Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters of the books or movies. They all belong to the lovely J.K. Rowling. The only ones I do own are Calathea and Roselina.
Speaking:
Normal
Thoughts
Beast Speak
Parseltongue
It was a warm and sunny Monday morning of July 22 and all occupants of the household were still asleep. One by one they slowly awoke, two overweight men, a horse faced women with a pencil neck, a young girl with golden-copper hair, and an underweight boy. The young girl was the first to wake and walked down the stairs to the kitchen to make breakfast for the family. She looked at the large, dark ash wood grandfather clock that read 7:30 am.
"Too early. Uncle Vernon will be up in fifteen minutes and will expect breakfast to be ready." Calathea muttered to herself. She then backwards to knock on Harry's door.
"Hmm." He muttered out very sleepily.
"Harry, you might want to wake up. Uncle will be up soon and I need help to make breakfast." Calathea answered back at him. She unlocked the door, and Harry clambered out of the small doorway.
Once in the kitchen, they quietly pulled the pans from the cabinets: a skillet to fry bacon and sausage, a pan to make sunny side up eggs, and a toaster oven for the toast. Calathea pulled out the ingredients for hotcakes, stirred them together, and put them on the hotcakes pan. They soon heard footsteps in the upstairs making their way down the stairs.
Harry was happy that there was only a few more weeks and he would be off to Stonewall High, for secondary school. Calathea would be going to City of London School for girls, the local secondary school for girls. Yesterday, they had to wake to Dudley marching around in his new Smeltings uniform, a maroon tailcoat, orange knickerbockers, and a flat straw hat called a boater, and always carried gnarled canes. He looked absolutely, atrocious. The colors didn't go together in anyway. While Harry was forced to smell, what seemed like burnt wax and dye swimming together, in the water were old shirts being dyed gray for his own future uniform.
Their happy thoughts were interrupted as Uncle Vernon came into the kitchen, white button down under a brown blazer covered in green and red checkers, brown trousers, and black faux Italian loafers. His gray mustache trimmed neatly and his eyes narrowed in mistrust and anger.
"FREAK! What do you think you're doing? Making food that I buy with my money." His face becoming beefy.
"Uncle, don't be mad at him, I was the one who did this. I wanted you to be able to eat before you went to work today. Sorry." Calathea said in submission coming to Harry's defense.
"Oh, thank you Cali." He smiled down at his niece. Then turned to sit in his chair, so Calathea and Harry sighed quietly behind his back.
Calathea made a plate for her uncle and his coffee, black for Mondays, then made the others, her aunt and cousin coming in shortly after. Halfway through breakfast they heard the mail slot. Aunt Petunia told Dudley to get the mail, then Dudley told Harry to get it.
"Make Dudley get it." Harry counteracted to their aunt.
"Harry go get the mail, Cali grab the milk and paper." It was a surprise that Uncle Vernon didn't have the paper already, usually he is already complaining about the news as they ate. Talking about the stocks and the latest gossip.
In the hall under the mail flap, laying on the doormat, were five things: a postcard from Aunt Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope like that of a bill, a letter from Yvonne for Aunt Petunia, and two letters. One that was for Harry and for Calathea.
Wait a letter for Harry and me? she thought. They were both written in emerald green ink. But who were they from. They had no friends, no other relatives than the Dursleys', and Calathea didn't know who her father was yet they were addressed to the two of them, no mistake there:
Mr. H. Potter
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
Miss C. Evans
The Tiny Bedroom
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
The envelopes were thick and heavy, the parchment had a yellowish tint to it, and had no stamps on them. On the back was a wax seal with a coat of arms; a lion, a badger, an eagle, and a snake surrounded a large elegant H.
"Hurry up, both of you!" Shouted Uncle Vernon from the depths of the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own terrible joke.
Calathea took the mail back to the kitchen, trying to hide the letters from them, and handed the others to her uncle. She sat and examined the envelopes, then folded and put them in the pockets of her black jeans.
Uncle Vernon tore the bill open with a look of disgust, it was the electric bill, must be a lot. Then turned to the postcard, and read it. "Well Marge is ill, ate a bad whelk."
"Yvonne says hi, and that she might come and pay a visit to us." Aunt Petunia responded.
Uncle Vernon soon left for work, Aunt Petunia went to the neighbors for tea, and Piers' parents picked Dudley up to spend the day with them. Harry was assigned to clean the kitchen, sweep, mop, and wax all the non-carpet floors, clean the bathrooms, weed the garden, mow the lawn, and do all the laundry. Then dust all the surfaces throughout the household. While Harry did this, Calathea decided to read some of the books from her Uncle's private study, things such as Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, and some poem books. Her favorite is Hamlet by Shakespeare. Around noon, Calathea made some sandwiches for her and Harry, turkey, cheese and mayo. Then went to open their letters. She had just opened the flap when her aunt walked in and a look of horror flashed over Petunia's face.
"Where did you get those?" She hollered and scurried over, ripping the letters from Cali's hands.
"Aunt Petunia, why did you do that? That's addressed to me. It is my property." She was angry, never had her aunt treated her like this.
"No, you will not have this trash. When your uncle gets home, we are having a talk." She replied snippily and turned on her heel to go to her room. Cali knew she was going to hide them until their Uncle got home. And she also knew she would never know what the letters said.
"Cali, what's wrong? Did something happen?" Harry asked when he came in from the backyard. He looked like he had just got done with the mowing.
"Aunt Petunia took the letters. She said her and Uncle would talk when he gets home. We'll never know what they said." Calathea was very upset, way beyond upset.
What if these letters had any clues and to whom my father was, or is. I could learn more about my mom. Aunt Petunia refuses to talk about her. Only thing she says is that she died shortly after I was born from complications while in labor. Calathea thought to herself with disdain.
Later that evening when Uncle Vernon got home, he and Aunt Petunia kept all of them from the kitchen. The three cousins could hear the couple arguing over the letters. Uncle Vernon's voice was loud, scuff and angry, while Aunt Petunia's was meek, chirpy, and high. Dudley claimed the keyhole, while Harry and Calathea settled for the crack of the door, pressing their ears to the door itself.
"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address – how could they possible know where they sleep? You don't think they're watching the house."
"Watching -spying- might be following us, wouldn't put it past those crackpot freaks." Uncle Vernon muttered wildly.
"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want- "
They could hear and see Uncle Vernon's shiny, black shoes pacing around the kitchen floor, the heels clicking around across the wood.
"No." He said finally after moments of silence. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer…Yes, that's best…we won't do anything…"
"But- "
"I'm not having one, even two in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"
"But what about Cali, since we don't know her father I was hoping she wouldn't end up like them. I was so hopeful. That if I treated her with sweetness and love, like Roselina wanted, maybe she wouldn't end up like them, but I also failed." Petunia's voice was trembling with a mix of anger and sadness, it made Calathea's heart break a little.
"Well she is now a freak as well, we should have been looking for the signs just like with him. For now, we know what we'll do." What that the conversation ended.
When he opened the door Uncle Vernon glared down at them. Then looked at Harry with a smoldered angry face. "We have decided you have grown too big for that cupboard of yours. You're moving into Dudley's second bedroom, so grab your things."
"WHAT NO! THAT IS MY ROOM…I NEED IT MAKE HIM GET OUT!" Dudley voice quickly rose in protest, his face swelling red and even more porky.
Harry grabbed his few things he had under the stairs, his clothes and pillow. Then marched up the stairs to the first bedroom next to the stairs, a small room with a worn wardrobe, a small set of drawers, a small white desk, and a thin mattress on a wrought iron frame. He put his few clothes in the drawers, and looked in the wardrobe. In it was a broken bird cage on the top shelf that Dudley had sat on, it once held a parrot that he had traded at school for a real air rifle. There was the first television his parents had bought him, broken when he thrust his foot into it when his favorite program had been canceled, and the cine-camera was broken atop it. Books littered the shelves giving Harry a small bit of entertainment.
All I want to do is be back in my cupboard, what is wrong with someone writing to me. I'm curious to figure out who it is that is writing to Cali and I. Harry thoughts were inquisitive.
The next morning during breakfast Dudley was still pouting while parading around in his Smeltings uniform, swinging his walking cane to and fro. Calathea was helping Aunt Petunia cook breakfast, bacon, eggs, hash, and toast, simple, when the mail slot was heard slamming back against the metallic frame. Uncle Vernon sent Dudley to grab it this time around, trying, attempting to be nice to Harry.
A loud gasp was heard from the front foyer, then Dudley shouted, "There's two more! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive- "
Uncle Vernon leapt from his set, with a strangled cry, and ran down the hall, Harry hot on his trail. Dudley's father wrestled him to the ground to get the letter from his grasp, Harry quickly jumped into the fold trying to grab it himself. Calathea and Aunt Petunia just watched from behind with looks of horror and shock. Amongst the chaos, all three men were hit with a Smelting stick, and Uncle Vernon stood up, gasping for breath, hold both of their letters tightly in his fist.
"Calathea go to your room, freak go to your cupboard- I mean, your bedroom," Uncle Vernon wheezed at the three kids. "Dudley just go."
He then stormed into the living room and threw the letters into the roaring fireplace. Then walked to Petunia, kissed her cheek, and left for work. Aunt Petunia gave Harry his list of chores and took Dudley out for the day to shop in London.
The grandfather clock in the living room, chimed six o'clock the next morning, waking both Harry and Calathea, Harry quickly but quietly swung his door open so that he wouldn't wake his aunt and uncle. He then headed down the stairs, skipping the last. He was going to greet the postman. But at the end of the staircase, he tripped over a great lump.
"AAAARRRRGH."
He leapt up, to see his Uncle underneath him, his face slowly turning purple. Atop the stairs Calathea flickered the lights on, her face shocked to see her cousin and uncle in a near tangled heap at the bottom. Uncle Vernon in a sleeping bag awaiting the mail. And for the next half hour all he did was holler at Harry.
Over the next week, more than two dozen letters appeared, through the mail slot, open windows. But when the dairyman had to hand the eggs through the kitchen window, Uncle Vernon was losing it. He took the day off and boarded up all the entrances, all because the eggs contained a dozen letters for both Harry and Calathea. This continued on until Sunday, where sat the Dursleys', the Evan, and the Potter, Uncle Vernon with the largest smug face he could muster.
"Ah Sunday, I just love Sunday's. And why is that Freak?" Uncle Vernon's voice was uncharacteristically happy and a little haunting.
"No post." Harry answered back solemnly, he was upset that all week he and his cousin had been forbidden from reading their letters.
"Right you are. No post on Sundays! Ha!" He rejoiced even happier, munching on some cookies and coffee.
But the silence that was Sunday, and the peace that was unnaturally in the house, was disturbed by the rumbling over the house. Dudley ducked down behind a chair and Petunia covered her head. Uncle Vernon looked around confused, until a single lone envelope shot out at him from the fireplace. Then it all went to chaos. Hundreds of thousands of letters rained in the sitting room. Glee alighted on Harry and Calathea's faces, and they leapt to grab just one.
Harry had one in his grasp, when he paled at the red beet in front of him. His Uncle was staring at him, with beady eyes, his face a rough red. He lunged for his nephew, causing Harry to run. He headed for the stairs but was tackled in front of the mail slot, where even more letters were raining in.
"That's it we're moving away, far away. Where no one can find us!" Uncle Vernon yelled, while holding Harry in a death grip.
"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley's wavering voice was frightened. His mother paler than usual, and Calathea was still grasping a letter in her hand. In emerald green ink, it held her name on it. She slowly folded and stashed it away in pockets of her jumper.
Uncle Vernon gave them each five minutes to put a bag together, or you leave with nothing. Calathea packed her few favorite possessions: a ragged, old, purple stuffed rabbit, something her mother had bought her when she found out she was having a girl; a few outfits with clean underwear; and, another of her mother's, an old journal with her mother and Aunt Lily names on it. It had been their journal growing up, but she had never been able to open it.
Meanwhile, Harry was packing his few possessions, his ratty clothes, and the one thing he cared for. An old stuffed owl, he had from a child. It was the only thing the Dursley's let him keep from his old life, the one he never knew.
"Let's go!" Uncle Vernon's voice cut through the house to get them to hurry. He had briefly yelled at his son, for stalling them. Dudley had been trying to squeeze his computer, tv, and games in once tiny bag.
They all squeezed into the car, with the bags in the trunk, and they drove away from Privet Drive just as the sun was slowly fading in the late evening sky. They drove and drove for hours and hours. Every now and again they would change direction, go right then left, even an occasional U-turn. Finally, in the late hours of Tuesday, they arrived at a motel. They checked in, went to their rooms and slept. The next morning when they went to check out, the front desk lady, had half a dozen letters for Harry:
Mr. H. Potter
The Couch Rm. 14
The Lutz Motel
Tonbridge, England
Uncle Vernon grabbed all six letters and tore them up right in Harry's face, not even realizing that his niece was not receiving any new letters, which should have been suspicious. Shock was evident on the front lady's face, but before she had time to speak, the Dursley's were stomping away to the car. It wasn't until late that evening they truthfully stopped. Vernon had purchased an old shack, on a rock, and the only way to get there was by boat.
The rain was coming down in heavy droplets as they covered their bags from the wetness. Upon landing on the rock, he tied the boat up, and let the way to a rickety, old shack. It swayed in the rough winds. Inside it was slightly warm and damp, an old couch and chair were in the 'living room' and an old mattress on the loft. There were at least five thin blankets in total. After eating the small rations that Uncle Vernon had stopped to get, they all went to bed. Dudley claimed the couch and the adult the bed.
"Cali go ahead and take the chair. You shouldn't have to sleep on the ground." He was smiling his ever-bright smile.
"No…Harry, tomorrow's your birthday." Calathea's voice was upset. Once more, it had not been acknowledged.
"It's fine." Calathea shook her head and sat next to her cousin. And slowly started drawing a birthday cake in the dust and grime on the floor, Harry slowly joined in. When done they looked at Dudley's wristwatch. It read 11:53 pm.
"Harry, okay so I have been keeping a secret, on Sunday, I may have managed to hold onto one of the letters. Maybe that's why mine aren't arriving with yours anymore. They somehow know I already have mine. Should I open it?" She was nervous. The time was now 11:55 pm.
"Yes…No…I don't know." She could tell that Harry was very nervous. So, she did. She tore the wax seal and pulled out the letter, it was also on old parchment.
"This paper looks old." She whispered to her cousin.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF
WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc. Chf. Warlock, Supreme
Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Miss Evans,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await our owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
However, before they had a chance to even look at the second sheet and speak of what they had just read, the time on Dudley's wristwatch turned midnight. Harry turned around and blew out his fake candles, the two cousins looked at each other in peace, before….
BANG!BANG!BANG!
The noise caused the whole shack to rumble and shake. When suddenly the door was knocked from the frame and its crooked hinges. Waking the Dursley's with a start, in the door frame was a hulking figure.
"Well s'rry 'bout the door." The accent was rough and thick. And all Calathea and Harry could wonder, was who was this?
A.N.+: I hope this chapter is good, it took me forever to work on it. So, sorry, I was so busy work and family drama that I never had time to work on it. That and the computer was being repaired, again. Please R&R, to let me know how you liked it. I promise Book 1 is the only one I'll be almost 'rewriting'.