Asha and Harry were 8 years old, and they knew their place.
His parents never gave them the love like they gave their brother for reasons they were never told, however, today was special for Gordon - it was his birthday. However, his unfortunately meant it was a day never to be seen.
Gordon ran down the stairs screaming as Harry rolled out of bed, landing on Asha's roll mat. They had decided to use the bed every other day as they were never given a second bed - it was their tactic for everything as to make the work fair.
"MUM! DAD!" Gordon exclaimed excitedly. "Where are my presents!"
"They are in the living room of course." Lily Potter said as she directed her son into the room. Gordon ran through and immediately began to tear open presents without even thanks his parents once. A photographer quickly walked through, taking a plethora of photos.
"This will make the front cover of the Daily Prophet!" James spoke proudly as the photographer nodded his head in agreement.
Harry walked down slowly as it as his turn to ask for some food and went up to his mum quietly.
"Mum, please can we have some food?" He asked hopefully. Lily turned her head around sharply before standing up and pushing Harry out of the room.
"How greedy of you to ask such a question!" She sneered, "I will not have you ruining this day for our Boy-Who-Lived. How would that look on the Daily Prophet?"
"Not good..." Harry looked to the ground. He was hoping for at least one thing, even some new socks would do, but he got nothing...
"Exactly! Now be a good child and wash the bathroom before hiding from the party later today."
Lily ushered her lesser favoured child into the bathroom before turning back.
"And tell your twin to start by cleaning the bedrooms before doing the attic!"
Harry thought she was gone by now as he mumbled to himself. "But why does he get all that love compared to us..."
That was a big mistake!
"How dare you say such a thing!" Lily shouted to the boy. "You cannot treat your SUPERIOR BROTHER with resentment like that!"
"But I..." Harry stumbled to protest.
"No butts! There shall be no food for a week! Or for your twin!" Lily began stomping away, "And I had better not see you again for the rest of the day."
Harry hastily told his sister the bad news before entering the bathroom.
He was angry but just knelt down as he began scrubbing the filthy toilet instead of letting it show. The sooner he was done was the sooner he could go to his room and practice his magic.
He wasn't scared of his mother's reaction - he was already used to worse.
~~~
Harry was well aware of the commotion downstairs for Gordon's party, but he was happy reading his book on the history of magic, but he was nervous why his sister was taking so long. He was silently thanking his every being that he wasn't beaten for his actions. Last year, his dad had secretly used the cruciatus curse on Asha after she smuggled some mouldy bread from the bin into their room Infront of guests - Asha isn't disgusting, she was just desperate.
The door finally creaked open as a filthy Asha stumbled into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed.
"What took you so long?" Harry asked.
"Got my leg caught in a broken floorboard!" She pointed to a gash of blood on her leg. "I wish they did something nice for our birthday... I saw loads of people flooding into the house for a party!"
"When I asked if we could have food there was a photographer for the Daily Prophet in there!" Harry mused. "Face it, this are life."
"Imagine if they saw this..." She gestured to their room before closing her eyes.
After a moments silence, the door suddenly swung open and three laughing kids ran into the room before freezing and staring at the twins. Asha naturally shifted to the other side of his bed and pretended not to notice them whilst harry pushed the book up to his face.
"I'm sorry, who are you?" One of the kids asked.
Harry slowly looked over at the red-haired boys, surprised that it wasn't their parents.
"Ummm... I am Harry."
The three boys stared at each other before looking back at Harry. "Th- The brother of Gordon Potter!" One of them exclaimed - Asha rolled her eyes.
"Were sorry, we were just looking for a hiding spot. Its hide and seek, a muggle game, our dad thought it would be a good party game so were hiding from Gordon." One of the older kids explained. "We will just leave then..."
"No, it's alright." Harry didn't know where the words came from as he took charge, "Gordon will never check this room unless he's here to annoy us." That was an understatement to say the least, but he didn't want the attention.
"So can we hide here?" The smallest of the three boys asked.
Harry was taken aback - they had never been asked for something before, only demanded.
"Uhhh, Y-yes, sure..." He muttered and the boys closed the door, sitting on the bed next to the twins.
Harry picked up his book and began to read again.
"I'm Ron Weasley by the way! This is Fred and George, twins."
~~~
Harry and Asha had been talking to the three Weasleys for about half an hour by now. It was noticeable how much quieter Asha was rather than Harry. This was until George realised that they were probably forgotten about in the hide and seek game.
"Hey, why don't you head downstairs with the others?" He asked
Harry froze. "Ummmm... I... I am introverted?" He almost asked. It was a lie, but he was NOT going to tell some random strangers his personal issues.
"Oh, come with us!" Fred encouraged as he pulled Harry up and they dragged him out of the room as the other two pushed Asha into the hallway.
"No... Umm, I spend my time practicing Magic rather than socialise!" Asha thought of a reason to try not to be caught without telling them the truth.
This however, backfired.
"Show us what you can do!" Ron encouraged as Harry gently shook his head at Asha.
Asha ignored Harry's gestures as she felt some warmth around her from the Weasley's - no one had ever asked her to show them something in a positive way!
"Do... Do you really want to see?" She asked as they nodded whilst Harry violently gestured for her not to, he understood the consequences of getting caught. "Well, it's still pretty weak magic..." She then creeped into her parents' bedroom to get her father's wand which was carelessly left on his bed.
She levitated some books over the open staircase balcony before quickly dropping them and collapsing to the ground whilst Harry swiftly put the wand back before it was noticed missing - too late...
"How dare you!"
They all looked around to see James Potter staring at Asha with a loathing face on.
"You purposely stole these guests to perform magic!" He marched the group and picked up Asha before she could move.
"Mr Potter, it was our fault! We encouraged it and it was us who entered their room! Don't punish her!" The Weasley's pleaded to deaf ears.
"Thats what they told you to say!" James spat, taking Asha away, into the attic.
"What the bloody hell were you doing!" James screamed at Asha who refused to give eye contact. "You know the consequences for intolerable action such as that!"
Asha's eyes widened in fear. She knew what that meant!
"P-please... n-no..."
"I don't like doing it, but you have to learn..." James said.
~~~
Harry, now alone in his room, heard shrieks of pain as a thousand thoughts went through his head - not a single one of them was good...
After about 5 minutes, Asha was shoved into the bedroom, and she didn't even make it to the bed before she collapsed onto the floor.
"Asha!" Harry exclaimed as he ran up to his sister, "What happened? It wasn't the forbidden curse, was it?"
Asha looked up, "Ahh, n-no it wasn't - not t-this time... Ahhhh..." She could only feel pain radiating around her body. Her breathing was heavy and dry.
Harry cursed himself for not intervening when she did her magic. "You're... You're bleeding heavily..." He then went over to their secret bandage pack and attempted to stop the flow of blood.
"Well I... Ahhh, I- I got what was c-coming... Didn't I... Asha whispered through the pain.
Harry had never seen James this bad - to Asha however, this almost too common.
They were only 8 years old.