Life With The Dursleys
A black-haired man with dark eyes and a black robe walked towards me and my brother as we sat in our crib. We hugged each other as the man approached. He looked like an older version of my brother but without my brother's green eyes. "Tom," an older version of me but with red hair said as the man approached. "Dumbledore lied. They are not James' children. They are yours. Please, you have to believe me. I told you, I only wanted to spy on the Order of the Phoenix to help you and the Death Eaters win the war. I'm sorry I had to marry James but you know it's you I love. The prophecy is fake. Dumbledore made it up. Please, don't do this."
"You lie, Lily!" The man, Tom, hissed.
"Dumbledore knows Severus would tell you of the prophecy. He found out I lied about being a Mudblood. He knows my parents and my sister are Pureblood Squibs and not Muggles. He set this up! Look at Harry! He looks exactly like you apart from his eyes! And Emma's hair is the same colour as yours!"
"James' father has black hair. Harry looks like James with Charlus' hair colour. Don't try to convince me of your lies! I thought you loved me! I will kill them. You will stand aside if you value your life and our love."
"I can't. They are your heirs, Tom! They're your children. My children! I can't let you- I WON'T let you kill them!"
"Then, you have made your choice," Tom says as tears roll down his face. He points a stick of wood at Lily. "You will join your LOVING HUSBAND," he spat. "In death... And your bastard children will soon join you both. Avada Kedavra!" A green jet of light came from the stick and hit Lily. She screamed and fell to the floor. He pointed the stick at me and my brother. "Avada Kedavra!" He yelled as more tears fell. Another green jet of light came from the stick and hit us. I shot up and tried to get my breathing under control. It was just another nightmare. My brother shot up seconds later and tried to get his breathing under control too. He looked at me.
"Another nightmare, sis?"
"Yeah, you?"
"Same. Was your nightmare the same as always?" Usually, Harry and I have nightmares of getting hit with a green jet of light as we hugged each other but this time was different.
"No, but it did end the same as our usual nightmare. What about you?"
"Just the same nightmare as usual, sis," he said. I told Harry everything that happened in my nightmare. "So, James Potter isn't our father? Our mother cheated on him?"
"What it sounded like was that our mother loved someone called Tom but had to pretend she loved James to spy on something called the Order of the Phoenix to help Tom and something called Death Eaters win a war. However, she had to marry James for her cover so Dumbledore wouldn't find out but he did so he made up some sort of fake prophecy and made sure someone called Severus overheard so it got back to Tom."
"Prophecies aren't real, though," Harry said.
"Maybe they are and people always fake them so no one believes in prophecies? Clearly, this Tom guy does though. Anyway, Dumbledore found out she was lying about being something called a Mudblood and that Aunt Petunia and our grandparents were Pureblood Squibs and not Muggles- Whatever they are- And so he lied about us being James' children when we're actually Tom's."
"But she would've told everyone that we're James' kids in order to keep her cover, wouldn't she?" Harry asked.
"Probably but Tom had killed James, then killed her and tried to kill us." Aunt Petunia slammed on the door of our small cupboard a few times, unlocked the door and told us to get up before Dudley decided to jump on the stairs to wake us up. Harry picked up his broken glasses and put them on. "We'll keep talking about this later, bro." Harry nodded and opened the cupboard door before Dudley pushed him back in and slammed the door shut with his foot as he laughed. Our cupboard was really small as it was under the stairs. It had one bed which Harry and I shared and a few small shelves. There wasn't space for anything else so the small amount of clothes we have from Dudley and our shoes are under our bed. Harry and I left the cupboard.
"Oh, here he comes, the birthday boy," Aunt Petunia said.
"Happy birthday, son," Uncle Vernon said as we walked into the room. I tried not to laugh as I saw Aunt Petunia covering Dudley's face with kisses. She faced me and Harry. "Why don't you just cook the breakfast and try not to burn anything?"
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," we said and Harry grabbed the pan with the bacon. Aunt Petunia covered Dudley's eyes with her hands and guided him over to the massive pile of presents as she spoke.
"I want everything to be perfect for my Dudley's special day!" I started on the coffee.
"Hurry up!" Uncle Vernon told us as Harry walked over to him with the bacon. "Bring my coffee, girl!" Ugh. Why do they have to be such horrible people?
"Yes, Uncle Vernon." Aunt Petunia removed her hands and Dudley looked around.
"Aren't they wonderful, darling?" He faced Uncle Vernon.
"How many are there?" He asked.
"36, counted them myself," Uncle Vernon said, proud of himself. I'm just honestly surprised he can count that high.
"36!? BUT LAST YEAR..." Harry shook his head with a small sneer on his face which he quickly got rid of in case Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia saw. "LAST YEAR I HAD 37!" I rolled my eyes as Harry put the bacon on the plates and I brought the coffee over. Harry and I would be happy if we just got one decent present. And that's between the two of us!
"Well, some of them are quite a bit bigger than last year's," Uncle Vernon tried to calm his son down but he clearly doesn't know Dudley as well as he thought.
"I DON'T CARE HOW BIG THEY ARE!"
"Oh, now, now, now," Aunt Petunia said as she ducked down a little to get eye level with Dudley. "This is what we're going to do... Is that when we go out... We're going to buy you two new presents. How's that, pumpkin?" I tried really hard not to roll my eyes at Dudley's behaviour or snicker at the nickname.
...
Aunt Petunia and Dudley walked over to the car as we left the house. I can't believe Harry and I get to go to the zoo! We've never been before! "It should be a lovely day at the zoo," Aunt Petunia said as she opened the car door. "I'm really looking forward to it." She shut her door and Uncle Vernon slammed the door as Harry reached for it right after Dudley got in.
"I'm warning you both now. Any funny business, any at all, and you won't have any meals for a week," he said as he threateningly held his keys in his fist as he shook it. "Get in."
...
"Make it move," Dudley said as we stood in front of an exhibit at the zoo that had some sort of snake in it. Uncle Vernon knocked on the glass.
"Move!" He yelled. Dudley pounded on the glass.
"MOVE!"
"He's asleep!" Harry yelled.
"He's boring," Dudley sighed and the Dursleys walked away.
"Sorry about him," Harry said.
"He doesn't understand what it's like," I said.
"Lying there, day after day," Harry continued.
"Watching people press their ugly faces in on you," I finished and the snake raised its head and winked. Wait... Snakes don't have eyelids! How did it wink!? I saw Harry's eyes go wide and I know mine are too.
"Can you hear us?" We asked and the snake rose its head more. It nodded.
"It's just..." Harry said.
"We've never talked to a snake before," I said as the snake stopped rising and reached eye level with us.
"Do you... I mean, do you talk to people often?" Harry asked and the snake shook its head. This is so cool!
"You're from Burma, aren't you?"
"Was it nice there? Do you miss your family?" The snake used its head to point to a sign telling us this snake was bred in captivity.
"I see. That's us as well," I said.
"We never knew our parents either." Dudley ran over to us.
"Mummy, dad, come here!" Dudley shoved us and we fell over. "You won't believe what this snake is doing!" Dudley put his hands on the glass and I saw Harry glare at him. The glass disappeared and Dudley fell into the water in the exhibit as he made loads of weird noises. Harry and I grinned. The snake escaped the exhibit and looked at us.
"Thanks," the snake said.
"Anytime," Harry said. I glared at the exhibit and Dudley as the snake left while Harry kept his eyes on the snake. Everyone started screaming about the snake. I saw the glass reappear. Oh, this is going to be funny. Dudley stood up and went to get out but couldn't because of the glass. Harry and I grinned as he started banging on the glass and calling for his mom as Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon showed up. I quickly got the grin off my face but Harry didn't. Uncle Vernon looked over at us and saw Harry's grin. Oh, no.
...
Aunt Petunia, Dudley and I went into the house as Dudley continued to shiver wrapped in a blanket with Aunt Petunia fussing over him. Uncle Vernon came in and shoved Harry through the door. He slammed the door shut and grabbed Harry's hair in his fist. Harry was making noises of pain as Uncle Vernon talked and growled. "What happened?"
"I swear, I don't know! One minute the glass was there and then it was gone, it was like magic," Harry said. Uncle Vernon shoved Harry into the cupboard, slammed the door shut and locked the door.
"There's no such thing as magic!" He said as he shut the grate on the cupboard.
...
Harry came in with the post. He handed half the pile to Uncle Vernon and kept two letters. He gave one to me and went to open his letter. The back of my letter had a wax stamp on it that said Hogwarts and the front had 'MISS. E. POTTER,' with 'The CupboaRd under the StaiRS,' underneath it, '4, PRivet Drive,' underneath that with 'Little WhiNgiNg,' underneath and 'SURREY' at the bottom. Whoever wrote this has fucking terrible handwriting. Stick to all capitals or lowercase or even a capital at the beginning of each word but not capitals randomly in the middle of a word! It's fucking terrible grammar. It's not even all straight! The tt in 'little' is slanted and so is 'under' but the rest is straight. The r's are all capitals apart from the one in 'under'... Someone needs to give the person who wrote this letter some grammar lessons. "Oh, Marge's ill. Ate a funny whelk." I went to open my letter as Dudley grabbed mine and Harry's letters from us.
"Dad, look! Harry and Emma have letters!"
"Hey, give it back! It's mine!" We yelled as he passed them to Uncle Vernon.
"Yours?" Uncle Vernon chuckled as Aunt Petunia walked over. "Who'd be writing to you?" He looked at the front of the letters before looking at the back and his face paled. He exchanged some sort of look with Aunt Petunia. The only thing on the back was that weird Hogwarts logo. Why would that make them react like that? Do they know what Hogwarts is?
...