Dudley's Birthday 1991
The sun rose over the street of cookie cutter houses that made up Privet Drive, Surrey. If you had been here a decade ago, it would have looked much the same. It isn’t an area one would expect anything strange of.
Number four in particular is home to a family of perfectly normal individuals, or so you would think at first glance. Were you to enter number four you would think it home to three perfectly normal individuals, but there is a fourth resident in that Surrey home. This resident wouldn’t agree with you though. To the ten-year-old child, Privet Drive, number four in particular, is a prison, not a home. It never has been home to the child.
As of now, the child is asleep, not for long though. His Aunt Petunia was awake, and her shrieking voice that could never seem to stop attempting to mimic a dog whistle is always the first thing he hears in a day.
“Up! Get up! Now!”
The boy, Harry Potter, wakes immediately as his aunt rapps on the door again.
"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. Well, he says dream, but he is peripherally aware that it is likely a memory.
His aunt had returned to his 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 my Duddy’s birthday.”
Harry groaned quietly.
“What did you say?” his aunt snapped, having heard him.
“Nothing Aunt Petunia.”
June 23rd, Dudley’s birthday, difficult to forget his scheduled misery. Harry rolled off of the crib mattress he had been sleeping on since he was left on the Dursleys’ doorstep and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Spiders were something he had become accustomed to, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.
Fully dressed, he made his way down the hall to the kitchen. The table was almost completely buried underneath the mountain of gifts Dudley had received for his birthday. Based on the shapes of the packages, Dudley received the new computer, second television, and racing bike he had wanted. The reason why Dudley wanted a racing bike was an absolute mystery, as Dudley was clearly on his way to a heart attack and hated exercise —unless it involved punching someone. Dudley’s favorite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn’t often catch him. Harry didn’t look it, but he was very fast.
His life in the cupboard coupled with the Dursley’s meant that he was rather small and skinny for his age, clearly malnourished. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he already was, because all he had to wear were Dudley’s outgrown clothing. Considering how much larger Dudley was than the average child, it was little wonder that Harry could practically swim in the clothing. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of scotch tape, because of the many times Dudley had punched him in the face. There was a thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it since his parents were killed. He had asked his aunt about it before, but she said that he had received it in the car crash when his parents died. His sparse memories conflicting with the statement and his aunt’s clear jealousy made him doubt the answer.
As Harry flipped the incredibly greasy bacon, Uncle Vernon waddled into the kitchen. “Comb your hair!” he barked, by way of a morning greeting.
Around once a week, his uncle demanded Harry get a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair just grew all over the place.
Harry had moved on to the eggs by the time Dudley entered the kitchen with Aunt Petunia. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon with a large, pink face; not much neck; small, watery, blue eyes; and thick blonde hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often says that Dudley looked like a baby angel — Harry often says that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.
Harry set the plates of egg and bacon on the table with difficulty resulting from the lack of room. Dudley was counting his presents, and 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 Mommy 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 bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.
Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? 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 thirty ... thirty..."
"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said 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 ruffled Dudley's hair.
As Uncle Vernon removed his hand, the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it. Dudley tore into his pile of presents; he was ripping the paper off of a wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back looking both angry and concerned.
“Bad news, Vernon,” she said. “Mrs. Figg’s broken her leg. She can’t take him.” She jerked her head in Harry’s direction.
Dudley’s mouth fell open in horror, and Harry was conflicted. Every year on Dudley’s birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, a hamburger restaurant, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry wasn’t sure how to feel about the place. The house smelled of cabbage, but there were a bunch of adorable things that looked like cats but definitely were not cats. Mrs. Figg spent the entire time making him look at pictures of all the not-cats she had ever owned. He was excited that he may get to go with his relatives, but he felt guilty for being happy.
“Now what?” said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he’d planned this.
“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 were something very nasty that couldn’t understand them.
“What about what’s-her-name, your friend — Yvonne?”
“On vacation in Majorca,” snapped Aunt Petunia
"I suppose we could 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...."
Noticing that Harry might get to come, Dudley quickly began to fake cry, knowing that his mother would give him anything he wanted if he did.
“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-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp- spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.
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 rather rat-like boy with a rat-like personality. He typically held people’s arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.
Less than an hour later, Harry was sitting in the Dursley’s car, 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 close 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..
But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.
The problem was, strange things often happen around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen. It was a lie of course; he wasn’t stupid. He could remember people doing similar things from before his parents died.
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 bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten 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 for this.
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, until finally it might have fitted a hand 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 surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting 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 shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. He genuinely had no idea how that one had happened.
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. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room.
While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.
"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.
Harry thought about mentioning his dream from the night before, but he knew very well that his uncle might have a coronary.
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 he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.
It was the best day he’d had since he was able to get the school to send home fake report cards, so he would be able to do his best on schoolwork. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys to prevent Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored of the animals by lunchtime, from falling back on their favorite pastime of hitting him.
Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.
After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras 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 boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.
Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently 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.
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.
It winked.
Harry stared, beyond confused. Didn’t snakes lack eyelids? 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 and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:
"I get that all the time.”
"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, realizing that it was because he could speak parseltongue. He had met several grass snakes while gardening. "It must be really annoying."
The snake nodded vigorously.
"Where do 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.
This specimen was bred in the zoo.
“It’s too bad you’ve never been to Brazil; I’ve never been either, but I imagine it’s nice.”
As the snake shook its head, 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 as he could.
"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened -- one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.
Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of 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 heard a low, hissing voice say, "Brazil, here I come.... Thanksss, amigo."
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 heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while 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 hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go -- cupboard -- stay -- no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.
Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.
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 (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 of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day 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. He figured they were probably like him and his parents, but he was unsure about how they knew him.
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.