Chapter - 3 : Beneath the Stairs

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The banging on the door was what woke us up, as it had for the past decade of our lives. I groaned and stretched carefully as Harry removed his bony knee from my back. One had to be careful when you had two people crammed into a twin bed. One wrong move and you ended up on the floor, which had happened to me more than once. Thankfully, both of us Potter children were skinny and small, otherwise the situation would have been hopeless.

Harry crawled over me and straightened up as well as he was able under the stairs, yawning widely as he fumbled for his glasses. I curled into a ball and groaned, one hand reaching out to pick up the broken frames of his glasses and pass them to him. Harry took them and nudged my shoulder.

"Come on, if you don't get up it'll be cold chicken noodle soup again," he grunted. I let out a louder groan, but rolled out of bed, stretching my hands towards the sky. They stopped about half-way up, connecting with the stairs. I sighed and lowered my arms, rubbing my bleary eyes. The blurry image of thin frames appeared in front of my eyes and I took my own glasses from Harry, sliding them onto my face.

Like my twin, they were thin wire frames, but his were round and mine were thin rectangles. In fact, aside from the different hair colors and genders we could have been the same person. Harry's hair was a solid, deep black, and mine was a thick, dark red. We even had the same cowlick that made our hair extremely messy.

I moved to the cracked mirror hanging on the wall. Aunt Petunia had given it to us years ago, probably in a desperate hope that we would put a little more effort into managing our hair, but it didn't work. Harry's simply couldn't be contained, the I only put in enough effort to run my fingers through my long locks a couple of times in the morning.

Which was actually quite a bit of effort. My hair was waist-length. Harry's hair was cut whenever it began to get long, simply because it wouldn't do for him to run around looking like, as Uncle Vernon put it, 'some beatnik hippie asking for spare change.' Because I was a girl, and long hair was therefore acceptable for me, I never got the luxury of haircuts. Apparently they were far too expensive, and despite the fact that my hair was long enough to get in the way, I'd never quite gotten up the courage to take the kitchen scissors and whack it short.

I gave up hope of making my hair neat and just arranged it with a large chuck hanging over the left side of my face, covering it almost entirely. It made Aunt Petunia furious, but at the same time, the Dursleys could never quite figure out which was worse: me having my hair in my face, or exposing the S-shaped scar on my cheek. Usually I'd get away with it, but every now and then Uncle Vernon would go on a kick and start making me pull my hair back. Then someone would ask about my scar and I'd be allowed to cover me face again.

I cast a jealous look at Harry's bangs. If my scar was on my forehead, life would be so much simpler.

Harry reached for a too-big sweatshirt courtesy of Dudley and tried to tug it on. His head and shoulders were swamped in the excess fabric and he flailed around, staggering into the bed. I sighed and took advantage of his confusion to grab my own pair of huge jeans, belting them tightly at my hips to keep them from dropping to the ground. I tucked in the too-long camisole I'd been sleeping in and buttoned up a stretched-out lavender cardigan of Aunt Petunia's over it.

Harry had managed to fight his way free of the sweatshirt and get it on right and was trying to buckle his belt, fighting his way through the extra fabric to get at the buckle. I snorted as he got it fastened and the sweatshirt dropped to his knees, he sleeves dangling over his hands.

"Nice sweater," Harry retorted, and I scowled, my one visible eye glaring. I swatted at Harry as I went past and opened the door. We scuttled out of the cupboard under the stairs, sliding into the kitchen and trying to make our entrance subtle enough not to attract attention.

Aunt Petunia passed the bacon off to Harry before thumping a cookbook down in front of me and opening it to a bookmarked page. On it was a picture of a moist, triple-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, chocolate shavings, rosettes of whipped cream, and maraschino cherries. I got a tooth ache just looking at the cake, but my mouth also watered at the sight of it.

I scoffed to myself. Like I'd be allowed a piece.

"My Dudders has decided that he wants this cake for his birthday," Aunt Petunia hissed to me. "You're going to make it, and it's going to look just like the picture, or you can both forget meals for the next week!"

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," I said, already scanning the recipe. My eyes widened at the amount of sugar in the recipe, but then, I shouldn't be surprised. Dudley liked anything that was bad for you, the more sugary the better. It was the main reason why he was roughly the size of a young killer whale.

"Good," Aunt Petunia said, stepping away from the counter, already totally focused on Dudley, who was plowing his way through a pile of pancakes that could have fed a small African country. "Everything's going to be perfect for my Dudley's special day!" she cooed, pinching Dudley's cheek fondly. He smacked his mother's hand away, chins wobbling as he continued to eat.

"I wanna open my presents!" Dudley announced loudly. "And I want more bacon!"

"Of course, Dudley," Aunt Petunia simpered, but her beady little eyes were glaring at Harry, snapping at him furiously and pointing to Dudley's plate. Harry hustled over to the table with the bacon he'd just finished and deposited it onto Dudley's plate. He hurried back into the kitchen, whispering to me as he passed, "Have you seen the pile?"

No, I hadn't. Because if I looked, then I'd be even more bitter about the toothpicks I got for my birthday last year.

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