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Written for;

The Hunger Games Competition, #1

The Cinema Competition - Hunger Games

DA II - The Bingo Game

200 Characters in 200 Days - Vernon Dursley

WC without AN - 735

Two Hundred and Forty Seconds

The TV held their attention so well that none of them heard the cracks of apparition around the house, not that they'd have recognised them even if that had heard. The woman sat beside her husband, her head resting gently against his shoulder. The son sat alone in the chair, a packet of crisp in his chubby hands, a chocolate bar on the table beside him, waiting to be consumed.

It was a normal night for the normal family.

The first sign that something was wrong was the flash in front of the window. The wife sat up suddenly, her eyes on the already drawn curtains. She was sure she'd just seen a red light shoot past. The husband watched her with his brow furrowed slightly.

"Petunia, dear, what's the matter?"

She shook her head, her eyes still on the curtains. "I thought I saw... it was probably nothing."

She settled back down, but she was unable to shake the feeling that there was something very wrong happening on the normally normal suburb of Privet Drive.

A bang, followed by a shout... the front door of number four crashed open without warning. Petunia let out a fearful shriek as she and her husband jumped up from the sofa. The son paled, the few crisp still in the bag flying everywhere.

"Bombarda!"

The wall between the hallway and the living room crumbled to dust in front of their eyes.

"Petunia, go! Take Dudley and go," Vernon muttered, on the gap where the wall used to be. "Petunia, NOW!"

His raised voice propelled his wife into action, and she pushed her son from the room into the kitchen. Her hands shook as she tried to quietly unlock the back door, knowing that as hand as they tried, none of them were going to escape the night with their lives.

"Crucio!"

Her husbands screams rent the air, fetching fresh tears to her face as she finally succeeded in opening the back door to the slimmest chance she had of saving her son. With a final glance back in the direction of her husbands screams, Petunia pushed her son through the back door, pointing to the gate. She clutched his hand as the two made a run for it, and she prayed with everything in her that help would soon arrive, if not for her then for her son.

Vernon was on the floor. He could feel his spasms running through his body as he shook uncontrollably, but it was impossible to think around the pain. Distantly, he heard a cackle, a woman's laugh that sent terror like he'd never known up his spine.

The pain let up for a moment, and he slumped on the floor, his breathing heavy. The cackle sounded again, closer this time, and he forced himself to open his eyes. A woman, with mad hair and madder eyes, knelt down beside him, a knife in her hand.

"Let's see how strong the muggle is, shall we?" she asked with a crazy smile. "How long can you hold your screams for, Muggle?"

The slice was long, but shallow, and he bit his lip against the groan of pain that bubbled up inside him. Every cell in his body was screaming for death, but this woman didn't seem interested in giving him what he so needed. Petunia had told him a little about the monsters from the world they pretended didn't exist. He knew that he would die here on his living room floor.

A second slice, this time across his chest, forced a moan out of him. He only hoped that be sacrificing himself to this crazed monster's whims, he'd managed to save his wife and son from the same treatment.

"Bellatrix, we don't have time for this," a bored voice came from somewhere above him. "Our Lord wants the house burning down before the Order can arrive. We've already been her for four minutes."

Four minutes. The idea that his life, so normal not five minutes ago, could have changed so much in so little an amount of time. Four minutes. Two hundred and forty seconds.

"Fine. Any sign of the wife and boy?"

"No."

Vernon felt rather than saw the woman stand up, but he held his relief inside. They'd gotten away.

His wife and son were alive.

"Avada Kedavra!"