HOGWARTS MYSTERY! (Jess's POV)

The Scar and the Glasses

Saturday 23rd June 1991

I woke up with a start as a huge amount of dust fell from the top of the cupboard. I saw Harry wake up too and we both let out a loud groan.

Dudley.

Our annoying little brat of a cousin Dudley. He always liked to jump up and down on the fifth step of the stairs just above our little cupboard we shared. Harry quickly bolted the door before Dudley came crashing into it attempting to scare us. We heard a loud bang on the door and we whispered, "Score!".

"Oh my little Dudleykins! What happened my poor angel?!" we heard the muffled voice of Aunt Petunia shrieking just outside the door. Harry made me laugh as he pulled a face and said in a baby voice "I'm little Dudleykins! La La La!" We giggled together until soon it ended when Aunt Petunia came crashing through the door, grabbed us by the scruff of our necks and shoved us into the kitchen where Uncle Vernon was already waiting. He, with eyes narrowed, did the action of a finger cutting his throat. We both gulped and looked at each other in horror.

Although then I remembered, it was Dudley's birthday and that meant we were going somewhere and we never went anywhere. Every year on Dudley's birthday we would go someplace different and Uncle Vernon had to take us as once before we had tried to run away but sadly failed. They couldn't hurt us, it would look bad in front of the neighbours. Uncle Vernon hated looking bad in front of the neighbours. I whispered this to Harry and he grinned.

Seeing a smile come to both of our faces, Uncle Vernon smacked us each once and told us to make breakfast as if he knew what we were thinking. Harry and I were shoved over to the kitchen cupboards so we quickly started to rummage through the drawers. Harry thought he found some form of cereal that wasn't out of date and didn't have mould, "Hey Jess, are these cornflakes? Oh no! Are you okay?"
"Yeh I'm fine it's just that Uncle Vernon hit me hard on my scar!" I said, my hand rubbing my forehead where my lightning bolt scar ached in pain.

It had been there as long as I could remember and it brought me strange dreams of a huge green flashing light and spine-chilling scream. A woman's scream. The only one who knew about the dreams was Harry, my twin brother Harry. Harry had trouble seeing out of his cracked circular glasses and I didn't have very good eyesight myself but not as bad as Harry's.
We both have dark, brown eyes and thick, brown hair, while Harry's hair stood up at the back and was smoothed to the side at the front, my hair hung by my side in a messy braid.

When we finished making breakfast Dudley threw yet another tantrum...
"WHAT?! 36? BUT LAST YEAR I HAD 37!"
I guessed he was talking about the presents.
"Well some are bigger than last year!" Uncle Vernon chuckled nervously as Dudley's face turned tomato red. Seeing this, Aunt Petunia cried, "Don't worry Dudleykins! When we go out today I'll buy you two new presents!" Hearing that he was being spoilt again, Dudley quietly cooled down and opened all of his 36 presents before you could count them.

Later that morning we found out that we were going to the local zoo. When me and Harry had got dressed (Harry wearing a four sizes too large T-shirt that was Dudley's old one and me wearing a baggy blue dress that was Aunt Petunia's) we set off for the zoo. Although, when we got out of the car uncle Vernon whispered to us, "Okay you two... I don't want any... funny business! Alright?"

So we nodded sheepishly and ran to catch up with Aunt Petunia and Dudley who were already in the zoo. Me and Harry stuck together for a bit until I wanted to see the lions and Harry wanted to see the reptiles so we went our separate ways and arranged to meet each other back at the entrance in 10 minutes. When I reached the lions there was a huge crowd around the male ones but there was a large female one in a small cage that had no crowd so I decided to take a look.

The lion was laying there with her head in her paws, bored to death, her face pale and her fur matted.
Just as I had reached the glass, a zookeeper, dressed in a dark green uniform, arrived and seeing my worried look, quickly tapped the glass over and over again, expecting movement but nothing happened, he gave me an uneasy smile and walked away leaving me and the lion alone.

"Sorry about him, he doesn't understand what it's like to be trapped. Day in and day out, just people expecting you to do things and..." I stopped. I gasped. The lion, clearly intrigued, lifted up her head and looked at me with flaming, orange eyes.
"Can you...I mean can you understand me?"
I said, awed as the lion nodded slowly, "Well, um... do you understand everyone?" The lion shook her head and sat up. "Woah, well.... how long have you been here? I mean... Do you miss your family?"
The wide-eyed lion suddenly sulked and gestured to a sign.

BRED IN CAPTIVITY

"Oh... you never knew your family. Me too. I don't know who my mum and dad were I don't even know why they gave me up." I said looking at the ground, although when I looked up the zookeeper was back with another man in uniform and seeing the lion sitting up began to lean against the glass. No wonder the lion was depressed all she had for company were these two brats. All of a sudden, the two keepers, letting out an ear-piercing shriek, fell into the lion's enclosure.

The glass had vanished!

The lion suddenly leapt out as the glass immediately appeared again leaving the keepers trapped inside the enclosure!

The lion was staring at me in fascination, eyes wide and head tilted.

"Woah, um easy there! I..." but before I knew it the lion was rubbing her head on my waist. I slowly put a hand on the lion's head and stroked her gorgeous fur. She looked at me and then ran off into the distance. I gazed in awe until I realised my feet were off the ground. I slowly looked around and there stood uncle Vernon holding me up in the air with one hand and Harry in the other. Soon enough, Aunt Petunia came running over with Dudley soaking wet, shivering and wrapped in a towel. I looked at Harry and he smirked, now knowing that this was his doing.

When we arrived home, Dudley and Petunia hurried up stairs and Uncle Vernon shoved us and smacked us so hard that by the end of it we were motionless on the floor. To make things worse, there was a ring at the door. Vernon opened it proudly and let in none other than Dudley's best friend, Connor. Dudley came rapidly running down the stairs with a malicious grin on his face, and all Uncle Vernon said was "Do your worst." His words rung in my ear, just for a second until Connor and Dudley, arm in arm winked at us while they eagerly leapt towards us.

It was then that me and Harry knew that, that was the end of today's fun...