Harry Potter and The Wizarding World

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephews on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit

up the brass number four on the Dursleys' 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 that fateful news

report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-coloured bobble hats – but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large, blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a roundabout at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another twin lived in the house, too.

Yet Harry and Vivian Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice which made the first noise of the day. "Up! Get up! Now! Why are you always been so slothful!?"

Harry woke with a start when he heard her voice caterwaul upstairs.

His aunt rapped on the door of Vivian' room again she then went downstairs and continued to bang on the door of the tiny cupboard under the stairs where is Harry's bedroom.

"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking towards the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the cooker. He rolled on to his back 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 the door.

'Are you up yet?' she demanded.

'Nearly,' said Harry.

'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.'

Harry groaned.

'What did you say?' his aunt snapped through the door.

'Nothing, nothing ...'

Dudley's birthday – how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, 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 into the kitchen, he saw Vivian absent-minded and a little dazed as she walked down the stairs with her messy white-blond hair and disheveled pajamas.

She made a few hand signs that Harry understood after all these years as Vivian saying good morning to him. "Morning brother." 

"Morning, Vi. Does the wound still hurt?" Seeing Vivian shake her head, Harry felt a little relieved.

When his sister was little, she often cried in the middle of the night, partly by the wound on her neck, although healed, sometimes its aching and was described by Vivian as very nasty and agonizing. But mostly she was scared and lonely, missing their parents.

"C'mon, Vi. Let's go before aunt Petunia scold us again." Harry patted Vivian's head and took her hand, leading them to the Dursleys' kitchen.

The dining table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. Vivian shot Harry a puzzled and meaningful look, a non-verbal language that twins or best friends often used to gossiping about the others.

It looked as though Dudley had got the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry and Vivian, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise – unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favourite punch-bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch them. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright-green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Sellotape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose.

Unlike her brother, Vivian was somehow taller than Harry, even though they were twins. Harry sometimes wondered if Vivian would be taller than him one day. He couldn't imagine how funny it would be if Vivian was taller than him about 3 or four heads.

However, Vivian didn't look like her older twin at all. Slim figure with pale skin, white blonde hair, she looks like a fairy descended from heaven, a far cry from Harry. In addition to losing her voice, Vivian had a condition called Heterochromia, which is a condition in which her eyes are two different colors.

The only thing they both liked about their own appearance was a very thin scar on Harry's forehead which was shaped like a bolt of lightning and Vivian's two-colored eyes.

Harry had had it as long as he could remember and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had got 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.

"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting. About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry and Vivian needed a haircut. The twin must have had more haircuts than the rest of the kids in their class put together, but it made no difference, their hair simply grew that way – 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 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 – Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig, which made Vivian had a hard time not laughing in front of the Dursleys as her brother had a knack for sarcasm.

Vivian helps Harry 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."

"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry and Vivian, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down their bacons as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.

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.

"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. "Mrs Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in the twin'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 was left behind with Mrs Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. The twin both 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 Tibbies, Snowy, Mr Paws and Tufty again.

"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates them."

The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though they wasn'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 just leave us here," Harry put in 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 promise 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..."

"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone..."

Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying, it had been years since he'd really cried, but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.

"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let him 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-spoils everything!" He shot Harry and Vivian a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms made Vivian rolled her eyes and looked away in annoyed.

Just then, the doorbell rang – "Oh, Good Lord, they're here!' said Aunt Petunia frantically – and 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 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 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.

"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's while Vivian was hiding behind Harry and only poking her head out to take a look, "I'm warning you now, brats – any funny business, anything at all – you and your little sister will be in yours room from now until Christmas."

"We're not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly..."

But Uncle Vernon didn't believe them. No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things often happened around the twin and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barber's looking as though he hadn't been at all, had 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 Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and Sellotaped glasses. Vivian was no exception, she had to "try" very hard to have the motivation to hold back her laughter and comfort her unfortunate brother.

Next morning, however, he had got up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his 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 them 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, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, the twin weren't punished.

On the other hand, they'd got into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing them as usual when, as much to their surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney and Vivian was sitting on top of a gigantic old tree. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from the little Potters's headmistress telling them Harry and Vivian had been climbing school buildings. But all they'd tried to do (as they shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big bins outside the kitchen

doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.

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, his 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, Vivian, the bank and Harry 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."

Vivian also excitedly made hand signals repeatedly saying that she also had strange but interesting dreams in which she saw a giant with a thick beard holding them as children. "You had a dream like that too?"

Vivian nodded continuously in excitement.

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! AND NONE OF THOSE... THINGS IS EXISTS!"

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 even more than his asking questions, it was his 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 himself and Vivian 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 for them a cheap lemon ice lolly. It wasn't bad either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head and looking remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.

"I know what are you thinking, Harry."

Harry's mischievous sister nudged him when she saw him zone out while looking at the gorilla cage, she pointed at the gorillas and then at the Dursleys.

"Stop it, Vi. They gonna see us." said Harry, he couldn't bring himself to scold his mischievous little sister. Vivian giggled again when Harry pushed her hand down.

The Potters twin had the best morning they'd had in a long time. They 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 was allowed to finish the first, his sister got Piers's share of the meal well for the same reason as Dudley.

They felt, afterwards, that they should have known it was all too good to last.

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 moved 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 he got to visit the rest of the house.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with the twin's.

It winked.

Vivian and Harry stared

They blinked a few times and then looked over to see if each other was seeing what they both had just witnessed. Then they looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. They looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head towards 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."

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 the twin 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 as fast as he could.

"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Vivian in the ribs.

Caught by surprise, Vivian fell hard on the concrete floor, Harry quickly pulled his unfortunate sister up, he glared at the glass Dudley was leaning against with a frown and annoyance on his face. 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.

Vivian sat up and gasped looking at her brother then to the glass; 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 him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come...Thanksss, 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 apologised 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, 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 Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say,

"The twin was talking to it, weren't you, Harry and.... V-Vivian?"

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go – to – your room – stay – no meals," before he collapsed into a chair and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, 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 some food.

They'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since they'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember

being in the car when their parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during 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 supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.

When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. 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 him 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 Harry tried to get a closer look.

At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Potters in their baggy old clothes and broken glasses and weird colored hair, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.

There was a rattling sound outside the cuppboard door that made Harry curiously look out. It was a pocket watch tied to a string hanging from the door, and the person who had been playing this prank was none other than Harry's mischievous little sister, Vivian.

After confirming that her brother had retrieved the items he needed to sneak a late night snack, she quickly ran into the room just in time before Uncle Vernon came up to check. Harry could imagine her trying to stifle a giggle as Uncle Vernon unsuccessfully caught Vivian red-handed.

At least Harry has a single sibling to lean on and share his miserables with.