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Chapter Two: The Trip to the Zoo
"Get up! Get up!" yelled Aunt Petunia, banging on the door of the cupboard under the stairs at Number Four, Privet Drive. "NOW!"
"Ow!" cried Lily Harriette Potter as she shot up in surprise, her legs tangling in the sheets and causing her to fall in between the wall and their little cot.
"What was that?" Aunt Petunia demanded.
"Nothing, Aunt Petunia," Daisy Petunia Potter piped up, trying to pull Lily free. "We'll be right there."
They heard the clip-clop sounds of their Aunt's footsteps as she walked away, and Ivy Jamesina Potter sighed for all three of them. The triplets sat up and began to get ready.
The closet was rather large, but just large enough for a dirty cot that the almost-eleven-year-old triplet's shared, a shelf that held cleaning supplies, a shelf for their few possessions, and a cardboard box that contained their clothes.
It was early, for summertime, but it was their cousin Dudley's birthday today, and of course everything had to be perfect.
Between them, the Potter girls had nine shirts and skirts, six pairs of socks, and three shoes, all of them hand-me-downs from their Aunt. Lily, Daisy, and Ivy were un-identical apart from the bright green eyes, pale skin, strange scars, and bony forms they all shared; Lily had long, thin, straight black hair, Daisy had tones of tangled, frizzy, curly orange hair and freckles, and Ivy had very, very long thick wavy red hair. Daisy was the tallest, while Ivy was the shortest, but there was only a few inches difference between them. Despite their differences in appearances, however, and the subtle quirks in their personalities, the Potter triplets were very much alike, and loved each other very much. Perhaps it was because they only had one another in the world to care for them, but they hardly ever fought or disagreed, and always took care of one another.
Hidden away against their hairlines on the right side of each girl's faces, however, were identical scars, shaped like lightning bolts. They were told by their Aunt and Uncle that they received them in the car accident that killed their parents. The girls found this hard to believe: Three people in a car accident that got the exact same scar in the same place? They thought it was more likely that they were just birthmarks, but they got in trouble if they asked questions or argued, so they said nothing to their family.
Lily pulled on an ugly tan shirt with pink flowers and a white peter pan collar, and a faded blue pleated skirt that was much to long for her, though she rolled it up three times. Daisy wore a large orange shirt with white polka dots and a formerly-white skirt. Ivy ended up in a salmon pink shirt with an uncomfortably ruffled collar and a much-too-big bosom, and a torn but clumsily patched blue skirt.
Sighing, Daisy stroked a finger over their pet – well, more her pet than her sister's, as they all agreed. Her name was Yolanda, and she was a giant leopard moth. Barely fitting in the girl's hand, Yolanda was soft and white with black spots, and cared to flutter around their cupboard, sit on the girls' shoulders as they did homework, and eat pieces of snuck lettuce and berries and the like. Whenever the Dursleys were gone or busy and the triplets had yard work to do, they took Yolanda out and let her flutter around and eat and generally relax in the sun. She always came back of her own free will, and the girls knew that she loved them in her own way.
"Sorry, but you have to stay." Daisy said, pulling out some orange, dandelions, lettuce, basil, and banana for the moth to snack on. While the girls often went without food for days as punishments, they were not about to let their pet starve, and made sure to always have plenty of food for her. Yolanda seemed to pout, but brushed her feelers on each girl's hand affectionately and began to eat the basil.
Then the three girls each tried to brush their hair – and failed miserably, as Lily's stuck out due to its tendency to be unnaturally dry, Daisy got her brush stuck in her tangled hair, and Ivy couldn't reach the bottom of her own – then they quickly got out of the closet and went to the kitchen. Their Aunt was no where to be seen, likely taking out Dudley's many presents, but they knew what to do.
"I'll get the bacon and sausages," said Lily.
"I've got the eggs and toast," sighed Ivy.
"Then I'll make pancakes."
It didn't take them long to make the large, delicious breakfast for their relatives, and Dudley and Uncle Vernon walked in sleepily just as Daisy had finished the last pancake. The girls set the table as Dudley counted his presents.
"Thirty-four…Thirty-five…uh…" Dudley had done well so far, but large numbers confused him.
"Thirty-six, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia kindly.
"I know! Thirty-six…" Dudley thought for a minute. It seemed to be taking a great effort, because his face was slightly red when his finally cried, "Thirty six! But last year-last year I had thirty-seven!" he banged his giant fists on the table, and all the plates bounced a few inches.
The Potter girls exchanged looks and ate faster, sensing trouble.
"Well…yes dear, but while we're out, we were going to buy you two new presents!" said Aunt Petunia hurriedly. "How's that, popkin?"
Dudley thought for a second, then said, "All right," and continued eating.
Then the phone rang, and Aunt Petunia got up to get it, glaring at the girls who were sitting quietly in the corner with the extra pancakes and toast, as there was no room at the table with all Dudley's presents.
"Dursley residence," said Aunt Petunia cheerfully. "Oh, hello Mrs. Figg…Yes…of course…oh that's terrible!" she cried, looking rather upset, "Well…no that's quite all right…get well soon, dear…good bye." She hung up and turned to Uncle Vernon. "Mrs. Figg has broken her leg. She can't take them," she pointed her thumb at the triplets as if they were a pile of grubs or a misbehaving dog.
Uncle Vernon groaned, and Dudley burst into (very fake) tears, banging his fat fists on the table as he began his tantrum. "I…don't…want…them…to…go!" he yelled between sobs. "They…always...ruin…everything!"
Aunt Petunia rushed forward to comfort her Diddykins, glaring at the girls like it was their fault.
"Well…" said Uncle Vernon, "There's nothing for it. We'll have to take them."
The girls grinned at each other. Usually on Dudley's birthday they were left in the care of Mrs. Figg, a batty old woman with a cabbage-smelling house and dozens of cats. She was nicer to them than the Dursley's, but made them eat cottage cheese and look at pictures of cats. They had never been to the zoo before…
The Potter triplets, hardly believing their luck, found themselves ordered out of the room to clean up and get ready for the zoo. Soon, Dudley's friend Piers Polkiss arrived, and Dudley promptly stopped his 'I don't want them to go~!' tantrum. Piers was a scrawny thing with a rat–like face, and his job in Dudley's gang was to hold people's arms while Dudley hit them. Lily, Daisy, and Ivy all looked forward to one day giving him a nice hard kick.
Half an hour later, the Potters were vibrating with excitement in the backseat of the Dursley's car on the way to the zoo, even with the warning Uncle Vernon had given them just minutes ago still ringing in their heads.
"I'm warning you now, girls." He said, holding Ivy to the wall with one hand and Lily with the other, Daisy crammed in the middle. "Any funny business, anything at all, and you'll all be in that cupboard until Christmas. Understood?"
"We're not going to do anything!" Lily protested, not sure if she should be afraid or angry.
"Honestly!" Ivy echoed.
"We'll behave!" Daisy said firmly.
But Uncle Vernon, surprisingly, didn't believe them. It was true that strange things happened around the girls, like their hair growing back when Aunt Petunia cut it horribly, or when their teacher's wig suddenly turned blue, or when they ended up on top of the school cafeteria while being chased by Dudley's gang, or when the paint on the back fence dried exceptionally fast, but the girls knew that there were rational explanations for all these things. They had hated their hair so much that their bodies would work overtime to fit it, the teacher's wig must have been affected by a combination of her strange hair spray and the sunlight, the wind had to have picked them up mid-jump, and the yard must have been dry and windy that day. However, their relatives wouldn't hear any of their so-called 'excuses'.
The car ride in the backseat with Dudley and Piers was like the seventh circle of hell for the girls, who sat on the left side of the car together, while Dudley and Piers took the right two seats. Dudley and Piers were both loud and annoying and loved to pinch and shove the girls into one another. While they drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. It was one of his favourite things to do; he liked to complain about the bank, the triplets, the ministry, the triplets, the neighbours, the triplets, work, and the triplets. Today, his topic was motorcycles.
"…Speeding along, weaving in and out like that, so inconsiderate," he grumbled while Petunia nodded her agreement.
"I had a dream about a motorcycle the other night!" Lily exclaimed unexpectedly.
"Me too! Just yesterday!" Daisy suddenly remembered.
"And me!" said Ivy excitedly. The triplets often had similar dreams, like visions of green light that they assumed was from the car crash that killed their parents. "It was flying."
"Yeah!"
Uncle Vernon slammed on the breaks, nearly hitting the car in front of them.
"MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!" he roared at the girls, as if they really thought such things.
"We know that! They were only dreams!" Lily protested. Personally, the girls thought their uncle was being stupid. Everyone knew motorcycles didn't fly! But she still wished she hadn't said anything, as did the others; the Dursleys hated anything out–of–the–ordinary.
Soon, they were at the zoo, and the girls were having the time of their lives. The Dursleys had bought them cheap ice pops at the entrance, and they loved the rarity of being out of the house. After wandering around for a while, they made it inside to the reptile house. It was cool inside, and Lily, Ivy, and Daisy relaxed, wandering around, reading the plaques and admiring the animals.
"Come on, move!" Dudley's loud voice brought the triplets out of their discussion of whether snake and lizard scales were interesting or a bit creepy (their teacher had once let their class pet her harmless bald python). Dudley was beside the girls now, with Piers of course, which made sense because they had been standing before the biggest snake in the place.
Dudley rapped on the glass and yelled again. Lily and Daisy sighed.
Why can't he just leave him alone? Ivy wondered. It was bad enough when he was terrible with them – he didn't even know the snake.
"Dad, make it move!" Dudley wined in his father's direction.
Uncle Vernon wandered over and tapped on the glass. The snake didn't move. Dudley banged on it with his fist.
"Leave him alone!" Ivy finally snapped, turning to her cousin and glaring. He ignored her, deemed the snake boring, and he and Piers wandered off.
"Sorry about that," Ivy said to the snake.
"I bet you get that all the time," Lily said sympathetically. "People banging their hands on your cage, pressing their ugly faces on it. Ugh."
The snake blinked sleepily and raised its head. It nodded.
The triplets raised their eyebrows and shared shocked looks. They didn't know snakes could nod. Daisy glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed. They hadn't. So she turned back to the snake.
"You can understand us?" she asked slowly. The snake hissed and nodded again. It glanced at Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then shook its head wearily, as if to say 'I get that all the time'.
"I bet." Daisy said, wrinkling her small nose. "It must be horrible."
The snake nodded vigorously.
"We've never talked to a snake before…" said Ivy, leaning closer to the glass. "Do you talk to people often?"
The snake shook its head.
"You're from Brazil, right?" Lily asked, nodding towards the plaque in front of the snake's cage. It nodded again. "Was it nice there? Do you miss your family?"
The snake jabbed its tail at the sign.
"Oh…" the triplets said. There was a line of text at the bottom she hadn't read: THIS SPECIMEN WAS BRED AT THE ZOO.
"Us too." Daisy said, sadness in her voice. "We don't remember our parents at all–"
Suddenly, Piers appeared behind them. "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! DUDLEY! COME LOOK AT THE SNAKE! QUICK!"
Lily let out a cry as she was suddenly pushed hard onto the ground, her sisters stumbling next to her. She winced, seeing her bleeding knee and ripped stockings and then glaring up at Dudley as he shouted for his mother and father to come see what the snake was doing. Lily was so mad she was shaking, and Ivy and Daisy helped her up, trying to soothe her. Lily was sick of Dudley pushing them around like that. She and her sisters had just as much right as him to see that snake, and Dudley needed to learn sooner or later that he just couldn't shove people out of his way. Something had to be done.
Lily glared at her cousin as Daisy put a plaster on her leg (she always kept a nicked supply of them for the girls' frequent injuries); Lily was so angry she didn't even notice. Dudley's chubby face was pressed against the glass cage, sneering at the snake, and then something unexpected happened.
The glass vanished.
It was suddenly just completely gone, and Dudley and Piers both fell head over heels into the pool inside the snake cage. They screamed bloody murder as the snake seemed to glare right at them, then slithered out onto the floor.
The triplets stared with wide eyes, frozen where they stood as the snake stopped before them.
"Brazzzzzzzzil here I come. Thankssssss, amigosss." It hissed.
"A–anytime!" Lily said nervously, grinning, her anger almost gone. The snake slithered for the exit, hissing at people's feet and snapping playfully at their ankles. There was a sudden stampede for the exits as everyone tried to escape from the snake. Meanwhile, the triplets ducked away into a corner so that their aunt and uncle wouldn't suspect they had anything to do with it, though how could they really? They had only talked to the snake, strange as that may have been.
The girls were all giggling and watching a terrified Dudley and Piers climb out of the tank, soaking wet, when Lily suddenly shrieked.
"Hello there, little ssssspeaker," hissed the most beautiful snake any of them had every seen. It had large scales and was varying shades of purple on the top, yellow and orange on its belly. Its large eyes were green and blue, and the girls just stared for a moment.
"My name is Zzzzzuri. I am going to adopt you." It – she? – said firmly.
The triplets stared, mouths opened, dumbfounded.
Lily found her voice first. "A-adopt us? What do you mean? And why did you call me – us – speakers?"
The snake seemed to chuckle as it wound itself around her leg, climbing up her clothes until she was on Lily's arm. The girl noticed that the snake was about two feet long, and a bit heavy.
"I am going to go home with you. I'll be your…pet, sssso to sssspeak. Or you'll be mine. I like you three. You ressscued Josssé and embarrasssssed that rude fat boy." Daisy snorted at this description of Dudley. "And I called you ssspeakersss becaussse you are. You have the ability to talk to ssssnakesss."
The girls shared looks. Talking to snakes was not the strangest thing they'd ever done, and they had always wanted to each have their own pet. Of course Daisy had Yolanda back home, but if Lily had Zuri and they could find Ivy an animal, that would be lovely. And though the snake made it seem like his mind was made up and he was going no matter what they said, the girls felt that they could sense that he was wary of them saying no.
Lily grinned. "All right then, but you have to be careful not to let our family see you, and not to…bite anyone."
Zuri hissed her agreement and nodded. Daisy glanced back at the Dursleys and saw Dudley being wrapped up by a zoo worker while the manager gave Petunia some tea and apologized profusely. She gestured to the others that they should move, and Zuri slithered into Lily's shirt, which wasn't as uncomfortable as one would think, and they slowly joined the Dursleys and Piers, looking properly concerned and holding in their laughs with great effort.
It worked perfectly until, in the car ride back as Piers and Dudley were reliving their 'near-death experience', Piers said excitedly, "You were talking to it, right guys? I know you were, Lily."
The triplets froze, and their uncle's glare could have melted steal.
When they pulled into Number Four after dropping off Piers, Petunia and Dudley rushed in, followed by Vernon and the triplets, who clasped hands nervously. The girls knew that something very bad was about to happen, and they found they were right when Vernon grabbed Lily's arms and held her to the wall, glaring fiercely.
"What did you do?" he growled, squeezing her arms so tightly she yelped.
"I didn't do anything, honest!" she cried, her eyes starting to fill with tears from the pain in her arms. Could Uncle Vernon possibly have the strength to break them? She hoped not. She could feel Zuri wrapped around her belly, trying to hold on without hurting her, and hoped that the snake and her sisters at least would be safe.
He ignored her, pulling her up closer to his height. All her weight was on her arms.
"LYING BRAT!" he roared.
"LET HER GO!" Daisy suddenly yelled, finding her courage and kicking at her uncle's legs, "SHE TOLD YOU SHE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING, NONE OF US DID! HOW COULD SHE MAKE THE GLASS DISSAPEAR ANYWAY, YOU STUPID OAF!"
"YOU BLAME EVERYTHING ON US BUT HOW COULD ANY OF IT BE OUR FAULT?" Ivy shrieked, yanking at Vernon's hands, trying to pry him off her sister.
Vernon was turned even redder than normal, and Lily could see a vein on his forehead bulging out. A particularly hard kick from the black-haired girl got his stomach, and he pulled her off the wall before slamming her back against it, jarring her head but especially hurting her back.
"STOP IT! STOP! LET HER GO!" yelled Daisy and Ivy, both crying from anger and fear.
"You nasty, lying, ungrateful brats!" Vernon growled, ignoring them and their repeated punches and kicks. "You're going to pay for that, girl, you're going to wish you were never born."
Lily screamed as the pressure on her arms increased even more, tears running down her face. Daisy and Ivy watched in horror; they had never seen their usually unafraid sister like this, nor their uncle act this horribly. He slammed Lily into the wall again, and this time her head hit first. Stars burst under her eyelids, and she groaned in pain.
"I'm not lying!" she managed weakly. She couldn't help but defend herself. "One minute the glass was there, then it was gone! It was like magic!"
"THERE. IS. NO. SUCH. THING. AS. MAGIC!" Vernon roared, and with that he opened the cupboard door, tossed Lily inside, then Daisy and Ivy, slammed it and locked it.
"You three freaks won't be eating for months, so I hope you stocked up today." He said cruelly, and slammed the grate shut, leaving the girls in darkness.
Just so you know, I chose Yolanda's name because Giant Leopard Moths originate in southern North America, such as Mexico, and Yolanda is a traditional Hispanic name. Zuri was named because Rough Scaled Bush Vipers originate in Africa, like Swahili, and Zuri is a Swahili name.