Zoo
Harry was having a wonderful dream, a dream of Hogwarts, he was flying amongst the many owls who lived in the castle, circling the high towers in big motions, his wings gliding over the breeze, only scandly flapping to keep height. His eyes were focused far below him, in one of tha gardens where a rather squishy mouse was hiding. Sure that it couldn’t run any longer, he dove down, his claws outstretched for the rat, gripping it tightly and rising back into the air. The mouse squealed in fear, but he didn’t care, he only wanted to bring it back to his roost. He flew higher and higher, till he was in the owlery, where a big wolf waited for him. He threw the rat at the wolf and it, with its mighty jaw ripped the little thing apart. There was a click and the door opened. The wolf left the owlery with Harry on his shoulders, proudly parading the rat’s corpse. They showed it to a big, flaming hot phoenix, then to a sloth. The wolf carried Harry off to a large burrow, where the wolf fell and opened its maw. From it came a shrill voice, “Wake up, Boy. You’ll miss breakfast!”
Harry was torn away from his dream by Aunt Petunia’s voice. She stood above him, greasy spatula in hand, “You know what today is, right?”
He had to blink the sleep out of his eyes, slowly remembering, “‘course I do”, today was Dudley’s eleventh birthday, which they would be spending at the zoo. His cousin didn’t talk about anything else these past few weeks, practically bouncing up and down the house, blabbering about how great the zoo is and what animals he wanted to see. High on that list were the constrictor snakes. Dudley had always loved dangerous animals but snakes had become his favorites ever since they discovered that Harry could talk to them. Not that Harry was annoyed or anything, Snakes were very fun to talk to. Since they didn’t know many of the human words, they made them up, a refrigerator would be a ‘snack keep’ or a window would be a ‘air brick’, it was very funny.
“And at least try not to stand out will you?”, Petunia pleaded, rubbing her temples.
“No promises”, was his reply
Seemingly satisfied by his response -either that or supremely annoyed-, she left to go downstairs and Harry followed soon, only slowed down by the necessity of changing out of his pajamas first. He wore a nice, white shirt and deep blue jeans, with a few patches stitched on that didn’t quite match the color.
Downstairs, he was met with a mountain's worth of presents, all stacked onto the table, though some had fallen off. Most of them were still wrapped but he could guess what a few of them were, a nice bicycle, a new TV -he’d broken his old one back when Harry was still in Hogwarts-, new video games and probably a whole lot of sweets. Dudley had a sweet tooth and a big one at that. He wasn’t fat like Vernon but he was a bit chubby for his age.
Dudley was happily eating his breakfast whilst opening presents left and right. On Harry’s plate there were sausages, mashed potatoes, scrambled eggs and a bit of fish, “thanks”, he told his aunt and dug into the food. It wasn’t as good as the hogwarts feasts but it was still very tasty, all things considered.
“Mornin’ Harry”, Dudley said through his full mouth. He gave an acknowledging nod, “Get everything you wanted?”
“Blimey, yes”, his cousin smiled wide, cheek to cheek, “all I wanted and a bit more. Now all that’s left is my letter”
Harry cringed upon hearing that. Dudley was, in all likelyhood a muggle, which meant he wouldn’t get a letter from Hogwarts but Harry couldn’t bring himnself to burst his bubble. He’d hoped his aunt and uncle would do that but they feigned ignorance to Dudley’s wish to be a wizard too. In silence he cringed and continued to eat his food, which he soon found gone from his plate and his stomach very full.
A telephone rang, which petunia got up to answer. A quick minute of conversation later, she come to them with the bad news that Pierce Palkins, Dudleys friend, couldn’t make it to the zoo because he got sick. Dudley didn’t seem all too fazed though, simply continuing to unwrap his presents in giddy silence. Soon he was done and they were ready to drive to the zoo, Vernon and Petunia at the front of the Vauxhall and him with his cousin on the backseats. Vernon complained about one thing or another every few minutes. That man could win a medal with his constant stream of complains, directed at just about anyone or anything.
At the zoo, Vernon split off from them to get each of them an icecream cone. Harry got a strawbarry one and Dudley got nuts.
The Zoo was nice, the weather pleasent. Harry was largely left to his own devises, as long as he kept within earshot and or sight, so he went to explore a little. They walked by the lions, tigers, apes and others, Dudley pointing out the biggest of each one and what they liked to eat with childhood-glee. They later ate at the zoo restaurant, each of them eating at lest one burger, with Vernon being the one who ate the most with five burgers. The reptiles were next on the agenda and Dudley begged Harry to talk with the snakes, which he readily did.
“Hello there”, he welcomed a small but venomous viper with bright orange scales.
“The soft-scaled one speaks?”, it hissed out in an amused tone, “Well hello there mage hatchling, what do you seek”
“Just wanted to see how you are doing”, he shrugged.
“Oh, I am doing fantastic, the other soft-scales keep me safe, they feed me, give me a warm stone to lie on, I can’t complain”, it chuckled.
“The viper says it likes being here”, Harry told his cousin, who was staring at him with wonderous eyes, practically vibratin in excitement, dragged him to the next exhibid, this one of a large Boa Constrictor.
“Do it again, do it again”, he chanted.
“Sure, sure”, chuckled Harry before turning to the boa and, in parseltounge, asking it if it was well.
“I am lonely squishy speaker”, it drawled on,”lonely and bored. I want an adventure but they keep me here”
“I’m sorry to here that. He is bored”
“Really? It’s amazing how you do that, like Sehe si seh sä”, Dudley made hissing noises, trying to imitate Parseltounge, failing misarably, “can you teach me?”
“Sorry but you have to be born with the ability to do that”
“Aw”, he looked away dejectedly