Author's note: I'm going to give you guy's another two chapter's to say which 2 pet's harry a.k.a yusuke should have.

Yusuke talking in Harry's head

harry replying to Yusuke in his head

disclaimer: I do not own any of the anime or book's I use.

Chapter 2 – the letters from no one

The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned harry his longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started and Dudley had already broken his new cine-camera, crashed his remote-control aeroplane and, first time on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs figg as she crossed privet drive on her crutches.

Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favourite sport: Harry-hunting.

This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where he could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had a place at Uncle Vernon's old school, Smeltings. Peirs Polkiss was going there, too. Harry, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local comprehensive. Dudley thought this was very funny.

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet first day at Stonewall," he told Harry. "Want to come and practise?"

"No thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it – it might be sick." This had yusuke in fit's of laughter as Harry ran before Dudley could work out what he'd said.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs figg's. Mrs figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry watch television (where he and yusuke had an argument over whether to watch wrestling or mickey mouse) and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years. That evening, Dudley paraded around the living-room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings boys wore maroon tail coats, 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. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh. Yusuke had no such problem's and was laughing none stop.

There was a horrible smell in the kitchen next morning when Harry went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in grey water.

"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared ask a question.

"Your new school uniform," she said.

Harry looked at the bowl again.

"we are not wearing that!" yusuke growled in his mind.

"I don't think we have a choice yusuke." Harry replied.

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

They heard the click of the letter-box and flop of letters on the doormat.

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

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the post, Harry."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Poke him with your Smeltings stick, Dudley."

Harry dodged the Smeltings stick and went to get the post. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was holidaying on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill and – a letter for Harry.

Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No on, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives – he didn't belong to the library so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

Mr H. Potter

The cupboard under the Stairs

4 privet drive

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 envelop over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter 'h'.

"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter-bombs?" he chuckled at his own joke.

Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the post card, sat down and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.

Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust and flipped over the post card.

"Marge is ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk..."

"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly, "Dad, Harry's got something!"

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

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

"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the greyish white of old porridge.

"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 it looked as though she might faint.. she clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness – Vernon!"

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smeltings stick.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.

"I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Harry didn't move.

"I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.

"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address – how could they possibly know where he 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 -"

Harry 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 him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.

"Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "who's writing to me?"

"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."

"it was not a mistake," said Harry angrily. "It had my cupboard on it."

"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile.

"That looks painful." yusuke mentally winced.

"Er – yes, Harry – about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking … you're really getting a bit big for it … we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's

second bedroom."

"Why?" said Harry.

"Don't ask question's!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."

It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to his new bedroom. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old cine-camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over next door's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favourite programme had been cancelled; there was a large bird-cage which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air-rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.

From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother: "i don't want him in there … I need that room … make him get out..."

Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with his letter than up here without it.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smeltings stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof and he still didn't have his room back. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.

When the post arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging his Smeltings stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! Mr H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive -"

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry 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 Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smeltings stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand.

"Go to your cupboard – I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. "Dudley – go – just go."

Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan.

The repaired alarm rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any lights.

He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of privet drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall towards the front door -

"AAAAARRRGH!"

Harry leapt into the air – he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat -

something alive!

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

"I want -" he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes.

Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the letter-box.

"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 or me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruit cake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.

On Friday, no fewer than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the letter-box they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs toilet.

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 Harry found their way into the house, rolled up inside each of the two dozen eggs their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living-room window.

"who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked harry in amazement.

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

"No post on Sunday's," he reminded them happily as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, much to yusuke's, and to a lesser extent Harry's, amusement. "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 pullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one -

"Out! OUT!"

Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him 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 5 minutes. No argument's!"

He looked so dangerous with half his moustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding towards the motorway.

They drove. And they drove. Yusuke started complaining. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turning and drive in the opposite direction for a while.

They finally stopped out side a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of as big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the window-sill, staring down at the light of passing cars and wondering...

They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"Scuse me, but is one of you Mr 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:

Mr H. Potter

Room 17

Railview Hotel

Cokeworth

Harry 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.

"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.

"He's always been mad!" snorted Yusuke "I'm surprised he's not locked up in a crazy farm and wearing straight jacket's."

"It's Monday," Dudley told his mother. He then went on to talk about magician's, and wanting to stay somewhere with a TV.

Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday – and you can usually count on Dudley to know the day's of the week, because of television – then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun – last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat-hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven 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's bought.

"Bet it's a gun of some kind!" exclaimed Yusuke.

"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 to sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was for certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together.

"Yep, definitely insane!"

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

The inside of the house was just as horrible as the outside; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden wall's and the fire-place was damp and empty. There were only two room's.

Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a packet of crisps each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty crisp packets just smoked and shrivelled up.

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 mouldy blankets in the second room and made a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his 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 Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter-writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Harry heard something crack outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in privet drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one some how.

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 he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds … twenty … ten – nine – maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him – three – two one -

BOOM.

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

And for a moment, just for a moment Harry's eye's flashed brown...