Let's do It Right This Time, Chapter 3: The Zoo
AN: Bolded lines are from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
Harry jolted awake, so fast that he cracked his head against the wall of his cupboard. Wait what? Oh Hell no! Harry slowly let his eyes adjust to the darkness with a sigh. From what little he could find about the spell, he'd expected it to send him back in time, all grown up, to mentor or perhaps protect his younger self. Instead he was back in his scrawny ten-year-old body, in a cupboard with Harry's Room scrawled on the wall with a bit of blue paint that he'd stolen from his first-grade home room in a napkin a few years ago in an attempt to brighten up his "room". From his now more mature perspective, the entire situation was disgusting, and he couldn't wait to get out-Hell he didn't even own a wand yet!
"Boy!" Aunt Petunia's voice. He had certainly not missed that.
"Coming, Aunt Petunia!" He got to his feet with a muffled sigh, pulling on his socks. He didn't know exactly what day it was, as there wasn't exactly a calendar in his cupboard, but he had a pretty good guess. With his luck, it would be Dudders' birthday.
His aunt was back outside the door. "Are you up yet?" she demanded.
"Nearly," said Harry, flicking a spider gently off his shapeless grey sweater.
"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."
Oh, great. Harry remembered this day quite vividly, and while it had been amusing to set a snake on Dudley, he didn't particularly want to live it over again. He was still trying to figure out how to get to Gringotts and begin inacting his plans. All the same, he knew better than to argue with Petunia.
Without more ado, he walked down to the kitchen to cook Dudders' breakfast. This time, however, he used small amounts of wandless magic to make the eggs go over easy and the bacon get perfectly crisp. He knew, having had to fill out auror paperwork, that wandless magic in a muggle household was logged as accidental magic until the child was eleven, as Wizarding children supposedly couldn't do it without training, and muggleborns obviously wouldn't get said training.
At last, the breakfast was ready. Harry filled three heaping plates, shoved a large piece of bacon in his mouth- he was not going to starve this time- and carried said plates to the table. Vernon Dursley- Harry refused to think of the bastard as "uncle" any longer- was already there. "Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.
"Yes sir," Harry replied, biting off the words to keep from saying what he would have liked to. Then he returned to the kitchen before Vernon could find fault with anything else.
After breakfast, Dudley unwrapped his presents: a motorbike, a gold watch, a new pair of boxing gloves, a VCR, new video games, and so on. Harry winced in the other room as he heard the ceaseless tearing of paper, and Dudley's whining about the fact that he'd only gotten thirty-seven presents, with Petunia's quick reassurance that her "Popkins" would get two more presents while they were out. Had he really been this much of a brat?
A little more unwrapping, then Aunt Petunia, who had gone to answer the phone, was slamming it down hard. "Mrs. Figg broke her leg. She can't take him." The intonation in which she indicated Harry was similar to that which he would have used for a puppy that had soiled the carpet.
"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.
"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."
Harry stifled a snicker as he remembered the events before his fourth year, then turned his attention back to the Dursleys, hoping that events would happen the same as last time.
"What about what's-her-name, your friend — Yvonne?"
"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.
"You could just leave me here," Harry commented, doing his best to sound hopeful.
Petunia's lips pursed up rather like a dog's anus. "And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.
"I won't blow up the house," said Harry, (not that he didn't want to) 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…"
As if it was Harry's life-goal to ruin their precious car. Harry executed a perfect Snape sneer as Dudley began blubbering, pretending to be upset. Harry was not fazed by the performance, but Aunt Petunia immediately dropped everything.
"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.
At that moment, the doorbell jangled loudly- "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically- and she opened it for rat-faced Piers and his stylishly dressed, overweight mother. Mrs. Polkiss only stayed long enough to drop him off- Harry cynically wondered if she didn't want to be around him anymore than he did- and after a little fussing from Dudley, they were off.
So they were heading to the zoo in London, just like in the last timeline, only this time, when Vernon was ranting about "hooligans" on motorcycles, Harry didn't comment, only stifled a giggle at the thought of the look on Vernon's face were Sirius to show up on his flying motorcycle. Sirius. The thought drove the smile off his face. Sirius was still locked up in Azkaban, an alleged criminal, and no one was doing a thing about it.
That thought, in turn, brought others to the surface, less welcome still. What if he ended up getting Sirius killed in this timeline too? Worse still, what if Sirius had been complicit in James's plotting; after all, the two were said to be as close as brothers... The jolting of the car to a stop wrenched him out of his thoughts. He'd never been more grateful for Vernon's bad driving.
Once again, they strolled through the zoo, Harry hanging behind to keep out of the other boys' way- he might be savior of the Wizarding world, but he was malnourished and his core was not fully developed; he could ill afford to start something until he had his wand and could defend himself adequately.
They passed the same exhibits as before: giraffes chewing on leaves supplied by their keepers, tigers pacing their cages, dolphins leaping and twisting in their tank for scraps of fish, and kangaroos and wallabies and long-fingered aye-ayes...
Once again, Harry silently remarked on the extraordinary likeness that Dudley and a young male silverback gorilla shared, although the gorilla was not blond and looked more intelligent.
After a while, they passed the ice-cream stand, and the Dursleys bought Piers and Dudley chocolate ice-creams, and him a cheap ice-pop so that the woman at the counter wouldn't be suspicious.
Then they looked at some more animals Vernon declared it was lunch time, mostly because Piers and Dudley were harassing him and people were starting to notice. After lunch, and before Harry was able to finish the remains of Dudley's second knickerbocker glory, Dudley dragged them all to the reptile house, babbling on about venomous cobras and thirty-foot man-eating anacondas.
The reptile house was dark and cool, and Harry's oversensitive ears could catch the rasp of scales against rock, see lizards basking in artificial sunlight on artificial branches, hear, from some of the meshed-over tanks, the susurating whispers of serpentine gossip and prayers for escape.
Harry meandered about for a bit, pausing by a familiar tank. After a minute or so, Dudley and Vernon came up behind him, Dudley making his father rap on the glass for his amusement. The boa constrictor did the serpentine equivalent of an eyeroll, and as soon as Dudley had moved on, whining about how boring it was, Harry asked her how she was, talking to her quietly until Piers turned around and ran back, yelling: "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
Dudley came waddling, shoving Harry to the side as he came. "Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs.
This time the "accidental magic" was on purpose. The glass disappeared, to accompanying screams, and the snake slithered out and across the floor snapping at Dudley's heels as she went. And Harry made the first decision that would change the timeline: he carefully picked her up, looped her around his neck, and took off running for the exit.
The keeper was too much in shock to stop him. "But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"