Chapter Text
Emmalina’s POV
The hottest day of the summer so far was coming to a close and a lazy silence laid over the large, squad houses on Privet Drive.
Cars that were typically glimmering stood dusty in their driveways and lawns that were once emerald green laid dry and yellowing; the use of hosepipes had been banned due to droughts. Deprived of their typical car-washing and lawn-mowing activities, the residents of Privet Drive had retreated into the shade of their cool houses, windows were opened wide in the hope of tempting in a nonexistent breeze. The only people left outdoors were two teenage twins lying flat on their backs in the flowerbed outside number four.
The boy was a skinny, black-haired, glasses-wearing boy who had the pinched, slightly unhealthy look of someone who had grown a lot in a short space of time. His jeans were torn and dirty, his t-shirt was baggy and faded, and the soles of his shoes were peeling away from the uppers.
The girl was a skinny, light brown-haired, diamond blue-eyed girl who, despite having a sculpted body, was wearing a shirt that was at least two sizes too large - even though her boyfriend and best friends had purchased clothes that fit her perfectly just the year before. The girl, however, didn't mind how big her shirt was. It belonged to her boyfriend and she's ecstatic that she had stolen some of his clothes without him noticing. But she was sure that he would notice as soon as he got home that four of his shirts and sweaters were missing.
These twins were named Harry and Emmalina Potter - my twin brother and me.
Our appearances did not endear us to the neighbors, who are the kind of people who thought scruffiness should be punishable by law, but as we had hidden behind a large hydrangea bush this evening, we were quite invisible to passerbyers. The only way we were visible was if our Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia stuck their heads out of the living room window and looked right in the flowerbed below.
All in all, Harry and I thought that we should be congratulated on our idea of hiding here. We were not very comfortable lying on the hot, hard earth but the other hand, nobody was glaring at us, grinding their teeth so loudly we couldn't hear the news, or shouting nasty questions at us, as had happened every time we tried sitting down in the living room and watching television with our aunt and uncle.
Almost as if my thought had flown through the open window, Vernon Dursley, Harry’s and my uncle, suddenly spoke, “Glad to see those twins stopped trying to butt in. Where are they anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Aunt Petunia answers, not sounding as if she cared about where we were that much. “Not in the house.”
Uncle Vernon grunted.
“Watching the news …” he said bitterly. “I’d like to know what they’re really up to. As if normal teenagers care about what’s on the news - Dudley hasn’t got a clue what’s going on, doubt he knows who the Prime Minister is! Anyway, it’s not as if there’d be anything about their lot on our news -”
“Vernon, shush!” Aunt Petunia exclaims. “The window’s open!”
“Oh - yes - sorry, dear …”
The Dursleys fell silent. I listened to the jingle about Fruit ‘N Bran breakfast cereal while I watched Mrs. Figgs, a batty, cat-loving old lady from closeby Wisteria Walk, tred slowly past. She was frowning and muttering to herself. I was very pleased that Harry and I were hidden behind the bush; Mrs. Figg had recently taken to asking us around for tea whenever she met us in the street. She had rounded the corner and disappeared from view before Uncle Vernon’s voice flew through the window again.
“Dudders out for tea?”
“At the Polkisses’,” Aunt Petunia answers respectfully. “He’s got so many little friends, he’s so popular …”
I muffled my laughter with difficulty. The Dursleys really were surprisingly dim about their son, Dudley; they had eaten up all of his stupid lies about having tea with different members of his gang every night of the summer holidays. Harry and I knew perfectly well that Dudley hadn’t been drinking tea anywhere, he and his gang spent every evening vandalizing the play park, smoking on street corners, and throwing stones at cars and children passing by. I had seen them at it during Harry and my evening walks around Little Whinging; we had spent most of the holiday wandering the streets, grabbing newspaper from the bins along the way.
The opening of the music that announced the seven o’clock news reached my ears and my stomach turned over. Maybe tonight - after a month of waiting - would be the night -
“Record numbers of stranded holidaymakers fill airports as the Spanish baggage handlers’ strike reaches its second week -”
“Give ‘em a lifelong siesta, I would,” Uncle Vernon snarled over the end of the newsreader’s sentence. Outside in the flower bed, my stomach seemed to unclench. If anything had happened, it would definitely have been the first item on the news; death and destruction were more important than stranded holidaymakers. …
I kept listening, just in case there was some small clue, not recognized for what it really was by the Muggles - an unexplained disappearance, perhaps, or some strange accident … but the baggage handlers’ strike was followed by news on the drought in the Southeast (“I hope he’s listening next door!” Uncle Vernon shouted, “with his sprinklers on at three in the morning!”); then a helicopter that had almost crashed in a field in Surrey, then a famous actress’s divorce from her famous husband (“as if we’re interested in their sleazy affairs,” sniffed Aunt Petunia who had followed the case obsessively in every magazine she could get her bony hands on.)
I closed my eyes against the now blazing evening sky as the newsreader continued. I moved over and set my head on Harry’s chest. My brother wrapped an arm around my shoulders, gently rubbing my forearm with his thumb.
“And finally, Bungy the budgie who has found a novel way of keeping cool this summer. Bungy, who lives at Five Feathers in Barnsley, has learned to water-ski! Mary Dorkins went to find out more …”
My eyes snapped open again. If they had reached water-skiing budgerigars, there would have been nothing interesting to hear. I rolled cautiously onto my stomach and raised myself onto my elbows and knees, preparing to crawl out from under the window.
Harry and I moved about two inches when several things happen very quickly.