The Forgotten Twin

Chapter 1 - Year 4 Begins

They both got dressed before heading downstairs for breakfast.

By the time they arrived in the kitchen, the three Dursleys were already seated around the table.

None of them looked up as they entered or sat down. Uncle Vernon's large red face was hidden behind the morning's Daily Mail, and Aunt Petunia was cutting a grapefruit into quarters, her lips pursed over her horse like teeth.

Dudley looked furious and sulky, and somehow seemed to be taking up even more space than usual. This was saying something, as he always took up an entire side of the square table by himself. When Aunt Petunia put a quarter of unsweetened grapefruit onto Dudley's plate with a tremulous "There you are, Diddy darling," Dudley glowered at her. His life had taken a most unpleasant turn since he had come home for the summer with his end-of-year report.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had managed to find excuses for his bad marks as usual: Aunt Petunia always insisted that Dudley was a very gifted boy whose teachers didn't understand him, while Uncle Vernon maintained that "he didn't want some swotty little nancy boy for a son anyway." They also skated over the accusations of bullying in the report - "He's a boisterous little boy, but he wouldn't hurt a fly!" Aunt Petunia had said tearfully.

However, at the bottom of the report there were a few well-chosen comments from the school nurse that not even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia could explain away. No matter how much Aunt Petunia wailed that Dudley was big-boned, and that his poundage was really puppy fat, and that he was a growing boy who needed plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfitters didn't stock knickerbockers big enough for him anymore. The school nurse had seen what Aunt Petunia's eyes - so sharp when it came to spotting fingerprints on her gleaming walls, and in observing the comings and goings of the neighbors — simply refused to see: that far from needing extra nourishment, Dudley had reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.

So - after many tantrums, after arguments that shook Delilah's bedroom floor, and many tears from Aunt Petunia - the new regime had begun. The diet sheet that had been sent by the Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had been emptied of all Dudley's favorite things - fizzy drinks and cakes, chocolate bars and burgers and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things that Uncle Vernon called "rabbit food." To make Dudley feel better about it all, Aunt Petunia had insisted that the whole family follow the diet too. She now passed a grapefruit quarter to both Harry and Delilah each. She noticed that both were a lot smaller than Dudley's. Aunt Petunia seemed to feel that the best way to keep up Dudley's morale was to make sure that he did, at least, get more to eat than Harry and Delilah.

But Aunt Petunia didn't know what was hidden under the loose floorboard upstairs. She had no idea that Harry and Delilah were not following the diet at all. The moment they had got wind of the fact that they were expected to survive the summer on carrot sticks, they had sent Hedwig to all their friends with pleas for help, and they had risen to the occasion magnificently. Hedwig had returned from Hermione's house with a large box stuffed full of sugar-free snacks. (Hermione's parents were dentists.) Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had obliged with a sack full of his own homemade rock cakes. (They hadn't touched these; they had had too much experience of Hagrid's cooking.) Mrs. Weasley, however, had sent the family owl, Errol, with two enormous fruitcakes and assorted meat pies. Poor Errol, who was elderly and feeble, had needed a full five days to recover from the journey. Draco had sent her a huge box filled with her favorite wizarding treats. And then on their birthday (which the Dursleys had completely ignored) they had received nine superb birthday cakes, one for each of them from Ron, Hermione, Draco, Hagrid, and Sirius and Remus. Remus gave one to Delilah while Sirius had given Harry one. Delilah had two cakes left, and so, looking forward to a real breakfast upstairs, she ate her grapefruit without complaint.