Young Laurel Potter was startled awake by a loud, jarring, knock on the door. Startled, she hastily pushed herself up off her mattress and blearily looked around. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, her tousled raven hair was pushed behind her ears, and she scratched at the side of her neck absently.

"Get up!" her aunt, Petunia, snapped. Her voice pierced through the residual traces of sleep and demanded Laurel's full attention as she slammed her hand against the wooden door once more. Laurel heard the clack of her aunt's heels fade as she marched away and entered the Kitchen through the swinging door.

Laurel extended her arm towards the small shelves that were stationed on the side of her small, cramped, room, and grabbed her clothes for the day. Her socks, once vibrant, were now a dull grey. One displayed a conspicuous hole on the tip, while the other bore a tear in the heel. Her jeans were faded blue with a hole in the left knee. Her shirt was a ratty old purple garment with faded stars on the front.

Once fully dressed, Laurel's attention turned toward the shelf at the head of her bed. She reached out and grabbed an old brush with a broken handle. She wrestled with the unruly strands of her messy hair but eventually succeeded in removing all the tangles and knots. She quickly threw the mass of hair up into a quick ponytail, to keep it out of her eyes and with practiced ease she tossed the brush, and it landed back in its resting place.

A sigh escaped Laurel's lips as she looked around the confined and dust-laden space that reluctantly served as her bedroom. She didn't know what she had done to deserve this type of treatment from her relatives, but it was a difficult life. The hard thing was that her life wasn't always this depressing. The faint memories where she had a genuine room, a space adorned with real toys that she had been allowed to play with instead of being forced to do endless chores all day.

While Laurel hadn't been lavished with affection from her aunt and uncle, there had been a semblance of fairness. Even though she was overshadowed by their favored son, Laurel had once received all the necessities that she had required as well as a few occasional extras.

Her life underwent a profound change when she and Dudley had started school. The catalyst was an encounter with their teacher who had been particularly nasty with Laurel and had been yelling when suddenly, her teacher's hair had turned blue. The abrupt change in appearance left the entire class in stunned silence. As if guided by an invisible force, the teacher swiftly blamed her, even though that was impossible, and she had to take home a report that explained to her aunt and uncle what she had done. Laurel had no explanation to offer for the incident, it had been like magic.

When she had been asked about the incident, she unwittingly sealed her fate as she naively uttered the seemingly innocent phrase, "It was like magic!"

The color drained from her aunt's face, a sickly green tint emerged, while her uncle's transformed into a furious reddish-purple hue. In that moment, the trajectory of Laurel's life took a drastic turn that led her to the cupboard under the stairs.

Gone were the days of new clothes, they were a thing of the past. She was no longer allowed to even eat with her relatives, but instead had to prepare her food after they were finished and had left the room. It was an isolating routine that amplified her newfound status within the household.

She had then tried to excel academically, which backfired, and avoid stirring up trouble, which seemed next to impossible. However, no amount of good grades or good behavior could mitigate the damage that one event had caused.

Laurel was abruptly pulled from her memories by the loud, thundering steps of Dudley as he raced down the stairs. The noise of his descent down the stairs rattled her senses and she flinched at the heavy footfalls that ruined her quiet contemplation. She heard him pause near the bottom of the steps, her relief at the end of the stomping was short lived when he thundered back up so that he was positioned on the steps that were directly over her head.

Her cousin then proceeded to jump on the steps, repeatedly. Each impact sent shockwaves though the structure of her room. It caused bits of dust and debris to fall from the ceiling. Laurel prayed that this would not be the day that her cousin finally fell through the stairs and crushed her much more fragile body. She was convinced it would happen one day and was not looking forward to it to living out that nightmare.

"Wake up, cousin! We're going to the zoo!" Dudley bellowed.

Laurel waited patiently for her cousin to run by her door. She knew from experience that if he caught her as she tried to leave it would result in him pushing her down and slamming the door in her face. As she heard her aunt's effusive praise envelop Dudley in the next room Laurel made her escape from her room and move toward the Kitchen to begin her chores, a silent occupant of the house.

She pushed through the swinging door and surveyed the domestic scene. Petunia had Dudley wrapped up in a maternal embrace as she lavished attention upon him while Vernon, enthralled in the pages of the morning paper, remained at the table. A quick scan of the room revealed an abandoned frying pan on the stove, the bacon it contained sizzled and popped, forgotten and close to burning.

Laurel edged around her oblivious aunt and cousin and kept her eyes fixed on the frying pan. She grabbed the handle with a swift deft motion but winced when a droplet of hot bacon grease splattered onto her arm. The sting was fleeting but she knew the pain from the punishment she she would receive if it burnt would be much longer lasting.

"Don't burn anything!" Petunia's sharp reprimand cut through the air, the irony completely lost on her, since it was her who had left the sizzling meat frying on the stove without supervision.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Laurel said with carefully measured politeness, a veil that masked her internal exasperation, and only barely refrained from rolling her eyes.

Laurel ignored her aunt who doted over Dudley, ignorant of her own negligence, and carefully plated the now-cooked bacon before she turned her attention toward the eggs.

"Hurry up with the coffee, girl!" Vernon gruffly commanded as he impatiently thrust his empty mug into the air, but his eyes never wavered from the paper in his grasp.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon," Laurel mumbled under her breath, her compliance evident in her tone. She swiftly pulled the eggs off the heat and looked around the Kitchen. She was relieved that there was already a full carafe of coffee in the coffee machine, sparing her the prospect of Vernon enduring another ten minutes for caffeine.

Once again, Laurel skillfully side-stepped her aunt and cousin as their attention was absorbed by the large pile of presents that filled the family room. She carefully filled her uncle's mug and for good measure, she poured coffee into the second empty mug as well just in case her aunt wanted a cup as well.

She darted back to the stove and finished frying the eggs. Two for everybody and to her delight, she even managed to fry one for herself. She wasn't normally able to have eggs for breakfast, her meal usually consisted of dry toast, but she hoped that her aunt and uncle would be too distracted by her cousin to notice. She kept her head down and fought against the smile that wanted to emerge as she was proven correct when Dudley began to complain about his presents and Laurel was able to quickly shove the egg in her mouth before anyone noticed.

"How many are there?" Dudley whined, his dissatisfaction evident as his face scrunched up while he tried to count the array of wrapped boxes that littered the room.

"Thirty-six. Counted them myself," declare Vernon with a smug sense of accomplishment. He had finally put his paper down on the table to revel in the presentation of the meticulously wrapped presents. His chest puffed out proudly as he faced his wife and son.

"Thirty-six?!" Dudley gasped, his eyes wide in disbelief, "But last year…last year I got thirty-seven!" he erupted in a fit of rage.

Laurel desperately tried to stifle a snort that threatened to escape. She managed to maintain her composure and quietly shoved a piece of bacon in her mouth before she carried over the assorted breakfast food to the table. She strategically positioned herself just out of the way but with a good enough view to witness the familial drama that played out in front of her She watched in hidden amusement as her aunt and uncle tried to placate the angry boy but after a decade of getting his every wish, he would not calm down.

"I don't care how big they are!" he bellowed, and his voice reverberated through the room like thunder. In that moment, as his face turned a dark reddish-purple, Laurel couldn't help but think that Dudley truly did bear a striking resemblance to Vernon.

Petunia, distressed that her sweet angel was upset, hastily intervened, eager to salvage the day. With a hopeful glint in her eyes, she proposed her solution, "How about this Duddykins, after the zoo, we'll go buy you two more presents! How's that, Pumpkin? Thirty-eight!" her desperation to appease her sweet angel was evident.

As Petunia's words hung in the air Dudley finally stopped his incessant wailing and Laurel watched as his face shifted from anger to confusion as his small brain grapple with the shift, "Fine!" he muttered although Laurel could tell he was still not thrilled at having to wait for more presents.

"Come on Dudders, let's have breakfast and then you can open the presents," Vernon beckoned his son towards the table. Dudley, eager for the gifts, hurriedly joined his father at the table, a wide grin spread across his face.

Laurel though, stood in the Kitchen, a silent observer amid the lively breakfast scene. While her family cheerfully ate their food, she wiped down the countertops and washed the dishes. After the dishes were cleaned, she quickly dried them and put them back in their rightful place. Once the kitchen was clean Laurel tossed the cloth in the basket under the sink to be washed and rounded the counter to approach her aunt.

"Anything else, Aunt Petunia?" Laurel asked.

"Go wait in your room!" Petunia snapped without sparing her a glance.

Laurel, accustomed to the sharp edge of her aunt's commands, nodded obediently, and scurried back into her cramped room. There wasn't much to occupy her time, however, hidden beneath the corner of her thin mattress she pulled out a hidden library book. She leaned back against the wall and delved deep into the fantasy world of Middle Earth. She escaped the confines of her bleak surroundings and journeyed alongside the heroic trio of Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli. The fantastical landscape, epic battles, and comradery between the characters offer her a brief respite from the turmoil that waited for her outside her room.

However, the enchantment was shattered by a loud, persistent, knock on her door, "Come on, girl. We don't have all day," Vernon bellowed through the door, his voice a harsh reminder of Laurel's real life.

"Coming!" she called out. After a quick glance to ensure that her book returned to its hiding place under her mattress, she pulled on her worn-out, dirty sneakers and left the safety of her room.

Laurel joined her family outside and squinted in the harsh, relentless sunlight. She reveled in the warmth that curled around her, and she tilted her head upward to soak in the sun's rays. It was a hot, but thankfully not humid, summer day. The perfect day to go to the zoo.

She heard the slam of a car door and turned to see that her aunt and cousin were already in the car, impatient to leave. Laurel moved forward, intending to slide into the car to follow their lead. However, her movement was abruptly halted when Vernon seized her arm in an unforgiving, bruising grip. A sharp pain shot through Laurel's arm as his fingers dug into her flesh and left an imprint of his warning.

"I'm warning you, girl. Any funny business, any at all, and you won't have any meals for a week!" he snarled, his voice was laced with menace. The intensity of his words was quickly mirrored by the harshness of his grip.

Laurel managed to nod her acceptance and convey her compliance, yet Vernon's grip only tightened and with a stern demand he pressed her for a verbal acknowledgment, "I can't hear you," he ground out through clenched teeth. His demand for her submission was clear.

"Yes, sir," Laurel responded, her words a mere whisper. It was only when Vernon pivoted away from her did she dare to release the breath she had been holding. She rubbed her sore arm and reluctantly climbed into the car to take her place beside her cousin. The weight of Vernon's warning lingered in her mind as the car pulled out of the drive and carried them onward toward the zoo.