The Boy Who Hid

Chapter Two

A TEN YEAR OLD BOY eyes shot to the door of his cupboard as he heard the shrill shrieks of his aunt. His aunt never liked him or his older twin brother, Harry, the boy had assumed that it has something to do with her never liking their mother. But he had never paid it any mind, he kept his head down and did what he was told. But that didn't mean he would blindly follow the rules, he never liked rules much. He thought of them as guidelines more than rules anyway.

"Up! Get up! Now!" she shrieked as her hand rapped on the door of their cupboard. He and his brother had grown up in the cupboard their whole life, they should have had the smaller spare bedroom. But that was used to keep their cousin Dudley's spare toys that would not fit in his original room. There were four rooms in the Dursley household. One for Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, two for Dudley, and a guest room. The guest room was usually used by Marge Dursley, their uncle's sister. Usually when Marge showed up it was a punishment that was sent from the deepest darkest parts of hel. Marge hated the two boys and had no trouble tormenting them during her stays. "Up!" Aunt Petunia screeched. This time Harry awoke with a start, reaching around for his glasses and sliding them on. Harry had smiled at his younger brother as a morning's greeting, and mouthed "Morning, Tom,". Tom was not the boy's full name, it was Thomas. He disliked people messing with his names with 'Tom' or 'Tommy' but since it was his brother he allowed it.

"Are you up yet?" Aunt Petunia asked harshly.

"Nearly," Harry answered.

"Well get a move on. I want you to look after the bacon, and don't you dare let it burn. I want everything to be perfect for Duddy's birthday. And have your brother make sure the coffee is good, understand?" she commanded them. Harry groaned, while Thomas placed his head in his hands. He would really rather not give a shit about his fat, spoiled, annoying oaf of a cousin. But he would keep his mouth shut and do as he was told. "What did you say?" their aunt snapped through the door.

"Nothing, nothing..." the sound of their aunt's heels strutting to the kitchen filed through the air. Thomas sighed, and learned back against the cupboard wall. Harry was looking for a pair of socks, finding a pair and then pulling a spider from them. The cupboard was full of them and that was where they slept. When Harry was dressed they made their way out of the cupboard and into the living room. Thomas raised his eyebrows in annoyance as he saw the amount of presents that almost hit the table from view. And here he thought that Dudley had everything an eleven year old could ever want. Dudley was five weeks older than the twins, which might have been the reason that there were so many squabbles between the youngest three members of the Dursley household. From what Thomas could tell Dudley had gotten the new computer and TV set, and surprisingly a racing bike. Dudley was very fat and hated exercise, which made Thomas curious why he would want a racing bike in the first place. But he does like punching people, Harry, to be exact it was part of why his round glasses were held together with a whole lot of Scotch tape. Thomas was able to avoid getting punched by Dudley because he was barely in the house in the first place. The neighbors would hire him to work on their yards, babysit their kids, or walk dogs. That gave him enough money to get himself a nice pair of glasses. They were grey Lunar ll from Blink Optical.

Harry was fast. Dudley and his gang couldn't catch him often. Maybe it was because he was in a cupboard his whole life and was so thin and scrawny. But he looked thinner and scrawnier than he actually was because he was forced to wear Dudley's old clothes. And Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. The only thing that Harry liked about his appearance was a thin lightning shaped scar on his forehead. Sometimes when they were bored they would come up with bizarre stories on how he had gotten it. But whenever Harry asked, it was a car crash that had taken their parents from them when they were about a year old. Then promptly scolding him for asking questions. No questions was probably one of the biggest rules with a quiet life with the Dursleys. The other was not to embarrass them in public.