"Up. Get up. Now." With each sharp call, Aunt Petunia rapped at the door to the cupboard under the stairs.
Harrietta Lily Potter—called Harry now, much to the consternation of the adults in her life—listened to Aunt Petunia moving to the kitchen, and the sizzle of frying pan on stove. It was probably the bacon, Harry thought dully, pressing a hand to her throbbing head. The headache would pass in a moment, but did Aunt Petunia really have to scream at her first thing in the morning? Blearily Harry stretched, and risked a quiet moment to enjoy the little warm cocoon she'd made herself.
She let her mind breeze over the dream she'd just had. It had been interesting, to say the least—interesting and pleasant and achingly familiar, as if she'd had the dream before: Something to do with a flying motorcycle, of all things. Was such a motorcycle even possible? It might be, Harry decided; technology was always advancing—just look at that new computer Dudley was hell-bent on having. According to the advertisements, it could run three games at once—though why anybody would want to run three games at once was beyond her.
With another sharp knock on the door, Aunt Petunia asked, "Are you dressed yet?"
"Nearly," Harry murmured testily, curling back into the warm place. She wanted nothing more than to sleep a little longer and return to that interesting dream.
"Well get a move on, so you can look after the bacon. I want everything perfect for Duddy's birthday."
Harry groaned. Of course it was Dudley dearest's birthday. How could she have forgotten? This day promised to be nothing but miserable, and she decided that she was going to sleep for a very long time after its conclusion.
"What was that?" Her aunt's footsteps suddenly stopped a few feet away from the cupboard under the stairs.
"Nothing, nothing..."
Every year on his birthday, Dudley's parents took him out—to amusement parks and restaurants, to see a film or to an arcade—and every year, Harry was asked to make breakfast, clean up the wrappings left from Dudley's presents and to "be nice to Duddy on his special day." And every year, while the Dursleys were out, Harry was left with batty old Mrs. Figg, the cat lady from a few streets away. She was forced to sit and be still in a lace-filled room that smelled like cabbage, and to look at photos of more cats than anyone could possibly own, never mind manage. She had to make polite conversation and try to look interested at the prospect of another feline photograph to view. Harry dreaded all of it.
She got out of bed and slid into her clothes. She went searching for socks. All the clothes were piled neatly on shelves at the head of the cot, but somehow socks never quite made it there, choosing instead to get lost in corners and under her bed. Harry wondered idly what it would be like to have drawers for her clothing, but there wasn't enough of it to warrant drawers.
Harry continued where her aunt left off in the breakfast preparations. She wished whimsically for a self-cooking stove or a magic wand so she could abort the breakfast preparations and sleep longer, but magic was forbidden at number four, Privet Drive. All mentions of it on television, in conversation or even Dudley's computer games were met with anger, dismissal and time in the cupboard for Harry, because obviously the M-word was her fault somehow. Besides, the only magic Harry knew of was girlish and pink, good for nothing but shooting sparkles and found only in the princess movies that so fascinated the girls of Harry's class at school.
The Dursley men, being her uncle and cousin, ate copious amounts of bacon, and in preparing the morning meal it was important to be certain that bacon was crisped, not burned; burning the bacon wasn't fun for anyone. Aunt Petunia liked her tea with milk and lots of sugar, and she liked it laid out neatly: cup placed on the very center of the saucer, spoon to the right of the cup, a napkin laid out on the table to the left of the saucer. Dudley ate the most and made a mess. Uncle Vernon liked the paper to be set to the right of his plate—never the left. The little things mattered to the Dursley family, Harry learned, and as she was the one who prepared breakfast most mornings, she remembered each lesson.
While the bacon sizzled a safe distance from burning, Harry wistfully examined the mound of gifts that grew from the kitchen table. Why couldn't such a mound appear on her birthday? Last year's only birthday present had been a bent-up coat-hanger from the Dursleys, not even able to hold a coat. She thought she wouldn't mind the lack of gifts—not if the Dursleys would wish her a happy birthday, acknowledge the day at all in a way that wasn't a mockery.
It appeared Dudley had received the new computer, as well as several new games for it and the expensive racing bike he'd asked for. Harry could not fathom why her lazy pudding of a cousin even wanted a racing bike, as he hated exercise.
Punching was the only physical activity Dudley wanted anything to do with. His favorite punching bag was Harry herself—never mind that she was a girl and almost impossible for him to catch. She might not look it, but Harrietta Potter was very fast. She could have been the Little Whinging Primary School track-star, if the Dursleys let her try out and compete. "You'd embarrass poor Duddy with your freakishness," Aunt Petunia said the one time Harry dared to ask.
It might have been because she lived in a small dark place, but Harry was small and skinny for her age. She looked smaller and skinnier than she really was, as all she had to wear were secondhand clothes bought four sizes too big so she could "grow into them". Large green eyes stared out of a thin face, hidden behind battered round glasses. The only thing Harry found interesting about her appearance was a thin scar on her forehead shaped like a bolt of lightning; this scar was a mystery to her, because although she'd had it for as long as she could remember, Harry didn't have a clue as to how she'd got it, nor why it was shaped so funnily. "In the car crash that killed your parents," came the brusque reply to her tentative inquiry. This was followed by a curt demand not to ask any questions.
The explanation made no sense. What sort of an injury associated with a car crash would leave a scar with such an odd, specific shape? Harry was dying to know but if there was one rule she almost always obeyed, it was "don't ask questions." "Don't ask questions" had to be the number one rule for peace with the Dursleys.
Uncle Vernon entered as Harry was toasting bread and turning the bacon. "Comb your hair," he barked, and Harry turned away to hide her glare.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon." She set a plate of toast on the island and went looking for a knife to butter it. Why couldn't he just wish her a good morning, like everyone else's uncle probably did?
Harry had to hold the record for most haircuts within a ten-year period. It seemed that once a week either Aunt Petunia would look up from her cleaning, or Uncle Vernon from his paper, and they'd shout that she simply must have that "mane" cut off. No matter what they did, however, it just grew right back into the freakish black curls they so despised. Harry herself had given up on it; she just brushed it twice a day and prayed it wouldn't get in her way.
By the time Dudley arrived with his mother, Harry was frying their eggs and Uncle Vernon was halfway through the newspaper.
Dudley looked like his father, with a big pink face and small, blue eyes. Thick blond hair lay flat against his thick skull. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel, but Harry privately thought he looked a bit like a pig in a wig.
Dudley plunked himself down in a chair and began to count the presents that obscured the table. "Thirty-six," he announced when he was finished. "That's two less than last year."
"Have you counted Auntie Marge's present? It's here: under this big one from Mummy and Daddy." Aunt Petunia presented a small package to her son.
"All right, thirty-seven, then," Dudley said. His face started to go red.
Harry sensed a tantrum to be reckoned with coming on, so began eating her bacon at super speed. She wanted to be long-gone, should Dudley decide to overturn the table. She would be crushed by the new computer, most likely.
"And we'll buy you two new presents while we're out today. How's that, Sweetums?" Aunt Petunia must have also sensed the danger.
"So that makes..." Dudley's face scrunched in concentration as he did the math. It looked like hard work.
"That makes thirty-nine."
"Oh," grunted Dudley, and he started in on the nearest gift. "All right then."
"Wants his money's worth, little tyke. Just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley. 'Atta boy." Uncle Vernon rubbed at his son's hair.
Dudley's hands stilled on the half-opened gift and he looked uncomfortable.
Harry flashed him a wolfish grin. At least her hair wasn't ever rubbed like that.
It was at that moment the phone rang, and Aunt Petunia rushed to get it. In the few minutes that her aunt spoke on the telephone, Harry and her uncle watched Dudley tear through the wrappings on the bike, a video camera, sixteen new computer games and a VCR. He was just peeling back the paper on a gold watch when Aunt Petunia returned.
"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg and can't take her." Aunt Petunia jerked her head in Harry's direction, lips pursed in irritation.
"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested dubiously as Dudley's mouth fell open in horror.
"Don't be silly. Marge hates the girl."
"What about what's-her-name, your friend—Yvonne?"
"On vacation in Majorca."
"You could just leave me here," Harry said. This was an opportunity, and though she was sorry that Mrs. Figg was hurt, it would be another year before she had to see those wretched cats. And maybe with the Dursleys out, she could watch what she wanted on the television or try out Dudley's new computer... It was the perfect time to figure out why anyone would want to play three games at once.
Harry's hopes were dashed by her aunt's next shrill words: "And come home to find the house blown up?"
"I won't blow up the house—"
"I suppose we could take her to the zoo and leave her in the car..."
"That car's new. She's not sitting in it alone." Uncle Vernon pulled at his mustache as he thought the problem over.
Suddenly, Dudley's "heart-broken" wailing tore through the air. Of course he wasn't really crying, but Dudley dearest knew that if he made water come from his eyes, and he scrunched up his face, that Mother would give him anything he wanted.
"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry. Mummy won't let her spoil your special day." Aunt Petunia flew to her son and embraced him.
"I don't want her to come. Sh-she always sp-spoils everything." Dudley shot a quietly-observing Harry one of his nasty grins through the crocodile tears and the gap in his mother's arms.
Harry seethed. Dudley had thirty-seven gifts, a mother who loved him and a day out on the horizon, and he still took a moment to remind Harry that she was unwanted, the bringer of bad luck, the root of any problem in his life.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
"Good Lord, they're here," Aunt Petunia said, frantically patting Dudley's large back.
The moment Piers Polkiss, Dudley's best friend or favorite lemming (Harry couldn't decide which), was through the door, the crocodile tears had dried up and Dudley was grinning.
Piers was scrawny and rat-faced. He was the kid who held your arms behind your back while Dudley punched you, and though he and Dudley were the last people Harry would ever choose to sit between, she still couldn't believe her luck. Half an hour after breakfast, she found herself sandwiched between them, on her way to the zoo for the first time in her life.
There had been nothing else to do with her, but before letting Harry get in the car, Uncle Vernon pulled her aside. "I'm warning you now, girl," he said quietly, purple face very close to Harry's, "any funny business—anything at all—and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."
"I won't—"
Uncle Vernon had already walked around to the driver's side door. He wouldn't believe her, anyway.
The problem was, strange things often happened around her. These occurrences terrified the Dursleys, and were things that Harry couldn't hope to control.
Once, so sick of Harry's hair being trimmed to no avail, Aunt Petunia brought out the kitchen scissors and started hacking. Chunks of black hair hit the floor, and by the end of the ordeal, Harry found that she was very nearly bald, but for her bangs, which would hide that "terrible scar". She'd had enough ridicule before this: for her weird name, her taped glasses and her baggy clothes; she didn't want any more embarrassment for the fuzz on her head.
Dudley, who never made anything easier, had laughed himself into some kind of fit upon seeing her, and she'd spent a sleepless night in her cupboard, tossing and turning as much as the small space would allow, fearing the worst.
But when Harry woke up the next morning, her hair had grown back, and never had she been so happy to see it. Of course she'd been locked in the cupboard for a week, but that was to be expected.
Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force her into a revolting old Christmas sweater—red with white puffballs. Every time the itchy-looking wool touched Harry's head, it had shrunk, until it might have fit a puppet, but not Harry herself. Luckily, she wasn't punished for this, as "it must have shrunk in the wash".
But Harry had been in terrible trouble when, at the end of the school year, the Dursleys received a letter that although her marks were good, "Harrietta Potter was climbing school buildings".
"I was running," Harry yelled bitterly through the cupboard door. "Dudley and his people were chasing me. I had to get away. I tried to jump behind some bins, and I don't know. The wind must have caught me. I wasn't aiming for the kitchen roofs, honest..." She had screamed, cried and kicked at the cupboard door, but for nothing.
It was futile. The strange things that she could do were freakish, and that was the dirtiest adjective the book had to offer, in the opinions of her aunt and uncle. Harry was a "freak", and she should be damned grateful, they thought, that they were trying to save her by "stamping it out".
Today, nothing was going to happen, Harry vowed. Today could be spent with the Dursleys and Piers, because the sun was shining, there was a bit of a breeze, and they were driving past Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room. It was going to be a good day at the zoo.
The morning was a dream. Harry should have known it would not last.
Piers and Dudley got large chocolate ice-cream cones on the way in, and because the smiling lady in the van had asked what Harry wanted before the Dursleys ushered her away, they bought her a cheap green popsicle. It wasn't bad, she decided, licking it contemplatively as she watched a very Dudleyish gorilla scratch its head.
Harry shadowed the Dursleys, but stayed a little way off, sometimes going so far as to blend in with other families. If anyone were to ask, which no one did, Harry didn't know the boys who were chasing her, and her parents were zoo keepers. She enjoyed the fanciful image of the zoo keeping Potters; it was one of many Potter images she'd entertained over the years to fill the empty space left behind by things she did not know: the names, faces and occupations of her parents, being just a few.
The Dursleys, Piers and Harry ate lunch in the zoo's restaurant, and when Dudley dearest had a small tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have nearly enough ice-cream on top, Harry got to finish the first one while Uncle Vernon bought Dudley another. Knickerbocker glories were too rich and heavy, Harry decided halfway through, but at least she'd got to try it and decide for herself.
After lunch, when the heat of the day was on them in full force, Harry, Piers and the Dursleys went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, and specimens were kept behind thick layers of glass. There was less of a crowd, too, so after scanning the place quickly, Harry found herself disappointed that there were no cobras or man-crushing pythons to keep the boys occupied. She'd have to be careful, lest they catch her alone and beat her up.
Of course, Dudley found the largest snake in the place. It probably could have wrapped itself several times around Uncle Vernon's car, but Dudley still wasn't satisfied. The snake wasn't scary enough; it just lay, like a coil of glistening brown rope, and it didn't even glance at Dudley as he approached. "Make it move," he demanded of his father.
Obligingly, Uncle Vernon hammered on the pane of glass that separated the snake from the rest of the world. "Move."
The serpent didn't even blink. It just lay, and after a few moments of staring contemptuously at it, Dudley dearest stumped away. "This is boring."
Harry took her turn to stand in front of the tank and look in on the reptile. She thought she understood him: laying around all day with big, ugly people shoving their big, ugly faces to the glass to get a good look at you. At least she got to see the rest of the house most days, and the cupboard didn't have a glass front.
Slowly, oh-so slowly, the serpent raised its head. It opened a beady eye, established eye-contact with Harry and winked at her.
Harry glanced furtively over each shoulder to be certain no one was watching and then turned back to the snake. She winked back, wondering at this unlikely communication.
The snake inclined its head to Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then gave Harry a look which clearly said, "I get this all the time."
"I can imagine," Harry murmured to the glass. "It must be really annoying."
The snake nodded emphatically.
"Where do you come from, anyway?"
The snake jabbed his tail at the sign near the bottom of the glass. Boa Constrictor, Brazil.
"Oh. Was it nice there?"
Again, the snake's tail jabbed at the sign, and Harry continued to read: This specimen was bred in the zoo.
"So you've never been to Brazil."
The snake shook his head.
Harry smiled sadly. "I understand," she wanted to say, "I haven't seen my real home, either."
"Dudley! Mr. Dursley! Look at this snake! You won't believe what it's doing!" The deafening shout startled both girl and serpent, and the snake let out a warning hiss.
Dudley waddled over and swiped Harry away with a meaty fist. "Out of the way, you freak."
Harry fell to the concrete floor, eyes blazing with anger. She hadn't even thought to dodge, and now her ribs were twinging every time she inhaled. And there was no reason for it. Dudley was allowed to hurt her for no other reason than entertainment, and if she tried to fight back, Harry would find herself locked away for years. Why could Dudley do what she could not? There was no logic in the situation.
All she'd done was talk—maybe just in her own mind, but she'd been having nothing more than a civil conversation nonetheless. Dudley's assault was out-of-line.
What happened next was completely inexplicable. One moment the glass separating the snake from the humans was there, and the next it wasn't. There were no shards to mark its passing, no sound of a shatter.
The boa constrictor uncoiled, slithering free of the enclosure, moving quickly across the concrete floor.
Chaos reigned when the snake made his presence known. People ran and screamed, stampeding one another in their quest for the nice, safe exits, the snake forever on their heels. One woman, so hysterical that she could barely walk, let a little black notebook slip from her hand. It hit the ground with a small thwack.
Harry knelt to pick it up. She found herself utterly calm in the face of the chaos, because it was obvious that the snake wasn't going to hurt anyone; he just wanted to be free—maybe see Brazil.
"Excuse me, ma'm? You dropped this." Harry ran after the white-faced woman, brandishing the book, expecting her to take it.
Instead, the woman recoiled. She bared her teeth in an animalistic snarl of fear and shrieked, "Get rid of that. Don't you dare read it. You can't keep that."
Before Harry could ask what she meant, the woman had been taken away by the tide of people and was gone, leaving her with the offending volume.
What could be so bad about the book? Harry shoved the book in the waistband of her jeans and surreptitiously rebuckled her belt to hold it in place, She pulled her shirt back down over it all and faced the empty enclosure as she did so. All this done, Harry ran full-tilt to catch up with the Dursleys.
The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia, who was white-faced and trembling now, a cup of strong, sweet tea. While the kettle whistled, he apologized profusely. "This has never happened before. You can be sure it will be thoroughly investigated."
Dudley and Piers could say nothing that made sense, and even Uncle Vernon looked shaken. He hovered behind his son, small eyes darting from here to there as though the snake had followed them into the cramped office.
Only Harry was calm, and Uncle Vernon noticed. He said nothing, but over the course of the next half hour, his face began to purple dramatically, and Harry knew she was in for it.
She decided, in the massive blow-up that was no doubt going to occur upon her return to Privet Drive, that she was not going to mention the low, hissing voice she'd heard as she caught up with the Dursleys. "Brazil, here I come. Thanks, amigo. Good luck."
"You're welcome," Harry had murmured, but she still wasn't sure whether the snake heard.
As far as Harry saw the freedom-seeking serpent had done nothing more than nip playfully at the boys' shoes, but by the time Harry, Piers and the Dursleys were safe in Uncle Vernon's car, the tale expanded. "Did you see it, Piers?" Dudley said. "It tried to bite my leg off. There was this lady trying to get out of there, and I had to trample her just to get away."
Piers scoffed. "That's nothing. It tried to squeeze me to death."
"Wait 'til Malcom hears about this," Dudley said. "He loves snakes."
Harry sat squished between the boys and listened to their stupidly exaggerated recountings of events. She wondered what was so bad about the book at her waist that it had driven the previous owner to such madness. No one was punching her, which was good because her ribs were still aching from last time, and because Piers was so riled up by the boa constrictor, he was unable to bring her "freakish" conversation with it to anyone's attention.
"And Harry was talking to it. Weren't you, Harry?"
Well, Harry thought bitterly. That was that. Thanks, Piers.
The moment Piers was safely through the front door, Uncle Vernon grabbed Harry by her hair and pulled her down into an armchair to be lectured. He stood before her, mouth working, but it seemed he was too angry to form words. Uncle Vernon raised one clenched, trembling fist as if to hit her.
Harry watched, heart fluttering in her chest. She was scared now. Her scalp hurt, but pain was nothing new. And though the Dursleys, aside from Dudley of course, didn't make a habit of hitting her, it looked as though Uncle Vernon really wanted to. What if he couldn't hold back this time? Uncle Vernon was a big man, but he had more muscle than his pudding of a son, and Harry imagined her uncle could hit harder than Dudley if he wanted to.
Finally, Uncle Vernon choked out, "Go — Cupboard — stay — no meals."
And with that he collapsed to the sofa, and as Harry scurried to the relative safety of the cupboard, she heard Aunt Petunia pouring him a drink. Brandy, most likely.
The girl was odd—odder than Lily had been, to be sure. Petunia Dursley stayed up some nights, wondering if that was her fault. Maybe if the girl was not so distressed all the time by Dudley's treatment, Vernon's dislike, Petunia's need to set her chores—make the child do something just to exert a little power—the freakish incidents that so plagued Petunia's family would lessen, or even stop altogether.
But it was too late for that now. Dudley was so deeply invested in abusing the girl that it would crush him to stop. Besides, it would confuse poor Diddydums, who had enough trouble already, if Petunia was honest. To be passively encouraged to hit the girl on Monday, then set against it on Tuesday, would be too much for the poor boy.
Freak or no, Vernon's dislike of the girl was too deeply-rooted to be eliminated at this point. He hated the girl's untidy appearance; her silent, almost shadowy disposition; the careful, solemn way she carried out his every demand. Petunia wondered if her husband would have preferred if the girl was openly disrespectful, so Vernon could hate her for a reason he understood.
As for Petunia, she was unsettled. She had expected the girl to be a carbon copy of Lily, bright and bold, but Lily's child seemed neither: She was intelligent, yes, but she did not seem eager to learn, and as for boldness, the girl was cautious to a fault: She hardly said a word unless she either imagined the response as positive or deemed the payoff worth the consequences of her words.
The girl was not beautiful, as Lily had been: As if to spite Petunia, her appearance was ominous and—there really was no other way to put it—witchlike. The black curls, the grim face, Lily's green eyes and even that damned lightning scar made the girl look wrong in normal clothes, and Petunia almost wanted to see her in long black robes and a pointed hat, because maybe that would restore some rightness to the world.
And if all this was not enough, Petunia thought, things were getting worse. Was that resentment Petunia saw on the girl's face that morning, as she maneuvered the plate of bacon onto the breakfast table?
And then there was the snake. It had not been a small snake, or a tame snake, or a pleasant snake. Petunia would remember it forever: the way it nipped viciously at her son's heels, the way it dragged its scales across the concrete floor of the reptile house with a barely-audible grinding sound. Petunia would probably have nightmares about the anger in the girl's eyes, just before the snake slithered from its enclosure.
With that anger in mind, Petunia passed the large brandy to her husband and slipped away to lock the cupboard door fast.
"It's not right, Petunia," Vernon said when she returned.
Petunia nodded mutely.
"The freakishness is expected from that lot. I can handle it, can't I?"
"Of course, Vernon," Petunia said, because that was what she was supposed to say.
"What I can't stomach is that girl, threatening our son. Dudders was terrified."
"So was I," Petunia said softly.
Vernon patted the sofa beside him. "I know. Just think, Pet." He ran his fingers through her hair, and Petunia let herself melt against him. "Just think. Soon enough someone from that lot will come and collect her, and we'll never have to see the girl again."
"Soon." Petunia sighed and let her head rest against her husband's chest.
Vernon turned on the television, and Petunia was glad: The drone would chase away her troublesome thoughts about the girl in the cupboard: out of sight, out of mind.
Harry lay in the dark, curled on her side, as the lock clicked in the cupboard door. Her heart was thundering in her ears and her breathing was rapid and uncontrolled. For a little while, she just lay still, eyes closed, trying to calm herself.
They hadn't hit her; they wouldn't—not like that, like bruise-spattered April Kelly, who was in Harry's class at school, got hit at home. People would notice if they hit her like that, and the Dursleys couldn't have people noticing her, their abnormality. But Uncle Vernon had wanted to hit her like that and Harry wondered how much longer she'd stay safe.
When she was calmer, Harry slid the black book from her waistband and rummaged beneath the cot for Dudley's old flashlight. The light was small and the beam was beginning to waver because the batteries were running out, but it would be enough to see by.
Switching on the light, Harry examined the book. It was plain black leather, with a year and a place stamped on the back. 1942: Vauxhall Road. Flipping to the first page, Harry found it was blank, but for the name T. M. Riddle penned out in faded black ink. The rest of the old pages, she saw, were empty and harmless also.
So why was this book—this diary—so awful? Why had the woman in the zoo reacted so poorly to it? No one had written a word; there was nothing to read. Harry had never owned a diary before, but she had seen girls in school with them and knew what diaries were for: writing your feelings. Harry could do that just this once, she decided.
Reaching for an almost-dry red marker, she opened to the first page and wrote:
Today I set a snake on my relatives. It was fun. I don't know how I did it but I'm glad I did. I got locked up for it but I still don't care. They deserved it for treating me like something disgusting all the time. I don't want to be their freak. I wanted to help that snake go home.
Though the words weren't necessarily true, they were vibrant red and angry splotches on the page. Harry wanted to see them there once in a while, just so she'd be sure she wasn't crazy; she had caused that glass to vanish, and a snake had gone free, and despite what Dudley and Piers would say, that boa constrictor was nonviolent.
But Harry's words didn't stay where she wrote them; they began to fade, red ink going pink, until the page ate them entirely. In the same slightly-faded red ink as Harry's marker, new words appeared in a neat, flowing script:
And tell me: What made it fun?
Because I'm not an awful freak, Harry responded, without hesitation, and she jabbed the blunt tip of the marker into the paper with all the force she had.
I didn't say you were, the diary said.
Sometimes I make things happen, but I don't mean to. They used to be things that affected only me but all I did was free a snake today. That has nothing to do with me. I was just angry and sad. Whatever makes me do things. It must be spreading. Harry wrote quickly, in an untidy scrawl that marched in slanted lines across the page.
Interesting, the diary responded in small, neat writing at the top of the paper. Harry got the distinct impression that the book wasn't really interested, and that it was mocking her previously untidy writing.
Am I crazy for enjoying it, though? For being glad when that snake scared everyone? Harry prattled on. This was, of course, a diary. It had no choice but to listen to her.
I have not implied so, but you may be, said the diary, writing in short starts and stops, as though it were trying to be tactful.
Harry's heart fluttered. Bad things happened to crazy people. Last winter when things got really bad at home, Harry had tried to confide in the art teacher, tell her all about Dudley's bullying. That was what the school counselor, who had come to talk to their class the day before, said to do if you got bullied, so Harry thought she'd try. The art teacher had not listened, and, as Harry's anger rose, the teacher's wig began to turn blue, which led to some sort of breakdown. The Little Whinging Primary School art teacher was never seen again.
I may be? How would I know for sure if I was crazy? Harry wrote.
I don't know for certain, but there are signs. A diary replies to your frantic raving, and you do not seem to bat an eye. You unleash a corporeal snake on those "deserving" relatives of yours. Both are signs of acute abnormality, but only one seems a mark of insanity to me. Then again, who am I to make the final call? I am, after all, an enchanted diary.
What's "enchanted" mean? Harry asked.
Struck dumb by the diary's tirade, language had lost all meaning. Both the offered signed seemed to point at insanity to Harry. It was the only explanation that made sense: Harry only imagined the snake, that was all. But she didn't really believe it. Something else was afoot, here.
Harry's simple question was promptly swiped away, and the diary wrote, This is going to be a long night, isn't it? The diary seemed exceedingly exasperated.
Author's Note: An early update? This never happens.
I do not own Harry Potter. This extensive universe belongs to J.K. Rowling, and anything you recognize comes from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone (Chapter Two: The Vanishing Glass).
This chapter is long and rambling, with lots of backstory, which I'm sorry about. But I figure this way, you get a glimpse at "Harry's" life before Tom Riddle. Isn't she just a charming ball of fear and anger, with a dash of acknowledge-me?
I hope you are enjoying this updated version of the story. If so, please drop me a review.
—Avra Kedavra