Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursley's had woken up to find their nephew and niece on the front steps. 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 Dursley's 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. 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, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy and girl lived in the house, too.
Yet Olivia and Harry Potter were still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.
"Up!" she screeched. Olivia heard her walking toward the kitchen and then she pounded on the basement door. Olivia pushed her blankets off her makeshift bed. It was a couch shoved in the closet. Over the years she had made her closet seem like her own. Up until she turned four; Harry, Dudley, and Olivia had shared a room. Then Harry got the cupboard under the stairs, and Olivia got a small walk in closet in the basement.
Every night until she was almost seven Olivia would sneak up to Harry's cupboard and sleep with him because of either her nightmares, or that she was afraid of the dark and spiders.
Suddenly the basement door opened "Are you up yet?" Aunt Petunia demanded.
"Almost," Olivia answered.
"Well, get a move on, I want you to set the table and get the food out. And don't you dare mess it up, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."
Olivia groaned inwardly. Dudley's birthday - how could she have forgotten? She heard Harry come out of his cupboard.
When she was dressed she climbed up the stairs pushed the door open and entered 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. Olivia smiled at Harry and he grinned back and turned around to focus on the sizzling bacon.
She glanced at Harry's arm that was not covered by his shirt and noticed that his nasty bruise was only just starting to fade. Last week Dudley had caught Harry by surprise and tried to beat him up like normal. Olivia had come up and pushed Dudley off of Harry. Olivia had always been small and skinny for her age. But she was a lot stronger than she looked.
Looking at Harry and Olivia you wouldn't be able to tell that they were related. Olivia had a oval face, red hair, and hazel eyes. Harry had a thin face, black hair and bright green eyes. He had glasses as well, and a lightning bolt scar in the middle of his forehead. Harry got his in the car crash that killed their parents. The only scar that Olivia had on her face was one on her chin from when she was three. Dudley had pushed her from behind to get candy from Aunt Petunia. Olivia had fallen forward and hit her chin on the front steps.
The first question she remembered asking was what were their parents like. "Don't ask questions." Aunt Petunia had said. 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 and Olivia had finished getting everything in order "Comb your hair!" he barked to Harry, by way of a morning greeting.
About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Soon after Harry got his hair cut, Harry's hair simply grew that way, all over again.
Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. 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 and Olivia agreed that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.
While Olivia was setting the table she took two of Dudley's smaller presents and stuck them in the fridge. She knew that Dudley would have a fit when he found out that he had the same number as last year. 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." Harry, who had seen Olivia hide the presents, sniggered a little.
"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.
Olivia, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began eating her eggs as fast as possible in case Dudley flipped the table or something.
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?"
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.
"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.
At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Olivia, 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 them." She jerked her head in Olivia and Harry's direction.
Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Olivia'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 and Olivia were left behind with Mrs. Figg, a crazy old lady who lived two streets away. Olivia hated it there. The whole house smelled of cat litter and Mrs. Figg made them look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.
"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at the Potters as though they'd planned this. Olivia knew she ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when she reminded herself it would be a whole year before she had to look at those cats again.
"We could phone Marge, she doesn't mind her." Uncle Vernon suggested pointing at Olivia. "Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."
The Dursleys often spoke about the Potters like this, as though they weren't there - or rather, as though they were something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a bug. The Dursley's were terrible towards Harry, but they seemed to be a little nicer to Olivia for some reason.
"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?"
"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.
"You could just leave us here," Harry put in hopefully. Both Harry and Olivia looked at Aunt Petunia innocently. 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 Olivia, but they weren't listening.
"I suppose we could take them to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "... and leave them in the car..."
"That car's new, they're not sitting in it alone..."
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. "Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him. Olivia screwed her face up at Harry and mouthed, ''Oh the poor baby."
"I... don't... want... them... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "They always sp- spoil everything!" He shot the Potters a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms. Olivia stuck her tongue out at him.
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 and Olivia, were sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in their lives. Their aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with them, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside and had a talk with him, but not Olivia.
While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, Olivia, 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. Olivia looked at Harry. "It was flying."
Olivia grinned as 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 strawberry with a mustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"
Dudley and Piers sniggered.
I know they don't," said Harry. "It was only a dream."
Olivia looked at him sorrowfully. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was their 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 they might get dangerous ideas.
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 and Olivia what they wanted before they could hurry them away, they bought them each a cheap lemon ice pop. It was actually pretty good, Olivia thought, licking it as they watched a hippo that looked remarkably similar to Dudley, if Dudley was bald.
Olivia and Harry had the best morning they'd had in a long time. They walked behind 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 Harry. 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 and Olivia split the first.
Olivia felt, afterward, that she should have known it was all too good to last.
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. Dudley whined to make it move and Olivia wandered away. She was looking at this really cool lizard, when suddenly people started to scream. She glanced over to see Harry standing next to the snake tank, and the snake was on the floor slithering away from him. Then she spotted Dudley and Piers who had apparently been looking at the snake, scrambling back away from the snake.
The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Olivia 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?" Olivia gave Piers a death glare.
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 sent Olivia to get him a large brandy.
Later when all the Dursley's had gone to sleep Olivia snuck up the stairs to give Harry his dinner. She knocked quietly. "Harry, it's me." He opened the door quietly.
"Come on in Livvy, I'm starving." Olivia sat down on his bed. She glanced at his wall where he had hung up all the drawings she had ever made for him. Her and his favorite had been one that they had pieced together through their memories.
Olivia sometimes had a dream of a really pretty woman smiling at her, and then a man kiss the woman's forehead. Harry had some other dreams as well, but Olivia had drawn Harry and her, holding the man and woman's hands.
"Have you had that dream again?" Olivia asked Harry referring to the dream he had about the car crash.
He shook his head.
"No, not lately. All I remember is the dream about the motorcycle."
"You almost shorted his temper before we even got there... This is gonna be your worst birthday yet." Olivia said and Harry agreed. But Olivia smiled. "This year I got you something more than just a drawing." Harry smiled at his little sister.
Olivia tried to please Harry because she had no parents to please, and she didn't care about pleasing the Dursleys. Olivia and Harry looked out for each other and they provided the much needed comfort from the Dursleys. Suddenly they heard the toilet flush upstairs. "I better go, see you tomorrow Harry."
"Night Livvy." Harry opened the door.
"Night Harry." Olivia replied before sneaking down to her couch in the basement.