I don't own Harry potter and only Circe is mine.
As previously stated, I will be doing all seven books and an eighth one based on an idea I thought of. I might also be doing other endings so you don't only have a sad ending.
I will aim for a chapter a week for any extremely kind and patient person that bothers to read this.
Sorry I meant to do this last chapter but I forgot.
Chapter two
The Vanishing Glass
Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their niece and nephew on the front step, 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. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what had looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different coloured bobble hats – but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large, blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a roundabout at the fair, playing a computer game with his father and being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that two other children lived in the house, too.
Yet Harry and Circe Potter were still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Their aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first voice of the day.
"Up! Get up! Now!"
The twins woke with a start. Their aunt rapped on the door again.
"Up!" she screeched. The twins heard her walking towards the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. Harry rolled onto his back and they both tried to remember the dream they had been having. They usually had the same dreams. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it. They had a funny feeling they'd had the same dream before.
Their aunt was back outside the door.
"Are you up yet?" she demanded.
"Nearly." said Circe, angrily. She had always been the more rebellious one.
"Don't speak back to me in my house. And 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." Harry and Circe groaned.
"What did you say?" their aunt snapped through the door.
"Nothing, nothing..."
Dudley's birthday – how could they have forgotten? They slowly got out of bed and started looking for socks. Circe found two pairs under her bed and threw one to Harry, after peeling a spider off of it. They were used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where they slept.
When they were dressed, they 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 the twins, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise – unless, of course, it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favourite punch-bag was Harry, closely followed by Circe, but he couldn't often catch them. They didn't look it, but they were both very fast.
Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age, while Circe had always been skinny, but was naturally tall so she didn't look at all small for her age even though they looked even smaller than they really were because all they had to wear, were old clothes of Dudley's. Dudley was about four times bigger than they were. Harry and Circe both had thin faces, but that was where the similarities stopped. Circe had dark, red hair, pale skin covered in way too many freckles to count and deep hazel eyes with green flecks in them, whereas Harry had black hair, knobbly knees, tanned, freckle-less and bright green eyes, covered by round glasses. The glasses were held together with a lot of Sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his appearance, was a very thin scar on his head that he shared with his sister, although hers was on her shoulder, and was shaped like a bolt of lightning. They'd had them as long as they could remember and the first question they could remember asking their aunt was how they had got them.
"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions."
Don't ask questions – that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys. Unfortunately, Circe wasn't really one for following rules.
Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning the bacon (and mushrooms for Circe, as she was vegetarian) and Circe was cracking the second egg.
"Comb your hair! Tie your hair back!" he barked, by way of morning greeting. While his back was turned, Circe shook her head to mess her hair up even more and stuck her tongue out at him. Harry was used to this so he managed not to laugh.
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 boy in his class put together, but it made no difference; his hair simply grew that way – all over the place. Uncle Vernon would've done it to Circe as well but, for some unknown reason, Aunt Petunia wanted to keep her hair long.
Harry was helping Circe with the 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, blonde hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel – the twins often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.
They 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."
"Darling, you haven't counted Aunt Marge's present, see, it's here, under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."
"Alright, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. The twins, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down their bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.
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 Harry, Circe and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a cine camera, a remote-control aeroplane, sixteen new computer games and a video recorder. 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 the twins' direction.
Dudley's mouth fell open in horror but Harry and Circe's hearts gave big leaps. Every year, on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger bars or the cinema. Every year, the twins were left behind with Mrs Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. They hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs Figg made them look at photos of all the cats she'd ever owned.
"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at the twins, as though they'd planned this. The twins knew they ought to feel sorry that Mrs Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when they reminded themselves it would be a whole year before they had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr Paws and Tufty again.
"We could phone Marge." Uncle Vernon suggested.
"Don't be silly Vernon; she hates the children."
The Dursley's often spoke about the twins like this, as though they weren't there – or rather, as though they were something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.
"What about what's-her-name, your friend – Yvonne?"
"On holiday in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia. Harry flashed Circe a look that she instantly understood.
"You could just leave us here," she put in hopefully (they'd be able to watch what they wanted on television, for once, 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.
"We won't blow up the house." said Harry, 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 had really cried, but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his parents would give him anything he wanted.
"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let them spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.
"I... don't... want... them... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge pretend sobs. "They always spoil everything.!" He shot the twins a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.
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, the twins, who couldn't believe their luck, 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 both of them aside.
"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry and Circe's, "I'm warning you now, boy, and you, especially, girl – any funny business, anything at all – and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."
"We're not going to do anything," said both the twins at once, "honestly..."
But Uncle Vernon didn't believe them. No one ever did.
The problem was, strange things often happened around the twins, especially when they were together, and it was no good telling the Dursleys they didn't make them happen.
Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the hairdresser's 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 fringe, 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 and his sister were already laughed at a bit, though not as much as it used to be before Dennis Gates had found himself at the top of a very tall tree for making Harry spend an afternoon crying in the boys' toilets, for their baggy clothes and (Harry's) sellotaped glasses. Next morning, however, he had woken up to find his hair twice the length it had been before Aunt Petunia shaved his hair off. Both him and his sister had spent a week in their cupboard for this, even though they had tried to explain that they couldn't explain how it had grown back quickly.
Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to fit them into two revolting old jumpers of Dudley's (one brown with orange bobbles and one ugly green with neon pink bobbles). The harder she tried to pull them over their heads, the smaller they seemed to get, until finally, they might have been able to fit a couple of glove puppets, but certainly wouldn't fit the twins. Aunt Petunia decided they must have shrunk in the wash and, to their great relief, the twins weren't punished.
On the other hand, they'd got into terrible trouble, though not as much as it might have been if it weren't for Circe's quick wit, for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing them as usual when, as much to the twins' surprise as anyone else's, there they were sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from the headmistress telling them the twins had been climbing school buildings. Thankfully, Circe had seen a pattern in their punishments by then: they would get more punished if they didn't know how something happened than if they did, so they agreed to their readymade excuse. All they'd actually tried to do (as Harry had tried to explain before Circe stopped him) was jump behind the big bins outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught them in mid jump, but Circe was still a bit puzzled.
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, their cupboard under the stairs 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, the twins, the council, Harry and Circe, the bank and Harry and Circe were just a few of his favourite subjects. This morning, it was motorbikes.
"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorbike overtook them.
"I had a dream about a motorbike," said Harry, "It was flying." Circe elbowed him in the stomach, but it was too late. The damage had already been done. 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 beetroot with a moustache. "MOTORBIKES DON'T FLY!"
Dudley and Piers sniggered.
"He knows they don't." said Circe. "It was only a dream."
But both Harry and Circe wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated more than their 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 what Harry and Circe wanted before they could hurry them away, they bought them each a cheap lemon ice lolly. They weren't bad either, they thought, licking them as they all watched a giant gorilla scratching its head, and the twins would've thought it looked like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond, but they didn't want to be insulting to the gorilla.
The twins had the best morning they'd had in a long time. They were 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 favourite hobby of hitting them. They ate in the zoo restaurant and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory wasn't big enough, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry and Circe were allowed to finish the first.
The twins felt, afterwards, that they should have known it was all too good to last.
After lunch, they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in here, 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 dustbin – but, at the moment, it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.
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.
The twins moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. They 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 they got to visit the rest of the house.
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Circe's, and just above Harry's.
It winked.
The twins stared. Then they looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. They looked back at the snake and both winked, too, in synchrony.
The snake jerked its head towards Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling in a look that said, quite plainly: 'I get that all the time.'
"I know," Circe dared to murmur through the glass, though she wasn't really sure the snake could hear her.
"It must be really annoying," Harry added.
The snake nodded vigorously.
"Where do you come from, anyway?" Circe asked.
The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. The twins peered at it.
Boa Constrictor, Brazil.
"Was it nice there?" Harry asked.
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?" Circe questioned.
As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind the twins made all of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
Dudley came waddling towards them as fast as he could.
"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs as Piers grabbed and threw Circe. Caught by surprise, they both landed hard on the concrete floor. What came next, happened so fast that 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 and glass flying around them.
The twins sat up and gasped; the glass front of the Boa Constrictor's tank had exploded outwards in a shower of glass. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor – people running throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.
As the snake slid quickly past them, the twins could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigos."
The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.
"But the glass," he kept saying, "how did the glass explode?"
The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologised over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry and Circe had seen, the snake hadn't done anything but nip playfully at their ankles as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had almost bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze them all to death. But worst of all, for the twins at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry and Circe were talking to it, weren't you?"
Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on the twins. He was so angry, he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard – stay – no meals," before he collapsed in his chair and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.
Harry and Circe lay in their dark cupboard much later, wishing they had a watch. They didn't know what time it was and they couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, Harry refused to let Circe risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.
They'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as they could remember, ever since they'd been two tiny babies and their parents had died in that car crash. They couldn't remember being in the car when their parents had died. Sometimes, when they strained their memories during long hours in their cupboard, they came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on Harry's forehead and Circe's shoulder. This, Harry supposed, was the crash, though Circe had a harder time believing it because neither of them could imagine where all the green light came from. They couldn't remember their parents at all. Their Aunt and Uncle never spoke about them, and they were forbidden to ask questions. Of course, this didn't stop Circe, but she never got a straight answer and there were no photographs of them in the house.
When they had been younger, they had dreamed and dreamed and even told stories of some unknown relation coming to take them away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were their only family. Yet sometimes they thought, or maybe hoped, that strangers in the street seemed to know them. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to them once while they were out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking the twins furiously if they knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild looking old woman dressed in all green had waved merrily at them once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken both of their hands at the same time in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second either of the twins tried to get a closer look.
At school, the twins had no one but each other. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated those odd Potter twins in their baggy clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.