Harry Potter was laying still,asleep on the chunky old mattress, while his sister Lily Potter was staring up at the ceiling. Counting at the amount of spiders that were in their dusty small, small is an exaggerating word, in their tiny unsuitable for use room...cupboard to be exact. She was enjoying the peace and quiet, accompanied by her brother's quiet and soft snores, but not for long. Their Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.
"Up! Get up! Now!"
Harry woke with a start, bumping his head at his sister who hissed at him as a result. Their aunt rapped on the door again, to Lily she found it annoying.
"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before. 'No shit sherlock, brother dearest' Lily replied sarcasm dripping from her words 'Lily, shut up will you?' Harry replied. The both of them has this odd connection, where they could speak to each other telephatically. Of course, Harry always thought that it might be just because they were twins. Identical at that. Lily then heard the light footsteps that she recognized as their aunt's. She was back outside the door.
"Are both of you up yet?" she demanded.
"Nearly," said Harry, rubbing his eyes a bit while trying to hold back a yawn.
"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."
Lily on the other hand groaned and muttered "It's that pigs birthday?"
"What did you say?" his aunt snapped through the door.
"Nothing, nothing..." Harry trailed, quickly shutting his sister up by nudging her sides and glaring at her, earning a painful groan from Lily.
Dudley's birthday -- how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found two pair of them under his bed and, after pulling a spider out off one of them, put them on and handed his sister the other, who on the other side was brushing her hair with an old, almost broken, hairbrush. Both Harry and Lily was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where they slept, much to Lily's annoyance.
When both of them was dressed they went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all of Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. 'Reckon we can steal one of his gifts?' 'Lily no.'
Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Lily, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise -- unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast, both of them are.
Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry and Lily had always been small and skinny for their age. Se looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all they had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than they were.
Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. Lily on the other hand, had bright fiery red hair, it wasn't ginger tho, it was redder. Her face was identical to that of Harry's, even her eyes were identical. If they seitched places and wore wigs no one would probably notice the different, that is if the person didn't take in the details that Lily was much much more feminine looking. The only thing Harry and both Lily liked about their appearance was a very thin scar on Harry's forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning, Lily had the exact same scar on the side of her neck. They have had it as long as they could remember, and the first question he or his sister could ever remember asking Aunt Petunia was how they'd gotten it.
"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions."
Don't ask questions -- that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.
Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon, while Lily was making toast for them.
"Comb your hair!" he barked, 'Such a nice morning greeting' Hary just ignored his sister's snarkiness. Not wanting to deal with it early in the morning.
Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel -- Lily often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig, Harry agreed on that.
He put 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."
At that point, Lily didn't paid much attention to what was happening around her. Everything was a fast blur and the next thing she knew, she definitely believed that the gods hate her twice as much as she anticipated.
Half an hour later, Harry and Lily, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life, his sister sitting on his lap as the car was very very crowded. His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside, leaving Lily in hell with Dudley and Piers.
"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "I'm warning you now, boy -- any funny business from the both of you, anything at all -- and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas. I can understand"
"Why don't you tell Lily that then? I won't do anything," said Harry, "honestly..."
Uncle Vernon didn't answer his question, and didn't believe what Harry had said. No one ever did, his sister as the only exception.
The problem was, strange things often happened around the Potter twins and it was just no good telling the Dursleys they didn't make them happen.
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 and Lily what they would wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop and bought Lily a strawberry ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley as Lily would whisper and snicker quietlyat Harry, except that the gorilla wasn't blond, much to Lily's disappointment.
They 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 lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him and Lily having to save his ass everytime that happens. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first, but glared at Lily as she was allowed to order a pancake on her own. Not knowing what had strucked aunt Petunia.
Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.
After lunch they went to the reptile house. Lily, was fangirling on the inside but tried to keep it cool and act calmly. And when she saw a huge Adder snake, she ran towards it and started to squeal. Rolling his eyes, Harry pulled her with him so she wouldn't get lost, knowing she has zero sense of direction. It was cool and dark in there, 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 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. "Dudley your bothering the snake, you wouldn't want him to suddenly wake up and attack you, would you?" For a moment he looked frightened at Lily's words but got back to his normal self and slumped.
"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away from the tank, probably searching for other snakes that would entertain him.
Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. Peering over his shoulders, was Lily who was looking at it with fascination. "I 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 a screaming banshee hammering on the door to wake you up, don't you think so Har?" Lily piped up, rarely being this energetic. But je could understand, after all. Her favorite animal was a snake "At least we get to visit the rest of the house" Harry answered dryly, his eyes not leaving the sleeping snake at all.
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry and Lily's.
It winked.
Harry stared. Lily stared. And then she screeched "OH MY GOD DID HE JUST WINK?!?!" Quickly, Harry covered her mouth with the both of his hands. Glaring at her intently but got unnoticed as she was enraptured by the snake. He looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't, thankfully. Lily looked back at the snake and winked, too. Harry gave a small wave and the snake hissed at them 'he was probably saying hello too' she told him mentally.
The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:
"I get that all the time."
"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying right" asked Lily.
The snake nodded vigorously.
"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.
"Was it nice there?"
The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see -- so you've never been to Brazil?"
As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Lily made the three of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.
"Out of the way, you two," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. Lily growled at Dudley, and glared intensely at him, who was too busy to realize the demon that he just woke up. 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; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits. Lily ran towards the snake, picking it up, savoring the feeling of its scaly skin against her's, as it slithered down her legs and passed her.
As the snake slid swiftly past Harry, both him and Lily could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come... Thankssss, amigo."
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 apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed 'I told you, they are Drama Queens' Lily growled, still pissed off at the fact that Dudley pushed Harry. She was pretty sure that left a bruise on his side, 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 Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry and Lily was talking to it, isn't that right guys?"
Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry.
He was so angry he could hardly speak. Petunia on the other hand was quite, as she only glanced at the two. He managed to say, "Go -- cupboard -- stay -- no meals," before he collapsed onto his chair, aunt Petunia suddenly voiced something that made the two twins stare at her with disbelief and made Vernon shot up standing, staring at her with wide eyes. "Vernon, i don't think the twins did that," Petunia muttered slowly, both of her hands were folded in front of her. She glanced back at Harry and Lily, who was standing awkwardly in front of the entrance of the living room. "Besides, the cupboard is too small for them to stay there. Their health could be infected, don't you think?"
Harry and Lily had lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as they could remember, ever since they'd been a baby and their parents had died in that car crash. Not once, has aunt Petunia stood up for them. Not once has she cared for them. So the sudden outburst from the skinny woman really suprised both of the twins.
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