"Up! Get up!" Aunt Petunia shrieked as she pounded on the door. Harry Potter woke with a start under the stairs. "Now!"
Harry heard her walking towards the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being placed on the pot. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he'd been having. It had been a good one. There was a flying motorcycle in it. He had the strange feeling he'd had the same dream before.
Harry slowly got out of bed and began looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed, 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.
Harry had always been small and thin for his age. He looked even smaller and thinner than he actually was because all he had to wear were Dudley's old clothes, and Dudley was about four times his size. Harry had a thin face, knobby knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him in the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a thin scar on his forehead shaped like a lightning bolt.
"Wake up, cousin!" Dudley shouted as he leaped down the stairs, dust falling all over Harry. "Let's go to the zoo!"
When Harry was dressed, he came out from under the stairs, where Dudley had pushed him back in, before going down the hall and into the kitchen. The living room was almost hidden under all of Dudley's birthday presents while Petunia was at the stove making breakfast.
"Here comes the birthday boy," said Aunt Petunia, kissing Dudley on the cheek.
Dudley was about four times bigger than Harry. He looked like Uncle Vernon. He had a large, pink face, not much of a neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick brown hair that fell softly over his thick, fat head.
"Happy birthday, son." Uncle Vernon congratulated him.
"Why don't you cook breakfast? And try not to burn anything." Aunt Petunia mocked Harry as she walked towards the oven.
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," Harry replied, cooking the eggs and bacon.
"I want everything to be perfect... for my Dudley's special day!" Aunt Petunia said as she covered Dudley's eyes with her hands and escorted him into the living room.
"Hurry up! Bring me the coffee, boy." Uncle Vernon barked.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon," said Harry, putting the eggs and bacon on the plate.
Aunt Petunia spotted Dudley's eyes as she entered the living room.
"Aren't they wonderful, darling?" she asked, referring to the gifts.
"How many are there?" Dudley asked, turning to his father.
"Thirty-six." Uncle Vernon replied with a slight smile. "I counted them myself."
Dudley's face fell. "Thirty-six?! But I was thirty-seven last year!"
"But some are bigger than last year's," said Uncle Vernon. Harry, who saw the big tantrum, rolled his eyes as he poured Uncle Vernon's coffee.
"I don't care how big they are!" Dudley shouted.
"Here's what we're going to do. We're going to buy you two new presents. How about that, pumpkin?" Aunt Petunia said quickly.
Half an hour later, Harry couldn't believe he was going to the zoo with the Dursleys. Just as Harry was about to jump into the back seat, Uncle Vernon slammed the door and pulled Harry aside.
"I'm warning you now, lad," said Uncle Vernon, putting his big purple face close to Harry's. "Any funny business, anything at all... and you won't have a meal for a week. Come in."
And with that, Harry sighed before getting into the vehicle.
----
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was full of families. Harry was careful to keep a little distance from the Dursleys so that Dudley, who was starting to get bored with the animals at lunchtime, wouldn't resort to his favorite pastime of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley threw a tantrum because his Knickerbocker Glory wasn't big enough, Uncle Vernon bought him another one, and Harry was allowed to finish the first one.
Harry felt afterwards that he should have known it was all too good to last.
After lunch, they went to the reptile house. It was cold and dark in there, with lit windows along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes slithered and slithered over pieces of wood and stone. Dudley wanted to see huge, venomous cobras and thick pythons that crushed men. Dudley quickly found the biggest snake there. He would have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and squashed it in a dumpster, but at that moment it didn't seem to be in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.
"Make him move." Dudley complained about his father.
Uncle Vernon banged on the glass. "Move it!"
The snake did not move.
"Move!" Dudley shouted, banging on the glass with his knuckles, but the snake just dozed.
"He's asleep!" Harry said, raising his voice.
"It's boring." Dudley groaned.
Dudley shuffled away along with Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, while Harry moved in front of the tank and stared at the snake.
"I feel sorry for him. He doesn't understand what it's like, lying there day after day... watching people press their ugly faces on you," Harry said. The snake suddenly opened its bright eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were level with Harry's. It winked. "Can you hear me?" The snake nodded. "It's just that I've never talked to a snake before. And you...? Do you talk to people often?" The snake shook its head quickly. "You're from Burma, aren't you? Was it nice there? Do you miss your family?" The snake slapped its tail at a small sign by the glass. Harry looked at it. 'Raised in captivity.' "I see. That's me, too. I never knew my parents, either."
"Mum, Dad, you won't believe what this snake is doing!" Dudley shouted from behind Harry, running towards the snake as fast as he could.
Dudley shoved Harry out of the way. Harry fell hard onto the concrete floor. What happened next was so fast that no one saw it: one second Dudley was leaning near the glass, the next he had fallen straight into the tank and the small pool of water. The glass in front of the boa constrictor's tank was gone.
Harry let out a small chuckle. The large snake was uncoiling rapidly, slithering across the floor. When the snake slithered away, it stopped in front of Harry.
"Thank you." The snake said in a low, hissing voice.
"Any moment," Harry replied. Then the snake slithered swiftly past him, and people throughout the reptile house screamed and began running for the exits.
Dudley hesitantly climbed out of the water and tried to escape his captivity until the glass mysteriously appeared before him. Fear spread across his face.
"Mom! Mummy! Help me!" Dudley screamed in panic as he pounded on the glass.
Aunt Petunia screamed and immediately ran to the glass. "My dear boy! How did you get there?"
Harry couldn't help but laugh at the situation before him. But the wide grin that spread across his face vanished immediately when Uncle Vernon approached him with a stern expression. Harry swallowed hard.
----
After the zoo incident, Dudley was wrapped in a rug and Aunt Petunia took him straight inside while Uncle Vernon pushed Harry inside and closed the door.
"What happened?" demanded Uncle Vernon as he grabbed a fistful of Harry's hair and yanked it back.
"I swear, I don't know!" Harry shouted sincerely, earning a snarl from Uncle Vernon. "One minute the glass was there and then it was gone, it was like magic."
Uncle Vernon had had enough. He pushed Harry under the stairs and locked the door. "There's no magic."