CHAPTER TWO
The Vanishing Glass
Nearly ten years had passed since the morning the Dursley’s had found Harry on their porch.
Almost nothing had changed in the house and in the living room except the photographs on the walls showing Dudley’s life.
There were no photographs of Harry.
But he had still lived in the house with his aunt and uncle.
He was small and skinny boy who wore Dudley’s old clothes which were too big for him.
Dudley was a big fat boy who hated exercising, but still he asked for a racing bike as his birthday present.
The Dursley didn’t love Harry: he didn’t have his own room - they made him sleep in the cupboard under the stairs, Dudley punched him once he managed to catch him.
They never told him any kind word.
As for Dudley, it was the other story.
They worshiped him, they allowed him to do everything he wanted, they presented him with almost forty presents for his birthday (even with the things he didn’t need).
Dudley was the lazy, naughty boy who manipulated his parents.
Every year they took Dudley somewhere out to celebrate his birthdays but they never took Harry with them.
That year they decided to go to the zoo, but the woman who looked after Harry when the Dursley were out had broken her leg and couldn’t stay with him.
That was why they all went to the zoo together for the first time.
There was one strange thing that happened in the reptile house where they went after the lunch.
It was cold and boring inside.
Dudley found the largest snake in that place but it was asleep and didn’t move, so Dudley lost his interest in it after trying to wake it.
Harry thought that it was really boring for the snake staying all the time in the same place looking at stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long.
Suddenly the snake looked at Harry as if it understood what Harry thought and they started sort of communicating.
At that moment Dudley and his friend saw that the boa constrictor was awake and they rushed to the glass pushing Harry on the floor.
Nobody noticed how the strange thing had happened - one moment there was the glass and the boys were leaning to it to see the snake and the next moment the glass vanished and the boys were in the snake’s tank and the snake was slithering out of the tank.
Nothing bad had happened with Dudley and his friend but uncle Vernon was angry at Harry and locked him in the cupboard.
Harry felt alone all these ten years since his parents died (he was told they died in the car crash, but Harry didn’t remember the crash, he only remembered the green light and the burning feeling on this forehead where he had a scar now).