Year 1

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on their front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front garden and lit up the brass number four on the Dursley's front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had  been on the night when Mr.Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time has passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of picturesgg of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different colored bonnets- but Dudley Dursley wash no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blonde boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived there, too.

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 that made the first noise of the day.

"Up! Get up! Now!"

Harry woke with a start. His aunt tapped on the door again.

"Up!" She screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the prying pan being put on the stove. He carefully rolled on his back to avoid his new wounds and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. He knew it was a part of his past and that he'd seem it somewhere. Though he couldn't put a finger on it. 

His aunt was back outside the door. 

"Are you up yet?" She demanded. 

"Nearly." Said Harry. 

"Well, get a move on. I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn. I want everything perfect on Dudley's birthday."

Harry groaned. 

"What did you say?" His aunt snapped through the door. 

"Nothing, nothing..."

Dudley's birthday -how could he forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept. 

When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly what Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise- unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry, but he often couldn't catch him. Occasionally it was other petit or nerdy kids at school. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast. 

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he already was because soon he had to wear were old cloths of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobby knees, brown-ish-red-ish hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him in the nose. He had tons of scars and bruises from the past years that are usually covered up by Dudley's clothes. Except for two on his face. Regardless of the fact it came from the night his parents were murdered, the only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He didn't know where it came from or how it got there, but he had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he got it. 

"In the car crash when your parents died." She had said. Harry knew she was lying, he found out years ago. He used to believe her, up until he was five. Then he had found out what actually happened, his parents were murdered by a dark wizard named Lord Voldemort. He didn't know how he survived, nor did he care. "And don't ask questions." She had said afterward. 

Don't ask questions- that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon. 

"Comb your hair!" He barked as a morning greeting. 

About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that a Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together. But if made no difference, his hair simply grew that way- long and all over the place.

Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley 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 thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angle- Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig. 

Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there was t much room. Dudley meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell. 

"Thirty-six." He said, 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 here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."

"All-right. Thirty-seven then." Said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his little to nothing plate of food as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over. 

Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And well buy you about her two presents while we're out today. How's that sound, popkin? Two more presents. Is that alright?"

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally hdd we said slowly, "So, I'll have thirty... thirty..."

"Thirty-nine, sweetons." Said Aunt Petunia. 

"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."

Uncle Vernon chuckled.

"Little tyke wants his moneys worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair. 

At the moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. 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.Figs in the hospital, said a snake came out of nowhere when she was leaving her house and boy her ankle. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction. 

Harry bit his bottom lip to conceal his grin. He didn't know which one of them did it, but he knew it was one of his friends. They weren't friends, at least to anybody else they weren't. They were snakes and there were two of them. Their names were Onyx and Obsidian, Harry found them in the garden when he was five and named them based on their colors. They were twin pythons, which were extremely rare, and their only difference was Obsidian had a grey stomachs and Onyx had a golden one. 

Dudley's mouth fell open in horror as 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 restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs.Fig, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs.Fig made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned. 

"Now what?" Said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this. Harry knew he had, and he ought to feel sorry that Mrs.Fig had been sent to the hospital. 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 stuffy again. 

"We could phone Marge." Uncle Vernon suggested. 

"Don't he silly, Vernon, she hates the boy." Harry hated her too.

The Dursley's often spoke about Harry like this, as though he weren't there- or rather, he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug. 

"What about, what's-her-name, your friend- Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca." Snapped Aunt Petunia.

"You could just leave me here." Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even gave a go on Dudley's computer). 

Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.

"And come back and find the house in ruins?" She snarled.

"I won't blow up the house." Said Harry, but they weren't listening. 

"I suppose we can take him to the zoo." Said Aunt Petunia slowly, "...and leave him in the car."

"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone..."

Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying- it had 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 Duddydums, don't cry. Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" She cried, flinging her arms around him. 

"I... don't... want... him... t-to come!" Dudley yelled in between huge, pretend sobs. "He always spoils everything!" He shot Harry a massive grin through the gap in his mother's arms. Harry, noticing Vernon was looking away stuck his middle finger on Dudley's direction. 

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 hands behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.

Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't beehive his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dursley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.

"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up to Harry's. "I'm warning you now, boy- any funny business, anything at all- and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."

"I'm not going to do anything," said Harry, "Honestly..."

Boy Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did. 

The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen. Of course Harry knew it was his magic, he had a feeling his aunt and uncle did too. Dudley, he wasn't sure. 

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. He almost looked bald, though she made bangs, 'to hide that horrible scar.' Dudley had laughed himself silly of Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy cloths and taped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before the night Aunt Petunia shaved it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard and a beating for this, even though he had tried to explain he couldn't explain how it grew back better than before. 

Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become. Finally it might have have fitted a puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash, and to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished. 

On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's amazement, he apparited on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd  tried to do (as he showed Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. 

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs.Fig's cabbage snelling living room. 

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained I Aunt Petunia. He likened to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of them. This morning, it was motorcycles.

"...roaring along like maniacs, the younger hoodlums." He said, as a motorcycle overtook them. 

"I had a dream about a motorcycle." Said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."

Uncle Vernon nearly crashed onto the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like gigantic berg with a mustache. "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"

Dudley and Piers snickered. 

"I know they don't." Said Harry. "It was only a dream."

But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than him asking questions, it was him taking about anything acting unnatural. No matter if it was a dream of cartoon- they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas. 

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what they wanted before they could turn him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought., licking if as they watched a gorilla scratching its head. It looked remotely like Dudley, except it wasn't blond.

Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little ways apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get board with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first.

Harry felt, afterward, that he should have knows if was all to good to last.

After lunch they went to the reptile house, it was cool and dark in there, with lit windows along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone, it made him think of the garden he always tended to. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisoned Conrad 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.

"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge. 

"Do it again." Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.

"This is boating." Dudley moaned. He shuffled away, Piers followed him.

Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intensely at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself- no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visiter was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up. At least he got to visit the rest of the house sometimes.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, grey slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.

It winked.

Harry smiled at it. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, Piers, and Dudley then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite clearly.

"I get that all the time."

”I know.” Harry muttered in parseltongue through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It's quite annoying."

The snake nodded vigorously.

"Where did you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

"Was it nice to there."

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on. 'This specimen was bred in the zoo.'

"Oh, I see. What's your name?"

As the snake opened its mouth, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR.DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley came waddling toward them as fast he could. -A/N: Then he waddled away, waddle, waddle... then he waddled away waddle, waddle-

"Out of the way, you." He said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. I'm a moment of rage he moved his hand in a motion to scratch his nose and the glass from the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits. 

As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "It's Nagini. Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigo." It took a moment for Harry to realize the snakes name was Nagini and she was answering his earlier question.

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

"But the glass." He kept saying, "Where did the glass go."

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen; the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heads as it passed, but by he time they were back in Uncle Venom's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg. Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you Harry?"

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could barely speak. He managed to say, "Go- cupboard- stay- no meals," before he collapsed onto a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, casting a quick 'tempus' to check the time. It wasn't that late, and he couldn't tell if the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking into the kitchen for some food.

He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died Halloween, 1981. He couldn't remember being there when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision. A blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was that night, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.

When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened, the Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Harry thought those were wizards and they knew him because he was their supposed 'hero.' Once, 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 of the shop without buying anything. Another time, a wild-looking old woman dressed in all green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple cloak had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weird thing about all these people was that they vanished when Harry tried to get a second look. 

At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old cloths and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.