The Forgotten Twin

Chapter 3

Harry handed her his ticket and list. Delilah put them with hers under the floorboard.

"Why don't we go now?" She suggested.

Harry nodded and they walked downstairs to the kitchen.

"We have some questions for you," Delilah said forthright.

Aunt Petunia narrowed her eyes and Uncle Vernon's face turned purple, but they didn't protest.

"First off, what's Hogwarts?" Delilah continued.

Aunt Petunia froze. Uncle Vernon's face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

They seemed to forget that Dudley, Harry, and Delilah were in the room.

"Dudley, out." Uncle Vernon ordered.

"But-" Dudley protested.

"OUT!" Uncle Vernon bellowed.

Dudley stomped out, hitting things with his Smelting Stick.

Uncle Vernon closed the door and turned on Delilah and Harry.

"How do you know about Hogwarts?" he barked at them.

Delilah stayed calm and replied, "They sent us letters giving us admission to the school."

"Well, you're not going and that's that, so out!" Aunt Petunia snapped.

Delilah frowned. "But what is-" she stopped at the looks they sent at her. "Fine."
She turned around and, dragging Harry with her, marched with her head high out of the room.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't know what they had talked about. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to them, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's more! 'Ms. D. And Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive -"

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with their letters clutched in his hand.

"Go to your, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry and Delilah who had followed at a distance. "Dudley - go - just go."

Delilah paced. They had tried again, that meant they didn't know they'd read the letter and would try again, hopefully sending someone with it to explain everything.

The next morning there were more. Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.

"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."

"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."

"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.