The words in bold are direct quotes from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I do not own Harry Potter. J.K Rowling does.

Barrage of Letters

Charlie could not remember a time when she had been confined to her cupboard for so long. Just as she was certain she would die of boredom (playing cards with yourself got rather boring after a while) Vernon let her out. As she stumbled from the small confines, she flinched as the sunlight engulfed her, momentarily blinding her.

"What year is it?"

Annoyed, Vernon cuffed her slightly around the head and jerked his head towards the kitchen before lumbering into the living room. Charlie ventured into the kitchen and spotted a pile of broken toys into the garbage can. No gifts lasted too long with her cousin.

She peeked into the backyard through the screen glass door and flinched when she spotted Dudley and his gang playing with a football. She slipped out of view, for she knew if her cousin spotted her he would switch to his favourite game, Beat-Up-Charlotte. It was a game he normally played when with his friends, so school was a nightmare.

Ugh, just the thought of school made her sick. She loved learning and the teachers were great, but they were no match for a jealous Dudley. Anyone who showed a semblance of interest of being her friend was chased away by her cousin. It was his life's mission to make her life miserable, and she had to admit he was doing a good job.

The actually school part of school wasn't bad. She never had any trouble, and her marks weren't that bad. But of course even though Dudley just scraped by, he got all the rewards and presents.

I'll be starting a new school next year, she thought to herself as she started the duty of mopping the kitchen floor, sweat causing her black bangs to stick to her forehead. Maybe I'll make a friend while Dudley is off at his fancy Smeltings School.

Her cousin would be going to the school every male Dursley went too. He received his uniform in the mail, and when he proudly showed it off at dinner, Charlie had to bite her knuckle to keep from laughing. He looked ridiculous.

But then she saw what she would be wearing the following morning.

She stood to the side as she watched her aunt tend to her own school uniform. All of Dudley's old grey articles of clothing were floating in the tub of foul-smelling water. I'm going to look like a saggy elephant.

Charlie didn't complain though. Complaints resulted in punishment, as she was often told she had no reason to complain. She had shelter, she had clothes, she got food and she wasn't in an orphanage. There was no reason to complain. And the last thing she wanted was to miss dinner and be sent to her cupboard.

Heaving a sigh, she went to do her daily chores. Sometimes she wondered if anything exciting would ever happen to her.

...

"Dudley! Knock it off!" Charlie snapped in irritation as her cousin smacked her once more with his stupid stick. Her elbow jostled her glass of milk and it tipped over, spilling all over the scratch-free wooden table. Petunia glared at her and Charlie opened her mouth to protest. The words died on her tongue when Vernon glowered warningly at her. With a weary sigh she stood up (getting whacked in the knees by Dudley as she did so) and grabbed a washcloth from the sink.

The sound of letters hitting the mat in the front hallway caused Vernon to say, "Dudley, get the mail."

Dudley scowled. How dare his father ask him to do something! "Make Charlotte get it!"

Charlie twitched slightly at the use of her full name and wiped up her spill. "Charlotte, go get the mail," Vernon amended, not looking up from his newspaper.

The annoyed girl scowled. She chucked the washcloth into the sink and complained, "Make Dudley get it!"

"Dudley, hit her with your Smeltings stick," Vernon muttered.

Charlie hastily dodged what should be considered a weapon and stalked into the front hall. She scooped up the pile of mail and flicked through them idly. Her finger froze on one thick envelope and she gaped at the emerald ink words scrawled on the back.

Charlotte Lily Potter
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey

She slowly turned the letter over and stared at the odd purple wax seal. It had four animals; a lion, eagle, badger and a snake surrounding the letter H. "This has to be some sort of joke," she whispered to herself, green eyes still wide with shock. She had never gotten a letter in her life, and she certainly didn't know anyone that would send her such an odd piece of post.

"Hurry up!" Vernon shouted from the kitchen. "What's taking so long girl? Get your hand stuck in the mail slot?"

Charlie rolled her green eyes as Vernon chuckled at his own joke. She entered the kitchen and absent-mindedly handed her uncle his mail and took her seat, ignoring her rapidly-cooling pancakes and fingering the edge of the envelope.

Dudley noticed this immediately, and he was not keen on the idea of Charlie having something and he didn't. "Charlotte's got a letter!" he cried, pointing a fat finger towards the ten-year-old girl. She was about to pull out a heavy piece of parchment when it was snatched from her hands.

"Hey!" she cried. "That's mine!"

Vernon snorted. "Who would write a letter to you?" He shook the letter out and glanced at the first line. He immediately turned red, and then a greyish colour. "Petunia!" he rasped, shaking the letter in front of her face. Petunia took it curiously and after reading the first sentence gasped in horror and chucked it to the floor, as if afraid it would come to life and bite her.

"What do we do?" she asked shrilly. "Vernon-how could they possibly-?"

It was then Vernon realized that Dudley and Charlie were still in the kitchen. Dudley was staring at them as if they'd gone mad and Charlie was trying to slip by and retrieve her letter. "Out! The both of you!"

Dudley was outraged. "I want to read it!"

Charlie scowled when her aunt grabbed her tightly by the arm and dragged her out of the kitchen. "You want to read it? It's my letter!"

"Out!" Vernon roared. He grabbed Dudley by the neck of his sweater and chucked him into the hall. Petunia shoved Charlie after her cousin and slammed the kitchen door shut. Whispering immediately erupted from behind the shut door and the two cousins started jostling for the keyhole. Dudley won and pressed his ear against it, and Charlie (bruised, battered, and sporting a black eye) got down and listened intently through the crack between the door and the floor.

"How do they know?" Petunia cried, wringing her hands together nervously. "Surely they can't be watching us!"

"Of course they are!" Vernon muttered, pacing the length of the kitchen at rapid speed as he tried to think. "How else would they know she lives in the cupboard?"

"What should we do?" Petunia asked. "Should we write them back? Tell them to leave us alone? We agreed Vernon! We agreed we would not let her kind in our house!"

"Calm down!" Vernon soothed. "I'm sure we're close to stamping that horrid stuff out of her. We agreed, didn't we, that she would not be associated with those people when we took her in? Yes, it's best we just ignore them. They'll pick up on the hint sooner or later."

...

Charlie leaned on her small cot and furrowed her brow. Her eavesdropping session offered more questions than answers, and she wondered what Vernon meant by those people. It would do no good to ask, of that she was certain.

A knock came at her cupboard door and she frowned. She hesitantly called, "Yes?", and the door swung open.

"Uncle Vernon?" Charlie asked in disbelief. It was not often-actually, rarely at all-that her uncle visited her in her cupboard. "What-?"

"I've been thinking," he interrupted. "You're getting to be rather big for this cupboard. I believe it would be best if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom-"

"Why?" Charlie asked suspiciously. "And where's my letter?"

"It was misaddressed," Vernon said curtly. "Now-"

"It was not!" Charlie exclaimed. "It was addressed to me! It even said 'Cupboard under the Stairs'! I really don't think there's anyone else in the world who lives by that address."

"Enough!" Vernon roared. "No more questions! Take your things and go to Dudley's second bedroom this instant!"

"Alright, alright!" Charlie scowled and grabbed her possessions (which were a few hand-me-down clothes, worn out books and an old deck of cards) and stormed up the stairs. She kicked open the door to Dudley's second bedroom, which had become the toy room.

Many broken toys littered the shelves and floor. The only relatively new things in the room were the books stacked on the shelves, shiny covers glossy in the morning light. Charlie shoved the assortment of toys off of her new bed and collapsed on it with a sigh. She could hear Dudley throwing a fit downstairs.

"I don't want her in my room! She'll contaminate it!"

Charlie snorted. That's a big word for someone who nearly failed English last year.

Normally, she would have been happy at the idea of sleeping in a real bed. But now all she wanted was to curl up in her cupboard with that mysterious letter.

But it was long gone by now, and there was no point to dwell on it.

...

Breakfast the next morning was filled with a tense silence. Dudley was cross with everyone in the room and kept hitting them with his Smeltings stick whenever he got the chance. Vernon and Petunia sat stiffly and Charlie was holding a bag of ice to her black eye while she ate her cereal.

The mail hit the mat again and Charlie moved to get. She got quite the surprise when Vernon ordered Dudley to retrieve it.

He wasn't happy. He whacked his father with his stick as he stormed past and grabbed the mail from the hallway. "Hey! There's another one! Charlotte Lily Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive-"

Vernon jumped from his seat and charged into the hall like an angry rhinoceros. Charlie cried out and hurried after him. She tackled her uncle and Dudley jumped into the fray, each trying to retrieve the letter. Charlie only let go of her uncle when she got hit by the blasted Smeltings stick and hit the hard floor, dazed.

Vernon clutched the letter in his meaty hands, panting heavily and his face red. "Go to your bedroom!" he wheezed, pointing a shaking finger at the staircase. "And Dudley, just go!"

Charlie stomped up the stairs and rubbed her sore head. Next time, she thought. Next time for sure.

...

Charlie stood still in the dark room, her green eyes never leaving the glowing numbers of the alarm clock on Dudley's old nightstand. She hadn't been able to sleep, and so she waited for six o'clock to arrive. She had a plan: she would sneak outside and wait for the postman to come.

Six o'clock arrived and Charlie slipped out her bedroom door. She tiptoed down the stairs and skipped over the one that creaked. She could feel her heart thudding with excitement as she reached the front door.

"Aagghh!"

Charlie shrieked and stumbled backwards into the wall. The light flicked on and Charlie was horrified to discover she had just stepped on her uncle's face. That is so not fair! I had this idea first!

"Go make a kettle of tea!" he hissed, holding his aching jaw. Charlie slumped and shuffled into the kitchen. By the time she carried the cup of tea back to her uncle, he was tearing up her letter. "Hey! You can't-"

Vernon ignored her. He stayed home from work that day and started nailing the mail slot shut. Petunia watched him worriedly. "Dear, I really don't think-"

"It's a foolproof plan!" Vernon cackled. "Can't give us mail without a mail slot, can they?"

It turned out they could. The next morning dozens and dozens of letters came pouring through the open windows and even down the chimney. Charlie hastily jumped up and down, trying to retrieve at least one when her uncle threw her into the hallway. "That's it! We're leaving! Pack up your bags!"

When Charlie came downstairs with her single backpack, she was dismayed to find her uncle in the process of burning her letters. "I don't get it! What's so bad about me getting one stinking letter?" she muttered, shuffling in the entry hall to wait for the rest of her relatives.

When they were all ready, Vernon piled them all into the car and they drove for what seemed like forever. Charlie was certain her uncle had gone mad, and stared miserably out the window. They made a lot of twist and turns and Vernon was mumbling under his breath, never taking his eyes off of the road. Dudley was complaining and whining and Charlie was developing a headache.

After many hours of no food or any sort of stop, they pulled up in front of the shabbiest hotel Charlie had ever seen. Wrinkling her nose she wearily followed her relatives through the creaky door. They got a room and Charlie laid awake throughout the night, listening to Dudley's snores and wondering what was so important about the content of those letters that were being persistently sent.

...

The next morning they had a breakfast of soggy cornflakes at the small diner within the hotel. The hotel owner came up to them and said, "I have a 'undred letters for a Charlotte Potter at the front desk. Is one of you her?"

Charlie stood up and reached for one of the letters he held in his hand when Vernon slapped her hand away. "I'll take them all!"

After disposing of the new batch of letters, they got back in the car and Vernon drove, this time with the madness of a...well, a madman. Charlie was still trying to process that out of a hundred letters, she had not managed to get a single one.

What's a girl got to do to get a letter?

After a few hours, they ended up in a boat, shivering and wet as the wind blew and a steady drizzle fell. Charlie curled up in a ball and moaned as the boat tossed and turned. "Uncle Vernon, can we please go back home?"

"We're here!" Vernon shouted gleefully, ignoring his niece. "And it's raining! Isn't it wonderful?"

"Fantastic," muttered Charlie.

They travelled onto the rock and into a broken down house. Charlie shivered violently and got dressed in her extra clothes. Her black hair was plastered to her face and she sat by the fire, trying to get some warmth into her body.

Soon night approached and the storm raged on. Waves hit the rickety walls of the shack and there was a leak in the roof. Charlie found herself on the floor while Dudley got the sofa, which wasn't surprising. She stared at the glowing numbers on Dudley's watch and sighed. She would be eleven in a few minutes, and they would be spending her birthday in a shabby shack that was freezing and she would probably catch pneumonia.

There was a sudden creaking from outside. The roof better not cave in, she thought with a soft groan. Wouldn't that be a wonderful birthday present? Buried under a ton of wood and mould. Two minutes left until midnight...roof, you stay where you are.

A crunching noise came from outside and Charlie furrowed her brow. "If that's a rabid raccoon, I'm out of here."

BAM!

The door burst off its rusty hinges, allowing the rain to spray into the house. Charlie shrieked and scrambled backwards, slamming into the stone wall. Dudley hollered in fright at the loud noise and fell off the sofa. Her green eyes widened at the large giant that loomed in the doorway. Oh, crap, dead at eleven.

"Charlotte Potter!" the loud, deep voice of the giant boomed. "It's good teh see yeh!"