Disclaimer: I do not and never will own Harry Potter.

The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry and Jessica their longest ever punishment. By the time they were both 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 was glad that school was over. Unlike Jessica who enjoyed school, 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 favourite sport: Harry Hunting.

This was why Harry and Jessica spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where they could see a thin–ray of hope. When September came around 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. Harry and Jessica 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 toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told the twins. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

"No thanks," said Jessica.

"The poor toilets never had anything as horrible as a head down it," Harry added.

"It might be sick." They finished together. Then they ran, before Dudley could work out what they'd said.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry and Jessica at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let them both watch television 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 knobby sticks used for hitting each other while the teacher wasn'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 into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown–up. Harry and Jessica didn't trust themselves to speak. They thought their ribs might have been cracking from trying not to laugh.

There was a horrible smell in the kitchen then next morning when Harry and Jessica 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 grey water.

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

"Your new school uniforms," she said,

They looked in the bowl again.

"Oh," Harry said, "we didn't realize they had to be so wet."

"Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things for the both of you. They'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."

Harry and Jessica seriously doubted this, but though it best not to argue. They sat down at the table and tried not to think about how they were going to look on their first day at Stonewall High– like they were wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.

Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from the twins' new 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," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the mail, Harry."

"Make Dudley get it," he said while Jessica took the last piece of bacon from the plate.

"Poke him with your smelting stick, Dudley."

Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went 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– letters for Harry and Jessica.

Harry picked them up and stared at them, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in their entire lives, had written to them. Who would? They had no friends, no other relatives– they didn't belong to the library, so they'd never even gotten rude notes asking for books back. Yet here they were, letters, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

Mr H. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

Miss J. 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 envelopes over, their hands trembling, Harry saw purple wax seals bearing coats of arms: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding large letter H's.

"Hurry up boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke. He could almost picture Jessica rolling her eyes at the terrible joke from the kitchen. Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at their letters. Harry handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard before giving Jessica her letter and beginning to open his.

Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.

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

"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry and Jessica's got something!"

Both Harry and Jessica were on the point of unfolding their letters', which were written on the same heavy parchment as the envelopes, when they were jerked sharply out of both of their hands by Uncle Vernon.

"That's ours!" said Jessica, trying to snatch them back.

"Who'd be writing to either of you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking both letters open with one hand. 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 greyish white of porridge.

"P–P–Petunia!" he gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letters to read them, but Uncle Vernon held them both high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took the two letters curiously and read the first few lines on both of them. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness– Vernon!"

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry, Jessica, 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 those letters," he said loudly.

"Why would you get to read them, Dudley? You name wasn't even on the letter!" Jessica exclaimed angrily.

"We want to read them, as they're ours," Harry shouted.

"Get out, all three of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letters back inside their envelopes.

Harry and Jessica didn't move.

"WE WANT OUR LETTERS!" they shouted.

"Let me see them!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon as he took Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks, and threw them into the hall before pushing her out as well, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Harry promptly had a furious but silent fight with Dudley over who would listen at the keyhole, whereas Jessica rolled her eyes and looked through the crack between the floor and the door. Not long later, she was joined by Harry, glasses dangling from his ear.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the addresses– how could they possibly know where the two of them 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? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want–"

Harry and Jessica could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.

"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get any answers…. Yes, that's best… we won't do anything…."

"But–"

"I'm not having any in the house, Petunia! 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 Jessica in their cupboard.

"Where's out letters?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the doorway. "Who's writing to us?"

"No one. They were addressed to the two of you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned them."

"How could they have been mistakes, they had our name and our cupboard on them?" said Jessica angrily

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

"Er –yes, Harry, Jessica– about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking… you're both really getting a bit big for it… we think it might be nice if you both moved into Dudley's second bedroom."

"Why?" Harry said.

"Don't ask questions!" snapped their uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now. Your aunt's going to buy a second bed for the room first thing tomorrow."

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 the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took the twins one trip upstairs to move everything they owned from the cupboard to this room. Harry sat down on the bed and stared around the room while Jessica went and looked at the bookshelf. 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's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first–ever television set, which he put his foot through when his favourite program was cancelled; 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 with the end all bent because Dudley 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 while Jessica pulled a few. Yesterday they'd have given anything to be up here. Today they'd rather be back in their cupboard with those letters than up here without them.

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. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letters in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept staring at each other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry and Jessica, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's two more! Mr and Miss H and J Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive–"

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry and Jessica right behind him. 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 while Jessica grabbed hold of his ankles in an attempt to stop him gong very fast. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with the twins' letters clutched in his hand.

"Go to your cupboard– I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed out at Harry and Jessica. "Dudley –go– just go."

Harry walked round his and Jessica's new room. Someone knew they had moved out of their cupboard and also seemed to know they hadn't received their first letters. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time they'd make sure the letter writer didn't fail. He had a plan.

The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly while Jessica turned over and went back to sleep. He knew from experience not to wake Jessica early. He dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He snuck downstairs without turning on any 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.

"AAAAARRRGH!"

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 the big, squashy something had been their uncle's face and stomach. 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 him for about half an hour and then told him to go and make him a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off to the kitchen where Jessica was up and making Petunia coffee and pouring out Dudley's juice and by the time Harry got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Harry could see six letters addressed in green ink– three for Harry, three for Jessica.

"We want–" they began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before their eyes.

Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at 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 Aunt Petunia had just brought him.

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

Uncle Vernon stayed at 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 go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Forty–eight letters for Harry and Jessica found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the four dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded all the letters in her food processor.

"Who on earth wants to talk to you two this badly?" Dudley asked Harry and Jessica 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 toast, "no damn letters today–"

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back on his head. Next moment, fifty or sixty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leaped into the air trying to catch one and Jessica tried to pick one up off the floor.

"Out! OUT!"

Uncle Vernon seized Harry and Jessica around their waists and threw them into the hall before either could get one though. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could still hear the letters streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.

"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his moustache 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 moustache missing that no one dared to argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded–up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; 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 Jessica shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored and Jessica curled in a ball but Harry stayed awake, sitting up on the windowsill staring down at the lights of passing cars below 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 are any of you Mr H. and Miss J. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred each of these at the front desk."

She held up two letters so they could read the green ink addresses:

Mr H. Potter

Room 17

Railview Hotel

Cokeworth

Miss J. Potter

Room 17

Railview Hotel

Cokeworth

The twins made a grab for their letters but Uncle Vernon knocked their hands out of the way. The woman stared.

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

"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 ploughed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel 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'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 Jessica of something. If it was Monday –and they could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week because of television– then tomorrow, Tuesday, would be Harry and Jessica'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 old socks. Still, people didn't turn 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 bought.

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

It was very cold outside the car. 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 looking little shack imaginable. One thing was certain, there was no television 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 the, pointing with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron–grey water below them.

"I've already got us some 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. Jessica was casting wary looks out the side of the boat and shuffling about every now and again. 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 wood 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 and five bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chips bags just smoked and shrivelled 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 deliver mail. Harry and Jessica privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer them up at all.

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 filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few mouldy 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 Jessica were left to find the softest bit of floor they could and curl up together under the thinnest, most ragged blankets.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. Harry shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his and Jessica's stomachs rumbling with hunger. 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 that he and Jessica would be eleven in ten minutes time. He lay and watched their birthday 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. They both hoped the roof wouldn't fall in, although they 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 they'd be able to sneak a few 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 they'd be eleven. Thirty seconds… twenty… ten… nine –maybe they'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him– three… two… one…

BOOM.

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


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-TheGingernut