The vanishing glass
Just over nine years ago, the Dursleys found themselves in the care of a baby they hadn't wanted in the slightest, but Privet Drive had hardly changed. The sun rose tiredly on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door, as it always had everyday. It crept into their living room, which was nearly the exact same as it was when Mr Dursley watched the news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantle of number four had changed; Ten years ago, there was a number of pictures with a baby boy that looked more like a pink beach ball wearing all different colours of bonnets, but now, the photographs showed the same boy, though much older; Riding a bike, or on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother.
Not a single picture showed a thing of the other child in the house.
Harry Potter, as many called him, still lived with the Dursleys. But very quietly. At the moment, he slept still in his makeshift bed. This boy slept in the cupboard underneath the staircase. Dudley, of course, slept in a real room, as he loved to brag about. But meanwhile, his Aunt Petunia was awake, and it was her loud, shrilly voice that was the first noise of the day.
"Up! Get up! Now!"
Harry woke with an abrupt start, his head just narrowly missing the wooden beam above him. His aunt rapped on the door again, and before she could screech again, "I'm up!" He said, closely followed by a yawn. It was only moments like these that he chose to speak. To him, there was no reason to speak if nobody cared to listen. He'd rather sit down in a corner and read a long book.
"Well, hurry up! I need you to watch this bacon," His aunt said, and he heard the sound of her heels clacking away from his room on the hard floor and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove.
How she could even wear heels so early in the morning, he wondered, for maybe years now, or however long she'd been doing it, but he stayed silent. He tried to remember the dream he was having before it got too far away from him; It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. He had the suspicion(a word the librarian taught him) he'd had the dream before. He dreamt a lot about motorcycles.
But he wouldn't dare say anything about it. He slowly moved off his bed and started searching for socks. He found a pair underneath his tiny mattress and, after pulling off the legs of the spider sat on one of them, put them on. It was his sock to begin with, just who did the spider think it was? It ought to have learned from the others who'd suffered the same punishment. He had to take care of the spiders and bugs one way or another, and the cupboard was full of them. He said something, once, to Aunt Petunia, before he learnt how stupid it was to speak, but she had only scolded him and told him off. He supposed she liked spiders less than he.
He peeked his head out the door of his little room, only to be knocked back in by a running Dudley. "Move, Potter!" The boy shrieked, waddling towards the living room. But Harry, having learnt long ago it was better to not say anything, just stood back up and went to go make sure the bacon hadn't already burnt.
When he walked in the kitchen, he had almost a horrid(a word from some book he read once) realisation; Today was Dudley's birthday. The table was almost hidden underneath all the presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, because he couldn't even stay sat on it half the time and hated exercise with a passion-- unless it included punching someone. Dudley's favourite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.
Perhaps it had something to do with how he lived in a tight little cupboard, but Harry had always been a small and skinny boy. In comparison to Dudley, who could be presented as the twin of a pig, he looked younger than he ought to, as his teacher's said. He looked even smaller with the large, worn-out clothes that Dudley couldn't fit into anymore. Harry had a small face, ears with bit of a point that didn't look right, knobby knees, black hair that was much straighter than it should've been, and bright, odd-looking eyes- one was green, and the other was an orangish kind of brown-- and even worse, his pupils were anything but normal. They were shaped sort of like a diamond-- he hated them alone more than the fact his eyes were different colours. He wore round glasses that were more scotch tape than glasses because of how many times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only truly odd thing about Harry's appearance besides his eyes or his ears was a thin scar that spread the length of his entire forehead, like a bolt of lightning, or like lines stretching from a single spot.
He hated it with a burning passion. He must've had it for forever, and even the first question he could ever remember asking Aunt Petunia was how he'd gotten it.
"In the car crash when your parents died," she always said. "and don't ask questions."
That was one of the many rules the Dursleys had for him. Don't ask questions. Questions weren't to be asked by kids like him.
Petunia turned off the stove, and handed him the pan. "Set up the food the way my Duddy likes it," She said.
Harry nodded, placing the bacon beside the bowl of sugary cereal Dudley always ate, and a cup of orange juice. When he placed the plate with the others, he moved back to the stove, where the bacon was starting to crisp a bit too much. He set that aside for himself. Dudley hated when he could see how much his bacon cooked.
"Comb your hair, boy!" Uncle Vernon barked, as if some form of morning greeting, and Harry tried to not say anything, nodding. It wasn't anything new to hear, because every week or so, Vernon complained about how Harry's wild hair needed a comb or brush put to it, or how he needed a haircut. Yet he must've had more than everyone else in his class combined; Whenever anyone tried to cut his hair, it just grew back, almost always a little longer.
By the time Dudley finally came to the kitchen, Harry was frying the eggs. He looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, no much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that laid smoothly upon his thick, fat head. Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel; The voices often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig, and Harry agreed.
Harry set the plates of egg and bacon on the table, trying not to move around too many of the presents, which Dudley was busy counting. By time Harry had moved back to the stove to get his own plate, Dudley's face had fallen from a great smile to an even greater frown.
"Thirty-six," He said lowly, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."
"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's right here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."
"Alright, thirty-seven, then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry scarfed down his bacon and scrambled to get the plates off the table, fearing that Dudley was going to have a complete temper tantrum, which he learned was very bad for the plates, and therefore, very bad for him.
Petunia seemed to have sensed the danger too, because she quickly said, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents! Is that alright?"
Dudley thought for a moment. It looked as though he were trying to figure out something very hard, but Harry already knew; Thirty-nine presents. Dudley, however, had yet to put two and thirty-seven together.
"So I'll have thirty... thirty..."
"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Petunia.
"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel, still frowning. "Alright then."
Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair, who shrugged him off and continued unwrapping.
At that moment, the telephone rang and Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Vernon, one of them much less entertained than the other, watched as Dudley unwrapped the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off what was obviously a gold wristwatch when Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.
"Vernon," She muttered. "Bad- bad news. Mrs Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She said, pointing at Harry with a thin finger.
Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, and he threw the wristwatch aside. Every year on his birthday, he got to go to amusement parks, and movies and such, while Harry had stayed with Mrs Figg, an elderly lady two streets down. He hated it there. It always smelled of cabbage, the scent reeked on him for so long he ought to have bathed in it, and there were so many cats, and even more photos of them. He almost thought he'd had an allergy to cats, with how he always sneezed his head off whenever one propped itself on his lap, or just anywhere near him, honestly. And then he'd be sneezing for days afterward because the fur got stuck in his hair or in his clothes. He couldn't bare it, but he preferred it over spending time with Dudley that when didn't need to.
"Now what? He can't come with us." Petunia said, glaring at Harry, as if she thought it were all his fault. He knew he ought to feel a bit bad for Mrs Figg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself that it'd be a good long while before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr Paws, and Tufty again. Not easy at all.
"We could phone Marge." Vernon insisted, but Petunia quickly shook her head. "Don't be silly, Vernon! She hates the boy!"
As if she'd be the one suffering. But when he caught himself thinking that, Harry eventually decided it'd be better to finish eating than to pay them much mind. They had always spoke of him like he wasn't there, or like he couldn't understand them.
"What about your friend? What's-her-name, Yvonne?" Vernon suggested.
"On vacation over in Greenland," Petunia replied.
"You could leave me here." Harry chimed in. It wasn't his idea, of course-- the voices suggested it. He'd never dare think of something so stupid, but he figured it was worth the chance.
Petunia scoffed. "And come back to a house in shambles–"
"I won't blow up the house." He promised, but the look on their faces was enough for him to know they didn't believe him. He returned to staring at his plate and pretended he'd not said a word. Perhaps the voices had it out for him today. If they ever didn't, that is.
"I suppose we could take him to the zoo... And leave him in the car.." Petunia said. Vernon grumbled out a response. "He can't stay in the car, it's new."
When Dudley realised there was a high probability he'd have to be with Harry the whole day, he cried. And loudly. It was all fake, however; He hadn't actually cried in years. But he knew he'd get whatever he wanted if he screwed up his face and wailed, so he did just that; Whined and complained about how Harry always ruined everything.
"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry- Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" Petunia cried, flinging her arms around where his neck ought to be.
"I-- don't-- I don't-- want him-- to-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He-- always-- sp-sp-spoils everything!" He sent a nasty grin to Harry from within her arms. But just as, the doorbell rang, and Petunia shrieked a high-pitched "They're here!" and ran to get the door. Moments later, Piers Polkiss and his mother stood in the doorway of the kitchen, wishing Dudley a happy birthday.
Piers was a scrawny boy with a face resembling that of a rat's. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.
Harry stared at the floor and tried his best to not listen. He could pretend he really didn't care, but in his head, he couldn't ignore the voices, droning on and on that he never get the luxury of hearing those words said to him. But he always got presents, as he reminded himself, sent by some mystery person. He'd take presents over a happy birthday, because he could always say it to himself. He ignored the remainder of the stinging pain in his chest and tried to think of the plot of his recently attained novel that he'd absolutelynot stolen when the librarian wasn't looking. He'd had a bit of trouble really understanding it, but he couldn't ask for help. Not that he wasn't supposed to have the book, of course... but he doubted she'd miss it... if he had stolen it...
However, half an hour later, Harry had been staring out the backseat window of Vernon's new car, with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time ever in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn't thought of anything else to do with him, but before they left, he had been pulled to the side by Vernon--
"I'm warning you," He said, putting his large face, which was starting to look a bit purplish, very close to Harry's, "Any funny business, any at all, and you'll be in your cupboard until Christmas."
Quietly, Harry nodded, but that earned him a very hard slap on the face. Vernon obviously didn't believe him; But, no one ever did. So many things just didn't make sense around him, and what was he supposed to do, other than be silent? Nobody in the house particularly liked to hear his voice, especially when something strange had happened and the Dursleys believed he the one who caused it; Telling them that he didn't had never ended well.
Once, Petunia, very tired of Harry returning 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 that he was nearly bald, and only his bangs remained, which she'd left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who'd been terribly restless, afraid to think of school the next day, where he was already bullied ridiculously for his baggy clothes and the way he dragged his feet when he walked and his broken glasses. The next morning, however, he had gotten up to go brush his teeth when he found his hair exactly as it was before it had been cut. He'd gotten a week in the cupboard for this, even though he tried to explain that he hadn't done anything.
Another time, Petunia had been trying very, very hard to force him into an old revolting sweater of Dudley's- brown with orange puff balls that could've been made into pom-poms; The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the more it seemed to shrink, until it had gotten to the point that it would've perfectly fit a hand puppet, but Harry was certainly not that tiny. Petunia decided it must have shrunk in the wash, and, to his surprise and relief, he hadn't been punished for it.
On the other hand, he had been punished incredibly harshly when he was found on the roof of the primary school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual, when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, he suddenly found himself laying flat on the chimney. The Dursleys received a very angry letter from the headmistress that Harry had been climbing school buildings. By then, he was old enough to know that his words meant nothing whenever he said them, so he was incredibly quiet as Vernon locked the doors to his cupboard. But he didn't try to accidentally end up on the roof, obviously- he was only trying to jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors and had tripped. Harry supposed that he must've forgotten some things and that Dudley's gang had gotten their hands on him and he'd been hit so hard that he'd lost bits of his memory, or that he hit his head when they threw him up on the roof and that was what had done it.
But today, he was sure nothing was going to go wrong. He hadn't planned on causing any trouble, as he never did, and there was very little that would be able to cause trouble for him at the zoo. Even if he must spend the day with Dudley and Piers somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs Figg's cabbage-smelling living room, then it was worth it.
While he drove, Vernon complained to Petunia with a great annoyance in his tone. He liked to complain about things: People at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, Harry, and strangers on the street were just a few of his favourite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.
"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle passed the car. Harry thought of a dream he had a few times; A motorcycle flying over all of Surrey, but he still kept quiet. He thought he liked motorcycles, quite a lot, as if he'd been on one before, or something-- but he wouldn't dare say that, either. If the Dursleys hated anything more than him as a human being, it was undoubtedly whenever he brought up anything unrealistic, anything they didn't like, or asked any questions. He knew much, much better than to speak, especially of a dream or even a cartoon. They seemed to think he'd get dangerous if things got too unbelievable.
When they finally reached the zoo, it was raining quite hard outside, which had caused Dudley to go into a horrible tantrum, so he and Piers had gotten large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van asked Harry what he wanted before the Dursleys could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap chocolate ice pop. It wasn't bad, and he was definitely thinking he liked chocolate, as they watched a gorilla scratching its head that looked remarkably like Dudley, save for the fact it was not blond.
It was very possibly the best morning he'd had in a long time. Harry was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored of the animals by lunch, not start hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had yet another tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first because Piers didn't want it.
Harry should've known that it was all too good to last.
After lunch, they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the class, all sorts of lizards and snakes that Harry had only seen in books were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see some huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley very quickly found the meanest-looking snake in the place. The snake probably could've wrapped itself around Dudley perhaps twice and crushed his insides, but at the moment, it didn't look like it'd even bother with such. It was fast asleep, much to the disdain of Dudley.
He pressed his face against the glass, starting at the glistening brown coils.
"Make it move," He whined at his father. Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.
"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Vernon rapped on the glass very sharply with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.
"This is boring," Dudley muttered, as he grumpily walked off to find the biggest snake he could. Harry moved to where Dudley stood; He wouldn't be surprised if the snake had died of boredom. No company but stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass, trying to disturb it all day long. It must've been worse than even being confined within the cupboard, where the only visitor were bugs that needed to be taught manners and a mean aunt Petunia hammering on the door to have you woken up.
But suddenly, the snake's beady eyes opened. Slowly, it raised itself until it was on eye level with Harry. It was glinting with what looked like fascination for a moment, but then opened its eyes all the way and...
And Harry could've sworn it winked.
Harry stared, shocked. He took a quick glance around to see if anyone was looking; Nobody was. Hesitantly, he looked back at the snake and winked too. The snake jerked it's head towards Vernon and Dudley, and with the flick of it's tongue, he nearly thought it spoke. "I get that all the time."
Harry nodded, shaking off the suspicion. "I know. It must be annoying. People always disturbing you. And sorry about them. They're mean."
The snake nodded vigorously.
"Where do you come from, anyway?"
The snake's tail pointed at a sign;
'Boa Constrictor, Brazil. This specimen was bred in the zoo.'
Harry hummed.
"I don't get why it says Brazil but then says you've been born here. I'd like to go to Brazil too. I'd take you with me, if I could." He said, before a deafening scream came from behind him that made both him and the snake jump.
"DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!" Piers screamed loudly. Dudley waddled over, holding much more resemblance to a penguin than Harry'd like to admit, "Out of the way, you!" He said, pushing Harry with a sharp punch to the ribs. He fell to the ground with a painful thud. What happened after, seemed so quick that you'd have to see the world twenty times slower to fully know what had happened; One second, Dudley and Piers had their noses pressed at the glass, and the next, they backed up with screams and shrieks. Harry felt around for his glasses for almost half a minute, before he finally found them.
And the boa constrictor had been right before him, staring. He heard a low hiss in his ears; "Thanksss, amigo..." The snake said, swooping underneath his arm slickly, and curling around his waist four or five times. "I'llssstay withyouforawhile."
Harry found himself too shocked by the idea of having a friend to deny, and a bit afraid too. If he even wanted to, he couldn't pull open snakes like he did bugs. Especially not snakes larger than he and with pointy fangs sharper than the beaks of the birds in the backyard. And he didn't want to, honestly.
The keeper of the reptile house stood behind him, just as shocked.
"But the glass... and he's not.... Where did..?" He kept muttering. He inched towards Harry, motioning for him to stay calm, but he couldn't even get near without getting hissed at, fangs being flashed in his direction. "Kid, you can't-- you can't keep that snake, he-- he could eat any house pet you have, and-- and he's a boa constrictor! There'd be nowhere for him to go!" He tried.
Harry shrugged, petting the snake's small head with his finger. His ear twitched when he got a hiss of appreciation. Appreciation! It felt nicer than he ever would've thought, coming from a friend. And having a friend, too!
The zoo director himself made Petunia a strong cup of tea, a check with a surprising number of zeros, and Harry received a long talking-to as to how to raise a snake, as well as a grand number of apologies to all of them. Piers and Dudley went on and on about how the snake almost bit one of their legs off, or wanted squeezed the life out of them. Though it was very untrue; His new pet snake-- which Harry chose to name Hydrus after a constellation he had read in a book once-- had only playfully snapped at their heels as he passed them. The two kept up the story all the way till the time they calmed down, which was undeniably a while. And unfortunately, Piers had calmed down a little too much.
"Harry was talking to the snake before the glass disappeared, wasn't he?-- Weren't you, Harry? And you're keeping it too!"
Harry shook his head and tried his best to deny it, but he already knew Vernon made up his mind. It was already his fault, and this only just made him look worse. By the time Piers was safely out the house, Vernon snapped.
"Go-- cupboard-- no meals," He barely yelled, falling back into a chair. He could hear how Petunia practically ran to get him a brandy as Harry struggled to move stuff in his makeshift room to make space for Hydrus. Later, he genuinely wished he had been quick enough to grab Dudley's old watch before he tossed it aside for the new one he got today. Of course, not like the Dursleys would notice him walking around the house as long as he kept quiet and crept low,
but Vernon of all people would spot the fridge opening, even if drunk.
Harry had lived with the Dursleys for almost ten years; A very torturous ten years-- or, rather, as long as he could remember, ever since his parents died in that car crash. It gave him the very scar that he loathed so; the one that looked heavily like his veins were outlined, a faint white that stood out heavily against that of his skin tone that let you know it was a scar. Yet the thing was, he couldn't ever remember a long car ride that matched the one the Dursleys always told him about, even if he strained his memory to the point that he gave himself a headache. What he did remember when he did such; a blinding flash of green, a deafening scream that he could only assume belonged to his mother, and a burning pain on his forehead. He could imagine what all of these were. Or, he could assume.
The red light, followed by a bright green one-- most likely the stoplight before another car crashed into them, the scream, and the pain, very obviously the scar. That was what he got whenever he tried to think of his parents. The red-to-green lights, the scream, and the pain. He had no recollection of any real memories with them, their faces. He could remember things, of course, but he couldn't ever be sure. Loud laughter that reminded him of dogs barking because their owners had left them outside for the night- a scarred, smiling face- a pair of small, watering eyes that looked struck with grief- then two people, who he remembered the most- one with long, a dark red kind of hair, and the other with large glasses over shining, dark brown eyes. But he couldn't ever put a real face to any of them that he recognised in particular-- no names, no memories he could explicitly think of.
Maybe he'd just need to try harder and remember, the voices said. But how could he, when he couldn't even imagine the crash, because there wasn't a single picture of neither his father or his mother anywhere he could find. He always hoped that some distant relative would find him, one with pictures of his parents, or whoever else he'd remembered, or that the person sending gifts would finally come get him, or strangers in the street would take enough pity on him to take him from here. It seemed, at times, that strangers seemed to know him; And what odd strangers they were.
Once, a tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him while he was out shopping with Petunia and Dudley. After asking him furiously if he knew the man, Petunia rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. Another time, a wild-looking elderly woman dressed in a sharp, pukish green had waved merrily at him on a bus. A bald man with the longest pair of ears he'd ever seen in a very long purple coat had shaken his hand in the street just the other day and then walked off without a word.
The weirdest thing about these people was the way they all seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.
At school, he had no one. Everyone knew better than to disagree with Dudley's gang, and even then, they hated Harry Potter with the baggy clothes and the broken glasses and dark skin. And if the day he'd consider the Dursley's house a safe place to be would be the day he'd really found somewhere worse, if it were even possible. His life was not an admirable life to live. At all. But, then again, he lived through it all every single day, didn't he? And he would live through another.