star-crossed

The Vanishing Glass

Ten years had passed since Petunia Dursley had opened the door to find the Potter Twins on her doorstep. Privet Drive, and the Dursley home, had hardly changed at all. The early morning sun shone in through the windows, casting golden light on the mantelpiece, where the photographs displayed were the only thing to show how much time had passed. Where ten years ago, the pictures were of a baby Dudley Dursley in different hats, now they showed him as a boy doing various activities - riding his first bike, on a merry-go-round at a fair, playing video games with Vernon, being hugged by his mother.

There was no evidence that two other children lived in the house at all.

But Elowen and Harry were still there, sleeping pressed together as they had when they were babies. Petunia's shrill voice was the first thing they heard, as it was most mornings.

"Up!" She rapped harshly on the door. "Get up!"Harry started awake and shook his sister's shoulder. Petunia hit the door again. "Up!"

The twins listened as she walked away, then heard the frying being put on the stove. Harry rolled onto his back as Elowen sat up. She watched her twin for a moment.

"You've got a weird look on your face," she said as loud as she dared. "What was the dream this time?"

"It was a good dream," Harry answered. "There was a flying motorcycle."

"I think you've had that one before."

Petunia was back outside the door. "Are you two up yet?"

"Nearly ready, Aunt Petunia," Elowen called back. She poked at Harry to get him moving. Petunia sniffed.

"Well, hurry up about it, I want you to make the eggs and Harry to look after the bacon. And don't let anything burn, I want everything perfect for my Duddy's birthday."

Harry groaned.

"What did you say?" Petunia snapped.

"Nothing, Aunt Petunia," he answered quickly. Next to him, El was making faces mocking their aunt's voice. He shook his head at her antics and sat up. He found his glasses and put them on first.

Dudley's birthday. How had they forgotten? Harry got out of bed and started searching for his socks. He found a pair under the bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. The twins were used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where they slept. Harry changed out of his pajamas as Elowen pulled her sleep shirt off and swapped it for one of Petunia's hand-me-downs. The twins had never bothered with modesty when it was just the two of them - the cupboard was too small for them to care.

Dressed, the twins walked down the hall to the kitchen. The table was buried under a veritable mountain of presents. Elowen rolled her eyes and walked into the kitchen to start on the toast. Harry surveyed the pile of presents. It looked like Dudley had gotten the new computer he'd been wanting, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to the twins, as Dudley hated exercise - unless, of course, it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favourite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast. Both twins were, though Dudley hadn't tried to hit El for several years. Petunia had put her foot down on that one, saying her precious duddykins would not be "a senseless brute who hit women, not even his freak cousin."

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but the twins had always been small and skinny for their age. Their hand-me-down clothes - Dudley's old things for Harry, the cheapest secondhand things Petunia could find for Elowen - made them look even smaller and skinnier than they were. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes above which a very thin scar sat on his forehead, shaped like a bolt of lightning. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. His sister had the same eyes and face shape as he did, but her hair was a dark red. Elowen's own scar branched out from the same spot on her forehead over her nose and down her left cheek in thin pink lines. The scars were the only thing the twins liked about their own appearances. It made them unique, set them apart from the Dursleys. They'd had them as long as they could remember and the first question Harry could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how they'd gotten them.