The Greenhouse Incident
Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. In fact, there was only one new neighbour on the entire street, a man who seemed perfectly normal and entirely private. The sunrise crept over the same tidy front gardens, casting a golden glow that illuminated the brass number four on the desolate front door. It filtered into the living room, where only the photographs on the mantelpiece truly revealed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been countless images of what looked like a large pink beach ball adorned with various coloured bobble hats. Now, Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and the photographs displayed a sturdy blonde boy riding his first bicycle on a roundabout at the fair, engrossed in a computer game with his father, or being enveloped in hugs and kisses from his mother. Yet the room bore no evidence at all that any other boy had ever lived in that house.
Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice which made the first noise of the day.
“Up! Get up! Now!”
Harry woke up with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.
“Up!” she screeched. Harry heard her walking towards the kitchen and the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. He rolled over and slid into his clothes for the day, pre-prepared for his speedy awakening. He never had very much time to wake up in the mornings, so he had to heavily rely on automatic habits.
His Aunt was back outside the door.
“Are you up yet?” she demanded.
“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” said Harry.
The lock on the cupboard door clicked as it slid out of the way.
“Good, get a move on. I need everything perfect for Duddy’s birthday, you hear me? Don’t you dare burn the bacon, or you'll pay for it.”
Harry groaned quietly.
“What did you say?” Petunia snapped.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Dudley’s birthday—the day Harry had dreaded for the past three weeks—had finally arrived, and he felt a familiar knot of horror twist in his stomach as he emerged from the cupboard. He gently brushed a spider from his leg, a reminder of the countless eight-legged roommates that shared his cramped space beneath the stairs, his nightly refuge.
As he stepped into the kitchen, the sight before him made his heart sink. The table was nearly obscured by a mountain of Dudley’s birthday presents, a gaudy display of indulgence. Uncle Vernon, ever watchful, caught Harry's gaze and, with a swift movement, slammed the boy's head down onto one of the few clear patches on the table.
“What do you think you're staring at, boy? Planning to swipe something, are you? Don’t bother; we’d notice if anything went missing.”
“No, sir, no; not at all, of course not,” Harry replied, pressing his palms flat against the table, a gesture of innocence he hoped would appease his uncle.
Vernon released him as abruptly as he had seized him, plopping down into his chair with a grunt.
“Hurry up and make breakfast. Dudley will be awake soon.”
“Yes, sir.”
From the cramped space behind the kitchen counter, Harry squinted at the mountain of presents cluttering the table. It looked like Dudley had struck gold this year: a shiny new computer, a second television, and a racing bike that was far too ambitious for someone who barely got off the couch. Why Dudley wanted a bike was beyond Harry; it wasn’t as if the kid ever showed an ounce of interest in physical activity—unless it involved chasing Harry around the house for sport. Fortunately for Harry, he was fast, darting away from Dudley’s clumsy grasp with a speed that came from years of practice.
Living in a cupboard tended to make one nimble, especially when food was scarce and the threat of a punch loomed large. Harry was small and skinny, even more so in Dudley’s oversized castoffs, which hung from his frame like sails on a ship. He had a thin, angular face, knobbly knees, and perpetually messy black hair that defied every attempt at grooming. His bright green eyes peeked through round glasses held together with tape, a patchwork testament to Dudley’s bullying. Harry wasn’t particularly fond of how he looked—especially the spider web of scars that were stark white compared to the darkness of his skin and danced around the thinner skin over his eyes and nose, a jagged reminder of his past. He was glad the accident hadn’t blinded him, he could see where the thinner trails of the scar ran over his eyelids rather than the deeper, wider scars closer to the impact point. Oddly, he felt a flicker of pride in it; it was the only tangible connection to his parents. He had long forgotten the specifics of that day, but he remembered the first time he had dared to ask Aunt Petunia about it.
“In the car crash when your parents died, you hit your head against the window,” she had snapped, the words harsh and final. “And don’t ask questions.”
“Don’t ask questions”—the unwritten motto of life with the Dursleys. They were never fond of curiosity, especially when, at just four years old, Harry had innocently inquired what his name was before starting school, desperate to remember it.
“Comb your hair!” Uncle Vernon barked as Harry busied himself with breakfast, flipping bacon with a practised ease that masked his simmering resentment.
Once a week, Uncle Vernon would bellow about Harry’s hair needing a trim or a comb, yet he never lifted a finger to help. Over the years, they had tried to tame it, but it always sprang back, rebellious as ever, as if it had a mind of its own. No matter what they did, his hair was destined to remain a wild, untamed mess, a fitting reflection of his life in this house.
Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen. He was with Aunt Petunia who had disappeared as soon as Harry had started cooking to Dudleys room. She must dress him or something for them to take so long. Dudley looked into the room with dull eyes for a second. He looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large, pink face, not much neck, small, watery, blue eyes and thick, blond hair that lay smoothly on his head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a little angel. Harry couldn't see how angelic he was, despite their insistence that he was their pure and innocent baby.
Harry put the plate of eggs and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell, tears swimming in his eyes.
“Thirty-six,” he said, “That's two less than last year.”
Harry noted there was a sadness to his face for a second before Dudley dismissed it and looked close to a tantrum.
“Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see it's here under this big one from mummy and daddy.”
“All right, thirty seven then,” said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry began chewing through his own breakfast of cereal quicker, not wanting to be caught if Dudley decided to flip the table over.
Aunt Petunia obviously sensed danger too, because she said quickly “And we’ll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkins? Two more presents. Is that all right?”
Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, “So I'll have thirt… thirty…”
“Thirty-nine, sweetums.” finished Aunt Petunia.
“Oh,” Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. “All right then.”
Uncle Vernon chuckled.
“Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. ‘Atta boy, Dudley!” He caressed Dudley’s hair gently, slowly. It was rather strange for Harry to watch so he looked away.
At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went up to answer it while Uncle Vernon and Harry watched Dudley unwrap his racing bike, a camera, a remote controlled aeroplane, sixteen new computer games and a video recorder. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.
“Bad news, Vernon,” she said. “Mrs Figg broke her leg. She can't take him.” She jerked her head in Harry's direction.
Dudleys mouth fell open in horror but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley’s birthday his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger bars or the cinema. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs Figg made him look at pictures of all the cats she’d ever owned.
“Now what?” said Aunt Petunia looking furiously at Harry as though he had somehow planned this. Harry ought to feel sorry that Mrs Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr Paws and Tuffy again.
“We could phone Marge,” Uncle Vernon suggested.
‘Don't be silly Vernon, she hates the boy.”
The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there - or rather as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.
“What about whats-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?”
“On holiday in Majorca,” snapped Aunt Petunia.
“You could just leave him here,” said Dudley hopefully.
Aunt Petunia looked like she swallowed a lemon but patted Dudley’s hair.
“And come back to the house in ruins?” She glared at Harry with a look of disgust.
“I won’t blow up the house,” said Harry, but they weren't listening.
“I suppose we could take him to the arcade,” said Aunt Petunia slowly, “...And leave him in the car…”
“That cars new, he's not sitting in it alone… And we can’t very well be spotted with him in public.”
Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying, it has been years since he'd really cried, but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.
“Dinky duddyums, don't cry, mummy won’t let him spoil your special day!” she cried, flinging her arms around him, slapping Harry upside the head on the way as though he had caused all of this.
“I… don't… want… him… to… come!” Dudley yelled between pretend sobs. “He always spoils everything!” he shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mothers arms.
“Mr Lawrence offered once,” Harry threw out, hiding his excitement, keeping his voice bland of emotion.
Both Petunia and Vernon looked at each other searchingly.
Just then, the doorbell rang - “Oh, Good Lord, they're here!” said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later, Dudley’s best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people’s arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.
Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting on a sofa as Mr Lawrence waved goodbye to the Dursley’s as they drove away. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had taken the idea as though it was entirely their own - which thrilled Harry. But Vernon had taken Harry aside before they left the house.
“I’m warning you,” he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's where he had pushed him against the wall. “I’m warning you now, boy - any funny business, any at all - and you’ll be beaten black and blue and left in that cupboard until christmas.”
“I’m not going to do anything,” said Harry weakly, “honest…”
But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.
The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.
Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his fringe, which she left ‘to hide that horrible scar as much as possible’ even though that wasn't very much. Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at and beaten for his baggy clothes and sellotaped glasses. Next morning, however, he had got up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard and a broken pinky finger for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.
Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a pair of dudleys underwear he refused to wear after scrubbing him down in the hot bubbly bath he was allowed once a month that left him feeling raw and somehow even dirtier than before. He preferred the shallow leftovers he got every day to the way he was meticulously scrubbed down in those ones. The underwear was an ugly pair of neon green briefs with the grinch printed on the front. The harder she tried to pull them up his legs and over his hips the smaller they seemed to become, until eventually it might have fit a glove puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. She pulled them off in frustration and walked out of the room leaving Harry in the nude deciding they had shrunk in the wash. Dudley walked into the room afterwards, having been taken to change in Dudley’s second bedroom. Once he spotted Harry he looked like he’d seen a ghost. Dudley roughly and hurriedly shoved Harry into his pyjamas, whilst spitting half-hearted insults his way, before Petunia could return with a new pair of underwear. Harry’s spine prickled at the memory. To Harry's great relief, he wasn't punished for it.
On the other hand, he'd gotten into serious trouble for being found on the roof of the kitchens at school. Dudley’s gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else’s, there he was hugging the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from the headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings, and Harry had received a punishment that left him unable to walk for three days. But all he'd tried to do (as he gasped at uncle Vernon while being punished) was jump behind the big bins outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.
But today, nothing was going to go wrong. He could finally spend somewhere other than in his cupboard, with Mrs Figg or at school. And, if it couldn't get even better, he was spending that time at an adults house that genuinely was nice to him and didn't believe the gossip Aunt Petunia passed around about him.
He spent the first part of the day in the lounge reading alongside Mr Lawrence. He had briefly peered into an open doorway with a big cork board on the wall covered in pictures, newspaper cuttings, documents and even string while trying to find the bathroom. Mr Lawrence gently guided him away from it, informing him it was work things but they were confidential, even to children. Harry figured he must be a policeman. The board looked similar to the ones in that police show Dudley liked so much.
By dinner time, the sun blazed down on Privet Drive, bathing the back garden in golden warmth, a rare haven in Harry's otherwise drab existence. Mr Lawrence stayed in the kitchen, preparing Harry some food as Harry himself went to explore the greenhouse. As he slipped inside, the air was fragrant with the scent of blooming flowers and rich soil, and Harry felt a momentary sense of peace. When he glanced back through the kitchen window, Mr. Lawrence, with a gentle smile, gestured to a glass of iced cherryade for him—a treat that made the world seem just a little brighter.
As Harry wandered a little bit deeper into the greenhouse, marvelling at the lush greenery, he suddenly caught sight of a small snake gliding silently across the floor. Startled, he jumped back, heart racing, only to trip over a stray pot. He fell backward, crashing into a glass panel with a resounding smash. The impact jolted through him, sharp and painful, as shards of glass tumbled to the ground around him.
“Oi! Watch it, you clumsy oaf!” hissed a voice from the floor, pulling Harry from his daze.
He blinked down, and there, gliding smoothly out from beneath a nearby pot, was a snake. Its scales glinted in the sunlight, a sleek pattern of greens and browns.
“You can talk?!” Harry whisper-shouted.
“Yesss, that’s right, I can talk, boy,” the snake continued, its voice smooth and sibilant, like a whisper on the wind. “Sssilly human, falling into glass like that. You could’ve hurt yourself, you know.”
Harry rubbed the back of his head, feeling the sting of embarrassment mingle with his surprise. “I... I didn’t mean to,” he stammered.
“Not much of a place for a human, is it?” the snake slithered closer, its emerald eyes glinting with mischief. “You should be careful. Not all of us are as forgiving as I am.”
Before Harry could respond, he heard Aunt Petunia's sharp voice cutting through the tranquillity of the greenhouse. “Harry! Get over here this instant!”
His heart sank as the magic of the moment shattered. He knew he had to leave, to escape the strange connection he felt with the snake and return to the Dursleys’ reality. With a reluctant glance back at the creature, he pushed himself to his feet, the weight of his world settling heavily on his shoulders as he stepped out into the glaring sunlight, leaving behind the brief thrill of something extraordinary.
Aunt Petunia hurriedly apologised over and over to Mr Lawrence as Harry was led out of the house by Uncle Vernon.
“Harry seemed to be talking to it, didn't he?” said Dudley curiously.
Uncle Vernon patiently waited until the front door to their house was closed before hitting Harry square in the jaw full force. Harry crippled to the floor and cowered away from the fist. He couldn't hold back the tears now streaming down his face as the pain radiated from the point of impact, through his teeth and around his skull. After Vernon had done with him, he was still so angry he could barely get any words out. He dragged his limp body into the cupboards and pointed at him, “Cupboard - stay - no meals,” before slamming the door and locking it securely.
That night Dudley snuck him a packet of paracetamol, the sick bowl and the portable first aid kit without a word.
Harry had lived with the Dursley’s almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as Harry could remember, since he was a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents died, though he supposed it was because he was so young. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in the cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead, radiating through his scar. This, he supposed, was the car crash, and the impact on the window that gave him the scar. Though he couldn't imagine why anyone would have green car lights. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden from asking questions about them. There were no photographs of them in the house either.
When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown, distant relation coming and taking him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes, he thought, or maybe hoped, that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking woman dressed in all green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.
At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.
That night, in an alleyway not too far from the cul-de-sac, Mr. Lawrence was taking a stroll, his thoughts swirling with the day’s strange events. He paused, glancing down at a tabby cat that had appeared almost out of nowhere. Its emerald eyes glinted in the dim light, carrying a spark of recognition that sent a shiver down his spine. As the cat approached him, the air grew thick with unspoken words. If anyone had happened to wander by at that late hour, they might have been struck by the oddity of the scene. There was an urgency in Mr. Lawrence's tone, a mix of concern and caution, as he leaned closer to the feline. The cat’s ears twitched, listening intently, and though the details remained veiled in secrecy, hints of Harry’s extraordinary ability flickered between them, along with troubling revelations about the Dursleys. In that moment, a connection sparked in the air—a silent understanding that something significant was unfolding, threading their fates together in ways yet to be revealed.