Nine years later, the view had changed. Instead of a home, there was the monotonous conformity of a street full of people all desiring an image they're convinced their neighbours like, but that they themselves hate. Of all the houses on Privet Drive, #4 tried the hardest to be normal.
Of course, that was where Harry lived, so it wasn't normal at all.
He didn't know that, though. After Lily and James were killed and Harry's miraculous survival, Dumbledore, in his supposed wisdom, left him on Lily's sister's doorstep with only a letter, despite his Deputy's correct assessment of them as "the worst sort of muggles imaginable". Jealous of her sister, Petunia hated magic, and had been taking it out on Harry since he arrived.
As far as he knew, his parents had died in a car crash. He lived in the cupboard under the stairs with nothing of his own, just cast-offs from his obese cousin Dudley, along with constant abuse from him and Uncle Vernon. He had been doing poorly in school since he found out that Vernon would punish him for `cheating' if he did better than Dudley, and had no friends since Dudley chased them all away. For some reason, the authorities never seemed to find out about his situation, so he felt stuck there.
Christmas came after another few months. As usual, Harry got no presents. He was let out of his cupboard for just long enough to prepare dinner before being locked in again while his relatives ate it.
Spring came, turned to summer, and in late June things finally changed.
Dudley's birthday was always a big event in the Dursley household. Petunia loved to spoil `her precious Dudders', so there were always huge piles of presents. Most were always broken or forgotten within a week, but nobody ever mentioned that.
This year, one of his presents was a weekend trip to the zoo. Normally the Dursleys would just leave Harry with a baby-sitter when they went out, if it were too long to just keep him locked in the cupboard, but weather had delayed the trip by 2 weeks, pushing it into July. By then, Mrs Figg, the only person around willing to supervise their self-styled delinquent, had left on her annual visit to see her parents. Dudley refused to let his trip be delayed any further, so Harry got to come along—his first trip he could remember other than to carry groceries—under threats to behave that he knew all to well weren't bluffs. Still, they usually found a reason to punish him no matter what he did, so he let himself be cautiously optimistic that there might be some good without too much of an increase in the bad.
The trip went fairly peacefully, with Dudley being unappreciative and Harry trying to be invisible, until they came to a certain exhibit.
The snakes were all in a large room with glass-fronted enclosures set back in the walls. Dudley was going past all the cages, shouting at them to move and banging on the glass, quickly tiring of such `boring snakes'.
Harry stayed well clear, only approaching after Dudley had left. He was at the rattle snakes when he heard, "I hate it when they do that," in a rather exasperated tone.
"What?" he said, looking around. He had long been used to hearing voles and other small animals skittering around that nobody else ever seemed to—not that anyone ever talked to him unless necessary—but a voice was something new.
He didn't see anyone, so he looked back at the cage, only to see the snake shaking its tail towards the `Don't bang on the glass' sign.
"You can talk?" he asked quietly, rather surprised.
"Obviously. I've just never had a human understand me before."
"This is my first conversation with a snake, too." Having no idea what snakes talk about, Harry asked, "Do you like it here?"
"It's alright. They bring prey often enough. Just rather boring, since there's nowhere to go."
"I can empathise with that last one. Where were you before?"
The snake flicked its tongue toward the part of the information placard that said `Raised in captivity'. "I'd like to go to Spain, though."
"I wish I could take…"
Dudley ran over, yelling "Look what the snake's doing," and crashed into Harry, sending Harry sprawling on the ground. He looked up in time to see Dudley falling forward into the snake's pen, landing on its tail. Rather surprised, the snake reflexively bit Dudley's arm, then, after noticing that Dudley wasn't really trying to attack it, slithered away with a "Thanks, amigo" to Harry on the way by.
As soon as Vernon noticed Dudley in the pen—now stuck there, as the glass had mysteriously reappeared—he immediately started berating Harry for the `freakishness' that was supposedly his fault. Luckily for Dudley, Petunia thought to summon the zoo's emergency staff. The bite probably wouldn't have been fatal, but the anti-venom made things much safer and more comfortable.
Harry spent the drive home alternately being scared about what would happen once they arrived and thinking about the strange things that happen around him. He had turned a teacher's hair blue once, and had even somehow ended up on top of roof one day when running from bullies.
His musings were forcefully interrupted when Vernon threw him into the cupboard and he hit his head on the back wall. He stayed conscious just long enough to hear the lock snap shut.
The Dursleys spend the rest of the day coddling Dudley after his traumatic ordeal. The next morning they went to church, leaving Harry in the cupboard. On the ride home, though, Vernon decided that it was time to `deal with the boy'. As soon as he got home he stormed in, not even bothering to close the front door, and yanked Harry out, dropping him to the ground.
Harry awoke lying on the floor in the hallway with Vernon slapping his cheeks. Squinting, as the midday sun was rather painful after the darkness of his cupboard, he only just managed to see, through the still-open door, a flying, feathered, brown and white shape. His brain, still not running normally, thanks to the concussion and a bit of sleep, found an old memory that it never would have otherwise.
Vernon stopped, shocked, at the sight of an approximately 40 cm owl where Harry used to be.
Harry would have been shocked too, but his flight instinct, well-honed by running from Dudley, had taken over, so his Owl was in control and was too busy beating his wings as hard as he could to get as far away as he could.
The tawny owl didn't find it anything unusual. Sure, the long-tailed one was going rather quickly, but that probably just meant he had an urgent letter. It didn't look like he was carrying anything, but the calmer owl knew that the wizards could do tricks like that.
In any case, he had his own letter to deliver to a Dean Thomas. This was always a good time of year. Less rain to have to fly through, more tasty frogs to find, and the old wizards at the castle always had plenty of letters to send.