Hey, guys! New chapter, haha. Anyways, just wanna say thanks to my reviewers:

Naginator - Thank you for the advice and thanks for reviewing and giving me your opinion!

Macbethwannabe - Thank you for the compliment and I'm so HAPPY you like it :D

Kila9Nishika - Don't worry, here's a new chapter :D

Also, thanks to anyone who added in their favorite/alert thing.

Disclaimer: Still don't…

Also, thanks for being nice; I'm so nervous about writing and posting for other people, haha…so please continue to be nice :D Thanks so much!

Just another note, sorry, but since it's summer, I'll be able to update quicker, which is a good thing, ;)

Now, on with the story...

The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry and Ellie with their longest-ever punishment. By the time they were allowed out of their cupboard again, the summer holidays had started, and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.

Harry and Ellie were glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Twin Hunting. Well, it was more Harry Hunting, because Harry always hid Ellie in the cupboard until they left, much to her displeasure.

Because of this, Ellie tried to make Harry spend all their time outside as possible. They wandered around the neighborhood and thought about the holidays, where each could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came, they would be going off to secondary school, and, for the first time in their life, they wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there, too, much to Ellie's pleasure. But the twins, on the other hand, were going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.

"They stuff people's heads down the toliet the first day at Stonewall," he told Harry and Ellie.

Ellie crossed her arms and felt her eyes go into slits. "No they don't, Dudders."

Dudley returned the glare and got up close to Harry and Ellie's faces. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

Harry seized his sister's hand and said, "No, thank you. The poor toliet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it - it might be sick." Then, laughing, they sprinted off, before Dudley could work out what he'd said.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Ellie and Harry at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out that she'd broken her leg tripping ober one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry and Ellie watch television programs and gave them a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.

That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst out into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown up. Harry and Ellie didn't trust themselves to speak; they each thought two of their ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.

There was a horrible smell coming from the kitchen the next morning when Harry and Ellie went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. They went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.

"What's this?" Harry asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if they dared to ask a question.

"Your new school uniforms," she answered briskly.

Harry and Ellie peered into the bowl again.

"Oh," Ellie said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."

"Oh, don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."

They both seriously doubted this as they sat in their wooden chairs at the table. Ellie crossed her arms and rested her chin on them, frowning.

"We'll look like we're wearing old bits of elephants skin," she complained softly. "As if we needed to be teased even more."

Harry didn't know what to say, but he didn't like it whenever she was upset.

Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from their uniforms. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," ordered Uncle Vernon from behind his morning paper.

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the mail, Harry."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."

Harry dodged the Smelting stick and left the table to get the mail. Four things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and - a letter for Harry and a letter for Ellie.

Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his or Ellie's whole life, had written to them. Who would? They had no friends, no other relatives that liked them - they didn't belong to the library, so they'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet, here they were, two letters, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

Mr. H. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

And:

Ms. E. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

The envelopes were thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the addresses were written in emerald-green ink. There were no stamps. Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal on each bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.

"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke while Ellie rolled her eyes at her uncle's stupidety.

Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at the letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and postcard, then handed a very confused Ellie a letter. She shot her brother a questioning look, but he was already beginning to open his own. She followed in suit.

"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk -"

"Dad!" exclaimed Dudley suddenly. "DAD, Harry and Ellie's got something!"

Dudley snatched the letter out of Ellie's hand while Vernon took Harry's. Vernon then took Ellie's from Dudley's. Since Harry's was half-way opened (Ellie still hadn't got the wax sealing off yet), he shook it open with one hand and skimmed it quickly. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment, it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise; Ellie thought she was having a heart attack.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!" And she opened Ellie's and made the same noise.

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry, Ellie, and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.

"I want to read the letters," he said loudly.

"Want to read them," said Harry furiously, "as it's ours."

Ellie rested a hand on his arm and whispered very quietly, "Harry, calm down."

"Get out, all of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letters back inside its envelope.

Harry didn't move. Ellie knew what was coming -

"I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.

"HARRY!" Ellie yelled back.

"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, Ellie following them out, and slammed the door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor. Ellie sat up against the door, pressing an ear to the door and closing her eyes, concentrating.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the addresses - how could they possibly know where they sleep? You don't think they're watching the house?"

"Watching - spying - might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want -"

Ellie could hear someone pacing up and down; Uncle Vernon.

"No," he said finally. "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 in the house, Petunia, let alone two of 'em! Didn't we swear when we took them in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense.

That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry and Ellie in their cupboard.

"Where's our letters?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to us?" Ellie and Harry were sitting side-by-side, smushed so close that their hips and thighs were touching...not that they weren't thinking about that...

"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned them."

"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily. "It had our cupboard on it."

"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.

"Er - yes, Harry, Ellie - about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking...you lot are really getting a bit big for it...we think it might be nice if we moved you to Dudley's second bedroom."

"Why?" asked Ellie curiously.

"Don't ask questions!" snapped their uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."

The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all they toys and things that wouldn't fit in his first bedroom. It only took Harry and Ellie one trip each upstairs to move everything they owned from the cupboard to this room.

They sat down on a twin bed they had to share (the Dursleys were cheap) and stared around them. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next-door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books; they were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.

From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother. "I don't want them in there...I need that room...make them get out..."

Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Ellie looked questioningly at him. They were always a source of comfort for each other, especially because they lived for these people.

"Yesterday, I'd given anything to be here. Now, I wish we were back in our cupboard with our letters than here." And he grabbed her and they laid side-by-side for the rest of the night.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back.

"I wish I would've opened the letter in the hall," whispered Harry with a huff. Ellie could only nod in agreement.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia looked at each other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry and Ellie, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his stick all the way down the hall. Then, he shouted, "There's other ones! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom...' and 'Ms. E. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive -"

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him; Ellie following with worried eyes. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letters from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand.

"Go to your cupboard - I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry and Ellie.

"Dudley - go - just go."

Harry walked round and round his new room, Ellie watching from the bed.

"Harry, it'll be all right..."

"Someone knows that we moved out of the cupboard. They want us to have those letters. I've got a plan...we will get our letter, Ells."

The repaired alarm clock rang at six o' clock the next morning. Ellie didn't wake up but merely rolled around until she was comfortable. Harry, though, turned it off quickly and got dressed, and after tucking the covers around Ellie and kissed her forehead roughly, he stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.

He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door -

Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat - something alive!

Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror, Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right in Uncle Vernon's lap. Six letters addressed to them in green ink.

"I want -" he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes. Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed home and nailed up the mail slot.

"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them, they'll just give up."

"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."

"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Petunia had just bought him.

On Friday, no less than twenty-four letters arrived for Harry and Ellie. As they couldn't go through the mail slot, they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.

Uncle Vernon stayed home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could geo out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," as he worked, and jumped at small noises.

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. At least fourty letters to Harry and Ellie found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room Uncle Vernon made furious
telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor. "Who on earth wants to talk to you lot this badly?" Dudley asked Harry and Ellie in amazement.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.

"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today -"

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back on the head. Next moment, sixty or seventy letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry and Ellie leapt into the air, trying to catch one.

"Out! OUT!"

Uncle Vernon seized Harry and Ellie around the waist and threw them into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out, their arms over their faces, Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floors.

"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts of mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes, ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"

He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later, they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up door and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the backseat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.

They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then, Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. "Shake'em off...shake'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall, Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.

Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley, Harry, and Ellie shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored, Ellie slept heavily, for the first time using her brother's chest as a pillow, but Harry stayed awake, staring at the lights of passing cars and wondering...

They ate stale cornflakes and cold-tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? And is one of you ladies Ms. E. Potter? I got about a 'undred of these at the front desk."

She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:

Mr. H. Potter

Room 17

Railview Hotel

Cokeworth

It said the same thing on Ellie's except the addresser was different. Harry made a grab for both letters, but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.

"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining hall.

"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a mulitilevel parking garage.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.

It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Ellie grabbed her brother's hand, storms always terrified her, and Dudley sniffed.

"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television.

Monday. This reminded Harry and Ellie of something. If it was Monday - and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television - then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry and Ellie's eleventh birthday. Of course, their birthdays were never exactly fun - last year, the Dursleys had given them each a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day.

Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.

"Found the perfect place!" he exclaimed. "Come on! Everyone out!"

It was very cold outside the car. Ellie shivered violently as Harry's arms wrapped tightly around her small form. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"

A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them. Ellie moved closer to her brother; this man was creepy.

"I've already got rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"

It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. Ellie and Harry held onto each other for warmth. Finally, after what seemed like hours, they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.

Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.

He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliever mail. Harry and Ellie privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer them up.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldly blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry and Ellie were left to find the softest bit of floor they could and curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He had his arms wrapped around his sister, desperatly trying to keep both warm, while she slept on. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he and his sister would be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay, peering over Ellie's head, and watched their birthdays tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, though he and his sister might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow. Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?

One minute to go and the Potter Twins' would be eleven. Thirty seconds...twenty...ten...nine - he'd have to wake his sister up, and maybe Dudley, just to annoy him - three...two...one...

BOOM!

The whole shack shivered and Harry, waking Ellie, sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.

Whew! Long chapter!

Anyways, REVIEW and tell me how I'm doing, because I think it's coming along great but I wanna know how you guys think.

Also, I won't always be updating everyday. I only did this cuz I was excited and I have a lot of time on my hands XD

Thanks!

Much love,

Tiggerzandpoohbearz123