Vernon Dursley

Vernon Dursley opens Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone convinced he is the most normal man in England, and proud of it. Big, beefy, nearly neckless, and generously moustached, he is a director of a drill-making firm called Grunnings, husband of Petunia, father of Dudley, and, very much against his wishes, uncle by marriage to Harry Potter, who lives in the cupboard under the stairs at number four, Privet Drive. Vernon's governing terror is that the neighbours might notice something odd about his household, and Harry, with his unexplained oddities, is a standing threat to the net curtains. Anything unusual is banned from conversation, imagination is treated as a character flaw, and the word magic is not said in his house.