Author's Note: Well here it is, the next chapter. Thank-you to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, and favorited. I hope you continue to enjoy the story.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, though I sometimes wish I could be that awesome.
Chapter 2: The Vanishing Glass-
Nearly four years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their niece on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece showed that any time had passed at all. Three years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets – but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a chubby blonde boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, being hugged and kissed by his mother.
The room held no sign at all that another child lived in the house, too. Yet Cressa Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Her Aunt Petunia was awake, and it was her job to ensure that Cressa was awake before the rest of the house.
"Cressa! Time to wake up! It's Dudley's Birthday, so we want to make an extra special breakfast this morning!"
Cressa woke with a start as her Aunt punctuated her sentences with raps on the door. Cressa heard her aunt walking towards the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. She rolled onto her back and tried to remember the dream she had been having as she fished around for her dream-journal. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. She pulled her knees up and rested the journal on them as she quickly drew a picture of a motorcycle in the clouds.
Her aunt was back outside the door, "Are you up yet?"
"Coming!" Cressa exclaimed.
"You better get a move on; we have things to do this morning."
Cressa slowly got out of bed and started looking for socks. She found a pair under her bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Cressa was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where she slept. She sometimes even named them when they stuck around long enough. Old George had occupied that same corner for forever.
When she was dressed, she went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden between all of Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the computer game he wanted, not to mention the television and a new bike. She sneakily added her card under one of the boxes, giggling. She then skipped over to help her Aunt cook.
Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Cressa was buttering the toast.
"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.
About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that if she couldn't keep her hair combed then she didn't need to have it so long. Cressa must have run a brush through her hair at least three times a morning, but it made no difference, her hair simply grew that way—wild and all over the place. It didn't really matter though; Uncle Vernon could always be counted on to find something to criticize in her appearance.
Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Cressa was small and skinny for her age. She looked even smaller and skinnier than she really was because all she had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was at least twice her size. Cressa had high cheek bones, an olive complexion, a mass of silky messy black hair that went just past her shoulders, and bright almond shaped green-blue eyes that changed color depending on the light and her mood. She also had a very thin scar on her forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. She had had it as long as she could remember, and the first question she could ever remember asking her Aunt Petunia was how she got it.
That had led to a very long sit down discussion about a very bad man, who had killed her parents who had loved her very much and had done everything they could to make sure she was okay before they had to leave. It was the first time Cressa could ever remember seeing Aunt Petunia cry.
Cressa was plating eggs by the time Aunt Petunia brought Dudley down to the kitchen. Dudley and Cressa could not have looked more different if they'd tried. Dudley's hair was blond and lay smoothly to her messy dark hair. He was also rather chubby; a good head taller than Cressa, and his skin was fair. His eyes were the same blue-violet of Aunt Petunia's, looking almost black when they were angry.
Cressa put the plates of food on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley was bouncing up and down chanting, "Pwesents! Pwesents! Pwesents!"
"Eat your breakfast first," Aunt Petunia said firmly, guiding Dudley to a chair. He pouted but did as he was told, sending a quick smile in Cressa's direction. When Uncle Vernon was home they weren't supposed to talk or play together.
When breakfast was finished, Cressa gathered the plates as Dudley grabbed the nearest parcel.
"Happy fifth Birthday Dudley," Uncle Vernon said, ruffling his hair.
At that moment the phone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it as Cressa and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the bike, a set of coloring books, a remote control airplane, six new computer games, and four new movies. He was ripping the paper off of a digital wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking worried.
"Bad news, Vernon," she said hesitantly. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take her." She jerked her head in Cressa's direction.
Cressa and Dudley exchanged a hopeful look.
"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.
Cressa's heart gave a horrified leap.
"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the girl."
"What about what's-her-name, your friend – Yvonne?"
"On vacation in Majorca. I suppose we could take her to the zoo…" Aunt Petunia suggested slowly as Cressa began fidgeting.
Uncle Vernon looked mutinous.
Half an hour later, Cressa, who couldn't believe her luck, was sitting in the back seat of the Dursleys' car with Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time. Her Uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with her, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Cressa aside.
"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Cressa's, "I'm warning you now, girl—any funny business, anything at all—and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."
"I'm not going to do anything," protested Cressa.
But Uncle Vernon didn't believe her. He never did.
The problem was, strange things often happened around Cressa and it was just no good telling Uncle Vernon she didn't make them happen.
One time, during pre-school last year, a teacher accidentally put her down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. Aunt Petunia screamed when she came to pick her up and found her happily hissing at and playing with the snake.
Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force her into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls) - The harder she tried to pull it over her head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Cressa. Aunt Petunia had just shook her head at Cressa, winked, and said it must have just shrunk in the wash and, to her great relief, Cressa wasn't punished.
On the other hand, she'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the pre-school kitchens. The local bullies had been chasing her as usual when, as much to Cressa's surprise as anyone else's, there she was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry phone call from Cressa's headmistress telling them Cressa had been climbing school buildings. But all she'd tried to do (as she shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of her cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Cressa supposed that the wind must have caught her in mid- jump.
But today, nothing was going to go wrong.
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley a large chocolate ice cream at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Cressa what she wanted before Uncle Vernon could hurry her away, they bought her a cheap lemon ice pop. Cressa didn't care, happy to have gotten one of the cold treats at all. She happily licked away as they watched a gorilla scratching its head.
Cressa had the best morning she'd had in a long time: there was so much to see! Aunt Petunia kept putting an unobtrusive hand on her back so that she didn't wander off on accident. They ate lunch in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his Knickerbocker glory was mostly melted before he could eat it, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Cressa was allowed to finish the first.
Cressa should have known it was all too good to last.
After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Cressa wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can – but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.
Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils, while Cressa watched from a little distance.
"Make it move!" He excitedly demanded of his father.
Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.
"This is bowing," Dudley moaned disappointed as he shuffled away, only for a more active snake a little ways down to catch his attention.
Cressa moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. She decided that it was being still on purpose, so that people would leave it alone.
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Cressa's.
It winked.
Cressa giggled delightedly, winking at the snake too.
The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, and then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave her a look that said quite plainly: "I get that all the time"
"That must be really bowing. I wouldn't like it if people knocked on my window and stawed at me all the time."
The snake nodded vigorously.
"You remind me of another snake I met. She was in my nap cot. Aunt Petunia didn't like her very much, but she was a lot of fun. She told me all about the mouse that kept getting away from her."
As the snake gave an interested tilt of the head, a deafening shout behind Cressa made both of them jump.
"DAD! DAD! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
A swarm of kids, including Dudley suddenly came that way, one of them shoving Cressa in the ribs angrily demanding, "Out of the way, you."
Caught by surprise, Cressa fell hard on the concrete floor. What happened next happened so fast no one saw how it happened – one second Dudley was grabbing the kid by the shirt leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they both fell over with howls of horror.
Cressa sat up and gasped; the glass front of the tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor.
As the snake slid swiftly past her, Cressa heard a low, hissing voice say, "Brazil, here I come… Thanksss, amiga."
The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Dudley could only gibber. As far as Cressa had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at his heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was gleefully telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, but worst of all, for Cressa at least, was Dudley calming down enough to ask, "Did this one talk like the one at the Pre-School, Cressa?"
Uncle Vernon's jaw went tight, and the atmosphere in the car went icy. No one spoke, barely breathing until they got home. Uncle Vernon grasped Cressa by the arm and roughly dragged her inside. She was so terrified she didn't so much as squeak when she was thrown to the floor of the living room, and Uncle Vernon began to unbuckle his belt. Slowly drawing it out, he only paused long enough to angrily instruct her to hold the arm of the chair and not move a muscle before bringing the belt screaming down on her backside. She screamed as he brought the belt down again and again, 5, 10, 20 times before a wide-eyed Aunt Petunia finally convinced him to stop, at which point she was dragged to her cupboard and told that she would not be coming out for a very long time.
Cressa sobbed herself to sleep, her back, bottom, and thighs throbbing in pain.
Several hours later she was woken by a soft knock on her cupboard, before it was opened, revealing Dudley with a messy peanut-butter sandwich in his hand.
"You didn't get any dinner," he said softly, uncertainly. She sat up slowly, whimpering at the pain.
"Thank-you," she said quietly taking the sandwich and tearing it in half before offering the other half back to Dudley.
He shook his head, but she just offered it more firmly until he finally took it and they ate their prizes quietly in the dark.
"I'm sowy," Dudley finally said.
She looked at him confused.
"Fow getting you in twouble. Dad was scawy," he clarified.
She just nodded.
"Mum looked scawed too," he continued before impulsively throwing his arms around her.
Cressa tensed for a moment, before tears began to slide down her cheeks and she buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing silently.
In the morning Aunt Petunia came down to find them both cuddled up on Cressa's bed, faces tear streaked and peanut-butter on their hands and faces.
Author's note: Thank-you for reading. Constructive critism welcome.