A/N: I have no idea where this story is going, or even if it is going to go anywhere. This is just an idea that came to me a few months ago, and wouldn't go away. It wanted out, so here it is. I hope you enjoy it. Cinnamon.

Disclaimer: Do not own.

Harry James Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, was proud to say that he was a perfectly normal almost-eleven-year-old boy. A little spoilt, perhaps, but—he liked to think—not quite as spoilt as his cousin and adopted brother, Dudley. Certainly, he was not as fat.

Harry sighed as he trudged through the zoo after Dudley and one of his many friends, Piers Polkiss. He had no interest in the zoo's inhabitants, and still less in Polkiss, who was almost as stupid as Dudley, and that without the extenuating circumstance of being family.

But it was Dudley's birthday, and a family outing to the zoo was exactly the kind of normal thing that a normal family would do to celebrate their son's birthday. When Harry had objected, their dad had given him a look that reminded him that he was the only living reminder of just why the Dursleys felt the need to strive so hard for normality. And as Dudley's Aunt Marge (she and Harry both found great comfort in the fact that since she was their dad's sister, and he was really a nephew on their mother's side, there was no actual blood shared between them) was so fond of pointing out, it had been 'very good of Vernon and Petunia' to take him in.

So here he was.

The day passed more or less uneventfully up until they reached the snake enclosure after lunch—no one but him had noticed the quite remarkable likeness between Dudley and the gorilla, and Dudley himself had thrown a tantrum when his knickerbocker glory wasn't big enough, but neither of these happenings seemed unusual enough to constitute an event.

At the reptile house, Dudley quickly located the largest snake in the place, a Brazilian Boa Constrictor who looked, if possible, even more bored than Harry.

"Make it move," his brother demanded, and of course their dad immediately tapped on the glass. There was no result, of course. Harry could have told them that there wouldn't be. As their parents walked off, and Polkiss showed signs of wanting to do the same, Dudley turned to Harry.

"Make it move," he said again, but this time it was more of a request than a demand. Harry stared at him.

"No..."

"Please, it's my birthday," Dudley whined, while Polkiss looked back and forth between them, completely bewildered.

Unlike their parents and Harry, Dudley had no particular interest in normality. In his view, normal was boring, and boring was to be avoided at all costs.

When they were five, their parents had sat them down and explained that Harry wasn't their biological son, what "biological" meant, who Harry's biological parents had been, how they had died, how they were both supposed to say that they had died in a car crash if asked, that it was Harry's duty to suppress any "freakish tendencies" that he might have inherited from them, and the various meanings of the word "inherited". Dudley had been fascinated. Harry, undergoing the somewhat terrifying realisation that the explosion of the TV the week before had probably not been a design flaw at all, was less pleased.

Over time, Harry had leant that the only way to stop accidental surges of the freakish tendencies was to sort of exercise them regularly out of sight of his parents. Dudley knew, of course, since most of this exercise was done at his request; fixing broken toys, adjusting particularly unfavourable school reports and causing their maths teacher to break out in a nasty rash that got worse whenever he was unpleasant to Dudley. Their parents had been relieved when it seemed that Harry had managed to overcome his unnatural tendencies, while Harry himself had felt almost sick with guilt. He didn't want to lie to them, but at the same time he knew that the truth would only upset them again.

And then, last year, a surprise encounter with a snake in the garden had led to the revelation that Harry could talk to snakes as well. Dudley's delight had been equalled only by Harry's distress. Snakes were a rare occurrence in Privet Drive though, and so Harry had almost forgotten the incident. Dudley, it seemed, had not.

"Pleeeaaase," Dudley coaxed again, and Harry decided that this was unusual enough to merit reward. He glowered at Polkiss.

"This. Never. Happened," he stated menacingly, then turned back to the tank. "Wake up," he told the snake, or at least that was how it sounded to him. Dudley had said that it sounded like hissing to anyone else. Piers stared at him like he'd grown an extra head, and Dudley turned eagerly to look at the snake, which was raising its head to look at them.

"You speak?" it asked incredulously.

"Duh," would have been the most appropriate response, but apparently that didn't translate into snake language. "Obviously," he said instead. Snakes, as he had discovered last year, really weren't that interesting. Beside him, Dudley seemed to disagree, while Polkiss seemed on the verge of hyperventilating. Harry smiled. He knew it was cruel, but the thought that Polkiss was upset by this particular ability somehow made it all worthwhile.

"Can you make it move around more?" Dudley asked hopefully. Polkiss whimpered and Harry smiled.

"Get the post, Dudley," their dad said from behind his paper, interrupting his and Dudley's Smeltings stick fight. The Smeltings sticks were the crowning glory and only redeeming feature of the Smeltings uniform. Dudley seemed to see no objection to maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers and straw boaters. Harry did, but had decided that refusing to wear the uniform would make him appear more ridiculous than actually wearing it. He supposed that it was traditional for school uniforms to be aesthetically painful, and tried not to think about it too much.

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the post, Harry."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Get the post, Dudley."

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the post, Harry."

Sometimes, Harry wondered if their dad was even listening to them, or if he just responded automatically to whatever the last comment had been. It would explain a lot. Knowing that Dudley was quite capable of continuing the discussion indefinitely, he rose to his feet and padded down the hall to the front door.

Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Dudley's Aunt Marge, who was holidaying on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and a letter for Harry.

Mr H. Dursley

The Smallest Bedroom

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

The other side of the yellowish parchment envelope showed a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large "H". Harry felt his heart sinking. Shoving the letter into his pocket to deal with later, he carried the bill and the postcard back into the kitchen and handed them to his dad.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)

Dear Mr Dursley,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

There was a loaded silence.

"How are you going to tell Mum and Dad?" Dudley asked at last, and Harry snapped his head around to stare at him.

"I'm not going to tell them. Neither are you."

"So...What? You're just going to run away?"

"What? No! I'm not going. I'm going to write back to this...this...Minerva McGonagall, and tell her thanks but no thanks." Even if their parents hadn't warned him about these kinds of people, he liked to think that he would have thought twice about going to any school whose Headmaster was willing to admit to a title like "Supreme Mugwump".

It was not to be expected that Dudley would share this view, or that he would be quiet about his objections. In the end, though, it was Harry who would have to go to Hogwarts, and so it was ultimately his decision to make.

That same night he composed a brief letter to Minerva McGonagall containing such phrases as, "honoured," "flattered," and "regretfully decline". He had discovered a while ago that adults were more inclined to take you seriously if you used long words (correctly), and there was no sense upsetting the freaks by telling them his real opinion of them and their school. Fitting the letter neatly into an envelope with the intention of delivering it to the nearest post office the next day, he was quite surprised by the appearance of an owl at his window. Well, at least that explained "we await your owl".

Harry went to bed slightly disturbed, but overall relieved to have the whole thing behind him.