Chapter 1

The 'Incident'

Harry Potter lived in Number 4 Privet Drive, London, England. He lived an interesting life with his cousin Dudley, his Aunt Petunia, and his Uncle Vernon. And by interesting I don't mean a good interesting. His parents had died in a car crash, according to his aunt and uncle. He had to live under the stairs, even though the house had four bedrooms. The fourth one was occupied by Dudley's toy collection, which was very expansive. The family had no pets, "from a childhood incident" Petunia said. Harry's eleventh birthday was coming up, and although Petunia and Vernon didn't want to remember, Dudley wanted to make sure that Harry would get no presents and he would be at the zoo on that day. Harry knew better than to protest "their baby" Dudley. In their eyes, he could do no wrong, but Harry knew better. Dudley had a gang of thugs whose prime objective was to beat up Harry whenever possible.

It was the day of Harry's birthday, but nobody cared. At least, that's what he thought. However, Dudley's trip to the zoo had to be 'ruined' because the usual mean sitter could not come to punish Harry. They had to take Harry to the zoo, but they told him to stay as far away as possible. Harry agreed, like he had a choice.

At the zoo, in the reptile house, Harry noticed something different about a specific snake. The cage label said 'King Snake', but Harry knew that king snakes were red, black, and yellow, but this one was bright purple, with a yellow rattler tail. It seemed to be trying to talk to him, and it came through to Harry's mind loud and clear:" Let Ekanssssssssssssss out of here and you will be greatly thanked." Harry had no idea what it meant, and he knew he couldn't break the glass, but he wished that that snake would escape and bite Dudley's' head. He must've wished so hard he didn't know what was happening, but the screaming brought him back to reality. The glass was broken straight through, like the snake had just headbutted its way out! Speaking of which, Harry looked over to see the purple snake trying to bite off Dudley's head. "Yes!" he silently mumbled. However, this was just enough for Petunia to notice him and gave the Hairy Eyeball x500 and Uncle Vernon soon caught on.

After the incident, back at Number 4, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were scolding Harry. They didn't do it at the hospital because apparently, they thought it was 'inappropriate', but Harry knew the real reason. They were too busy comforting their 'Dudley-Wudley' and assuring him Harry would be punished. "Do you have any idea-" Vernon was cut short as a letter slipped through the mail slot. "I'll go look at it," he said. "Petunia, keep tabs on the boy." As soon as he picked up the letter he turned around and motioned to Petunia. She immediately understood and Vernon quickly concluded that it was :"just a bill, nothing serious", but Harry was skeptical. He decided to let it go, but he saw Vernon lock the mail slot. Another few minutes of scolding passed until the next letter came this time through the chimney. Uncle Vernon rushed to grab the envelope, but Harry was too fast. All he saw on the envelope was 'To Harry Potter', but that was all he needed to see. As the cascade of letters started to pour out of the chimney, Harry went for any available letter that Uncle Vernon wasn't grabbing. This only lasted a bit, until Uncle Vernon loaded everyone into the car and said they were going on a surprise vacation to a remote island where no postman could reach them. They arrived at the rickety shack when a storm was there and the lightning struck the roof as a plank fell violently to the ground. Uncle Vernon locked them in and started to lecture Harry: "You saw nothing, young man, you hear me? NOTHING-" Uncle Vernon was cut short as the door fell down and the looming presence of a big man fell upon them. "What took you so long, Harry? Didn't ya get my letters?"