Chapter 1 - Philosopher's Stone

TEN YEARS LATER - ELLA'S POV

It was another horrible morning as I was woken up by the sound of knocking on the small cupboard door under the stairs that my twin, Harry, and I shared.

"Up! Get up!" my aunt Petunia shouted as Harry and I grabbed our glasses. There was another knock before a final shout, "Now!"

I sighed as our aunt smacked the door before I heard her footsteps walking away. We then heard banging from above us on the stairs as we sat up.

"Wake up, cousins! We're going to the zoo!" Dudley yelled as he laughed. Harry just rolled his eyes and gestured for me to open the door once we both stood. However, before I could even take a proper step into the hallway, I was shoved back into Harry as Dudley laughed and slammed the door on us.

"I'm sorry," I apologised as I got off my brother. "You ok?"

"I'm alright, you?" Harry replied.

"I'm ok."

With small smiles, Harry and I helped each other up before walking after Dudley to the kitchen.

"Oh, here he comes, the birthday boy!" Aunt Petunia excitedly greeted her son.

"Happy birthday, son," Uncle Vernon added from the kitchen table as Harry and I entered the room. Aunt Petunia was giving Dudley butterfly kisses when she saw us and turned to me,

"Why don't you just cook the breakfast and try not to burn anything."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," I answered with an unamused tone as I moved to finish cooking the bacon.

"I want everything to be perfect for my Dudley's special day."

As Aunt Petunia brought Dudley over to the family room, Harry started to grab Uncle Vernon's coffee when our uncle got impatient,

"Hurry up! Bring my coffee, boy!"

"Yes, Uncle Vernon," Harry replied swiftly with the same tone as me.

"Aren't they wonderful, darling?" Aunt Petunia asked my cousin, who took a few moments to answer,

"How many are there?"

"Thirty-six. Counted 'em myself," Uncle Vernon proudly stated as Harry and I came over with the coffee and breakfast.

"Thirty-six?! But last year-! Last year I had thirty-seven!"

Harry and I looked at one another with unimpressed expressions as Uncle Vernon tried to explain himself to Dudley,

"Yes, well, some of them are quite a bit bigger than last year."

"I don't care how big they are!"

"Oh, now, now, now," Aunt Petunia cooed, "This is what we're going to do, is that when we go out, we're going to buy you two new presents! How's that, Pumpkin?"

I shook my head and subtly rolled my eyes at my cousin's bratty behaviour before everyone focused on breakfast.

After everyone had gotten ready, we all left the house to get in the car and go to the zoo.

"This will be a lovely day at the zoo," Aunt Petunia happily stated as she opened her door. "I'm really looking forward to it."

Just as Harry was about to open the door for us to get in, Uncle Vernon stopped him and threatened,

"I'm warning you now, twins. Any funny business, any at all, and you won't have any meals for a week. Get in."

I looked at Harry with a pout before he placed his hand on my shoulder and moved us toward the car again.

While at the zoo, the five of us made our way to the reptile house. I was casually leaning on the railing in front of the boa constrictor's enclosure, with Harry doing the same on my left.

"Make it move!" Dudley complained while on my right. Uncle Vernon then leaned toward the glass before knocking on it,

"Move!"

Dudley then proceeded to imitate his father and hit the glass much harder before yelling,

"Move!"

Growing tired of our cousin's rude behaviour, Harry and I both yelled,

"He's asleep!"

"He's boring," Dudley retorted with a pout before he, Uncle Vernon, and Aunt Petunia left to look at something else while Harry and I stayed.

"Sorry about him," I apologized to the snake. Harry added,

"He doesn't understand what it's like, lying there day after day, watching people press their ugly faces in on you."

Suddenly, the snake looked up at the two of us, seeming to wink and causing my eyes to widen as I asked,

"Can you... hear us?"

The snake nodded, and I looked at Harry, who shared the same look of amazement. I turned back to the snake who was still looking at us. "It's just... we've never talked to a snake before. Do you... I mean... do you talk to people often?"

In response, the snake shook its head before Harry questioned,

"You're from Burma, aren't you? Was it nice there, do you miss your family?"

The snake turned his head, gesturing toward a sign stating 'Bred in Captivity'. "I see. That's us as well. We never knew our parents, either."

Out of nowhere, Dudley came over and shoved Harry and me to the floor before he shouted,

"Mummy, Dad, come here! You won't believe what this snake is doing!"

Harry and I sat up on the floor and glared at Dudley while he had his hand up against the glass when, suddenly, the glass disappeared, causing Dudley to fall into the snake's enclosure, sputtering in a pool of water. "Whoa! Ahh! Ahh!"

My eyes were wide in shock until the snake started to slither out of his enclosure, causing my face to hold a panic-filled expression. I swiftly grabbed Harry's arm for comfort as the snake stopped in front of us,

"Thankssssssss."

"Anytime," my brother and I answered, still in shock. We watched as the snake slithered away toward the exit as people started screaming,

"SNAKE!"

After watching the snake, I turned back to my cousin at the sound of pounding on glass and his yells,

"Mum, mummy!"

Dudley screamed, alerting Aunt Petunia and causing her to rush over. At the sight of Dudley trapped in the enclosure, she started screaming and panicking along with him,

"AHH!"

"Mum, help! Help me!"

"My darling boy! How did you get in there?!"

I was shocked once again by the fact that the glass had returned out of nowhere, but I couldn't help but let a small smile play on my lips at the sight while Harry giggled beside me. As Aunt Petunia and Dudley continued to panic, Uncle Vernon looked down at my twin and me with a strong glare, causing my face to fall and Harry's giggles to stop.

As soon as Dudley was helped out of the snake's enclosure, Uncle Vernon ushered us all home. Aunt Petunia brought Dudley into the house, bundled in a blanket, while she reassured him,

"It's all right. It's all right."

Uncle Vernon gestured for Harry and me to go in ahead of him, but once we did, he slammed the door and roughly grabbed a handful of our hair in each hand before shoving us against the wall.

"Ow!" Harry and I cried, but Uncle Vernon just angrily demanded,

"What happened?"

"I swear we don't know! One minute the glass was there, and then it was gone!" Harry answered, and I added,

"It was like magic!"

Uncle Vernon simply scoffed before shoving my brother and me into the small closet that we called our room.

"There's no such thing as magic!" he concluded before locking the door and walking away. Harry had his arms wrapped around me since I had basically fallen on him, and I looked up at him with the same confused expression that he had.

Almost a whole month went by, and as Harry and I were finishing up the tasks that Uncle Vernon had given us that morning, we heard Aunt Petunia from the family room,

"Vernon, just look at him. I can't believe it. In just a week, he'll be off to Smeltings."

Curious, the two of us went to go see what Aunt Petunia was talking about, only to see Dudley posing in front of the fireplace with a school uniform on.

"Caviar at Smell-Tonia. Proudest moment of my life," Uncle Vernon stated proudly.

"Will I have to wear that, too?" Harry asked with disgust in his tone, but our aunt and uncle looked at each other in shock.

"You?" Aunt Petunia questioned with a scoff, "Go to Smeltings?"

"Ha!" Uncle Vernon said before he and Aunt Petunia both started to laugh at Harry's supposedly ridiculous question.

"Don't be so stupid. You're going to go to the state school where you belong." Aunt Petunia walked over to the kitchen with Harry and me following. She stopped at the stove and showed us Dudley's old school uniform in a pot of coloured water. "Now, this is what you're going to be wearing when I've finished dyeing it."

"But that's Dudley's old uniform. It'll fit me like bits of old elephant skin," Harry complained with a pout.

"It'll fit you well enough. We've already had to waste our money on buying uniforms for your sister."

I looked down as a pout made its way across my features as well. Even though it wasn't my doing, I felt horrible about the fact that I got new uniforms and Harry didn't. After a moment, Aunt Petunia instructed us, "Go and get the post. Go!"

With a shared look of frustration, Harry and I turned to do as our aunt asked, walking to the front door. I crouched down to pick up all the letters that had fallen on the floor from the letterbox opening. As the two of us walked back to the kitchen, I sorted through the pile of letters and passed some to Harry. After going through all the letters on the top of the pile, I stopped at the sight of one letter addressed to me, and another addressed to Harry. I stood staring at the letters while Harry handed the rest of the mail to Uncle Vernon. Once he came back over to me, I showed him our letters, causing the same look of confusion and surprise to cross his face that held features almost identical to mine.

"Ah, Marge is ill. Ate a funny whelk," Uncle Vernon announced as he read some of his mail, but Harry and I didn't pay him any mind as we prepared ourselves to open our letters. Before I got the chance to break the seal properly, Dudley ran over and grabbed our letters from us before running over to Uncle Vernon,

"Dad, look! Harry's got a letter! Ella too!"

"Hey, give them back!" Harry demanded, leaving me to add,

"They're ours!"

Uncle Vernon laughed in disbelief,

"Yours? Who'd be writing to you two?"

Our aunt, uncle and cousin gathered to look at our letters to see who they were addressed to. Once they realized we were being truthful, the three of them looked up at us, causing Harry and me to gulp. Not a moment after, Uncle Vernon shook his head with what sounded like a nervous chuckle, "I'm sure it's just rubbish mail of some sort. There's no reason to keep them. Here, throw them away and go to your room."

Harry took the two letters from our uncle's grasp, but we went to protest,

"But-!"

"Ah! No 'buts'. Give them here, I'll dispose of them myself. Go!"

Feeling utterly disappointed and upset, Harry handed our letters back to Uncle Vernon, and then he and I went to go to our small broom cupboard.

Not even two days later, while I sat with Harry in our room, we heard a whirring noise coming from the front door. Quietly, I crawled to open the door just a crack so that Harry and I could see what was going on. Harry crouched over me, and together we looked to see Uncle Vernon drilling a piece of wood over the letterbox opening.

"No more mail through this letterbox," Uncle Vernon determinedly stated, causing me to look up at Harry with vague concern etched on both of our faces. Two nights later, Harry and I went to get glasses of water from the kitchen, only to see Uncle Vernon in the family room tossing, what seemed to be, a pile of letters addressed to us into the fireplace. He seemed to notice our presence and turned to send us an evil grin. I couldn't help but let a glare appear on my face at the fact that whoever was trying to contact us was being prevented from doing so. The rest of the week wasn't any better. On the weekend, Uncle Vernon had Harry and me serving cookies to him, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley as they sat in the family room.

"Fine day Sunday," Uncle Vernon happily sighed as he took a cookie from the plate. "In my opinion, the best day of the week. Why is that, Dudley?"

Dudley looked at his father and shrugged, causing Harry and me to answer at the same time,

"Because there's no post on Sunday?"

"Right you are, Harry and Ella. No post on Sunday. Ha! No blasted letters today. No, sir."

As I turned to put the plate down by the window, I rolled my eyes. Suddenly, I looked up at the sight of a shadow, and my vision was met with millions of owls perched in front of our house on the street. Harry had stepped up beside me, and we both looked at each other with bewildered expressions. "No, sir, not one blasted, miserable-"

Out of nowhere, a letter shot out of the fireplace, zipping across Uncle Vernon's face. After a moment, we all heard a rumbling before a million more letters came shooting out after the first one. My eyes went wide as my mouth fell open while Dudley just screamed and jumped onto Aunt Petunia's lap,

"AHH! Make it stop! Please make it stop!"

Everyone started screaming in shock and confusion, including Uncle Vernon,

"Go away, ahh!"

"What is it? Please tell me what's happening!"

Excitedly, Harry jumped onto the coffee table to try and grab one of the flying letters while I simply went for one on the floor. As soon as we each had one in our hands, Harry grabbed my hand and pulled me with him to run to our room, away from Uncle Vernon.

"Give me those! Give me those letters!" Uncle Vernon demanded as he chased us. Right before Harry could open the door to our cupboard under the stairs, Uncle Vernon grabbed us both, pulling us away to take our letters.

"Get off! Ahh!" Harry yelled while we both struggled against our uncle's grip.

"Ahh!"

"They're our letters! Let go of us!"

Uncle Vernon's back hit a wall, causing all three of us to fall, but his grip didn't loosen.

"That's it! We're going away! Far away! Where they can't find us!"

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?!" Dudley worriedly asked his mother as he and Aunt Petunia stared from the doorway to the kitchen and family room.

After much struggle, Uncle Vernon ended up moving us all to a house on a rock island out at sea. It was the middle of the night, and brutally storming. Everyone was asleep except for Harry and me. We lay on our stomachs on the cold floor with nothing but thin blankets as we drew a birthday cake in the dirt. Just as Harry finished the eleventh candle, Dudley's watch started beeping, indicating that it was now 12:00 am on July 31st. Harry and I's birthday. I turned to my twin brother with a small smile,

"Happy birthday, Harry."

"Happy birthday, Ella," Harry returned.

"Make a wish."

Harry shook his head at my offer as he took my hand in his,

"Together."

I smiled before the two of us turned toward our cake drawing and blew on the imaginary candles. All of a sudden, there was a loud thump on the door, causing Harry and I to jump. There was another thump, causing my hand to instinctively go to my brother's as Dudley and the two of us jumped back. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon cautiously rushed down the stairs with a gun in Uncle Vernon's hand as the door banged again.

"Who's there?" Uncle Vernon choked out, but with another bang, the door fell forward, revealing the silhouette of a giant man standing in the opening. Aunt Petunia and Dudley both screamed in terror while Harry pushed us both back against the wall to hide behind the protruding fireplace. The huge man ducked as he stepped through the opening and into the house before gesturing to the fallen door,

"Sorry 'bout that." The man easily lifted the door back to its original place before turning back toward all of us. Harry kept me behind him as we both hid behind the wall.

"I demand that you leave at once, sir!" Uncle Vernon demanded. "You are breaking and entering!"

The giant man simply walked over to Uncle Vernon.

"Dry up, Dursley, you great prune," the man stated before grabbing the end of the gun and bending it upwards right as it fired. Everyone squealed in shock and fear. The stranger then turned around and spotted Dudley, "Mind, I haven't seen you and Ella since you was babies, Harry, but you're a bit more along than I would have expected. Particularly 'round the middle!" The man gestured toward his belly, and Dudley stuttered, struggling to correct the stranger,

"I-I-I'm not Harry."

My twin stepped out into view with his hand still in mine,

"I-I am."

"Oh, well, of course, you are!" the man smiled before noticing me, "And Ella, too! Got something for ya both. 'Fraid I might have sat on it at some point, but I imagine that it'll taste fine just the same. Ahh. Baked it myself."

Proudly, the giant man handed Harry and me a box. "Words and all. Heh."

Inside the box was a cake decorated with pink frosting and the words' Happee Birdae Ella and Harry' in green icing.

"Thank you!" Harry and I both said, gratefully surprised, causing most of my fear to wash away at his kindness.

"It's not every day that your young man and lady turn eleven, now is it?" The man sat down on the couch and then took out an umbrella before pointing the end of it toward the empty fireplace. With two 'poof' sounds, two sparks flew from the end of the umbrella, causing a fire to ignite in the fireplace. Harry and I looked at one another with wide eyes. Then, putting down the cake as we still stared at the magical fire, Harry politely asked,

"Excuse me, who are you?"

"Rubeus Hagrid," Hagrid answered, "Keeper of keys and grounds at Hogwarts. Of course, you'll know all about Hogwarts."

"Sorry, no," I told him with a confused look and kind tone.

"No? Blimey, Harry and Ella, didn't you ever wonder where your mum and dad learned it all?"

Harry and I glanced at each other before questioning Hagrid,

"Learnt what?"

"You're a wizard, Harry. And Ella, you're a witch."