Here you go, another chapter. Next one is the Hogwarts Letter and a certain professor showing up to explain the Wizarding World to her. Hope you like this chapter in the meantime, though be aware that there are some parts taken directly from 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone', thing that will continue in the other chapters as well. In this case the quotes come from ch.2 'The Vanishing Glass'. This story will follow and not follow canon, as I'm sure you realized by now, since it's supposed to be a rewrite of the entire series, so the quotes taken directly from the book(s) are necessary. Really hope you like this chapter! Tell me what you think!

Chapter 2

THE GIRL IN THE CUPBOARD

Daisy Potter heard her Aunt's shrill voice and her pounding fist at the door of the cupboard where she slept, like every morning, at eight o'clock on the dot – Petunia Dursley was a creature of habit. Luckily for her, Daisy – like her usual morning – had been awake since five. She groaned into her pillow anyway, not yet ready to get up and face the day, before sitting up groggily, having slept poorly the night before due to the same vivid, recurring nightmare.

Her mother's red hair, her green eyes so much like Daisy's own, her scared voice pleading, begging – but never knowing, never hearing what her mother was begging for –, a chilling voice, cold laughter, red eyes, and green light coming towards her. Daisy didn't know what any of it meant, but she had long understood that her parents hadn't died in a car accident like the Dursleys had told her, and the strange lightning bolt scar on her forehead wasn't due to a car accident either.

Unfortunately, she couldn't exactly ask anyone about it. Her aunt and uncle had already lied to her about her parents' death, and Daisy knew they didn't want her to ask questions. Daisy had learnt since she was three that she couldn't ask questions. Not only to the Dursleys either. Adults didn't look kindly on her generally – because of the Dursleys' lies and the fact that they had never taught her anything, others considered her alternatively mentally challenged or some kind of good for nothing criminal –, and the few times she had tried to ask someone something, they had either ignored her or made her feel like she was the stupidest person on the planet. It was the reason why she hadn't waited until she was at school to learn to read. She just taught herself when she was 5, listening to Aunt Petunia trying to teach Dudley from inside her cupboard (not that it hade done her cousin any good). It had taken time and patience but she had managed it after a year. And once she had discovered reading, she realized that she didn't need to ask adults questions, she could just find the answers for herself.

Daisy could recall with perfect clarity everything she read, and since there was very little to entertain herself with at the Dursley House, when she wasn't busy doing her chores, or at school – her cousin Dudley would scare away everyone who would try to be her friend so she had no one to spend time with – reading was pretty much all she did. She had a library card from the local library but she could never spend time inside because the Dursleys wouldn't let her, but she could burrow books which she would read at home, in the solitude of her cupboard, late into the night each night and very early in the mornings – she didn't need more than four or five hours of sleep each night to function normally.

"Are you up yet?" Petunia Dursley asked her from outside the door.

"Almost." Daisy replied, hiding the book she was reading under the old and tattered mattress that she was forced to use in the place of an actual bed, before rubbing her eyes with one hand and passing said hand through her long, slightly wavy, silky dark hair. Her aunt hated her hair for some reason. Petunia had cut Daisy's hair numerous times, so short she had looked like a boy but the next day, like magic, they had just grown back. And the shorter Petunia would cut them and the longer they would grow back. Needless to say, she had given up after the fifth time it had happened and Daisy's hair had reached her midback.

That was just one instance among numerous others that happened to Daisy during the years. One time she had turned her teacher's hair blue. Once Aunt Petunia had tried to make her wear a very old, very ugly brown and orange sweater that had belonged to Dudley (as usual). The harder she tried to pull it over Daisy's head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Daisy. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to her great relief, Daisy wasn't punished. Another time, while she was running from Dudley and his gang, she had found herself on the roof of the school, with no idea how she had gotten there in the first place, or how to get back down.

"Well, hurry up and go make breakfast. And don't you dare burn anything, I want everything to be perfect for Duddy's birthday."

Daisy rolled her eyes at that. Dudley's birthday, of course. She wished she could have forgotten about it but, unfortunately, the downside of having a memory like hers was that she couldn't forget things even if she wanted to.

She went looking for a pair of socks, finding a spider inside one of them and taking it off with a grimace and then put on shoes too big for her feet.

She finally left her 'room' for the entrance hall, whose wall was covered in framed pictures of the happy Dursley family of three. Naturally, there were no photos of Daisy on the wall. Freaks didn't deserve photos, or so the Dursleys had told her. Daisy didn't believe she was a freak. Different, certainly, but there was nothing wrong with her, like there was nothing wrong with being gay, or transgender, or black, or Muslim. She wasn't normal perhaps, but normal was overrated anyway.

The Dursleys called freaks anyone who wasn't like them. Daisy had learnt to discard the Dursleys' opinion on pretty much anything and rely solely on her own. Just because Petunia and Vernon Dursley were adults, it didn't mean they were always right or somewhat better than her. In fact, most adults Daisy had met were far from infallible.

It wasn't like she didn't want to trust adults, it was just that no one had ever given her reason to. Trust was earned and none of them had earned it. Why would she respect their authority and trust their judgment when they hadn't earned it? Perhaps that was the reason why she never bothered following rules put in place by adults, not if she thought those rules were stupid. She didn't buy the whole 'adults know better' thing, because, in her experience, adults didn't know better.

Daisy walked to the kitchen, starting to prepare breakfast and trying to ignore the enormous pile of presents on the kitchen table, almost obscuring it completely. So, Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, and the second television, and the bike. Why he had wanted a bike in the first place was a mystery to Daisy. Dudley hated any forms of exercise unless it was chasing and then beating up younger kids – or Daisy, if he could catch her, which happened rarely. She didn't look it, but she was very fast. She was also Dudley's favourite target so she had lot of practice running.

She was frying eggs by the time Dudley and Uncle Vernon arrived in the kitchen. Like his father, Dudley had thick blond hair and very light blue eyes, he was pink and fat and with basically no neck. Petunia often said he looked like a baby angel, Daisy had always thought he looked more like a pig with a wig – though, of course, she had never dared said that aloud.

Daisy put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult since most of the place was taken. Dudley, meanwhile, was struggling to count presents. When he finally managed to count them all – thing that surprised Daisy, if she was honest (perhaps Aunt Petunia had helped him) – his face fell. It seemed the presents were only 36, two less than last year.

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face.

Daisy noticed immediately that a tantrum was about to start and prepared for it. Dudley's tantrums were memorable to say the least.

Aunt Petunia probably sensed the danger because she said, very quickly, "and we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, pumpkin? 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. Daisy already knew who it was and why they were calling. Mrs Figg – the old woman who lived two streets away, with the two dozen cats, who would babysit her sometimes (Daisy hated it there, the whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs Figg would make her look at photos of all the cats she had ever owned, the ones who were still alive and the ones who had died) – was calling to say that she had broken her leg and so she couldn't keep an eye on Daisy that day. Like every other time it had happened, Daisy didn't know how she knew, she just did.

Daisy just knew things, things she wasn't supposed to know, things she knew before they happened. She knew when a teacher would be absent from school, or who would win the football game before the match had even started, or, like today, who was on the phone and why that person was calling before the phone would even ring.

Like Daisy was expecting, 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 her." She jerked her head in Daisy's direction.

Daisy suppressed her smile while Dudley's face assumed a look of horror. Every year her aunt and uncle would take Dudley and one of his friends out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies.

"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Daisy as though she'd planned this. Daisy 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 Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.

"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the girl." The feeling is completely mutual, Daisy thought to herself.

The Dursleys often spoke about Daisy like this, as though she wasn't there — or rather, as though she was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.

Daisy didn't usually consider herself more intelligent than the average person, only with better memory. Daisy could learn in days what others learnt in months, which was a useful ability to have when she was supposed to do bad in school on purpose, to not outshine Dudley (and Dudley was a below average student on his best day). Still, she was very aware of the fact that she was more intelligent than the whole Dursley family put together – not that it took much. Therefore, being treated in a such a way stung, no matter how many times she had seen them behaving this way.

Daisy had long since learnt to bite her tongue and smile through it. If her smile was sarcastically amused rather than innocent, most of the time, the Dursleys were too thick to notice.

"What about what's-her-name, your friend — Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.

"I suppose we could take her to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "…and leave her in the car.…"

"That car's new, she's 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 her spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.

"I…don't…want…her…t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "She always sp-spoils everything!" He shot Daisy 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, Daisy was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in her life. Her aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with her.

Piers leered at her, and Daisy quickly turned her face away in disgust, thanking the fact that she was sitting close to Dudley and not him. Piers was always creepy with her – she preferred Dudley's simple nastiness to Piers' behaviour, that was certain.

Before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Daisy aside, "I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Daisy's, "I'm warning you now, girl — any funny business, anything at all — and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."

It was always the same threat so Daisy ignored it. Not because she didn't believe Vernon wouldn't go through with it but because, one way or another, she would get punished anyway. Every time something strange would happen – or rather, every time she would make something strange happen, though she didn't know how – the Dursleys would punish her by locking her up in her cupboard without food or water, sometimes for days. Vernon would get his belt and hit her back with it, not strongly enough to break her skin but it would still hurt a lot. Sometimes they would punish her just because they felt like it, to make her normal, they said, to beat the freakishness out of her.

Daisy had gotten used to it, as much as one could get used to such a treatment. She knew it wasn't normal, she knew other kids weren't treated like she was, but every time she would try to tell someone about it, they wouldn't listen or they wouldn't believe her. Vernon was careful not to leave physical marks, and the adults were simply happy to ignore the fact that she was small and skinny, and that she wore clothes meant for a boy, too big for her and obviously hand-me-downs (the Dursleys would give her Dudley's old clothes to wear) though the Dursleys could obviously afford to buy Dudley the newest, most expensive things on the market.

Daisy was determined to enjoy this day of semi-freedom however, a day she wouldn't spend at school, locked inside her cupboard or at Mrs Figg's. It was worth withstanding Dudley and Piers' presence just for that. Daisy tuned out Vernon's usual complaining (about Daisy, people at work, Daisy, the council, Daisy, the bank – Daisy was one of his favourite subjects) until a specific phrase caught her attention.

"…roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.

Today the topic of complain was clearly motorcycles. Daisy was reminded of the dream she had a few nights ago, one of the few pleasant ones, as opposed to the nightmare with the green light that usually plagued her. She was on a flying motorcycle, someone else was driving though – she didn't remember who was with her, only that it was someone big and hairy. Some kind of giant maybe? It wouldn't be the first time someone strange or unusual would pop up in her dreams after all. She kept this particular remembrance to herself though, very well knowing what the Dursleys' reaction would be to Daisy saying that she had dreamt about a flying motorcycle. The Dursleys loved to tell her, more than once a day, that there wasn't such thing as magic.

Daisy, for her part, wasn't so convinced. Magic seemed a good an explanation as any for the things she could make happen. Or maybe she was some kind of alien, or a changeling, or an experiment gone wrong. Magic was her favourite option however. Maybe her parents had been magical as well. They could very well have been for all that she knew about them, which was very little. It sure sounded better than the lies the Dursleys had told her about them. Or at least, she wanted to believe they were lies. She refused to believe her parents had been good for nothing drunks.

The day was sunny and cheerful, the zoo packed with families that Saturday morning. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Daisy what she wanted before they could hurry her away, they bought her a cheap lemon ice pop. It was the first time Daisy had ever eaten ice-cream so she made sure to eat it as slowly as possible, not really surprised to notice that it wasn't melting in her hand despite the hot weather. Luckily, the Dursleys didn't notice.

That morning was probably one of the most enjoyable she could remember. She enjoyed watching the animals coming from all parts of the world, though part of her was sad because they were confined, just like she was at the Dursleys. They did look well taken care of, but they were still in captivity and nobody likes to be trapped.

She made sure to keep a certain distance between herself and the rest of the group, especially Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunch time, so they wouldn't be tempted to fall back on their favorite hobby of Daisy hunting. 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 Daisy was allowed to finish the first.

After lunch, they went to the reptile house. Daisy had seen snakes before, but they were small garden snakes who would bask in the sun, hidden in the grass of the Dursleys front lawn. Sometimes, making sure the Dursleys were out of earshot, she would talk to them. She couldn't exactly have big, important conversations with them – all they cared about was eating, shedding and mating –, but at least she would get to talk with some kind of living being.

Daisy would spend so much time being ignored, except for the few times she would get attention – and it wasn't of the pleasant kind – that she was afraid, one day she would turn invisible, or she would just disappear altogether. Not that someone would miss her if she did. Sometimes she would dream of running away, but to go where, exactly? She didn't want to think what kind of fate she would have, a child, alone in the streets. She knew enough about the world to get a pretty good idea, and she wasn't keen on having it happen to her. Better the devil you know and all that…

The reptile house was cool and dark, a pleasant difference from the weather outside, 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 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.

Daisy moved in front of the tank, looking intently at the snake. She 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 she 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 Daisy's.

It winked.

Daisy stared. Then she looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. She looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. "Alwaysss the sssame…" the snake said.

"It must be really annoying, huh?" Daisy asked him, making sure to keep her voice low.

The snake nodded its head and Daisy wondered if it had picked up this very human gesture by being surrounded by humans all day long. She wouldn't be surprised if it did, snakes were very intelligent creatures. "Ssstupid humansss, they never leave me alone. But you're different, aren't you?"

Daisy shrugged. "I guess. I've never met anyone who could speak to snakes beside me. Or that could do the things I can."

"Well, of course. You're a ssspeaker. You're ssspecial."

"A speaker?"

"It's very rare, a human able to speak in the language of sssnakesss."

"The language of snakes? You mean, I'm speaking in a different language?"

The snake nodded again. "Yesss. What, did you think I could understand human language?"

Daisy shrugged again. "I guess I thought so. Snakes are intelligent after all."

The snake emitted some kind of sibilant hiss that sounded a lot like a laugh. "That we are, human child, but we ssstill cannot understand your language."

Daisy nodded again, deciding to think about the fact that she could apparently speak another language at a later time. Instead, she asked, "where do you come from, anyway?"

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Daisy peered at it. Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

"Was it nice there?"

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Daisy 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 Daisy 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 Daisy in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Daisy fell hard on the concrete floor.

Daisy glared at Dudley and Piers and clenched her fists in anger. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened — one second, the two boys were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror. The glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. 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, Daisy could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come.… Thanksss, amiga." Daisy lowered her head to hide her smile.

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock. "But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"

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 Daisy 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 Daisy at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Daisy was talking to it, weren't you, Daisy?" He sent a smirk her way, knowing that would get her in trouble. Daisy directed her glare to her knees and said nothing.

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Daisy. 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.

Daisy lay in her cupboard much later, reading and trying to ignore her grumbling stomach. She didn't know what time it was and she couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, she couldn't risk leaving her cupboard.

The vanishing glass hadn't been an accident. She still didn't know how she made those things happen, but she had learnt to control them to a certain extent – unless her emotions would get the better of her and when that happened, there was no stopping whatever was inside her from lashing out (things would shutter or outright explode when it happened). Luckily it didn't happen very often though.

She could unlock padlocks and open locked doors for one – like the door of her cupboard so that she could sneak to the kitchen for some food. She could make flowers bloom in her hands, or she could jump off trees (the times she would climb them to hide herself from Dudley and his gang), from very high up, and still being able to land on her feet like a cat, slowing her fall somehow. She could also make things float and she could float herself, a few centimeters above her cot, the few times she had tried it inside her cupboard. And she was able to summon a ball of light so that she could have light bright enough (the small light bulb in her cupboard didn't count) to read even late at night. She had made virtue of necessity, so to say.

Daisy sighed, thinking that she would soon be eleven. That meant that she had spent ten years already with the Dursleys and that she probably had another seven to look forward to before she could leave this place behind. When Daisy had been very young, she had dreamt of some unknown relation coming to take her away, someone, anyone. But no one had ever come and she had stopped hoping. The Dursleys were her only family and she was stuck with them for the foreseeable future.

Sometimes Daisy thought, though, that strangers in the street seemed to know her. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to her once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Daisy furiously if she 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 her once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken her hand 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 Daisy tried to get a closer look.

Daisy hated those instances when they happened. She was so used to be ignored that such strange attention made her uncomfortable. And how did they know her anyway? Had they known her parents or something? And why, if they were so eager to shake her hand or bow to her, had no one come and check on her at the Dursleys? Why had no one ever visited her?

Daisy huffed and shook her head. Sometimes she would feel so alone she felt like she could scream, just so someone would pay attention to her. But she had learnt long ago that no attention was better than bad attention. And for her, attention of any kind was always bad. Better to be left alone and forgotten then. She had her books and sometimes the garden snakes to keep her company. Maybe that was enough…