said politely, “You may go on into the surgery, Mr. Dursley. Dr. Granger is expecting you.”
Mr. Dursley nodded acknowledgement and proceeded through the door marked “Surgery.” Nice, polite young lady, thought Mr. Dursley, who would otherwise not have noticed, but not quite pretty enough for our Dudders.
Inside the surgery, he saw a fully-equipped dental surgery station, with all modern amenities, such as a television (currently tuned to a cooking show”Mr. Dursley winced as his broken tooth and empty stomach panged him simultaneously) and attractive, soothing décor. Standing beside the chair, laying out examining instruments onto a paper-covered tray with rubber-gloved hands, was a woman of about forty, with brown hair done up in a bun, and eyeglasses with fashionable frames.
“Please take a seat, Mr. Dursley,” she said, smiling, indicating the dental chair. With a quick motion, she looped a paper bib around his neck to cover his shirt and necktie. For a moment, she appeared slightly distressed that the ties of the bib did not reach all the way around his thick neck, but instead, she tucked the ends neatly between his jacket lapel and shirt collar. “Now, then, what seems to be the trouble?”
Mr. Dursley glared at her severely. “I’ll wait and tell the dentist, if you don’t mind, madam.”
The woman’s smile did not diminish as she said cheerfully, “Jane Ellen Granger, at your service. Oh, please, don’t apologize, it happens quite often.”
Mr. Dursley’s glare lessened slightly, but he said firmly, “I thought I would be seeing the”other”Dr. Granger.”
“My husband, John, is at a conference in Edinburgh and will be back later tonight. Please do not be concerned, Mr. Dursley. I am a fully qualified dental surgeon and I will do all that is possible to help you. Now, please lie back, relax, and, as we like to say, open wide.”
Dr. Granger switched on a bright light over the chair and pulled a paper surgical mask up over her mouth and nose. She selected a probe and a mirror from the tray and began examining Mr. Dursley’s teeth, and silently thanked the manufacturer of the surgical masks for making it impossible for the patient to see the face she was making: his breath could stop a charging rhino.
“Um-hmm,” she said as she poked around. “Quite a nasty surface fracture in the enamel of your second molar. What did you bite on?”
“Bone,” answered Mr. Dursley with difficulty, since there were metal utensils in his mouth.
“I believe we’ve caught it before any infection can set in, although I do see evidence of early gum disease developing in several places. How long has it been since your last regular dental exam, Mr. Dursley?”
“Dunno,” he mumbled around the instruments, “Cuppa’ years.”
“They’re the only teeth you get for free, and they’re far superior to the ones you can buy. You must do all you can to preserve them. I think we can take care of your immediate issue, and I’ll refer you to a periodontist for further preventive care. Let’s take a few films, and then we’ll get to work, shall we?”
Mr. Dursley did not answer, but smacked his lips and lolled his tongue to remove the taste of metal from his mouth.
Dr. Granger stepped out of the room for a moment, and when she returned she brought what looked like small paper cards. She explained that they were x-ray films as she placed them carefully in his mouth, alongside his teeth just behind his lips. “Now bite down,” she instructed, and pulled her fingers away quickly before Mr. Dursley chomped. She brought over a device that looked like a peculiar camera with a very small lens on it and positioned it near his cheek. “Be very still”I’ll be right back.” Dr. Granger stepped into the next room; there was a quick hum and click, then she returned and did the same on the other side.
“Why did you have to go into the other room to press the button?” asked Mr. Dursley when Dr. Granger had retrieved the film carriers and taken them to be developed. “Damned inefficent engineering if you ask me. You should be able to stand right here and do that.”
“It’s because of the radiation, you see,” explained Dr. Granger.
Mr. Dursley swallowed, and it tasted papery. “Radiation?” he quavered. “Wh-what radiation?”
“X-rays are radiation. That’s how it sees inside your teeth and gums. A little exposure is harmless, but you must understand that I do this several times a day, every day. It’s safer for me to put a little distance between the x-ray scope and me, so really it is quite efficient engineering after all. Are you an engineer, Mr. Dursley?”
“No, not any more. I am a director…of Grunnings.” With this, he puffed his chest a bit, and his little paper bib popped loose from his lapel.
“Oh, drills!” exclaimed the dentist, and Mr. Dursley puffed even a little more proudly at her obviously superior knowledge, for a woman.
She restuffed the bib and continued, pointing at an array of powered instruments on the dental station’s console. “See, here is a Grunnings drill, from their surgical line. Quite a little buzzbomb it is, too. It can penetrate solid steel to two centimetres’ depth quicker than you can say ‘temperomandibular joint’”if you can say ‘temperomandibular joint’!” She snickered and snorted, and added, “Just a bit of dentist humor. You’ll be learning first-hand what a honey of a drill it is, very soon!”
Mr. Dursley swallowed again, and this time, it tasted like yesterday’s curry.
“Drill?” he asked weakly.
“Drill,” confirmed Dr. Granger.
“Ooooh,” he moaned, and did not notice that the dentist had left the room. She was back in a moment, and had slipped the developed x-ray films into a viewer. Mr. Dursley couldn’t tell a thing about what he was looking at, and scarcely heard her describing the simple procedure whereby a small porcelain filling would be installed to protect the exposed nerve in his damaged tooth and to stop further damage to the enamel. It would require a local anaesthetic to be injected into his gum near the site, she explained.
“N-n-needles?” he stammered.
“Just one little jab. Would you like a bit of nitrous oxide first?”
“Does it hurt?”
“Oh, quite the contrary. You’ll feel so good, you’ll want me to drill all day.”
Mr. Dursley furrowed his brows and harrumphed, “I very much doubt it”but I’ll have a bit of that”that stuff, if you don’t mind.”
“Very well. I must warn you: It may make you feel a bit silly.”
“Madam, I cannot possibly feel any sillier than I do now.”
Dr. Granger smiled. “We shall see.” She placed a little clear plastic cup over his nose, and he heard a slight hissing of gas. “Take regular breaths, Mr. Dursley. Breathe too deeply, and you’ll be as high as a kite.”
The gas had a slight sweet scent, and an even sweeter effect. In only a moment, he felt quite light-headed and light-hearted, and the expression “high as a kite” brought to mind an incident involving his sister, Marge, getting crosswise with the nephew, and what had happened after that. Instead of being horrified at this memory, he inexplicably found it quite funny, and he chortled.
“That’s it, Mr. Dursley. Now open wide. You may feel a little prick.”
“I am a little prick,” he giggled, and never felt the needle with the anaesthetic. “No, I’m a big prick. Tee hee hee. Big fat wobbly””
“I think that’s quite enough nitrous oxide for you! Just relax now, Mr. Dursley. The anaesthetic should be taking hold, and this will all be over before you know it.” Swiftly, Dr. Granger went to work repairing his damaged tooth.
Like most dentists, Dr. Jane Granger liked to talk while she worked, and persisted in asking questions that required the patient to give some answer with his mouth open wide and full of instruments. “I spoke briefly with your wife on the phone this morning,” she said, as the high-powered Grunnings dental drill whirred. “She seems quite a lovely person.”
“Unh-huh,” agreed Mr. Dursley, still slightly addled by the nitrous oxide and missing the excitement of seeing his company’s product in action.
“Do you have children?”
“Unh-huh. ’ud-ee’s ’r son.” He didn’t feel compelled to mention the ill-tempered layabout that Petunia’s sister had burdened them with almost fifteen years ago.
“How old is Dudley?” (Dentists who like to talk to patients with a mouthful of novocaine and surgical steel seem to be able to understand their burbled replies.)
“’ikteen.”
“Ah! So is our daughter. An interesting age, sixteen. Give you any trouble, your boy?”
“Nebba’. ’ud-ee’s a good boy.”
“That’s wonderful. Does well in school, then?”
“Just go’ ’is O’s at ’Melti’gs.” He now did not feel compelled to say just how many”or how few”O levels Dudley had earned. He and Petunia had protested themselves blue in the face to the Smeltings headmaster that Dudley knew every bit of the information, he simply didn’t test well and he should be excused from the exams.
“We’re very proud of our Hermione,” she went on, over the slurpy noise of the saliva ejector. “She carried a full fifth-year load plus additional classes, and came through with flying colors in all.”
“Unh-huh,” Mr. Dursley replied with polite disinterest. He wanted to brag about Dudley’s wrestling prowess, but the fingers in his mouth prevented much boasting.
“She had a rather difficult year, though,” continued Dr. Granger. “There was a bit of upheaval in the staff of her school. She had one really dreadful teacher who”spit, please”seemed to make everyone’s lot perfectly miserable. Still, she did well enough in that class. And then there was her good friend, the boy who lost his godfather very suddenly and tragically. So very sad. But for all that, she’s becoming very keen to return to school in September. I must say, I’m going to miss her. She’s been such a good help to me here at the office this summer”answering the telephone, filing, entering patient data onto the computer.” She chuckled. “It’s funny, they don’t use computers at her school at all. Quite old-fashioned, it is. But our Hermione’s a quick study and learns anything she sets her mind to. You must have seen her at reception as you came in the office today.”
“Unh,” he answered curtly, now completely clear-headed after the laughing-gas had worn off, and beginning to wonder if this woman would ever shut up and finish so he could get home and have something to eat. Her blathering was also beginning to be as disturbing as it was annoying”he had heard something very similar, somewhere, about a boy whose godfather had been killed, and a school in political turmoil. Something too familiar about it. Must have been something he’d seen on television.
“We’re almost done now, Mr. Dursley. You’ve been a very good patient!” She put down her instruments and touched an intercom button on the dental station, and said, “Hermione, would you please bring in Mr. Dursley’s file?”
“I’ll send it right in,” came a girl’s voice over the intercom speaker.
Suddenly there was a great flapping sound, and a large brown owl swooped into the surgery. It carefully deposited the file folder on Mr. Dursley’s chest, and gracefully flew back to reception.
“OWL!” cried Mr. Dursley, leaping into the air from a reclining position, almost as if by levitation.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr. Dursley, I must have touched a sensitive spot,” soothed Dr. Granger.
“No, OWL! OWL! O-W-effing-L OWL! Didn’t you see it?”
“Please, Mr. Dursley, relax! There’s no owl! Hermione doesn’t have an owl. She brings her cat to the office sometimes, but”“
“YOU’RE ONE OF”THEM!” cried Mr. Dursley, suddenly recalling where he’d heard about a boy whose criminal godfather had been murdered, probably none too soon, and that insane asylum of a school where he was learning to be a …
“NOOOOO!” he wailed, and bolted from the chair.
“Mr. Dursley, wait!” cried Dr. Granger, but he was already lumbering through the waiting room like an elephant that’s just seen a mouse. As he passed the reception window, he saw the girl again, but this time she was not wearing a white clinic coat … she had on black robes and a tall pointed hat. And she winked at him cheekily as he crashed through the glass door and out into the street, trailing his paper bib and the rubber hose from the saliva extractor.
Harry Potter’s face streamed with tears, but for the first time since June, they were tears of laughter. “Oh, Hermione, that is so brilliant,” he gasped into the small pinkish button with a string on it that he held in his hand. “I wish I could have seen it. But getting to hear it was the best thing that’s happened to me all summer. I can’t wait to tell Fred and George that their Deluxe Distance Model Extendable Ears are a triumph of their twisted genius. Long live Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes!”
“I’m just glad the owl got to you in time with the transceivers,” came Hermione’s voice, rather breathlessly, over the small pinkish earpiece with a string that Harry held up to his ear. She had had the companion pair in the dental office in London all along, and Harry had heard the whole hilarious episode with Uncle Vernon.
“As soon as I heard my mother talking to a Mrs. Dursley on the telephone, I got on another phone and rang up my house. We have an answering machine that lets us screen calls, so I called out to Crookshanks to go up to my room and paw open the window. Then I rang up Travis Downfeather”he’s a muggle-born like me, a third-year Hufflepuff”he lives only a few streets away from me”and asked him to send his owl to my house, and then on to yours. Crookshanks found the Extendable Ears set and gave one half of the set to the owl, which brought them to you, and then he brought the other half to me. Meanwhile, I set Mr. Dursley’s appointment for a time when I knew the owl would have time to get to you, and Crookshanks to me.”
“Brilliant,” repeated Harry. “But how did the owl have time to get back to your mum’s office and scare Uncle Vernon?”
“He didn’t. There was no owl.”
“No owl? What did Uncle Vernon see, then?”
“Me, of course. I brought the file in, just as mum asked, but I sort of accidentally dropped it on his chest instead of handing it to her.”
“Then what did he see? Hermione, you didn’t”you didn’t use magic, did you?”
“Oh, Harry, of course not! But I did sort of … tamper with the nitrous oxide. Uncle Vernon only thought he was seeing an owl. Mixing a potion’s not really magic, you know. Any muggle can do it.”
“Don’t tell that to Snape. Hermione, I’ve got to go”I think I hear Uncle Vernon’s car driving up. Thanks again for the great surprise. I’ll bring your Extendable Ears set back when I see you at Ron’s later next month.”
“No worries. Happy early birthday, Harry. See you then.”
Still chuckling, Harry carefully folded up the small pink devices and stowed them in his Hogwarts trunk. It would be great to see Hermione again, and Ron, and all his friends, even if the reunion would be bittersweet after the events of the previous spring. For the first time in so long, he felt rather cheerful, and couldn’t imagine anything could happen now to change his mood.
Suddenly, he heard the door downstairs bang open, and Dudley’s voice howling, “Ow, Dad, let go! You’re tearing my ear off!”
“I’ll tear more than your ear off, boy!” roared Uncle Vernon, apparently fully recovered from his recent fright.
“Vernon! Duddy Diddums! What’s wrong?” shrieked Aunt Petunia.
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong! He’s gone and pranged the whole side of my car, swerving in and out of traffic like a maniac, that’s what’s wrong! My beautiful car, ruined! You’re grounded till school starts!”
Harry smiled as he shut and locked his trunk. His mood just got even better.
”MsTattersall
Coming soon: "Petunia Blooms" and "Muskrat Love"