CHAPTER 3
Harry hadn't seen it coming.
Remus was looking at Harry with unimaginable sadness.
The others had different expressions on their faces. Sirius was looking at Harry wearily while Lily and James were gaping at him, stunned.
"Err... Yes." Saying this, Harry pointed his wand at his face and Lily and James saw their son for the first time.
"Oh.." Lily gasped. She seemed to be fighting a great internal battle as she was sitting on her hands and rocking slightly as though physically restraining herself from moving. Whether this was to stop herself from hugging him or running out, Harry did not know. He doubted whether Lily knew herself.
James looked like he had been hit by a bludger. Harry supposed that's what it must feel like to meet your eighteen year old son when you are seventeen yourself.
"I wanted a chance to get to know you. To tell you about my life." Harry sighed.
"This man I... well he felt like owed me a favour. I met him when I was in Australia. He said..." and so Harry told them about how he had been sent here by Mr. Lee. He left out the parts that would be explained in the journals anyway. It's best if they find out everything gradually, he thought.
All four of them seemed to be rooted to the spot. But the first person to move was Sirius. He walked towards Harry and before he knew what was happening he was trapped in a bone crushing hug. He released Harry a second later and held him at arms length. For the first time Harry recognised his godfather in the reckless, free spirited boy gripping his shoulders hard enough to leave a scar.
Fixing Harry with an intense look he said, "James is like a brother to me and there's no way he wouldn't have made me your godfather. There's no way I would've let anyone else be your godfather. So the fact that you had to go and live with the Dursleys means something terrible must've happened to me. I'm guessing we'll find out soon enough, but tell me...Do we ever meet in the future? Do I at least get the chance to tell you about James?"
Not trusting himself to speak owing to the knot in his throat, Harry resorted to nodding slowly.
"Good."
Sirius went back to his seat on the bed with a stony look on his face. One by one the rest of them stood up and gave Harry a hug yet all of them were awkward and forced. Harry figured that they had felt obligated to react in some way too, since Sirius already had. Trying hard not to let this knowledge upset him too much he said, "So, do you want to continue reading?" His voice was surprisingly calm.
All four of them nodded and Harry pointed his wand at the journal again and said, "Loquis!"
Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step,-
"Oh, that means you're going to Hogwarts soon, aren't you?" Lily asked, a hint of happiness returning to her face.
"Yeah." Harry said, his face splitting into a wide grin.
but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed.
"I'm guessing none of those are photos of Lily and James?" Remus hissed, his eyes narrowing.
Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets – but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father,
"What's that?" Sirius asked.
"It's a machine Muggles use for games and stuff," said Harry, since this time even Lily was at a loss.
being hugged and kissed by his mother.
The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.
Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.
"Up! Get up! Now!"
"Does she have to wake you up like that?" Lily said loudly.
"It's okay really, I was used to it." Harry said, hoping it would calm her down.
Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.
"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it.
"That's amazing! You actually remember something that happened to you when you were a year old. I wonder if I ever took you on the motorcycle." Sirius said, grinning at Harry.
"There is no way I'd let you take Harry on a flying motorcycle unless you Confunded me or something." Lily said, fixing Sirius with a deathly glare.
"I wouldn't put it past him." James muttered under his breath.
He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.
His aunt was back outside the door.
"Are you up yet?" she demanded.
"Nearly," said Harry.
"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."
"Duddy?" Lily said incredulously, as Sirius and James roared with laughter.
Harry groaned.
"I suppose you don't like your cousin's birthdays?" Remus asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Just another chance for them to spoil him rotten, I suppose." Sirius said, gritting his teeth together.
"What did you say?" his aunt snapped through the door.
"Nothing, nothing..."
Dudley's birthday - how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.
"NO FUCKING WAY!" James roared, his hand going up to his hair in anger.
"She makes you live in a cupboard?" Lily asked, turning to Harry, her voice dangerously low.
Harry was at loss for words. The concern evident in their anger towards the Dursleys was overwhelming. He hadn't expected it. It wasn't completely surprising. Growing up he had known that the Dursleys were mistreating him, but he had nothing to weigh it against. However much he hated the way he was treated in the Dursley household, it would've been worse to have been brought up like Dudley as far as Harry was concerned.
Over the years he had gotten used it. The lack of Chirstmas presents, birthday cakes or even clothes that actually fit him didn't bother him as much. He had come to accept it. It wasn't until he went to Hogwarts and saw the Weasleys did he truly realize what he had missed out on.
He never liked it when someone from the Wizarding world found out about the murkier side of his time with the Dursleys. They all reacted in the same way, with only slightly varying degrees of anger. Hagrid, Ron and Hermione, the Weasley, even Sirius. Yet seeing his parents react to the same news was a whole different feeling.
When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise - unless of course it involved punching somebody.
"Tell me he doesn't beat you up!" Lily yelled, looking slightly mad as her red hair was flying around her face.
"Tell me you beat him up worse!" Sirius growled.
Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.
"Well, at least that's good." Remus said, trying to calm his friends down.
Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age.
"Sounds like someone else we know." Sirius said, smirking as Lily laughed.
James scowled.
He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair,
"He probably looked exactly like you even then." Lily said to James. James looked surprised, probably because there was not even a hint on animosity in Lily's voice.
and bright green eyes.
"And had your eyes. Great combination, huh?" James said.
Harry squirmed in his seat. It was uncomfortable to be spoken about as though he weren't sitting right there.
Luckily, Sirius came to his rescue. He started making kissing noises. James hit him on the head as Lily said, "Honestly!".
He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose.
"Hmph." Sirius said, his foul mood returning.
The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.
Harry sighed as he lifted up his fringe so that his scar was visible. Lily had been trying to look at him from the corner of her eyes and he guessed why.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly, "I was just curious."
He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.
"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions."
"They told you that we died in a car crash?" James said, as Sirius swore loudly.
"I knew that letter Dumbledore wrote to them would be useless! How could they keep this from you?" said Remus agitatedly.
Don't ask questions - that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.
Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.
"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.
"Aaah... The Potter hair." Sirius said, grinning. "This should be fun."
About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way - all over the place.
Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon.
"Poor kid. He never stood a chance." Sirius said, wiping a fake tear from his eyes.
He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel –Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.
They all laughed as James thumped Harry on the back appreciatively.
Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents.
His face fell.
"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."
"Merlin, how could anyone spoil their kid so badly?" Remus said, disgusted.
"You know what's really strange?" Sirius said thoughtfully. "This is exactly how my parents are with Regulus yet if you put my parents and the Dursleys together in the same room, it'll be hard to tell which one is more anxious to kill the other."
"So you're parents believe the whole Pureblood nonsense?" Lily asked Sirius finally.
Sirius snorted. "Thats putting it mildly."
"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."
"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face.
Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.
"Smart kid. I knew my genes were in there somewhere." Lily said, smiling at Harry who blushed.
Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right'' 16 Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty ... thirty..."
"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.
"And how old is he supposed to be again?" Remus asked, shaking his head.
"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."
Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.
"He's actually proud." Lily said, stunned.
At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.
"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction.
"Why do they talk about you as though you aren't even in the same room?" Lily said angrily.
As fun as it was in the beginning, Harry was beginning to get a little tired of the Dursley bashing. He was eager to get to the part where he went to Hogwarts and this was just slowing them down. So drawing a deep breath, he turned to them and said, "Listen, I understand that this stuff must be hard for you, but really you don't have to defend me or insult them every time. It's going to get a lot worse in a while but we'll never get to the good stuff at this rate. So maybe you could let some of it go..." Harry's voice trailed off.
"Of course." Lily said looking chided.
Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there.
"So, they'll take the pig's friend but leave- " Sirius began but shut up when Lily glared at him.
The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.
"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this. Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.
"I hate cats." Sirius said. "What? I didn't say anything about the Dursleys!" he added defensively as Lily glared at him again.
"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.
"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."
The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there - or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.
Harry could see that all of them were struggling to stay put following that sentence. He was quite impressed with the restarint they were showing.
"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?"
"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.
"You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer).
Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.
"And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.
"I won't blow up the house," said Harry, but they weren't listening.
"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "...
and leave him in the car..."
"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone..."
James face was turning red with the strain of restraining himself. Lily had started rocking herself again. Harry noticed that this was something she did often when she was restless or under stress. Sirius stood up and began to pace. Remus was the only one who looked slightly calm.
Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying - it had been years since he'd really cried - but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.
Harry couldn't take it anymore. "It's alright. You don't have to hold back everything."
There was a collective sigh of relief after that.
"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.
"I... don't... want... him... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp- spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.
"I cant believe she falls for that!" Lily said with disbelief.
Just then, the doorbell rang - "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.
Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life.
"It's good that you're happy." Lily said, smiling warmly at happy. "Did you have fun?"
"Err..."
"Merlin, now what?" Sirius said, grimly as Lily narrowed her eyes.
His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.
"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "I'm warning you now, boy - any funny business, anything at all - and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."
'How dare he threaten you like that?"James yelled, standing up.
Lily tugged at his hand trying to get him to sit down. "James, Harry is right. We can't keep getting upset with them. There's nothing we can do."
"You're right." James sighed.
"I'm not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly..
But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.
The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.
"Oh yes, what sort of accidental magic did you pull?" Sirius asked, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses.
Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off.
"Haha! It had to be the hair." Sirius said laughing.
He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.
"She punished you for that? But she knows that you can't control it!" Lily said loudly.
"What happened to letting it go?" James asked slyly.
Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls) - The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished.
"Hmmm... Nothing very dramatic so far." Sirius said, with a hint of disappointment in his voice.
"Why, what did you do?" Harry asked curiously.
"I set a flock of bats after our family house elf when I was six. He was threatening to tell on me to my dear Mum because I had changed the family motto engraved on this really old trunk from 'Toujours Pur' to 'Toujours poop'." Sirius said, grinning at the memory.
"Tojours pur?" Lily asked as Remus, James and Harry roared with laughter.
"It means 'Always pure' in French." Sirius said, making a face.
"My first time was when I five." James said, laughing. "My cousins were over for Christmas and they started a Quidditch match in the mini Quidditch field in our backyard. I was the youngest and they wouldn't let me play. I sat by the hoops for three hours and not one of them was able to score the entire time. Everytime a Quaffle came near the hoops it would mysteriously bounce back. They couldn't figure out what was happening."
"That's impressive. Aren't Quidditch balls supposed to be really hard to charm?" Remus asked.
"Well, accidental magic is always quite impressive. That's what makes it dangerous too because it can be very strong and powerful. Controlling and taming our powers diminishes it quite a bit but its a necessary trade-off." Lily explained.
"Thats true enough. When I was six, I got into a fight with... well someone. He had me pinned on the floor. I summoned a piece of wood lying twenty feet away to fight him off yet it took me weks to learn the Summoning Charm in fourth year.
Harry noticed that Sirius and James had tensed up and even Lily looked suspicious. He wondered if Remus was talking about the day Fenrir Greyback bit him. Thinking that now wasn't the time to bring that topic up, Harry said, "What about you, Lily?"
Lily jumped. She was startled to hear Harry call her by her name.
"I don't really remember the first time. Strange things kept happening around me for as long as I can remember." Lily shrugged.
On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney.
"That's brilliant!" James said, impressed. "You Appparated!"
"I don't think so. I didn't feel like Apparating. I think maybe I flew." Harry said.
"Mate, I doubt if even Dumbledore can fly." Sirius said, skeptically.
"That's not true. There have been many cases in history where wizards have learnt how to fly. Most of them were Dark Wizards though." Lily added, grudgingly.
Harry's heart sank. Was that another power he got from Voldemort?
"Well, we'll never know I supposed." Remus said.
The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid- jump.
"I highly doubt that." Lily said, laughing.
"Well, it was a better explanation at that time than 'I performed accidental magic'!" Harry said defensively.
But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room.
While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.
"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.
I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."
"Bad move, mate." Sirius said, wincing.
Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"
Dudley and Piers sniggered.
I know they don't," said Harry. "It was only a dream."
But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon - they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.
"Oh, when's you're letter getting here? I can't take this anymore!" Lily said impatiently.
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.
They all roared with laughter as Harry tried to remember what that gorilla had actually looked like.
"You seemed to find a lot of similarities between your cousin and really ugly animals." James said, smirking.
"Hey, if the shoe fits..." Harry said, making Lily laugh.
"What?"
"Never mind," Harry said, as Lily laughed again. "It's a Muggle expression."
Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first.
Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.
"Uh oh, something bad's going to happen now, isn't it?" Lily whispered, gripping her face in fear.
"Well, sort of." Harry said. He wasn't just saying that to calm her down. Compared to some the other stuff that would happen to him in the next seven journals, this one really wouldn't qualify to be in the 'bad' category.
After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can - but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.
"I hate snakes. And reptiles in general." Lily said, making a face.
"That's strange since they are a vital partof Potions and you love Potions." Remus said.
"That's different. They're dead by then."
Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.
"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.
"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.
"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.
Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.
"You're very strange." Sirius said, looking at Harry critically.
"What do you mean?" Harry said a little offended.
"You actually feel bad for a filthy snake trapped in a cage. You're actually comparing yourself to it. It's strangely...compassionate. Especially for a eleven year old. " Sirius said.
Harry felt the heat rise to his neck as Lily beamed at him.
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.
It winked.
Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.
"Merlin." Sirius whispered. "Are you..."
"Sshh.." Lily said.
The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:
"I get that all the time.
"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."
"No!" James said, shocked. "How can you be a Parselmouth? There's not even a single drop of Slytherin blood in my family and Lily is Muggleborn!"
Lily and Remus were staring at him open mouthedly.
"Err... It's sort of explained later on. Sorry." Harry said, shrugging.
The snake nodded vigorously.
"Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.
The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.
Boa Constrictor, Brazil.
"Was it nice there?"
"You're talking to a snake about Brazil. And you're being polite! Merlin's beard..." Sirius said, the disbelief still evident in his voice.
The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on:
This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see - so you've never been to Brazil?"
As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump.
"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.
"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.
"Oh my..." Lily whispered.
Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished.
"Brilliant." James and Sirius said in one voice, their faces split into wide grins.
"Oh, I hope no one gets hurt." Lily said anxiously.
The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.
As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigo."
The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.
"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"
"Poor bloke, doesn't know what hit him!" Sirius said, laughing.
The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again.
"Surely, she understood what happened?" Remus asked, turning to Lily and Harry.
"She probably does. Doesn't mean that's a good thing." Lily muttered.
Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"
"Now why did he have to say that?" James whined, dropping his head into his hands. "They're going to lock you up in the cupboard for this, aren't they?" he asked Harry, hopelessly.
Harry nodded.
Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.
Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.
"They're starving you? THEY'RE ACTUALLY STARVING YOU?" Lily said, her voice becoming shriller and louder with every word.
"It's okay. I always managed to sneak and find some food." Harry said, calmly.
"But that's not the point!" she started again but just then James reached over and placed his hand on hers. This startled her into silence as Sirius rolled his eyes.
He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died.
Lily was blinking furiously and James was shifting uncomfortably. Harry avoided looking at any of them but he could feel Remus and Sirius eyes on him.
Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead.
There was a collective intake of breath at this.
"That's how it happened?" James asked, eyes widening and his voice barely above a whisper.
Harry nodded, his eyes fixed on a spot on the floor.
"Well, that means it was quick... and painless." Lily said, trying to put on a brave face while her sparkling eyes said a whole different story. "That's good."
Sirius had a pained look on his face.
This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.
When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family.
"I don't get it!" Sirius yelled, standing up angrily. "Where the hell am I? And Moony, why aren't you visiting him either? Where are all our friends?" he asked, pacing the length of the room.
"The war is going to go on for another four years, Sirius. There's no way all of it are making it out alive. Our generation must've faced a lot of losses." he said sadly as Lily stiffled a sob.
"Not Remus too?" Lily asked turning to Harry, almost pleading.
"No." Harry said.
She heaved a sigh of relief.
Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word.
"Well, that makes sense. You're probably as famous as Dumbledore in our world!" Lily said.
The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.
"So they just Apparate away. Not one of them takes you away." Sirius said coldly.
"They can't just take him, Sirius." Lily said.
At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.
The cool female voice stopped reading suddenly even though no one had interrupted. Harry looked around at them and asked, " So do you want to continue reading or should we get something to eat?"
"We'll eat once you get your Hogwarts letter." Lily said. "I don't think I can eat when I'm feeling this miserable.
"Alright. That should happen soon." Harry said, preparing himself for the next part.
