YEAR ONE: THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
"Inside a cupboard, under some stairs, is a place that few would call home.
Inside it lives a young boy and girl: one with a scar... and the other, alone."
Chapter One: The Vanishing Glass
It was dark… ever so dark.
Harriet slowly opened her eyes and blinked as the dreams once again began to play in front of her… she saw two black-haired infants sitting together in a playroom with a screaming blonde-haired little boy. One of the twins was being harassed by the crying child, while the other merely sat and watched the two boys play with her thumb in her mouth. She watched not Dudley, but her twin brother with happy green eyes.
Soon after… the image faded, and she saw a snippet of her and Harry at the age of four: Dudley was sitting at the birthday table with a multitude of smiling faces sitting around him. She and her brother were standing in the corner with their hands folded neatly; several people glanced at Harry when he sighed, but nobody even looked at her… then Dudley blew out the candles. When their Aunt and Uncle handed the boy his presents, he shot a look at the two of them.
Petunia quickly tried to divert his attention away from the boy, but it didn't work.
"Why didn't Harry and Harriet get any presents last week, Mummy?" the little boy asked, looking confused; the girl's eyes lit up when several people blinked in confusion and looked at Harry with skeptical expressions. As always, they hadn't been able to see her. "It was their birthday, too."
"Don't worry, honey, Harry doesn't need them," the woman nervously giggled, putting a slice of cake on his plate. "Also… ghosts don't play with toys, honey... Harriet isn't alive anymore, remember? She died in the car crash."
The festive party continued, but nobody even noticed when a sad little girl left the room… not even the boy she'd been standing next to. Ever since the day after she'd turned four years old, the people around her had forgotten she was alive aside from Harry, and in the end, even he forgot that she was around. He'd let her disappear... he'd let her vanish like everyone else. If she touched someone, they didn't notice. If she shouted at someone, they couldn't hear her.
And the one time she got mad and attempted to break something to get everyone's attention, her brother had been the one who'd gotten in trouble.
Since the day he'd been whipped with their Uncle's belt, she had vowed never to break anything ever again.
However, in a way… she and her twin shared the same fate, sadly enough: nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their niece and nephew sitting on the front steps, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living-room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls.
Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed.
Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bobble hats—but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large, blonde boy riding his first bicycle, on a roundabout at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.
Even sadder was the fact that nobody even knew that same boy had a twin sister living in the same house, eating the same food, and wearing her brother's old clothes since nobody ever noticed her enough to buy her what she needed. She was all alone despite being surrounded by other people: whenever she wore her brother's favorite things, he never seemed to notice that they simply disappeared until she took them off again.
Whenever he discarded a pair of old glasses for newer ones, she adopted that pair as her own since she was practically blind without them. Nobody knew that Harriet Potter curled up beside her twin brother every night and held his hand in her own… the hand he would never hold back.
In reality, the two of them were almost completely identical. They had the same jet black hair, the same jade green eyes, the same soft lips… heck, they even had the same facial proportions. The only noticeable difference between the two of them was Harry's thicker jaw and Harriet's longer hair: instead of ending just above the shoulders like her brother's did, it stretched down a little bit further and ended just below the collar of her shirt.
Harry and Harriet Potter were still there, ignored in different ways… and both of them were asleep at the moment.
But not for long.
Their Aunt Petunia was awake: it was her shrill voice which made the first noise of the day.
"Up!" the woman snapped, smacking on the door. "Get up! Now!"
Harriet woke with a start when her brother twitched and jerked his hand out of her own.
"Is it time already?" the girl asked, sleepily looking at her brother and pretending that he was smiling and replying in a soft manner; she often did this to fill the void that had enshrouded her existence, since there wasn't exactly much she could do. "Well, I guess we'd better get up."
Their aunt rapped on the door again.
"Up!" she screeched, making the dark-haired girl wince. "Now!"
Harriet slid her glasses on and watched as her brother scratched his hair and yawned; then he blearily started patting around for his own glasses. The girl heard their aunt walking towards the kitchen, but then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker hit her ears. She watched as her twin flopped down again and stared at the ceiling with tired green eyes: it was during moments like this that Harriet felt as though she could reach out and touch him… and he'd look at her, finally. She could picture it happening… and like always, she succumbed to temptation and slid her hand into his before lifting it up and clutching it: there was no reaction.
He didn't even notice that his own arm was hovering nearly a foot off the bed.
However, she dropped his hand when their aunt came back outside the door.
"Are you up yet?" she demanded.
"Nearly," Harry croaked, rubbing his eyes and sitting back up. "Promise."
"Well, get a move on! I want you to look after the bacon," the woman called. "Don't you dare let it burn! I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."
"Ugh… bloody hell, I completely forgot about that," Harriet mumbled, smacking her forehead around the same time that Harry groaned. "I can't believe how stupid I am. Dudley's birthday—how could I have forgotten? He was bragging about it all week."
"What did you say?" Petunia snapped through the door, making her stiffen in hope; had her aunt heard her for once?
"Nothing," Harry hastily sighed, shaking his head in dismay. "Nothing..."
When Harry slowly got out of bed and started looking for socks, Harriet did the same: her brother didn't notice when she grabbed the pair she'd discarded the previous evening and slid them on her feet, nor did he notice when she lifted his favorite sweater off the floor and slid it over her wiry frame. She was really skinny, even when compared with her brother, and to boot she was about four inches shorter than he was.
Once she'd pulled on a pair of Harry's jeans, she turned to look over her shoulder and watched as he pulled a pair of socks out from under his bed.
She shuddered when he gently pulled a spider off one of them and set it on the ground before pulling them on. Her brother was used to spiders, but she could never get past her extreme fear of creepy crawlies. However, she'd put up with them since the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where her brother slept. She probably could have wedged herself between her aunt and uncle, or maybe flopped down on Dudley's old mattress, but she felt safest beside her twin.
It had always been that way, even before he'd forgotten her.
When Harry was dressed, he went down the hall into the kitchen with Harriet following him just a step behind. Her footfalls were silent on the creaky floors: they'd always been that way. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents: it looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he'd wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike.
Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to both Harry and Harriet, since Dudley was very fat and hated exercise—unless, of course, it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harriet was proud to say that her brother was extremely fast, even if he didn't look it. Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard their whole lives, but the twins had always been abnormally small and skinny for their ages: in fact, both of them looked even smaller and skinnier than they really were because all they had to wear were old clothes that had once belonged to Dudley. Their cousin was about four times bigger than Harry, and five times bigger than Harriet.
Harry and Harriet had soft, androgynous faces due to their young age.
However, their glasses were a force to be reckoned with: Harry was wearing round glasses that were being held together with a lot of Sellotape as a result of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. Harriet's glasses were in even worse condition: they were round like her brother's latest pair, but the left ear was dented, the bridge was falling apart, and the only thing keeping them on her face was constant vigilance.
Then again, Harriet never really worried about what she looked like since nobody ever saw her.
Her brother, on the other hand… well, he was self-conscious from what she had been able to discern.
The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was the scar on his forehead… the scar that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. Harriet had a similar one on her own forehead, but it was shaped a tad bit differently and the angle was different. They'd had these scars for as long as they could remember: the first question she could ever remember asking her Aunt Petunia was how she and her brother had gotten them.
'In the car crash when your parents died,' she had said. 'And don't ask questions.'
Don't ask questions… that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.
However, Harriet was full of them: for example, she wanted to know why nobody could see her, why everyone had either forgotten her or written her off as dead, why even her brother had failed to notice her presence… she had so many questions. And all of them had no answer.
Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen just as Harry started turning over the bacon. Harriet merely stood beside him and tried to slide her hand into his own, but yet again… no response. Her face fell as usual, but she still held on to him and stood there, hoping… silently praying.
Begging to be seen.
"Comb your hair!" her uncle barked by way of a morning greeting. "Get that mop in check!"
Harriet merely rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him; about once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed to get a haircut. Her brother must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in their class put together, but it made no difference since their hair simply grew back extremely fast… all over the place. Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Their cousin looked a lot like their uncle: he had a large, pink face, not much neck, small blue eyes, and thick blonde hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head.
Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel—but Harry often muttered that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.
Harriet was inclined to agree with him, especially since he acted like one as well.
Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was probably difficult seeing how there wasn't much room. Harriet knew that nobody would notice even if she helped, so that's exactly what she did: she helped him get everything set up without them noticing, then sat down beside her brother and grabbed a fork. She helped herself to some of the stuff from his plate and glanced up to see if he would notice his disappearing food; he didn't even give the plate a second glance.
Even though he'd been looking right at it when she'd taken a bite of his meal.
Her green eyes fell and she sighed, pushing her glasses up her nose.
Dudley, meanwhile, began counting his presents… but soon his face fell.
"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."
"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see?" Aunt Petunia soothed. "It's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."
"All right, thirty-seven then," Dudley snapped, going red in the face. "Still one less!"
Harriet merely watched the scene with disinterested eyes, but Harry, who could already see a huge Dudley-tantrum coming on, immediately began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible just in case their cousin turned the table over. Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger too.
'We'll buy you another two presents while we're out today," she quickly admonished. "How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?'
Dudley thought for a moment, but it looked like hard work.
"So," he said slowly, finally looking up, "so I'll have thirty... thirty..."
"Thirty-nine, sweetums," Aunt Petunia sighed.
"Oh," Dudley muttered, sitting down heavily and grabbing the nearest parcel. "All right, then."
"Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father," Uncle Vernon chuckled, ruffling his son's blonde hair. "Atta boy, Dudley!'
At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it; Harry, Harriet, and Uncle Vernon all watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a cine-camera, a remote-control aeroplane, sixteen new computer games, and a video recorder. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone, looking both angry and worried.
"Bad news, Vernon," the woman said, jerking her head in Harry's direction. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg, so she can't take him."
Dudley's mouth fell open in horror but Harriet's heart gave a leap: she instantly glanced at her brother and grinned when she saw his green eyes practically glowing with hope. Every year on Dudley's birthday, their aunt and uncle took him and a friend out for the day… be it to lots of adventure parks, hamburger bars, or the cinema. And every year, Harry had been left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away.
Harriet hated it there, but she always followed her brother no matter where he went, so she really didn't have any choice.
Sadly, the whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made her brother look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.
It was mind-numbingly boring, not to mention she had allergies.
"Now what?" Aunt Petunia demanded, looking at Harry her brother in fury; it was almost as though she was blaming him for planning this. Harriet knew she ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when she reminded herself it would be a whole year before her brother had to look at Tibbies, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again. "What do we do?"
"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.
"As if," Harriet snorted; her words fell on deaf ears like always. "She hates us."
"Don't be silly, Vernon," Petunia scoffed, scowling at him. "She hates the boy."
Harriet scowled and stuck out her tongue before glancing at her twin: his eyes were reticent and seemed to be taking each insult in stride. The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this… as though he wasn't there—or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug. It was one thing to not be able to notice someone... but it was another thing entirely to shut them out on purpose.
And it was exceedingly, outrageously, and maddeningly infuriating that she couldn't even speak her mind.
"What about what's-her-name?" Vernon asked, waving his hand. "Your friend—Yvonne?'
"On holiday in Majorca," Aunt Petunia snapped. "She'll be out of town for three more days."
"You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully. "Would that work?"
Harriet cast him a grin, since he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change. Maybe he'd even be able to have a go on Dudley's computer: if he was happy, she was happy… after all, even if he couldn't see her, and even if she couldn't do anything to make him notice her, she still found joy in her brother's smile. In fact, Harry was the only person who could make her feel happy in general.
That's why she was always right beside him.
However, Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.
"And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled, then shook her head slowly. "Well, I suppose we could take him to the zoo… and leave him in the car."
"That car's new," Uncle Vernon snapped. "He's not sitting in it alone..."
Dudley's face scrunched up and he began to cry loudly: Harriet and Harry rolled their eyes in synchronicity, since this was fairly common. He wasn't really crying… it had been years since he'd really cried, but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted. Guide to being a Spoiled Brat, 101: always cry for Mommy when things don't go your way.
"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry!" Petunia cried, flinging her arms around him. "Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!"
Harriet gagged herself when her brother sighed in dismay.
"I... don't... want... him... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge pretend sobs. "He always sp-spoils everything!"
"You're acting is rubbish," Harriet deadpanned, cocking an eyebrow and pushing her glasses up her nose; she knew he couldn't hear her, but that was half the fun. Completely unaware of her presence, Dudley shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
"Oh, Good Lord, they're here!" Aunt Petunia frantically exclaimed. "Hurry, hurry!"
Only a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother.
Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat, and he was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Their cousin stopped pretending to cry at once. However, only half an hour later, Harriet was lying sprawled across her brother's lap in the back of the Dursleys' car: in reality, she was also lying on Piers and Dudley, but none of them seemed to notice the weight of her body… she found it rather odd sometimes, honestly.
If anybody else did half the things that she did, they'd notice in an instant. She wasn't merely invisible… it was almost as though she wasn't there at all. And honestly, that thought really scared her: there were times when she'd be lying awake at night and feel the walls closing in on her. The reality that nobody could see her would loom out of the darkness and she would feel raw, unadulterated fear that stretched on endlessly.
It was the same type fear that most adults associate with not really knowing what comes after death.
However, this fear… while very similar, was also extremely different.
There were times when Harriet would suffer panic attacks since she couldn't tell if she was real or not: they came swiftly and randomly, and she usually locked up. That fear was always there, nagging at her… never really gone, but faded into the corners of her mind. It was overwhelming at times, and she hated it: she was afraid that she wasn't exactly real, or perhaps even alive.
Maybe her aunt was right and she was a ghost: she didn't know.
Harriet had always pictured ghosts to be legless sheets, and she didn't feel or look like one of those. However, that fear was currently not at the front of her thoughts: her brother was happy, so she would try her best to be happy, too. Plus, she was on the way to the zoo for the first time in her life: both of them would share a new experience with each other. Their aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with Harry, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken him aside.
"I'm warning you,' he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to her brother's; Harriet purposely tiptoed up and pinched her Uncle's cheek with all of her strength, but it didn't even leave a welt… nor did he seem to notice. "I'm warning you now, boy—any funny business, anything at all—and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas…"
"I'm not going to do anything," Harry said in a small voice. "Honestly..."
Uncle Vernon didn't believe him… no one ever did.
However, Harriet knew firsthand why that was so: the problem was… that ever since she'd destroyed the vase in order to get everyone's attention, strange things had often happened around her brother, even though she hadn't done anything bad since then.
It was no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.
Once, Aunt Petunia, had gotten tired of Harry coming back from the barber's looking as though his hair hadn't been cut at all: she had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short that he he was almost bald except for his fringe, which she left 'to hide that horrible scar'. Her twin had actually cried once he'd seen himself, and in a fit of fury, she'd cut her own hair off to match his... as if the act could make him feel better. She'd clutched his hand with both of hers as he cried, fighting to make him hear her… but he couldn't, and that had made her cry, as well.
She'd always cried when Harry had cried: she didn't know why, though… it just made her feel sad to realize her brother thought he was alone. However, Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who'd spent a sleepless night worrying about what everyone would say at school the next day. Harriet was already aware that her brother was laughed at for his baggy clothes and Sellotaped glasses, so this was beyond humiliating.
She had fallen asleep hugging his arm in an attempt to make him stop crying. But then, something shocking had happened: the very next morning, Harry and Harriet had both gotten up to find their hair exactly the way it had been before Aunt Petunia had decided to do her shearing. Harry had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to tell the woman that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.
Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old jumper of Dudley's, but the harder she'd tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a glove puppet. Aunt Petunia had decided that it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his sister's relief, Harry wasn't punished.
On the other hand, there had once been a time when Harry had gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Harriet was just as quick as her brother, so when Dudley's gang had started chasing him as usual, much to the twins' surprise as anyone else's, there they were… sitting on the chimney. Even today, Harriet didn't know how it had happened. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them that her brother had been climbing school buildings, but all he'd tried to do was run away.
Harry had supposed that the wind must have caught him somehow; Harriet didn't know what to think.
But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living-room. While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia since he really liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favourite subjects.
This morning, it was motorbikes.
Harriet rolled over and used her brother's lap as a pillow, purposely kicking Dudley in the nose without him even noticing; a little bit of blood did trickle down, and he touched it before squealing for a tissue. The green-eyed girl instantly giggled and lazily did it again.
Sure, it was mean, but he deserved it for harassing her brother all the time.
"Roaring along like maniacs," Vernon muttered, watching as a motorbike overtook them. "The young hoodlums."
"I had a dream about a motorbike," Harry suddenly stated, green eyes suddenly lighting up. "It was flying."
Harriet turned and looked up at him in curiosity, waiting to hear more, but Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car directly in front of him. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beetroot with a moustache.
"MOTORBIKES DON'T FLY!" he roared, making Harriet flinch and cover her ears. "GET THAT THOUGHT OUT OF YOUR HEAD!"
Dudley and Piers sniggered when Harry blinked and straightened his glasses.
"I know they don't," the dark-haired boy admitted. "It was only a dream."
However, Harriet could tell that he wished he hadn't said anything from the look in his eyes: if there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon.
For some reason, they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families.
The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice-creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice lolly. It wasn't bad, either: Harriet leaned over and took a few licks of it just to have a taste since today was kind of special; then she and her brother watched a gorilla scratching its head.
It looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blonde.
Harriet and Harry had the best morning they'd had in a long time. Her brother was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunch-time, wouldn't fall back on their favourite hobby of hitting him.
Sometimes, Harriet wished they could see her and feel her just so she could hit them back.
They ate in the zoo restaurant and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory wasn't big enough, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first… with his sister's help, of course: no way she'd pass that chance up. However, afterwards… the green-eyed girl felt that she should have known it was too good to last. After lunch, they went to the reptile house: it was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons.
Their cousin quickly found the largest snake in the place.
It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a dustbin—but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep. Harriet watched as Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.
"Make it move," he whined at his father. "Daddy, make it move!"
Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.
"Do it again," Dudley ordered; Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles.
The snake just snoozed on.
"This is boring," Dudley moaned, shuffling away. "Let's go find another snake."
Harriet slowly turned around and spotted Piers harassing another snake, to no avail… when he passed on, she walked over and set her hand against the glass, green eyes full of sympathetic understanding. She looked intently at the sleeping snake: she wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself—no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long.
"Poor guy," she mumbled, rubbing her eyes beneath her glasses. "You must hate living in a place like this… all these people poking their noses against the glass and trying to wake you up. Still, I kind of envy you: I mean, you get to be seen by everyone, even if they don't care about you."
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harriet's. When she stared at it, mouth dropping open, it swayed back and forth and pressed its mouth against the glass… once, twice, all the while looking directly at her.
Harriet stared at it… then she looked around to see if anyone was watching.
They weren't… and her brother was apparently busy with the other snake: something similar was happening with the enormous boa constrictor, and he seemed to be lost in a somber conversation with the creature. After a moment, the girl looked back at the snake in front of her and winked; it instantly winked right back.
"Can… can you see me?" she asked, eyes widening as a flurry of hope choked up her throat; she instantly pressed her palms against the glass and shivered violently in glee. "You… can see me, right?! You're not just looking at something behind me?! You really see me?! I'm not a ghost, right?! I'm alive?!"
The snake blinked, and a forked tongue slid out of its mouth before it slowly nodded.
Harriet practically fell over from the icy shock that swept through her; then she burst into hysterical tears.
"I'm really real!" the tiny girl cried, happily pressing her head against the glass window. "Thank you so much, Mr. Snake! Aside from you, nobody can see me for some reason! I was getting scared that maybe I really was a ghost or something… I felt like the world was getting smaller, you know? Plus, my brother can't even see me, and he's the person I care about the most! Thank you!"
The snake blinked before it jerked its head towards Uncle Vernon and Dudley: the two of them were harassing more sleeping creatures, which made the girl wince. The snake raised its eyes to the ceiling, giving Harriet a look that said, quite plainly, 'I get that all the time.'
"I know you do," Harriet murmured sympathetically, pressing her hand against the glass with a sigh. "It must be really annoying, having people stare at you all the time... but look on the bright side: at least they can see you, and at least you know you're real. Doesn't that count for something?"
The snake swayed for a moment, as if pondering the question… but then it blinked and finally nodded.
"Where do you come from, anyway?' Harriet asked, hesitantly glancing at her brother; he was openly talking to the boa from Brazil, and the serpent was currently doing something similar to the one she herself had started talking to. The snake in front of her slowly looked at a little sign next to the glass and Harriet peered at it before letting out a sigh. "King Cobra, Egypt… was it nice there?"
The cobra jabbed its head at the sign again: 'bred in captivity.'
"Oh, I see," Harriet sighed, eyes softening in dismay. "So, that means you've never met your parents, huh?"
The snake shook its head.
"That makes two of us," the girl mumbled, giving him a solemn smile. "Not like it would matter if I had, though: they'd probably have forgotten me just like everyone else did. You need to keep dreaming for the day that something good will finally happen to you, okay? There's really not much else you can do in a situation like ours, you know? Still… I know I just asked this, but... am I really alive?"
The snake nodded.
"That means I'm not a ghost, right?" the girl asked.
The snake nodded again.
"Well, do you know why nobody else can see me, then?" the girl asked, blinking at him. "I don't get it, honestly… it's not like I'm invisible. Even invisible people could get caught… it's more like nobody even realizes I'm here, like my existence isn't… really… substantial. Do you know why?"
To her shock, the snake looked straight at her scar… and nodded.
Harriet was just about to ask for the answer when a deafening shout from behind caught her off guard.
"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY!" Piers bellowed, waving his arms. "COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
"Oh, great…" Harriet muttered, scowling at the rat-faced boy before she glanced at the watching cobra with a despondent sigh. "See what I have to deal with every day? I can't even speak up and let them know how I feel about it… and if I do, they simply won't hear me. Pretty awful, huh?"
The snake nodded vigorously and almost seemed to shudder.
The two of them watched as Dudley came waddling towards her brother as fast as he could.
"Out of the way, you!" he snapped, punching Harry in the ribs; caught by surprise, her twin brother fell hard on the concrete floor. However, Harriet felt her anger spike and leaned back against the glass barrier between her and the cobra… but what came next happened so fast that no one saw how it happened: one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass... the next, they leapt back with howls of horror and the barrier behind Harriet was suddenly nowhere to be found. The black-haired girl gasped and flailed her arms when she lost her balance; then she let out a shriek and flipped over the railing, landing in the snake pond.
She instantly sat up and spluttered, glasses dangling off her nose by one ear.
Her clothes were completely drenched.
"What just happened?!" the tiny girl cried, standing up and looking at the snake; it was staring at her with pondering crimson eyes… then it slid down right in front of her face and looked right at her with a bright, intelligent expression. "Um… you aren't going to bite me, are you? I'd die if you did, you know… your fangs are extremely deadly, and I… I-I don't want to die, okay?"
"Fear not," it hissed, sounding thoroughly amused; the girl's eyes flew open wide and she stared with a slack jaw. "I do not harm friendss. Thankss…"
"U-uhhhh…" the girl droned, watching as it winked at her again. "Anytime?"
When the cobra slid off its branch and slithered out of the tank, the girl slowly got up and climbed out of it.
That's when she saw her brother staring at the boa he'd been talking to earlier sliding across the floor. The glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished, just like the glass from the cobra's tank. The two serpents uncoiled themselves, slithering out onto the floor and sending people throughout the reptile house running for the exits, screaming their heads off. The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.
"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"
The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber… but as far as Harriet had seen, the boa hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed; the cobra had merely continued on its way. However, by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him. Worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say something.
"Harry was talking to it," the rat-faced boy stated, glancing at him. "Weren't you, Harry?"
Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harriet's brother: he was so angry that he could hardly speak.
"Go—cupboard—stay—no meals," he managed to say, before he collapsed into a chair and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.
Much later on, Harriet lay beside Harry in their dark cupboard, both of them wishing for a watch of some sort to pass the time.
Neither twin could know what time it was and they couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, Harry couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food… although, Harriet was tempted to pilfer a bag of snacks and stuff them under his bed so he could find them. She'd done it on purpose in the past, and her brother had genuinely been confused as to how they'd gotten there… but he hadn't complained.
In fact, he'd come to think of it as the mysterious snack bag: when he was at his hungriest, there had always been a snack stuffed inside a sack under his bed.
Sadly enough, Harriet and Harry had lived with the Dursleys for almost ten years… ten miserable years, as long as they could remember, ever since they'd been babies and their parents had died in that car crash. Harriet couldn't remember being in the car when her parents had died.
Neither could Harry.
During the time before she'd started fading from his sight, he had often told her that, sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in the cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. Harriet had admitted that she had lots of dreams with green light, but she couldn't ever remember her scar hurting like his did since she was usually asleep when she had them.
The twins had supposed that the light was from the crash… although, even today, Harriet couldn't imagine where all the green light had come from.
However, when Harry had woken up one morning and hadn't spoken to her at all, she had been sad because it had finally happened.
It had broken her heart since he had promised he wouldn't ever forget her.
And yet, he had: just like everyone else, suddenly… she just hadn't been there anymore. Harriet figured that it would have been the same for their parents had they still been alive: she couldn't remember their parents at all. Their aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course Harry was forbidden to ask questions, so Harriet was even more at a loss since she couldn't ask herself. Plus, there were no photographs of them in the house.
When she had been much younger, and she'd first started disappearing to other people, Harriet had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take both her and Harry away, but it had never happened; her brother and the Dursleys were her only family. Yet sometimes, she thought… or maybe hoped… that lots of strangers in the street seemed to know who her brother was. They were very strange strangers, too.
A tiny man in a violet top-hat had bowed to him once while they'd been out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley.
After furiously asking Harry if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. Once, a wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved at him on a bus: she had been waving so merrily, too. Actually, now that she was thinking about it… a bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken her brother's hand in the street just the other day and then walked away without a word.
The weirdest part about all those people was the way they seemed to vanish the second she tried to get a closer look, almost as though they became what she was: not really there. At school, Harry had no one aside from his sister, and he didn't even remember her anymore: everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses. Nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.
Harriet clasped her brother's hand in her own, feeling his warmth and shivering in spite of it.
He was so close, and still so far away… it really hurt, but she couldn't give up.
He needed her... and even if he couldn't remember, she needed him just as badly.
"Harry," Harriet whispered, closing her eyes with a sigh. "Please remember me soon… I miss you."
Then she fell asleep, still holding onto her brother's hand like a lifeline.