Notes: Hopefully this chapter will be a bit more entertaining. Comments will be appreciated, but will not be a requirement. Enjoy.

J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter. I own my made ups.


"I'll need something to look forward to."


CHAPTER TWO: The Zoo at Home

'What in the bloody blaze happened?' Hugo thought heatedly. 'How come Carol could see the Platform, but we couldn't? She's not even a Potter fan!' Jealousy started to spread through his face as he stormed into the house, knowing very well that Grandmother Claire had gone to her tea party. Otherwise, he would have sulked the whole way to the room, rather than stomp childishly with a furrowed expression across his face.

Before he left, he muttered to Carol that he wanted to see the picture of the platform. He knew something had been horribly wrong, but not only that, he hadn't noticed that Anne had been unusually quiet. She'd usually try to come up with something to make him feel better, but she had her own thoughts on her mind.

When he entered the room, he walked over to the small bookshelf of children's novels, but as he approached the bookcase, he gaped. There had been a rather large gap in the center of the bookcase, where he had organized the Harry Potter books himself. All that rested on the shelf were two charcoal-colored journals bound with leather and a pair of two hard covered books. On one of the edges of a journal was a young Grizzly Cub outlined with copper, while the one underneath was outlined with gold, shaping a Bengal tiger. His eyes widened, for he thought he had seen the tiger wink at him. He shook his head, then slipped the journal out and skimmed through the journal. Nothing had been written. He flipped back and forth with the pages, but nothing seemed to appear.

Giddily, he raced over towards the desk, ignoring the squeak of the door as Anne walked in. She had asked him something, but really didn't catch it. His temper had dropped completely with this newfound excitement. He could feel the flow of his blood pumping quickly, showing signs of adrenaline, but he ignored it. He tried scribbling words onto his journal, but each time he tried writing it down, the pen wouldn't work. He guessed that the pens must have ran out of ink, so he tossed each one carelessly one after another until there were only pencils left. He wasn't fond of writing in pencils, but now he was more impatient than ever. He went for the pencils, but they hadn't even made a single dent. The eager boy was too busy to realize that his twin was standing behind his shoulder.

Hugo felt a jolt through his body as she tapped his shoulder, as if his skeleton had leaped out of his body by the Grim Reaper's touch. He whirled around, only to feel at east as he saw the girl who could very well pass as "Little Bo Peep" for a performance. He grinned wearily towards her as she inched back from his quick reaction, giving an apologetic expression. Once again, Anne was still in a terrible trance of thought. Had she just seen the copper cub yawn boredly? 'Of course not!' Anne's common sense tried to tell her. Her vision had debated with it, insisting that it was the one who was telling the truth. She had a hard time restraining both senses, let alone keeping aware of what was going on with her. Her brother started to worry.

"Something wrong?" he asked, voice full of concern. She was still silent, but then, shook her head reassuringly. The last thing she wanted to do was make her brother worried. She knew for a fact that Carol wasn't one to worry, in fact, she was a lot like her brother when it came to making plans into actions. She went head-on with whatever tried to phase her; bravery. Something Anne felt like she had been lacking.

"You sure?" he asked.

Another nod. 'Being quiet won't make it any more easy on him... I'd better start talking.' she thought.

"Where are the books? Didn't you just finish organizing them so they would be at the perfect height for us?" Anne put more emphasis on 'perfect' because she knew how nutty her brother was when it came to organizing.

He sighed. "I'm not sure where they've gone. Maybe Grams sent them to good will and tried to make it up for us by getting us these journals. But hard-covered books aren't an easy buy. You think she'd know that with all of her hard-covered cookbooks…"

Anne stared, but shook her head. "She wouldn't… would she? I mean… I know it's good for the other kids that can't get the chance to read them, but we haven't even finished the fourth one yet…"

"Well, whatever happened to them, they're long gone. We're going to have to find another way to get them… what pays good?"

"A real job?" Anne questioned simply. He stared blankly, which meant she'd have to clarify to her lame joke. "We're too young to get jobs; the youngest is sixteen-years-old, unless we get into acting or some kind of career like that. But no one in our family will approve of us doing it. Not yet at least."

Hugo gave a frustrated sigh, knowing that she was all too right. The youngest twin was timid, but she knew how to restrain his leash when she wanted to. He guessed that it must have been common between most twins to be able to calm or dominate one another, but then again, they hadn't met that many twins. Well, not together at least, which was something he thought was weird.

'Why wouldn't you want to spend the days with your twin?' He asked himself.

The boy looked back towards his empty journal and sighed as he shut it, tossing it lightly towards the floor. For a second, he thought he was going crazy, but the way he saw his sister stare with horror, she had seen the book hop back into his hand. He raised his brows up, trying to make sense of the laws of gravity.

He decided to 'experiment' with it, tossing it again. This time, when the book bounced back, the tiger roared. Hugo dropped it onto the desk while jumping out of his seat. He grabbed Anne's journal and tossed it on top of his journal, getting ready to get out of the room. The tiger roared again, but this time, the cub yelped loudly with the king of the jungle.

Frantically, Hugo grabbed his sister's hand and bolted out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him as if the tiger and cub had popped out of the journals and started chasing after them. Surely, he must have been loosing his mind. His sister must have been just as crazy as he was; they were twins anyways, so they must have had some sort of linked connection. They needed to get out of the house, and quick.

Carol had heard the door slam and came running towards them, carrying a journal that looked very much like theirs, but it was smaller (like a memo book). Hugo stared wide-eyed as he saw a glimpse of silver at the bound of the journal. He snatched it from Carol's hand and there was a silver Zebra engraved into it. He opened the door quick enough to hear the tiger roaring with the cub's complaining and tossed it into the room, slamming the door shut before the book came back into Carol's hand. They all heard a thump and then a zebra starting to whine as if it had been interrupted from getting a drink from the watering pool.

"What—"

"We need to get out of here. Quick." Hugo panicked. Both sisters eyed each other, never thinking that they'd see the day when their 'back-boned' brother would be terrified.

"The zoo?" Anne questioned. Had Hugo been paying attention, he would have told her how crazy that would have been. They practically owned a zoo in their room.

"Fine. Carol, can you take us? Please?"

Carol nodded slowly, taken aback from his politeness. "Sure."

Usually he acted rude and impatiently under steam or any other uncharacterized behavior. Then again, he had been going through many types of behavior changes today.


Tigers weren't afraid of anything and were one of the strongest feline in the Cat Kingdom. Although these cats were brave, a cat was still a cat, and what that meant is that they could be lazy. Hugo remembered reading about lions in an encyclopedia, that while the male feline would rest in the cave, the lionesses would go and hunt the antelope. It reminded him of the many times he would use to stay over his best friend's, Luc, house; while Luc's dad would read the paper on his chair, he and Luc would be watching a cartoon show and his mom would go grocery shopping with Luc's sister and Anne. He didn't remember a day staying there that Luc's dad would get out of his seat and offer to go grocery shopping.

Now, more than ever, he wished that he was as brave as a tiger, but in truth he had been a cowardly feline stuck in a tree. How pitiful he felt.

The zoo was crowded with families who wanted to go out on a Saturday afternoon with their children, something Anne wasn't too comfortable with because of a fear of getting lost. She clutched onto her sister's hand as she licked her vanilla ice cream off of her cone, careful not to let it slip. Hugo kept his Popsicle into his mouth as he walked ahead of them, trying to find other places to head to.

He definitely knew that he didn't want to see any tigers, bears or zebras. Hopefully, they were all sleeping pleasantly in the room without any fuss. The last thing they needed was a neighbor calling the cops for disruption of peace, or worse, their grandmother finding the books and throwing it out. He pictured the journals being tossed in the trashcan, only to be vaporized and reappear into each Parkinson siblings' hands.

So far they'd seen the monkeys, giraffes, and lions (something he tried to convince his sisters were completely different from tigers). He knew very well that Anne was starting to get antsy to see the birds, but he knew that there would be owls there and he really wanted to keep his mind off of Harry Potter (or anything that had to do with magic). He also wanted to see something cool, or maybe even just a little 'off the edge', just to claim back his bravery.

'But which animal?' Hugo thought.

Then it hit him.

Hugo snapped out of his train of thought as Anne tugged onto his sweater that hung around his hips. Anne had left hers home, but felt fine with what she was wearing. "Can we go to the bird's house? I want to find that humming bird from last time… or an owl."

"Why don't we go check out the reptiles first? It's only a short walk, compared to where the bird's house is. I want to see a Boa."

Anne quivered, but Hugo insisted. "We'll go to the bird's house right after. I'm sure your hummingbird will still be there. Besides, the Boa will be in its –" before he could say 'cage', he heard screaming and families running out of the reptile house. He whirled around, putting his arm out like a shield (in front of Anne) as he saw a Boa Constrictor slithering out. The boa ignored the cries and hollers for staff and security assistance, then eyed the twins. Hugo stepped closer to Anne as she duck behind the outstretched arm, clutching her journal tightly as Hugo gripped his with his other hand. He was trembling so much that she could see it in his hands, vibrating like her sister's cell-phone did when she had gotten a voice mail.

The snake approached them slowly, then, raised its head so they made eye contact. They heard Carol's scream to run, but they were frozen stiff, ignoring the shrieks of horror and chaos that surrounded them. Everything, everyone and everywhere had slowly started to tear away from them, fade away as if it was nonexistent. The Boa hissed with meaning, but Hugo didn't quite catch what it was saying; it was just a mutter. The only word that seemed to make sense was 'luck' while everything else seemed to be a blur whispers. Once the snake broke his contact, their surrounding had the feeling as though it was being fast forward to the present. Hugo turned towards Anne, only to see that she had fainted and countless blob-for-faces were surrounding her.

One of the blobbed men patted a hand on his shoulder, asking if he was all right. Hugo hadn't realized that his jaw had been stretched out to a gape, but was too terrified to adjust it. Then, he heard something very loud, a harsh shriek and then a booming voice. The boy whipped his head, gazing back towards the reptile house, watching as a mother hugging her little boy who was wrapped into a blanket. He was soaked to the bone, shivering just as violently as Hugo had. In front of them, a very large and plump man had grabbed a skinny-looking boy by the hair as the walked out. Hugo blinked as he thought he had seen a scar on the boy's forehead, but guessed that he had been so terrified that his eyes had been playing tricks on him.

It wasn't until now, he realized that his vision had been getting much better than before, because when he looked back the faces were no longer blobs, they were emergency doctors. Hugo glanced over towards Carol, seeing that her cell-phone that was in her hand as she explained to the doctors what had happened.

They nodded, then, two of them gently hoisted Anne up and placed her onto an emergency bed. Had Hugo been paying attention, he would have noticed that two more men were placing him on a mattress as well, but by the time his head rested everything was pitch black.


"Annette? Sweet pea, could you wake up for mommy? Please?"

The girl winced as she heard her full name being called by a honey-sweet voice. The voice that whispered in her sleep, cradled her every night ever since the day she was born. Mom. The word was so easy to say, but she couldn't find the strength to move her lips. She still remembered the terrible day when the siblings had tried to go to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. The same exact day when their books had disappeared. The minute that they had encountered that serpent, and the most frightening part of all, she had understood every word that the Boa had said.

No. That day couldn't have possibly been real if her mother was talking to her, otherwise they'd be in the United States. That's right. That horrible nightmare was all in her head, just like the night where she had thought she saw the strangers. They had an airy appearance, not exactly transparent, but they were solid but fuzzy. Almost like the people in a memory or dream. Anne was almost sure that the moment that she opened her eyes, that she'd be lying in her own bed next to her brother's room, where she didn't have to compete to see who could block who out better with their Walkman. Where grandmother wouldn't take their Walkman for arguing about them.

But as Anne let her eyes open, she felt horrified as she saw the glimpse of unrecognizable corners in the room. She had suddenly become aware of the beeping sound, like a heart-monitor. For a split second, the heartbeat went off the chart, but half a second later, the heart rate was fairly normal. She felt her mother squeezing her hand gently, while the other hand soothingly brushed away the strands of hair that covered her face from tossing and turning. Her face was no longer pale, but her eyes were red from exhaustion and her body had not loosened by much. If she had been in the hospital, than the incident with the snake was real. There were no dreams. It was the reality.

"I'm so sorry sweet pea. Your brother should have known you're terrified of reptiles. I'm going to have a talk with him when he wakes up."

Anne shook her head, then, opened her mouth. When she spoke she realized how croaked her voice sounded, which must have meant that she'd been screaming sometime in her sleep. She could easily tell that it was nighttime, but didn't know how long she'd been sleeping. "The snake was loose. We didn't even step close to the reptiles."

She gave an admiring sigh. "You don't have to put up with your brother like this, you know? You could let him know how you feel."

"I do…" She said with almost a wining tone, as if she'd done something bad.

Her mother gave a kind smile. "All right, all right, sweet pea. Now I know you've slept for two days, but you're going to have to try and rest up a bit, okay?"

Anne nodded.