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.
"In the car crash that killed your parents," she'd said. "And don't ask questions!"
Don't ask questions - rule one for a quiet life with the Dursleys. Elowen often thought that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon must be liars, because how could a car crash give her the scars that reached across her face?
Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon and Elowen was setting the table.
"Comb your hair!" he barked at Harry, by way of a morning greeting.
About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way - all over the place. He was envious of Elowen's long red hair, which laid nice and tidy because of the weight the length gave it. He'd asked Uncle Vernon once if he could grow his out like hers. Uncle Vernon had yelled for nearly an hour about how he wouldn't have Harry looking like an unkempt ruffian. He never asked again.
Elowen was frying the eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a round, pink face, not much neck, small watery blue eyes and thick, blond hair that lay smoothly on his large head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel - Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.
Elowen helped Harry set the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.
"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."
"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."
"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over. Elowen discreetly wrapped several pieces of toast and jam in a napkin and slipped it into her pocket.
Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?"
Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty... thirty..."
"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia. Elowen rolled her eyes at Harry as Dudley struggled with the addition. He smirked at her as she slipped down the hall to leave the toast in their cupboard.
"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."
Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. Atta boy, Dudley!"He ruffled Dudley's hair.
At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a cine-camera, a remote-control aeroplane, sixteen new computer games and a video recorder. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone, looking both angry and worried.
"Bad news, Vernon," she said tightly. "Mrs Figg's broken her leg. She can't take them."She jerked her head in Harry's direction.
Dudley's mouth fell open in horror but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger bars or the cinema. Every year, Harry and Elowen were left behind with Mrs Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs Figg made them look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.
"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this. Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr Paws and Tufty again.
"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested. El slipped silently back into the kitchen and into her seat next to Harry.
"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates them."
The Dursleys often spoke about the twins like this, as though they weren't there - or rather, as though they were something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.
"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?"
"On holiday in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.
"You could leave us here, Aunt Petunia," Elowen said in her sweetest voice. "We would never want to ruin Dudley's day." Harry smiled at Petunia hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer). Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.
"And come back and find the house in ruins?"she snarled.
"We won't blow up the house," said Harry, but they weren't listening.
"I suppose we could take them to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "and leave them in the car..."
"That car is brand new, I won't have them sitting in it alone." Uncle Vernon eyed them distrustfully. "Who knows what they'd do to it?"
Dudley began to cry loudly. He wasn't actually crying, he hadn't for years, but much to the twins' dismay, Dudley had learned years ago that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted. True to form, Petunia practically tackled him the moment he started.
"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let them spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.
"I... don't... want... them... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge pretend sobs. "They always sp-spoil everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.
The doorbell rang.
"Oh, Good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically and hurried down the hall. A moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.
Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting next to Elowen in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in either twin's life. His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with them, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken them aside.
"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, then Elowen's, "I'm warning you now, you two, any funny business, anything at all - and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."
"We're not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly."
But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.
The problem was, strange things often happened around the twins and it was just no good telling the Dursleys they didn't make them happen.
Once, Aunt Petunia - sick of looking at Elowen's red hair and tired of Harry coming back from the barber's looking as though he hadn't been at all - had dyed Elowen's hair an ugly muddy brown, and taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his fringe, which she left 'to hide that horrible scar'. Dudley had laughed himself silly at the both of them. Harry had spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and Sellotaped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off, and Elowen's hair the same deep red as always. They had been given a week in the cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.
Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old jumper of Dudley's (brown with orange bobbles). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a glove puppet. Aunt Petunia had decided that the jumper must have shrunken in the wash, and so they weren't punished for that one.
When they were in second year, Dudley and his gang were chasing Elowen and then, to her surprise and everyone else's, she was on the roof. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from the headmistress telling them Elowen had been climbing school buildings. That got her suspended for three days. Three days locked in the cupboard. Harry joined her when he supposed out loud that the wind must have caught her in mid-jump.
The weirdest thing, though, was the snakes in Aunt Petunia's garden. Sometimes they talked to the twins. On long summer days spent in the yard, sometimes the twins held long conversations with various snakes as they worked, always careful not to let any of their relatives hear.
But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, the cupboard or Mrs Figg's cabbage-smelling living-room.
While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Elowen, the bank, and the twins were just a few of his favourite subjects. This morning, it was motorbikes.
"...roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorbike overtook them.
"I had a dream about a motorbike,' said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."
Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beetroot with a moustache, "MOTORBIKES DON'T FLY!"
Dudley and Piers sniggered.
"I know they don't," said Harry defensively. "It was only a dream." But Elowen was staring at him with wide eyes and he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was the twins talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon - they seemed to think they might get dangerous ideas.
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice-creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him and his sister cheap lemon ice pops. It wasn't bad either, Harry said quietly to his sister, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head and looking remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.
Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunch-time, wouldn't fall back on their favourite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory wasn't big enough, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry and Elowen were allowed to finish the first between them.
Harry felt, afterwards, that he should have known it was all too good to last. Elowen, afterwards, told him he was being dramatic.
After lunch, they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in here, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a dustbin - but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.
Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.
"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.
"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.
"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.
Harry pulled Elowen in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up - at least they got to visit the rest of the house.
" Are you awake?" Elowen hissed quietly in the snake-speak. The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with the twins and winked.
"Hello," Harry hissed politely. "Sssorry to disssturb you."
The snake jerked its head towards Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave the twins a look that said quite plainly, I get that all the time.
"I know," Harry murmured quietly. He exchanged commiserating looks with El. "It musssst be really annoying."
The snake nodded vigorously.
"Can you not ssspeak?" Elowen asked the snake curiously. Sometimes snakes in the garden couldn't - or wouldn't - speak back to them. They didn't know why. The snake just stared at them.
"Where do you come from anyway?" Harry asked.
The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it. Boa Constrictor, Brazil.
"Wasss it nice?" Elowen asked.
The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read out: This specimen was bred in the zoo. He hummed sympathetically. "Oh, I sssee - ssso you've never been to Brazil?"
As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made all three of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
Dudley came towards them as fast as he could.
"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs as Piers shoved Elowen. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor next to his sister. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.
Harry sat up and gasped, shaking Elowen's shoulder - the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out on to the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.
As the snake slid swiftly past them, a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come ... Thanksss, amigo."
"So it could speak," Elowen huffed quietly. "Why not answer us then?"
The keeper of the reptile house was in shock. "But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"
The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong sweet tea while he apologised over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only sputter. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for the twins at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "The twins were talking to it, weren't you?"
Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before whirling on the twins. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals," before he collapsed into a chair and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.
~~~
Harry lay in the dark cupboard much later, listening to Elowen's soft breathing and wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for more food than the toast Elowen had snagged from breakfast.
They'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as they could remember, ever since they'd been babies and their parents had died in that car crash. Harry couldn't remember being in the car when their parents had died.
Sometimes, when they strained their memory during long hours in the cupboard, they came up with strange visions: Harry remembered a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead, and Elowen the same flash of green light and cold cruel laughter. This, the twins supposed, was the crash, though they couldn't imagine where all the green light came from, nor the laughter. They couldn't remember their parents at all. Their aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course the twins were forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of their parents in the house.
(All they knew was that they shared the same eyes as their mother, and that Elowen looked like her. When Aunt Petunia had too much of Uncle Vernon's brandy, she liked for Elowen to stand in front of her so she could complain. "You look just like my wretched sister," she'd slur. "Always thought she was prettier than me, with her damnable red hair and those perfect green eyes. Didn't have any sense in that flighty head, though, did she? Went and got herself killed, and who's stuck doing her job? ME!")
When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take them away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were their only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know them. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at Elowen once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second either twin tried to get a closer look.
At school, they had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated those odd Potter twins in their old clothes and Harry's broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang. So it was that for ten long years, the twins had only had each other.
Harry eventually drifted off, lulled to sleep by the warmth of his twin pressed against his back.
~~~
A/N
For whatever reason I can't get the picture to show up at the top? But this is what, or rather who, I picture when thinking about eleven-year-old Elowen Potter. This is an eleven year old Sadie Sink.