#and then it snowballed bc misty is just THERE for her over and over and over again in ways she doesn't realize she's missing!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

homemade-potato · 4 years

Text

shit i forgot to say like a week ago

Here’s chapter two, have fun reading or smthn

Chapter one for those of you who are too lazy to go back (bcs same)

and here it is below the cut (i know, i’m putting effort in today)

This chapter was surprisingly short compared to the last one lmao, it's only seven pages compared to the last one's nine and it's 1500 words shorter which is good for me, but it was still a surprise.

Anyway, enjoy!

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had barely changed. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the uniform brass number four on the Dursley’s front door; it crept into their living room which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr Dursley had seen the fateful news report about owls. Only the photographs had changed, ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink boy wearing different-coloured bobble hats. But Dudley Dursely was no longer a baby, now the photographs showed a large blonde boy riding his first bicycle, on a roundabout at the travelling fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign of there being another boy living in the house.

Yes, Harry Potter was still there, he hadn’t been abandoned on the front step of an orphanage no matter how much his aunt wanted to do so, he was asleep at the moment, but not for long. His aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice which made the first sound of the day.

‘Up! Get up! Now!’

Harry woke with a start, his aunt rapped on the door again.

‘Up!’ She screeched. Harry heard her making her way to the kitchen and then the sound of a frying pan being pulled from its wrack and put on the cooker. He rolled back on his and tried to remember the dream he had been having, it had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it. He had a funny feeling he’d had the same dream before.

His aunt was back outside his door. ‘Are you up yet?’ she demanded.

‘Nearly,’ said Harry.

‘Well hurry up, I want you to look at the bacon. And don’t you dare let it burn. I want everything perfect on Duddy’s birthday.’

Harry groaned.

‘What did you say?’ His aunt snapped through the door.

‘Nothing, nothing...’

Dudley’s birthday - how could he have forgotten? Harry eased himself off of his small mattress and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his mattress and, after pulling a spider off one of them, he put them on. Harry was used to spiders because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.

When he was dressed he went down the hall to the kitchen. The table was almost hidden with presents of varying sizes. It looked as if Dudley had got the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Why Dudley wanted a racing bike was anyone’s guess, as Dudley hated exercise - unless of course, it involved beating up somebody. Dudley’s favourite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn’t catch him more often than not. He didn’t look like it, but Harry was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard for the better part of his life but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age and he looked even more small and skinny than he was because he was forced to wear Dudley’s old clothes and Dudley was about four times larger than he was, in both width and height. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore wire-framed round glasses held together with a lot of sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry really liked about his appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead shaped like a lightning bolt, he thought it looked very badass and had had it for as long as he could remember. The first question he could remember asking was asking his Aunt Petunia how he got it.

‘In a car crash when your parents died,’ she had replied before saying, ‘and don’t ask questions.’

Don’t ask questions - that was the first rule to a peaceful life with the Dursleys, if he didn’t obey that rule…. Well, we’ll get into that later.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon. ‘Comb your hair!’ He barked as a way of a morning greeting. About once a week, Uncle Vernon peered 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, yet there was never any difference, his hair simply grew all over the place.

Harry was frying eggs by the time 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 eyes, and thick blonde hair on his head which he inherited from his Aunt Petunia. She often said Dudley looked like a baby angel, Harry thought he looked like a pig in a wig.

Harry put the plates of bacon and eggs on the table, which was quite difficult as presents took up most of the space. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting them. His face fell.

‘Thirty-six,’ he said looking up at his parents, ‘that’s two less than last year.’

‘Darling, you haven’t counted Auntie Maggie’s present, see, it’s under this big present from Mummy and Daddy.’

‘Alright, thirty-seven then,’ said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who felt a huge Dudley-tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley flipped the table.

Aunt Petunia obviously smelled danger too, as she said quickly, ‘And we’ll buy you two more presents while we’re out today. How does that sound, Popkin? Two more presents, is that all right?’

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work, Harry thought. Finally, he said slowly, ‘So, I’ll have thirty… thirty…’

‘Thirty-nine, sweetums,’ said Aunt Petunia.

‘Oh,’ Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel, ‘okay 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 up to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley a racing bike, a cine-camera, a remote-control aeroplane, sixteen new video games, and a video recorder. He was ripping the wrapping paper off of a golden wristwatch when Aunt Petunia walked back into the room looking like she’d just eaten a lemon.

‘Bad news, Vernon,’ she said, Mrs Figg’s broken her leg, she can’t take him.’ 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 and theme parks, hamburger bars, or the cinema. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away, Harry hated going there, the whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs Fiigg forced him to look at photographs of all the cats she’d ever owned. The only part of going to her house he enjoyed, was when she offered him stale cake and tea about halfway through his visit. The lavender scent of the fondant flowers on top of the cake was always so calming. The bittersweet of the flower’s taste never failed to relax him and then, somehow, he didn’t mind learning about her cats with heavy eyes under the heavy scent of lavender and the heavy, sleep-inducing taste of the tea.

‘Now what?’ said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he’d planned this. Harry knew he should be sorry that Mrs Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn’t easy when he reminded himself that it would be a whole year before he had to look at Mr Tibbles, Snowy, Snowball, Mr Paws, Tufty, Smokey, Misty, and Coco again.

‘We could phone Marge,’ Uncle Vernon suggested.

‘Don’t be silly, Vernon, she’d kill the boy.’

The Durselys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn’t there - or rather, as though he was something very nasty and beneath them, like a slug.

‘What about whats-her-name, your friend, Yvonne?’

‘On holiday in Majorca,’ snapped Aunt Petunia.

‘You could just leave me here,’ Harry put in hopefully (he’d be able to watch the television and maybe even have a go on Dudley’s computer).

Aunt Petunia looked like she’d swallowed another lemon. ‘And come back and find this house in ruins?’ She snarled.

‘I won’t blow up the house,’ said Harry, but they weren’t listening.

‘I suppose we could take him to the zoo,’ said Aunt Petunia slowly, ‘and leave him in the car.’

‘The car’s new, he’s not sitting in it alone.’

Dudley began to cry loudly, in fact, he wasn’t crying. It had been years since he’d properly cried, but he knew if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.

‘Dinky Duddyums, don’t cry, mummy won’t let him spoil your birthday!’ She cried, flinging her arms around him in a comforting hug.

‘I… Don’t… Want…. Him… T-To come!’ Dudley wailed between huge pretend sobs, ‘He always s-spoils everything!’ He sent Harry a nasty smile through a gap in his mother’s arms.

Just then the doorbell rang - ‘Oh Good Lord, they’re here already!’ said Aunt Petunia frantically and a moment later, Dudley’s best friend, Piers Polikss, 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 immediately.

Half an hour later, Harry couldn’t believe his luck, he was sitting in the back of the Dursely’s car with Piers and Dudley on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life! 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 pulled Harry aside. ‘I’m warning you,’ he’d threatened, putting his large purple face up close to Harry’s, ‘I’m warning you now, boy, any funny business and you’ll be in that cupboard from now ‘til Christmas.’

‘I’m not going to do anything,’ said Harry, ‘honestly.’

But Uncle Vernon didn’t believe him, No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn’t make it happen.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn’t been at all, had taken a pair of craft scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald bar his fringe which she’d left to ‘cover his horrible scar’. Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry who’d spent a sleepless night tossing and turning imagining the kids at school pointing and laughing at him, he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and Sellotaped glasses. The next morning, however, he awoke to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had shorn it off. He’d been given a week in his cupboard with one small meal a day for that, even though he tried to explain, he couldn’t explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had tried to force him into a revolting old jumper of Dudley’s (burgundy with bright orange bobbles), but the more she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it became until it would have better fitted a sock puppet, but definitely wouldn’t have fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn’t punished.

On the other hand, he’d got into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchen. Dudley’s gang had been chasing him as usual when, much to Harry’s surprise, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry’s headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he’d tried to do (as he shouted to Uncle Vernon through the slats in his locked cupboard door) was jump behind the big bins outside the kitchen. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him mid-jump.

But today, nothing could go wrong. It was even worth being with Dud ley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn’t school, his cupboard, or Mrs Figgs cabbage smelling home.

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia, he liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were a few of his favourites. This morning, the subject was motorbikes.

‘Bloody bikers roaring along like maniacs, the young hooligans,’ he said as a motorbike overtook them.

‘I had a dream about a motorbike,’ said Harry to himself, remembering suddenly, ‘it was flying.’

Uncle Vernon nearly crashed the car, he turned in his seat and yelled ‘MOTORBIKES DON’T FLY!’

Dudley and Piers sniggered.

‘I know they don’t,’ said Harry, ‘it was only a dream.’

But he wished he hadn’t said anything, if there was one thing the Dursleys hated more than him asking questions, it was him talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn’t, no matter if it were a dream or a cartoon. They seemed to think he would 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 and then because the smiling lady in the van asked what Harry wanted before they could hurry on, they bought him a cheap lemon ice lolly. It wasn’t bad either, Harry thought, licking it while they watched a gorilla scratching its head. The gorilla looked remarkably like Dudley, except it wasn’t blonde.

Harry had the best morning he’d had in a long time, though he was careful to walk a safe distance away from Dudley and Piers, who were getting bored of the animals by lunchtime, so they wouldn’t fall back into their habit of using him as a punching bag. 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 was allowed to finish off the first.

Harry felt afterwards that he should have known it was too good to last.

After lunch, they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of snakes and lizards were crawling and slivering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see the 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 dust bin - 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 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 and Uncle Vernon rapped on the glass smartly with his knuckles once more, but the snake snoozed on. ‘This is boring,’ Dudley moaned and he shuffled away.

Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it had died of boredom. It had no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It must be worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom where the only visitor he got was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake him up, but at least he got to visit the rest of the house, he thought.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on level with Harry’s.

It winked.

Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone else was watching, they weren’t, he looked towards the tank once more and winked back.

The snake jerked its head towards Dudley and Uncle Vernon then raised its eyes towards the ceiling as if to say 'I get that all the time.'

‘ I know, ’ Harry murmured through the glass, although he wasn’t too sure that the snake could hear him. ‘It must be so annoying.’

The snake nodded vigorously.

‘Where do you come from anyway?’ Harry asked.

The snake jerked its tail at the little sign next to the glass. Harry stared at it.

Boa Constrictor

Brazil

‘Was it nice there?’

The boa constrictor once again jerked it's tail at the sign again and Harry read on

This specimen was bred in captivity

‘Oh, so you’ve never been to Brazil?’

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. ‘DUDLEY, MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IT’S DOING’

Dudley came waddling towards them from the lizard section as fast as he could. ‘Out of the way, you,’ he said, punching Harry in the gut. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What happened next happened so fast no one saw what happened - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning with their noses on the glass, the next, they leapt back with screams of horror.

Harry sat up and gasped, the glass front of the boa constrictor’s tank had vanished. The great snake began uncoiling itself rapidly before slithering out onto the floor. Harry could have sworn he heard a low hissing voice that said ‘ Brazil here I come… obrigada amiga.’

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 strong cup of tea while he apologised over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry could tell, the snake hadn’t done anything but snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon’s car, Dudey was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg. But worst of all for Harry at least, Piers was calming down enough to say ‘Harry was talking to it, weren’t you, Harry?’ With a smirk on his obnoxious face.

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could barely speak. All he could manage to say was ‘Go - cupboard - stay - no meals,’ before he collapsed in a chair and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

Harry lay in his dark cupboard days later, his stomach rumbling and wishing he had a watch. He didn’t know what time it was and he couldn’t risk sneaking to the kitchen to get some food before the Dursleys were asleep.

He’d lived with the Durselys for almost eleven years, eleven long miserable years. He’d been with them for as long as he could remember, ever since his parents had died in a car crash. He couldn’t remember being in a car when his parents had died, but sometimes, when he strained his memory during the long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he assumed, was the crash, though he couldn’t imagine where all the green light came from, a traffic light maybe. He couldn’t remember his parents at all, his aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and, of course, they forbade him from asking questions.

There were no photographs of them in the house.

When he was younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation, an aunt or uncle or cousin from his father’s side to whisk him away, but it had never happened; the Durselys were the only family. Yet sometimes he hoped that the strangers on the street that seemed to know him would do just that, take him away. Although they were very strange strangers, so he thought not. For example, and a tiny old man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping, Aunt Petunia, after asking Harry and Dudley if they knew him, had rushed them out of the Tescos without buying anything, the small half-loaf of bread that Harry had stuffed under his huge shirt for just in case aside. A wild-looking woman dressed in all green had once waved merrily at him on the bus. A bald man in a very long purple cloak had shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. the weirdest thing about these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry attempted to get a closer look.

At school, however, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley’s gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley’s gang, they had a reign of terror in the playground that all were too scared of them to try and overthrow them. However their reign would be coming to an end soon as they go to secondary school.

#fanfiction #rewriting harry potter #not much changed from this chapter actually #fanfic #harry potter #fix-it fic

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