Natalie woke up to the normal yelling of her uncle Veron. With a heavy sigh she sat up careful to mind her head of the large planks creaking the ceiling of the cupboard under the stairs. Her twin brother Harry got the second bedroom upstairs, it was always cluttered with Dudley's toys like every other room in this house.
Ducking out of the cupboard she reached the kitchen finding Dudley drooling over a mile high pile of presents. She hated his birthday, like every other day of the year he was a spoiled brat, but his birthday always added in even more reasons for him to throw a fit.
"What happened?" She asked Harry who was cooking by the stove his dark hair in it's normal unruly state.
"Burned the bacon." Natalie sighed, gathering the breakfast plates and putting them at each place setting while Dudley ranted about his number of presents. From when she was a little baby she learned to tune out the sound of his tantrums.
While Natalie was eating Aunt Petunia hung up the phone her lips pursed together in anger.
"Horrible news Veron, Mrs. Figgs broke her leg and she can't take the twins." They were never referred to by their given names, only ever the twins or boy or girl. Natalie didn't mind Mrs. Figgs, even though it tasted stale the cake was always very thoughtful and her house was quiet enough that it gave Natalie enough peace to day dream. She loved reading, but barely had the stories to do it so instead she came up with them in her head.
"Find someone else to do it." Veron scowled brushing away the stray bit of egg in his bushy mustache that fitted his large plump face very well.
"There's no one." Petunia sighed and Dudley started to throw another fit about the twins ruining his birthday.
"Oh my baby boy don't worry they won't ruin your birthday! I will buy you five more presents at the zoo and ice cream! And anything you could want, ok Duddykins?" Aunt Petunia soothed and Natalie had to hide her laughter as she cleared the table.
"Go get ready. Piers should be here soon." Veron shooed the two Potters from the room. Natalie managed to snag the bathroom before Harry. She wasn't a very noticeable girl, but she always assumed it was because of her clothing. She got second hand clothing from stores that grandmothers would buy from, but at least she didn't get Duddley's old stuff like Harry.
The clothes she normally got were bland, no fancy jewels or sayings like all the others at her school. The most vibrant thing on her was always her hair, it was a shade of red that tended to darken to a brown in the winter but brighten up to create a deep red in the summer. It was the only thing about her she liked, her eyes were too plain to be of any notice a boring hazel color.
Piers had arrived by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs and was already admiring Dudley's new computer games.
After a half hour of Veron and Petunia trying to decide what to do with Natalie and Harry they had no choice but to let them come. But before they could climb into the car Uncle Veron pulled them aside.
"I want nothing to go wrong, no funny stuff on this trip or I will lock you in your rooms for a week! Understood?" Both children nodded in sync knowing exactly what he was talking about. Both children had "caused" accidents which could never be explained. Harry had gotten an awful haircut and made his hair grow back overnight, he had even jumped to the top of the school building.
Natalie had her own accidents too. One day when Uncle Veron was yelling at her his shirt randomly caught fire, or when Piers and Dudley had been beating Harry up they had both mysteriously flown away from him and into a wall. The two children were the only ones that believed that they hadn't tried to get those things to happen.
When they got to the zoo Dudley and Piers seemed to forget about the two children behind them. Instead getting involved in shoving other children out of the way of the habitats, so they could jeer at the animals and bang on the glass.
They were the rudest to the poor snake in the reptile house. He was lazily sleeping on one of his rocks above a pool of reflective water when Dudley started banging his sticky ice cream covered fists against the glass.
"Move!" he yelled again and again until he gave up and moved on to annoy other peaceful animals.
"Poor snake." Harry said sadly starting over to it. Natalie stayed by the lizard she was watching eat a pot of crickets.
"Dudley come look! It's moving!" Piers screeched, pushing Harry out of the way of the snake's glass. Natalie turned just in time to see Dudley pressing his chubby body against the glass before it disappeared. He stumbled before falling in head first. The dirty water from the snake's little pond splashed up around him, drenching the screaming young boy.
Harry scampered over to Natalie trying to muffle his laughter with his hand.
After quite a bit of apologizing from the staff they all piled back into the car heading home.
Both Harry and Natalie got an earful from Uncle Veron that night, but they were still laughing about the look on Dudley's fat face.