Woo! You guys are making me delirious with joy. 6 reviews so soon! As I promised, I will respond to each reviewer. And I am sooo sorry for making you guys wait. And also, one last thing! You guys will get a surprise at the end for reviewing!

Allen Pitt: Wow, thanks for commenting again. Your advice is very helpful. Yeah, actually I'm not sure whether I should put Holly in Slytherin or Gryffindor.

Hyperactive Lioness: Yes, Holly was almost exactly like Lily, except a little more "unladylike". Did you notice the last display was Harry's magic?

Hermione Solo: Whoopsies, I still haven't gotten used to saying Holly…lol. Thanks for you review, I'm looking forward to Hogwarts too.

angelvan 105: Thanks so much for your praise! I'll upload as fast as I can. Look forward to this chapter!

frannienzbabe: You'll have to see about that, and yeah, I didn't like Ron too much either. The only thing I liked was that he provided some comedic relief.

*EDIT* Sorry James, I forgot to respond because I was already typing the fanfic by the time you reviewed! Anyways, your suspicions are actually kind of close.

The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Holly her longest-ever punishment. By the time she was allowed out of her bedroom again, the summer holidays had nearly started and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.

Holly was glad school was almost over, but there was no escaping the smelly, uncivilized gang that Dudley had for friends. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and lumbering, and Dudley was the biggest of the lot. They spend most of their time hunting down little kids, and Holly groaned, having to break up more fights.

Holly spent most of her time lounging outside reading and tailing Dudley. His friends were really a bad influence on him, she thought, sighing. She had thought she had manipulated his tendency for violence out of him, but she had to sprint to the rescue nearly every day to some poor kid in the neighborhood. Obviously Dudley's friends were disgusted with Dudley obeying her, but Holly knew if she threatened to tell them on their parents, she could keep them in check. And anyways, she thought, smiling slightly, they would ruin their reputation by picking on a girl.

One day, though, Holly thought, enough was enough. Dudley had been "accepted" into Smeltings, a private school which Uncle Vernon once went to, and Holly had to go to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought it was funny to say "They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall. Want to come upstairs and practice?"

"No, thanks," said Holly rather chillingly. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it -- it might be sick." Then she walked away, before Dudley could work out what she'd said.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Holly at home. Finally, she didn't have to share the computer with Dudley anymore. She sighed in relief. All he wanted to do was to blow up aliens on the computer.

That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Holly didn't trust herself to speak. Later, she went upstairs to howl with laughter under the covers.

The next morning, Aunt Petunia came back with the worst shirt and skirt in the universe. And she was dyeing it gray. It smelled horrible.

"Why is it gray?" Asked Holly.

Aunt Petunia's lips pursed, like whenever Holly dared to ask a question.

"It's supposed to." She said, pointing at the school rules packet.

Holly looked at it. It said, "Wear a blouse and skirt everyday to school for girls. Must be clean. Should be shiny gray because of school colors."

Holly doubted it would ever be shiny.

Then Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Holly's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

"Make Holly get it."

"Get the mail, Holly."

"Make Dudley get it."

Dudley went, looking resigned.

Dudley came back, after a long while, looking flabbergasted. "There's a letter for you, Holly. It's…strange." Holly's ears perked up.

She took it, looking at it with wonder. It said:

Ms. H. Potter
The Second Bedroom
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.

Turning the envelope over, her hand trembling, Holly saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.
Uncle Vernon hadn't heard a thing. He was too busy looking at the postcard Aunt Marge had send him. "She's ill," he informed them, sighing deeply.

Holly was on the point of unfolding her letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of her hand by Uncle Vernon.

"That's mine!" said Holly, trying to snatch it back.

But Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear. His face was green."P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment she looked relieved. Then, she fearfully looked up at Uncle Vernon.

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Uncle Vernon croaked, "I thought you said you would get rid of it…"

Aunt Petunia didn't say anything.

Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly. "I want to read it," said Holly furiously, "as it's mine."

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.
Holly didn't move.

I WANT MY LETTER!" she shouted.

"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Holly and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Holly immediately took the keyhole. Dudley had to take the crack on the floor.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address -- how could they possibly know where she sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"

"Watching -- spying -- might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want --"

Holly could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.
"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything....

"But --"

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took her in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly the next day.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one!" Ms. H. Potter, The Second Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive --'"

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Holly right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Holly had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Holly's letter clutched in his hand.

"Go to your bedroom," he wheezed at Holly. "Dudley -- go -- just go."

Holly walked round and round her room. Then, she set the alarm, and heart thumping, waited for the next morning. The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Holly turned it off quickly and dressed silently. She mustn't wake the Dursleys. She stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.

She was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. Her heart hammered as she crept across the dark hall toward the front door --
Holly leapt into the air; she'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat -- something alive!

Lights clicked on upstairs and to her horror Holly realised that the big, squashy something had been her uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Holly didn't do exactly what she'd been trying to do. He shouted at Holly for about half an hour and then told her to go and make a cup of tea. Holly shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time she got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Holly could see three letters addressed in green ink.

I want --" she began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before her eyes. Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.

"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."

"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."

"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Holly. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.

Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Holly found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.

"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Holly in amazement.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.

"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today --"

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Holly leapt into the air trying to catch one.

"Out! OUT!"

Uncle Vernon seized Holly around the waist and threw her into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.
"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his moustache at the same time. I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"

He looked so dangerous with half his moustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.

They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. "Shake'em off... shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.

Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Holly shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Holly stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering....
They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.
"'Scuse me, but is one of you Ms. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."
She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:

Ms. H. Potter
Room 17
Railview Hotel
Cokeworth

Holly made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.
"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.

Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a ploughed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.

It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley snivelled.

"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television."

Holly stared dully out the window. She didn't even bother to correct Dudley that it was SHE who should feel badly right now.

Monday. This reminded Holly of something. If it was Monday -- and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television -- then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Holly's eleventh birthday. Of course, her birthdays were nowhere as spectacular as Dudley's—she had never been pampered. But it wasn't that you turned 11 years old every day.

Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.

"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"

It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"

A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-grey water below them.

"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"

It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.
Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shrivelled up.

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.

He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Holly privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer her up at all.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Holly got the best blanket, because she had to sleep on the floor.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Holly couldn't sleep. She shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, her stomach rumbling with hunger.

Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Holly she'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. She lay and watched her birthday tick nearer, wondering where the letter writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Holly heard something creak outside. She hoped the roof wouldn't fall in—if it did, she would sue Uncle Vernon. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that she'd be able to steal one somehow.

Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?
One minute to go and she'd be eleven. Thirty seconds... twenty ... ten... nine -- maybe she'd wake Dudley up, to make him sing happy birthday -- three... two... one—she rolled over—

BOOM.

The whole shack shivered and Holly sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.

How was that? Quite like the original chapter, but you can see the differences here and there…and the reason why the Dursleys still reacted that badly?

Petunia had promised to Vernon that she was going to wipe the magic out of Holly. But she didn't do it, and now, Vernon is freaking out. He still does care for his immediate family, after all.

OMG! I forgot to give you your surprise! Well, here it is….

*Drumroll, please*.

A FREE Chocolate Frogs pack for ANY reviewer, as well as responding to them!

Limited offer only, for this chapter!!!! So Please Review….at least 5 reviews again??