The Potter Twins and the Not-so-Secret Chamber
Chapter One: Summer
Summer was exactly what Melanie thought it would be.
Free child labour for Aunt Petunia, being ignored by Uncle Vernon, except when they were being insulted, and Dudley screaming in fright every time either Harry or Melanie took a step towards him.
However entertaining it was to watch Dudley 'sprint' from the room, it did get a bit annoying to have him scream in terror whenever Melanie or Harry said or did anything. Thankfully, their cousin seemed to realize that breathing was just what they needed to do to live and not them hexing a nearby plant.
Well, at least they had each other.
"It's so hot today," Harry complained. He pouted childishly at Melanie, who was able to lower her temperature to counter the summer heat.
"Ha ha!" Even at twelve years of age, both of them still acted like a pair of five year olds fighting over a toy.
"You're so lucky," said Harry, his pout being accompanied by puppy-dog eyes. Melanie laughed, shivering slightly at the sudden cool breeze.
"There's the downside of being too cold in the summer, though." It was highly inconvenient how she got stared at wearing sweaters, whether it was in the winter or the summer.
"You can't really blame them. After all, they're expecting you to get heat stroke or frost bite." Even Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had noticed; no matter how much they disliked the twins, they didn't want deaths because of them.
When they'd asked about it, Melanie had managed to say that it was something 'magi-' before both adults had fled the room.
"Well," she said with a shrug, "at least I don't need to change my wardrobe according to the seasons."
"That's the spirit! Now help me plant some of these flowers before I overheat."
They worked in silence, enjoying that Aunt Petunia wasn't there watching and criticizing. Just then, they heard a loud hoot from their house.
"Hedwig," Harry whispered. The two of them abandoned the flower seeds, running inside to make sure that their uncle wouldn't throttle the bored owl. At least Melanie's cat, Ash, could deal with staying inside and doing nothing all day (though Dudley was absolutely terrified of the black cat).
"Fourth time this week!" Uncle Vernon roared.
This is going to be a repeat of this morning's argument, isn't it? Melanie thought wearily. She looked at Harry, who gave an equally exasperated look back.
"She's-"
"- just bored." Melanie finished.
"She's used to-"
"-flying around. If-"
"-we could just let-"
"-Hedwig out-"
"-at night-"
"Stop talking like that," Uncle Vernon snapped. "Do I look stupid?" Trick question. "I know what'll happen if I let that owl out."
"Yes," said Melanie, nodding. "She'll fly." She flapped her arms as if she was trying to fly.
"Get back outside!" Aunt Petunia said, voice quivering when Harry turned to glare at her.
Reluctantly, the two obeyed, going back to kneeling by the flower beds. Melanie was sorely tempted just to set the entire garden on fire. They probably wouldn't let them near the flowers ever again, but that might end up getting them locked in their room.
Really, it might be worth it.
"Honestly, what does he think that the owl will do?"
"Probably get letters. It'd be the first ones that we got this summer, anyways." Harry's voice got bitter at the end.
Melanie nodded, trying to look angry instead of sympathetic. She knew why they weren't receiving any letters; Dobby.
The day that they'd come home, she had a dream about second year. To be honest, she was quite frightened. These first two years would be bad enough, but she had a feeling that things were only going to get worse.
They might as well turn Hogwarts into a tournament of death or something.
The Chamber of Secrets, or perhaps it could be named the Not-so-Secret Chamber this year. After all, she knew about it and was prepared to tell Harry.
If only that worked.
Whenever she opened her mouth to tell him about the approaching danger, it would snap shut and stay that way until she stopped trying to talk to him about that specific thing.
To add to her confusion, why did this year's memories come all at once? Last year, they happened in small bursts and then just ahead of the actual event. Plus, it seemed that she was the only one with memories about the upcoming year, as Harry told her that his alternate universe memories seemed to have disappeared.
"Mel?"
Shaking her head to clear it of premonitions, she looked up. "Yeah?"
He pointed into the bushes, and Melanie looked just in time to see two green eyes blink and disappear. "Dobby," she breathed.
"What was that, do you think?"
"Um... Maybe a stray cat or something?"
Harry looked doubtful. "Those eyes were rather big for a cat..."
"Get in here!" came the shrill voice of their aunt.
Just that morning, they'd gotten a long lecture/been yelled at. It was all because of some stupid dinner party that Uncle Vernon was having, to kiss up to his boss.
"Get in here! And walk on the newspaper!"
They did what they were told, leaving two parallel sets of footprints on the newspapers. Even if there was enough amazingly prepared food for a family of ten (or two Dudleys), they were told to eat a few sad-looking pieces of bread and a block of cheese. The moment they finished, they were sent to their room to wait out the dinner in silence.
"Remember - one sound..." Uncle Vernon's threat hung in the air, dangling above their heads like a sharp knife.
The two Potters ignored him, content to spend the night in their room anyways.
Melanie smirked as she saw Harry sit down on the bed, leaping up a second later as he realized there was already somebody there.If I do this carefully, maybe Dobby will leave. When she saw Dobby's determined expression, however, all and any ideas of getting him out of their room quietly were banished from her mind.
As the two humans engaged in a staring contest with the house elf, they could hear Dudley saying, "May I take your coats, Mr. and Mrs. Mason?" followed by the two adults gushing over his manners.
Dobby slipped off the bed and bowed so low to Harry that his long nose touched the ground.
"Er... Hello," said Harry, fidgeting with his fingers nervously.
"Harry Potter! So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir... Such an honour it is..."
Melanie giggled as Harry stepped back, flattening himself against the wall. Sure, in the face of Voldemort, he was brave enough to yell at him, but confronted with a small, elfish creature, he was unnerved.
"Dobby, sir. Just Dobby. Dobby the house-elf."
Melanie sat down on the bed, having expected this. Beside Harry, she was just the extra Potter who hadn't done anything that was particularly amazing. Even though she'd been there with Harry when the Stone was taken, she might've been the wall for all the recognition she got.
Dobby burst into tears, but all Melanie did was think about the basilisk.
She'd have to bring a mirror to school this year... Did she even have a mirror? What if she walked around with a bowl of water? That'd probably be even stranger than carrying around a mirror... At least she could explain the mirror by saying that she was having a bad hair day... Bad hair year.
Maybe she could get some other girls to carry mirrors by telling them their hair looked messier than the nests in the Owlery. If it saved a few people, it'd be worth the angry glares.
She looked at Dobby's various bandages and felt a pang of sympathy. It was the Malfoys' fault, but it was also the fault of everybody that could stop this but chose not to. She winced when Dobby had to punish himself by slamming his head against the wall.
"Harry, somebody's coming up here," Melanie whispered.
"Quick, get into the closet!" Without waiting for an answer, he dragged Dobby into the closet and closed the door. A second later, Uncle Vernon entered the room.
"What - the - devil - are - you - doing? You've just ruined the punch line of my Japanese golfer joke! One more sound and you'll wish you'd never been born!" Even if the threat was directed to both of them, it felt like Uncle Vernon was mainly talking to Harry.
Melanie bit her lip, trying to think of something. "Sorry, uncle. I... fell." She saw Harry raise an eyebrow out of the corner of her eye.
I don't see you coming up with any excuses!
Their uncle stomped flat footed out of the room, only stopping when he reached the stairs. Melanie could hear him clearing his throat and walking lightly down the stairs, back to their company.
Maybe she should steal a hand mirror from her aunt? Well, that's if Aunt Petunia had one. If anything, I could just steal a broken piece from the mirrors the troll broke last year. I hope nobody cleared that up...
Her thoughts of a pair of yellow eyes stopped as Dobby darted out of the room, followed by a panicked Harry.
Melanie sighed, got up, and ran after them. She saw Dobby crouched on a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, hovering the pudding that Aunt Petunia had spent the entire afternoon making.
"No. Please... they'll kill me."
"Dobby, stop." She hoped for a second that a direct order might stop the house-elf.
"Harry Potter must say he's not going back to school-"
"Dobby, please-"
"Say it, sir-"
"I can't-"
"Then I must do it, sir, for Harry Potter's own good."
Time seemed to slow down as the pudding fell, and Dobby disappeared.
"No!" whispered Harry. He dived forward, trying to catch the dessert.
Somehow, the cake was suspended in midair. It looked like it was caught on an air current.
This wasn't supposed to happen, Melanie though, eyes widening. Now Harry'll get in more trouble for magic!
Because of this air current magic, Harry managed to place his hands under the pudding and hold it. This, however, attracted the attention of the people sitting in the dining room. They'd heard Harry dive onto the floor and rushed in to see what the noise was. They saw Melanie watching from behind a wall and Harry frozen in the kitchen, holding the dessert and caught like a deer in the headlights.
Stepping forwards, Melanie forced a bright smile onto her face and said, "Uncle! We're here to help."
Her uncle was obviously desperate for an excuse for he latched onto the story. "Ah, yes. Thank you." He grit out the thanks as if it was poison.
"And who are these two children?" asked Mrs. Mason.
Aunt Petunia bared her teeth in a smile. "Oh, just my darling niece and nephew."
"Where have they been all this time?" Mr. Mason wasn't a stupid man. His eyes took in their ragged clothes and uncomfortable expressions in comparison to Dudley's brand new clothing and 'cat-who-ate-the-canary' expression.
"Oh. Um, Harry had a small headache just a few minutes ago, and I was upstairs with him to keep him company. Isn't that right, Harry?" Melanie stood beside him and nudged his arm, nearly making him drop the pudding.
"Yes. Yes, I had a headache and that's why I wasn't here." At Mrs. Mason's worried expression, he added, "But it's all better now, and I just wanted to help my aunt and uncle."
They might've even pulled it off - if the owl hadn't arrived.
Just as Harry placed the dessert back onto the table and was about to dump some into a few plates, a huge barn owl flew in through the dining room window, dropped a letter on Mrs. Mason's head, and swooped out again. Mrs. Mason did a fairly good impression of a banshee and ran out of the room. Mr. Mason fixed Uncle Vernon under a fierce glare and asked if his was his idea of a joke because it wasn't funny and how would he think that Mrs. Mason would take it with her fear of birds.
The dinner party was over.
Uncle Vernon grabbed the letter and read it through. When he was done reading, he stomped up to Harry and shoved the letter in his face.
"Read it," he said angrily.
Melanie knew what the letter was, as well as what would be happening, but couldn't suppress the jolt of fear she felt when she saw her uncle's expression.
"You didn't tell us you weren't allowed to use magic outside of school. Forgot to mention it... Slipped your mind, I daresay." They all knew very well that this fact hadn't slipped neither Harry nor Melanie's mind.
"Well, I've got news for you, boy... I'm locking you up... You're never going back to that school... never... and if you try and magic yourself out - they'll expel you!"
He dragged Harry back upstairs, telling Melanie to follow behind. Huh… I guess the letter blamed Harry. Maybe they forgot I live here.
"You two stay in this room, and if I hear even a peep..." His threat as unfinished and the two lay down side by side, asleep uneasily within a few minutes.
Disclaimer: Not J.K Rowling. Wish I could be that famous… If I do end up turning into J.K. Rowling out of some mystical power or something, I'll be sure to let you guys know.
This is the sequel to Harry Potter and the Mysterious Sibling, just in case anybody didn't know. Anyways, this is a focus on their second year.
There's the chamber (which Melanie knows about, Hermione knows exists, Ron theorizes about, and Harry feels like is there).
There's a mysterious package.
And, above all, there's a basilisk.
Second year, yay! Also, if anybody's interested, I wrote a one-shot in Ron's POV about Harry getting picked for the Triwizard tournament.
What did you all think? I was going to put it up this weekend, but then I was just like 'why not today?'
~ScaleneGalleons~