A solitary tree stood, like a soldier, in the middle of a deserted playground. No one knew why there was a tree in the middle of the playground. It was rather inconvenient; all the little boys in the area thought so. It disrupted their games of football to no end. Without the tree, the playground would be perfect for their rambunctious games; yet, there it stood, roots buckling the concrete like hard, grey pieces of chocolate.
Not that the barren, grey area was too small. No, it stretched across the landscape, metres and metres of concrete spread out over the heath. At night, as the little boys lay in bed, their dreams were full of magnificent games of football, the playground minus the tree, not one square metre of concrete spared. But they were only dreams, and each afternoon, as they all gathered together after school, the tree was always there, waiting to disturb their play.
Birds nested in the tree despite the numerous balls that landed there each evening after school. Sometimes the birds would swoop from the safety of its branches to peck at the boys. They were vicious, those birds.
Little Vernon Dursley didn’t mind the birds, though. He was never one for playing football. Besides, the other boys never let him. He would sit on the sidelines and watch and cheer and cry “Foul!”, “Red card!” or “Shut yer face!” when one of the players called him ‘Piggles’. And he would laugh as the birds crowed cackles of glee and attacked a lone player who had only stopped running to catch his breath. Vernon Dursley always liked to laugh at other people. It made him feel slightly better to think about them whenever he himself was on the receiving end of a bully’s kick.
So it would have been no surprise to see Vernon Dursley sitting on the frosty concrete of the empty playground one winter evening. It was not a cold winter that year. In fact, the snow had not yet fallen and Christmas was two days away. Vernon had returned two days earlier from his first term at Smeltings, the prestigious boarding school he attended . It had been a hard term, full of schoolboy taunts and heads down loos. Vernon tried to stay as inconspicuous as possible at Smeltings, but it was no use. The older boys took every opportunity to taunt and torture ‘Piggles’, for the unsavoury nickname had followed Vernon to the public school. He knew not how.
Yet Vernon returned to the place where his misfortunes began, the old playground where some of the most miraculous and painful moments of his life had occurred. He remembered the shouts, the jeers, the boos and fouls and war cries. All was silent now. The birds no longer whispered from the tree. They had all migrated south for the Winter, to North Africa perhaps. Vernon did not know, did not care; he rarely paid attention to his studies, let alone classes involving far-off places he never intended on seeing. There was nothing wrong with Surrey, thank you very much. Why would he need to travel on crowded trains and aeroplanes, passengers herded like cattle, sweaty and bad-tempered, when he had everything he would ever need right on his doorstep?
He could feel his buttocks slowly freezing on the hard grey surface. The cold extended its claws through his thick woollen trousers, sinking its teeth into his pink, fleshy bottom, and he thought about moving to the bench at the edge of the playground. But Vernon was content under the tree. He was not sure he liked boarding school and this place held many memories for him. Watching the older boys (when they were not torturing him) studying in their common rooms and the library (not that he ever went in there) made Vernon realize just what a ride he was in for. Smeltings signalled the dawn of real life and even at eleven, even with all the intuition of the animal he was nicknamed for, Vernon could feel reality creeping up behind him.
In fact, there really was someone walking up behind him right that very moment. Vernon turned and poked his piggy little head with piggy little eyes round the trunk of the tree. He did not know what type of tree it was. He did not care. What he did care about was the doddery old lady pulling along a trolley across the great expanse of the playground. He had never seen her before.
Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.
Her puce court shoes echoed across the frozen ground. He was terrified she would slip on some ice and that he would be obliged to help her. Vernon was an inherently selfish boy. His parents were well-to-do working class folk; his father a locksmith with a nose for business and his mother the doting housewife. There was always a warm, delicious meal on the table, for breakfast, dinner and supper. There were always brand new toys under the Christmas tree and for birthdays, not one expense spared. Vernon was never expected to think of anyone but himself. And he liked it that way.
“I never had them same opportunities as you do, me lad,” his father would say. “But no son of mine is going to go without all the trimmings, yer hear me?” and Vernon would let Jack ruffle his hair and blow smoke rings into his face. As long as there was a sweet or two in it.
Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.
The old woman was closer now and it seemed she was heading right toward where Vernon sat, under the tree. He wished she would go away. What if she wanted to have a chat and he was forced to be polite and talk about the weather? No, he would just run off, right now, before she saw him and said a cheery “Hallo!”.
Vernon began to get up, struggling to lift his hefty backside from the ground.
“There’s no need to move, young man.”
Vernon froze. The old woman’s words hung in the frozen air like stalactites suspended from an icy ceiling. He peeked back around the trunk and gasped. She was standing right there on the other side of the tree. Yet he was sure she had only been halfway across the playground ten seconds ago. Surely, a woman of her age could not run that fast. Vernon, at eleven years old, would have struggled to make half the distance in the same amount of time.
Bracing himself against the trunk, Vernon finally managed to heave himself into an upright position. He stood there, clinging to the tree trunk as if it were a lifeguard, gawking at the little old lady before him. She was about the same height as Vernon. Her skin hung limp and flabby from her face, gathering in folds beneath her chin. Her eyes were the faded blue common among the elderly; a colour muted by cataracts. She was so old. Vernon was surprised that she could remain upright without the help of a cane.
But it was not her ancient appearance that made Vernon stare. It was her clothing, or lack thereof. While Vernon conceded that this winter was a lot less severe than the last, it was still freezing. The plump little boy was wrapped up from head to toe in his winter woollies while the old lady, well… A summer frock covered in daisies? And yet she was not even shivering. Her face was flushed and she seemed warm enough, despite the wrinkles and crickles and cracks. Her arms were riddled with tiny crevices. Her skin was like paper; a yellowed map, disintegrating, forgotten.
Perhaps she’s one of the loonies from the asylum?
Vernon began to back away, hoping to turn and run, back to the warmth and comfort and safety of his own home.
“I said there is no need to move, young man. I won’t be long,” repeated the woman. “May I ask your name?”
Vernon’s mouth hung open, his tongue thrashing about wildly between his cheeks, wondering whether or not it was safe to answer. A series of gurgles escaped his mouth.
“Well, don’t stand around catching flies all day, my boy,” she said and then turned to the side and whispered, “Silly Muggle boy.”
What on earth is a Muggle? Vernon scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion, giving him the look of a demented walrus.
“What do you mean by Muggle?” Apparently the term had forced Vernon’s tongue to co-operate.
Perhaps she’s a foreigner. Yes, one of those foreigners Da is always complaining about.
“Well, boy, you are a Muggle,” the old lady replied, and she moved to push past Vernon toward the tree. “Now, if you don’t mind.”
Vernon stood to the side and let her pass, careful not to brush against her crinkled arm. He watched as the woman reached into the small trolley. With her calloused and venous hands, she pulled out an odd, thin stick. She looked up.
“Perhaps I should-” she began and pointed the stick at Vernon.
“No!” he shouted. He did not like the way she brandished the stick as if it were a weapon.
“No,” the old lady agreed. “You wouldn’t tell anyone, would you? You don’t have any real friends.”
Vernon opened his mouth to negate this outrageous sentiment, but quickly closed it as the woman flicked her stick toward the tree. A thick branch, the size of Vernon’s thigh, thudded onto the concrete. Flecks of bark flew across the ground, leaving a thin layer of dusty residue.
He took a step back. The woman lifted the stick again and this time Vernon noticed her mouth moving silently. Another branch, even larger than the first, fell to the ground with cracking finality. Vernon let out a little moan. He wished now that he had run away, but it was too late. Who knew what the witch would do if he ran off, shouting the odds? The woman turned her stick to the two branches lying side by side at the foot of the tree. With a swift swish of the stick, the branches rose into the air and floated, as though on water, toward the old woman. She motioned toward the trolley and the branches dropped onto the flimsy, cloth bag.
And they disappeared! Vernon gasped.
This is wrong, he thought. This is unnatural. This is not normal!
He had to do something.
“Excuse me, but are you allowed to do that?” Vernon asked, trying in vain to keep the slight tremor from his voice.
“You’re not mourning the loss of a few branches, I dare say? I hear you young lads complaining about this poor Elder tree every day,” the woman said, turning her attention from the branches in her trolley to Vernon. “The branches always grow back, you know. Some people consider it unlucky, but Ollivander always pays well for its wood.”
Vernons eyebrows scrunched together even tighter than before.
Ollivander?
An unlucky tree?
What was the old woman on about?
“You Muggles never understand,” she muttered again.
And suddenly, Vernon lost it. He was sick of all the name-calling and taunts. Yes, he was chubby and well-nourished. Yes, he liked spending time with his mummy while she cooked him delicious meals and brought home sweets from the corner shop. He did not want to feel ashamed anymore. And he did not want to be called a Muggle, whatever that was.
There’s nothing wrong with normal! Who would want to be abnormal, anyway?
Vernon could feel the heat in his face rising; a fat, bulbous mercurial thermometer, measuring his increasing anger, his increasing frustration.
And what the hell is a Muggle?
“What the hell is a Muggle?” he shouted.
“Dear me, my boy. You look like an aubergine!” the witch pointed out, chuckling. Vernon’s face was turning a brilliant shade of purple, indeed. For an eleven-year-old boy, Vernon certainly had an impressive array of protruding veins. They bulged from his face like garden worms slithering all over his temples.
“What the hell is an aubergine?” shrieked Vernon.
The witch clicked her tongue.
“Rude Muggle boy,” she muttered.
That hideous word, again.
Vernon’s ears began to ring and bright red spots popped up in front of his eyes. He took a deep breath.
“I can hear you. Stop calling me that! I’m sick of all the names! I’m sick of all the jibes! I’m sick of being bullied! It’s just not fair!”
The witch looked at him speculatively.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with being a Muggle, boy; my sister was a Squib. But a rude Muggle? That’s different.” Through his distorted vision, Vernon suddenly saw a dangerous glint in the woman’s eyes. He did not like her tone; it was too soft, too malevolent.
“You’ll regret the day you were rude to me, boy!” and with a swift flick of her wrist she cried: “Furnunculus!”
Vernon yelped with pain as boils began to pop up all over his body. All over his body, in places where boils should never pop up!
“Stop it! Stop it!” he yelled, hopping on the spot. “Get rid of them, you old bat!”
The witch cackled, throwing back her wrinkled head, grey hairs flying in the breeze. Then, suddenly, she stopped. With a quick glance around, she muttered something which sounded like “Merlin, it’s the Ministry,” and disappeared with a pop. Vernon cried harder.
“No! Get back here, you stupid witch! Get rid of these…these things! These boils! It’s not fair!”
And then Vernon saw them. Two cloaked figures were making their way across the playground with surprising speed, their midnight blue robes billowing behind them, rustling against the frozen ground. He did not wait; he ran. Vernon ran faster than he had ever done in his entire life. He ran faster than he had run at his first game of rugby at Smeltings. He ran for his skin! There was nothing normal about the two men approaching; the cloaks did not shout safety, warmth and comfort.
Vernon never forgot his encounter with the witch in the playground. When Petunia first revealed her dirty secret, Vernon feigned his naïveté of the hidden magical world with ease. But he was not surprised. Not since the incident, as he liked to refer to it. He did not admit this knowledge to his wife. Vernon was normal; he was safe and comfortable in his ignorance. Magic, in Vernon’s eyes, was synonymous with boils in unfortunate places.
And he never returned to the tree. It remained, there, standing as a reminder for all the things Vernon despised most about the world he lived in. A single soldier, standing solitary in the middle of a barren battleground, fighting against the Muggles who played alongside. And although his own son, Dudley, sometimes spent his evenings at the heath along with his mates, Vernon always warned him against the tree in the middle of the playground.
“You don’t want to end up like your cousin, do you, son?”
Yet, the footballs continued to disturb the birds that nested in the Elder tree and the birds continued to terrorise the young boys who chose to play footy on the concrete playground. And year after year, a little witch would hobble across the concrete to gather its branches for Ollivander. Sometimes she changed; sometimes she was younger, other times she was more ancient than ever. But she continued to come, as normal.
The Elder Tree by the opaleye
Story Notes:
Thanks to my beta, Periculum, for her help!
Chapter Notes: Thanks to my beta, Periculum, for her help!*
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you for reading. Please leave me a review, I love reading what you all think!