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chapter two

For the majority of the next month Violet and her brother found themselves confined to their room when not at school, with the exception of meals. This didn't particularly bother the twins, as they had one another for company, and the less they saw of the Dursleys, the better.

However, it did leave them very restless by the time they were finally allowed out once again, particularly Violet. Violet was quite clever, according to all of her teachers, but she 'lacked drive' and seemed 'more content to engage in idle chatter and cause distractions for the rest of the class'. Violet couldn't really argue with that; she didn't much like schoolwork, and she was always very relieved when the summer holidays began.

Violet and Harry both preferred to spend their time out of the house, seeing as Dudley and his friends were always hanging around, usually watching television or playing computer games, but occasionally getting bored with that and instead harassing the twins. But this summer was a bit more positive than the last, since once September rolled around, as Violet continuously reminded herself and her brother, Dudley wouldn't be able to bother them much at all. He was going to their uncle's old school, Smeltings, for secondary, and would only be home for holidays and the occasional weekend.

Violet almost wished they were being sent away as well, but she knew Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would never spend that kind of money. The twins would attend Stonewall, the local public secondary school. Dudley seemed to find the very idea of this hilarious, and was fond of telling them about all the awful things that apparently happened there. Harry in turn was usually sarcastic on a level Dudley couldn't comprehend, while Violet enjoyed pretending to be shocked and horrified until he went away and she could burst out laughing.

"Stuff our heads down the toilet?" she snorted, leaning up against the wall so she didn't collapse in amusement. "He's practically been preparing us for Stonewall his entire life."

Her twin just shook his head.

Violet came down for breakfast one morning, Harry not far behind her, and almost retched. The kitchen reeked of who-knew-what, the smell emanating from a tub in the sink with something soaking in it. The twins warily approached.

"Dear God," said Violet. "Did you skin a rhinoceros?"

"What is it?" Harry muttered.

"Your uniforms," Aunt Petunia all but growled. "They have to be grey, so I'm dying some old things."

"Oh, I look terrible in grey," Violet sighed in dismay. "You know how washed out it makes me look."

"I didn't realize they had to smell a certain way, too," Harry whispered to her, and Aunt Petunia narrowed her eyes and barked at them to get out of the way.

They sat down at the table, and were soon joined by Uncle Vernon and Dudley, both of whom looked less than pleased by the smell themselves.

Dudley was in the process of a 'practice swing' at the twins heads with his Smeltings stick when the mail could be heard being slipped through the slat in the front door.

"Get the mail, Dudley," Uncle Vernon ordered, not taking his eyes off his newspaper.

"Make one of them get it," he whined.

"Get the mail, girl."

"You asked Dudley first."

"Hit her with the stick, Dudley."

Violet jumped up, ducking the stick, and jogged out of the kitchen and over to the front door, where the mail was laying on the doormat. She picked up a postcard from Aunt Marge with a grimace, a bill, and, to her surprise, two letters. One for her brother, and one for her. For a few moments she simply turned the letters over and over in shock. Who could be writing to them? They didn't have any other family, and they didn't have any friends.

The letters were nearly identical aside from the difference in 'Mr. H. Potter' and 'Miss V. Potter'. The envelopes were heavy and old-fashioned, the paper yellowed, and the ink was dark green. The strangest thing was that there was no stamp or return address, and both were sealed with a wax crest, complete with a little coat of arms.

Uncle Vernon was loudly inquiring as to what was taking her so long from the kitchen, but Violet's screech completely drowned him out.

"Harry, we've got letters!"

She dashed back into the kitchen clutching hers, and tossing Harry's at him. He caught it deftly, and Dudley promptly tried to grab it from him, beginning a struggle. Aunt Petunia had looked up sharply from the stewing clothes, and gave Uncle Vernon a look. He immediately ripped Violet's out of her hand.

"That's mine!" she cried indignantly, as her uncle stormed around the table to roughly separate the two boys wrestling on the ground, snatching up Harry's letter as well.

Uncle Vernon ignored the three angry children (Violet and Harry because they wanted their letters, Dudley because it had been over a year since the last time his father disciplined him), and ripped one letter, then the other open, Aunt Petunia peering almost anxiously over his shoulder. The man's normally red face turned a queasy green, and then paled.

"They have our names on them," Harry snapped furiously. "I want mine."

"Why can't we read them?" Violet demanded, her mind racing. Obviously her aunt and uncle didn't want them to know whatever the letters said- maybe it was a long-lost relative, trying to get in contact with them. This could be their once chance. She dashed forward, but her uncle roughly shoved her back.

"Out, all three of you," he said as menacingly as he could while looking about to faint.

Dudley appeared shocked to be included in this.

The twins refused to move, and in the end had to be bodily hauled out of the room, along with a screaming Dudley, by their uncle, who slammed and locked the kitchen door in their faces. After a brief three way battle, Dudley ended up peering through the keyhole, while Harry listened through the crack at the bottom of the door, Violet crouched behind him.

"What's going on?" she whispered. "What are they talking about?"

"They're talking about being spied on," he hissed back. "And something about dangerous nonsense."

"They think everything is dangerous nonsense!" she retorted in frustration.

The twins were once again confined to their room for the rest of the day, with nothing to do but theorize as to who the letters might have been from and what they might have been about.

"The address said 'the smallest bedroom'," Violet said excitedly. "They know where we sleep, Harry!"

"But that doesn't explain how. I wish you'd just opened them in the hall."

This resulted in a bitter argument which ended with neither of them wanting very much to speak with the other. No one was very happy the next morning, and when the mail arrived, Dudley was forced to go and get it, to his extreme displeasure. He immediately started yelling about there being two more letters. Uncle Vernon sprung out his chair much as fast as a man of his size could, and Violet and Harry were hot on his heels down the hall. While their uncle pinned their cousin to the floor to get the letters he was holding, Harry jumped on his back, and Violet skirted around the three struggling forms to try to snatch one of them up. Dudley's stick came down hard on her hand, however, and the twins ended up back in their room, Uncle Vernon again in possession of their letters.

Violet held a packet of frozen peas on her hand while Harry stalked around the room.

"I have a plan," they both spoke up at the same time, and then exchanged a knowing look.

The ancient alarm clock in their room rang at six the next morning, and Violet and her brother crept down the stairs, still in their pajamas. Their only option now was to meet the postman before he even got to the house; they weren't sure what direction he came from, so one of them would stand at one end of Privet Drive, one at the other.

Violet led the silent charge towards the door and then screamed bloody murder. She'd just stepped on something big and vaguely squishy. Uncle Vernon howled in pain, the lights upstairs came on. After the two of them were screamed at for some time, they were ordered into the kitchen to make some tea, and when they sullenly came back out, Uncle Vernon was grasping six letters, three each addressed to them, in his meaty hands.

He proceeded to tear them up in front of the twins. Violet wanted to scream and throw something, but settled for keeping a stubbornly straight face. Harry's small hands were curled into fists, shaking at his sides. They spent that day in their room as well; listening to their uncle nail shut the mail slot downstairs.

The next day nearly two dozen letters arrived; shoved under the door and through the tiny downstairs bathroom window. The Dursleys were beginning to act as if they were living in a horror movie. Uncle Vernon stopped going into work and began burning the letters in the sitting room fireplace, and boarding up the front and back doors, humming maniacally.

On the day after that, a Saturday, letters arrived hidden in the eggs delivered by the milkman. Violet watched her aunt shred them in the food processor, while Dudley stared and asked Harry, "Who on earth wants to talk to you two this badly?"

Sunday morning came around. Violet tuned out her uncle while he hysterically happily rambled about the lack of post on Sundays. Something was rustling in the kitchen chimney.

"Uncle Vernon-," she began, pointing behind him.

"What?" He turned around, and a letter flew out of the chimney, slapping him in the face.

Harry choked on his orange juice.

More letters came rocketing out of the chimney. Violet scrambled up onto the table to try to grab one out of the air, while Harry clambered onto his chair, jumping as high as he could. Uncle Vernon grabbed Violet by the hair and dragged her off of the table, while Aunt Petunia forced Harry down from the chair as she dashed out of the kitchen with Dudley.

Once in the hall, Violet listened to the sounds of the letters zipping around the kitchen. "If you'd just let us read one, maybe they'd stop," she said loudly, but her uncle snarled for them all to pack their things and be back downstairs in five minutes. He'd nearly torn out half his mustache in his rage.

The car ride away from Privet Drive was miserable. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia carried on muttered, frantic conversations in the front, while Dudley sniffled piteously in the back, having been cuffed on the head by his father for holding them up while trying to take along as many things as possible. They drove for hours, occasionally turning around to 'shake 'em off', as Uncle Vernon said. Violet desperately hoped that whoever had sent the letters was indeed following them, and in the process of catching up. She debated making some sort of sign to put in the car window, but fell asleep before she could figure out what to right.

When Harry shook her awake it was dark, and they were getting out of the car at some shabby little hotel on the outskirts of some dreary city. Her, Harry, and Dudley tiredly shuffled into a small room that smelled of cigarettes, and she and Harry shared one cramped twin bed, while Dudley snored uproariously in the other. Violet stayed up late with her brother, too apprehensive to sleep, watching traffic rumble by.

At breakfast the next morning, while Violet picked moodily at her toast, the hotel owner came over to the table. "Scuse me, but is there a Mr. H and Miss. V. Potter here? Only I got about a 'undred of these at the front desk."

Violet stared up at the letter, this one intended for Harry.

Mr. H. Potter

Room 17

Railview Hotel

Cokeworth

Harry snatched at it, but Uncle Vernon batted his hand out of the way, while the hotel owner stared, before he followed her out of the dining room.

"Those are ours," Violet called after her uselessly.

They drove out of the city and into a forest, only to turn around.

"I've never seen this many trees before," said Violet.

They drove into the middle of a field in the countryside, only to turn around.

"Are we lost?" asked Violet.

They stopped in the middle of a suspension bridge, only to, surprise, turn around.

"We're holding up traffic," commented Violet.

They pulled in and out a space at the top of a parking garage, then turned around and drove all the way back down.

Violet was going to say something, but decided it was probably best to save it for later, as her uncle's grip on the steering wheel was white-knuckled.

Now they sat in the car at the edge of the coast. Violet's arms and legs were going a bit numb from sitting still for so long. She kicked the front seat, earning herself a glare from her aunt. Harry stared silently out the window.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley was whining.

"Almost certainly," said Violet darkly.

"This is all your fault," her cousin spat at her, shoving Harry into her. "I'm going to miss the Great Humberto on the telly tonight because of you two and your stupid letters!"

Harry glanced at Violet.

'The Great Humberto', she mouthed at him, eyes lighting up in understanding. That meant it was Monday. If today was Monday, tomorrow was Tuesday, and that meant tomorrow they would be eleven years old. If there was any hope of a party or celebration of any kind, Violet might have been more thrilled to realize it, but at least they would spend the day together.

Presently Uncle Vernon returned from wherever he'd gone, holding a suspiciously shaped package and accompanied by a disturbing looking old man.

'Good Lord', thought Violet. 'He's going to sell us into indentured servitude aboard some fishing ship.'

They all stood there, shivering in the cold rain, outside of the car, and Violet groaned as they clambered into the small rowboat provided to them. Uncle Vernon claimed they'd be spending the night on a rock. In the middle of the sea. She debated jumping out and swimming for the shore with Harry silently at one point, but the waves crashing against the sides of the boat were rough, and Violet had never technically learned to properly swim.

What was on the rock was a desolate little shack that didn't do much to protect from the wind or the rain. It wasn't hard to guess why they were there; no one could possibly get out to them to deliver any letters at all. Did Uncle Vernon intend for them to stay in this shack for the rest of the summer? Violet had never been to stay by the ocean, never mind in it, but she doubted this was what people meant by it. The storm outside was vicious, as were Violet's thoughts. She was angry.

Angry that she was cold and hungry and damp and lying on the floor with her brother, since Dudley had gotten the couch, and angry that she was never going to know who had been trying to write her and Harry. It had all been for nothing. They were never going to meet whoever it was, never going to get away from the Dursleys, and this was all their life was ever going to be, until they were presumably thrown out of the house at the age of eighteen.

Usually, she tried to stay positive, to make light of things, but it was very, very hard, tonight. She laid next to her brother, who she could tell was still awake, and who seemed to be staring intently at Dudley's watch. "Ten minutes," he murmured to her, and she understood.

Ten minutes until they were both eleven. Ten minutes to another year.

"Five minutes."

Something was creaking loudly outside.

"I hope the roof doesn't fall in," Harry muttered. "Though we might be warmer. Four minutes."

"I wish anything would happen," Violet said dismally. "Anything at all."

"Three minutes."

There was more noises from outside; rocks crunching, as if the entire giant rock itself was about to sink into the sea. Violet really regretted not putting up more of a fight for swim lessons at some point.

"Two minutes."

Violet rolled over to face her twin as the watch hit one minute to go. Together they began to whisper the countdown to their birthday, as they had every year since they could first tell time.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four-," Gradually their voices rose from whispers, getting louder and louder. Violet didn't care. So what if they woke up the Dursleys? Good. "THREE, TWO, ONE-," They were both nearly shouting, chanting it, and then a BOOM cut them both off, just as the watch turned to midnight.

The twins scrambled up into sitting positions, staring at the corner of the room where the door was, shrouded in darkness.

"Someone's outside," Harry hissed.

Violet slowly struggled to her feet, pulling her brother up with her, the blanket wrapped around their shoulders. There was only one person it could be. The one who'd written all the letters.