Chapter Text
Harry and Holly Potter were left on a stranger’s doorstep one cold November night—the first day of a new month, and the first day after the twins became orphans. Shivering and scared, it was a miracle they didn’t suffer from pneumonia… or worse, get abducted before daybreak. When the bony woman opened the door, she screamed at the sight of the twins—something awful. The babies soon joined her in her hysterics.
Who was this woman?
Where was their mother? Their father?
Why were they left in the cold, all alone?
They had no way of knowing they’d just been abandoned by an old man who had no business rehoming war orphans. He’d dumped them on the doorstep of their mother’s estranged sister—the vile Petunia—and her equally nasty husband, Vernon Dursley. Inside the house was their son, Dudley, who would one day delight in pinching, pushing, and tormenting them.
Little Harry and Holly, with their unruly black hair and bright green eyes—eyes just like their mother Lily's—were not welcome here. They were not wanted. Not even remotely tolerated.
They would be underfed, unloved, verbally and physically abused for years to come. Forced to do chores too hard and complicated for children their age. Punished unfairly for any mistakes. Blamed for things Dudley did, and made to clean up messes he’d made on purpose.
But there was hope, however small.
Even now, as helpless babies just entering toddlerhood, they had each other. They would always have each other. And that bond—fragile and fierce—would be the guiding light that kept them alive in a world that tried to swallow them whole.
It happened when they were three years old.
Their bedroom—the cupboard under the stairs—seemed to shrink every few months, especially as the twins grew, even with the lack of food to fuel that growth. They didn’t know their real names. Their relatives only ever called them Boy, Girl, or Freaks.
They wore Dudley’s cast-off clothes, oversized and sagging on their small frames. Just the other day, Boy had been slapped by Aunt Petunia. A large, round bruise now bloomed across his cheek.
His crime? Telling the truth.
She’d asked if he had taken the biscuits from the kitchen. He hadn’t. But Dudley had—there were crumbs in his bed, and even more down the front of his shirt. Boy pointed this out, too young to know better. Petunia had screamed at him for “being a nasty liar” and “trying to blame her perfect Duddykins for his theft,” before striking him.
Today was their first day being made to work in the garden.
“Earn your keep,” Petunia had snapped before locking them outside in the blazing summer heat.
They worked as best they could, waddling on unsteady toddler legs, their small hands dirty and sore. The job was to weed the garden, but no one had explained what a weed even was. Petunia’s only instruction had been: “Pull out the not-flowers and dump them in the compost bin.”
Easy enough—if you’re not three.
The sun beat down. They were soon sweaty, filthy, and parched. Girl approached the door once, desperate for water, but Petunia merely opened the window to shriek at her.
“Back to work!”
Hours passed. The twins were panting and dizzy with thirst. That’s when the terrible mistake happened. Boy reached for a particularly stubborn weed. He tugged with all his strength—only to fall backwards, landing hard in a flowerbed. Right on top of Petunia’s precious rose bush. Thorns scratched his arms and legs. He cried out in pain and panic.
“When Aunt Petunia sees this, I’m gonna be hit again…”Before he could spiral into a meltdown, Girl was beside him. She helped him to his feet like they were pulling another weed from the ground, her little hands frantically brushing dirt from his clothes. But Boy didn’t care about himself. He stared in horror at the flattened rose bush. Maybe… maybe if he fixed it, he wouldn’t be punished? He knelt down and touched one of the crushed stems. Something happened. Warmth. A tingling sensation rushed through his fingertips—and before their wide, astonished eyes, the rose bush began to perk up. The petals smoothed, the leaves uncurled, and it looked even healthier than it had before.
The twins stared, mouths open. Did we do that?
“Secret,” Girl whispered, reaching out to poke the now-glowing plant.
“Secret,” Boy echoed.
Whatever that was—it had to stay between them. Their relatives couldn’t know. This was the kind of thing they’d be punished for. Not forgiven.
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The next time it happened was more than a year later.
They never spoke of the rose incident. Strange things still happened around them from time to time, but nothing as big or obvious as the rosebush. Not yet.
Now they were four years old. It was the night before their first day of primary school when Aunt Petunia pulled them aside to inform them—flatly and without room for protest—that they would be called Harry and Holly at school.
“Why?” the boy asked.
It was a fair question. Why should Boy and Girl suddenly be granted proper names, when they'd been told all their lives that only good children were allowed names? And they had been told, repeatedly and with great disdain, that they were not good children.
They were bad. Very, very bad.
Not that either of them knew what they'd done to earn such judgment. Whenever they asked, they were met with a snappish, “Don’t ask questions!” from Petunia.
So they didn’t ask anymore. They learned instead to listen.
They’d managed to cobble together some school supplies, at least. When Petunia and Vernon took Dudley out shopping for brand new everything, Harry and Holly embarked on a silent mission of their own.
They scoured the house, sneaking through drawers and closets, searching for anything remotely useful. Their haul, pitiful as it was, became a shared treasure:
1. A tattered old backpack to share between them
2. A handful of broken crayons in every odd colour
3. A dictionary filled with words they couldn’t yet read
4. Two battered notebooks with all the pages intact but no notes inside
5. A few broken or chewed-up pens
6. A girly stationary kit that Dudley refused to use—too pink, apparently
After some quiet bickering about whether it was too risky, they even raided Dudley’s piggy bank for a few stray bills.
“He can’t count,” Holly argued.
“We can.” Harry grinned. They were both proud of how many numbers they already knew.
Despite the thrill of their petty victories, the moment Dudley returned home with his loot, it soured into bitter defeat.
He had everything.
A brand-new backpack covered in racing cars. A pencil case with loud cartoon monsters on it. Colored pencils—because apparently crayons were “for babies now.” A shiny lunchbox and matching water bottle in bright blue. Several blank notebooks he’d probably never touch. And a new toy.
All for being well-behaved.
The twins sat stoically on the floor, unspeaking, as their cousin was lavished with praise and affection.
They listened in silence as Petunia and Vernon gushed over how proud they were of him, how special he was. Their faces didn’t change, but something small and hard twisted in their chests. Something brittle. Something used to breaking.
Seeing another child loved when you were not was a bitter pill to swallow. The more obvious the love—through gifts, attention, meals—the more it hurt. And speaking of meals…
Before they left for school, Dudley was given a full English breakfast—toast, bacon, fried eggs, beans, and sausage. The works.
Harry and Holly? They were handed an old banana to share and a cup of tepid water straight from the kitchen tap.
They didn’t cry.
They didn’t beg.
But their hands clenched around the banana.
Their magic stirred quietly under their skin.
And again, they burned—with jealousy. With fury. With the searing unfairness of it all.
Before they even stepped foot outside—the first time they were ever permitted to go anywhere that wasn’t the house or the lawn—Petunia and Vernon got into a spat about whether the twins could go in the car.
“We could just give them a map and let them walk to school?” Petunia's nasally voice suggested.
But Vernon disagreed. “And if people stop them and ask questions? No, no—we can’t have them telling tales to the neighbors, or worse, a policeman!” He seemed genuinely angry at the mere idea of them speaking to one.
“Well, we can’t very well ask a neighbor to take them. They’ll either talk, or the neighbors will find out our car is in perfect working order!”
In the end, Harry and Holly were buckled into the back of a boring grey car the Dursleys called smart-looking, and were threatened with the frying pan—and more chores—if they ruined anything in it.
The drive wasn’t exciting, exactly, but it was new. Never before had the twins been so far from the house. They both stared out the windows the entire way, quietly watching as trees, houses, and people blurred by.
Holly got a bit carsick during the drive and nearly fell out of the car after Petunia parked in the school lot. Harry steadied her. While he asked if she was okay, the pair were left to their own devices—Patunia already halfway across the lot, ushering Dudley toward the entrance of the large building that must be their school.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Holly reassured her twin as she wobbled a bit. Cars are cool, she decided—but she didn’t like the dizziness that came with them.
With his sister no longer on the verge of keeling over, Harry looked around. Realizing they’d been left behind, he picked up their backpack and grabbed Holly’s hand.
“Come on,” he said. “People—over there.” He nodded toward the stream of parents and children heading toward a pair of wide double doors that clearly led into a gathering room.
With newfound determination—school had to be a good thing—Harry led his sister into the big building. They followed behind a family of three and entered a brightly lit room with a long table and a telly-looking thing on it. A woman behind the table was speaking to the family, handing them a pamphlet and what looked like directions to a classroom.
When the family left, the twins hesitated—but figuring they were supposed to speak to the lady, Harry and Holly stepped up to the table with all the bravery they could summon.
“‘Scuse me, ma’am,” Harry said, remembering to be polite.
The woman looked around for a moment, as if unsure where the voice had come from—until she finally spotted two small children in front of her. No parent. No guardian.
“Yes, dears?” she asked. “Are you lost? Where are your parents?”
They didn’t have parents, of course, but they were a little lost.
“Yes, ma’am. We’re new here… Harry and Holly Potter, ma’am,” Harry said, trying to sound confident. Hopefully she wouldn’t ask too many questions about their relatives—he wasn’t sure if telling the truth would land them in trouble.
Thankfully, the woman didn’t pry. “Yes, yes, you’re both in the system. I’ll escort you to your classroom. The teacher will take it from there, dearies. You’re in Class 2A—remember that.”
With minimal fuss, she flipped over a sign on her desk that said OUT TO CLASSROOMS and began striding down the hallway, clearly expecting the twins to follow.
They did, having to half-jog to keep up with her long legs as she muttered to herself about irresponsible parents. “Every year… just drop them off without so much as a ‘have a good day’... disgraceful.”
“Here you are, dears,” she said a few minutes later, stopping outside a green door with 2A painted in bold white letters. She hesitated briefly, then gave them a small smile. “Good luck on your first day.”
The twins exchanged a glance, then steeled themselves and marched hand-in-hand into the classroom.
The relief was instant. A quick scan of the room showed no Dursleys in sight.
“No Dudders!” Holly grinned in delight. That had been their biggest fear—that their cousin would be in the same class.
“Could be like a holiday, then,” Harry murmured, though he knew most people went to sunny beaches for real holidays. The Dursleys had done that once and left them with old Mrs. Figg and her cabbage-scented house.
Harry was just about to lead his sister over to the teacher—a pretty honey-blonde woman chatting with some parents—when a loud bang echoed across the room.
Startled, Holly jumped violently.
And didn’t come down.
She was hovering nearly half a foot off the ground. “Holly!” Harry hissed, tugging her behind him. “You’re floating!”
“I know! I can’t get down! What do I do?!”
“Think about being down! I don’t know—just think about it!” While Harry kept lookout, head swiveling like he expected Aunt Petunia to materialize from thin air, Holly tried to calm down. After what felt like an eternity, her feet finally touched the floor again.
It was a close call.
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School might’ve been a massive improvement over Number Four, but there were still dangers—like break time and lunch. Because those involved the entire age group.
Which included Dudley.
Besides that, they did like school, and they did well at school, but they didn’t make any friends.
Too weird!
Too different.
Always together.
A bit creepy…
It was fine, though. Harry only needed Holly, and Holly only needed Harry. They did their homework, excelled in lessons, were reasonably good at avoiding Dudley on the playground, and got to eat far better here than at Number Four. Some kids tried to bully them—mocking their baggy clothes, their second-hand school supplies, and the fact that they got free lunches. But... it didn’t really work out for the bullies.
See, one lunch break, after they'd finished eating and were hiding from Dudley, Harry and Holly found a snake out on the school field.
A small one—but still, it was the first they'd ever seen up close.
It hissed to itself.
And they understood it.
“Noisy children. Always scaring off the mice and rats,” the garden snake grumbled.
It didn’t take long to befriend it. The snake seemed delighted to find two ‘speakers,’ and chattered away with them for the rest of lunch.
Turns out? Snakes are gossips.
Word got around fast.
Soon, snakes started seeking the twins out—talking to them, spying for them. One even scared Dudley so badly he ran away crying, and Holly managed to swipe his lunch. She still called it one of her favorite memories.
The kids who tried to bully them?
They started getting mysteriously hissed at, cornered by slithering shadows during recess. One girl found a snake in her desk. Another swore her shoes were full of them—but nothing was ever proven.
The bullies tried to tattle, of course. But the teachers had nothing but good things to say about Harry and Holly. Model students, polite, bright, quiet.
That love from the teachers? That was wonderful… until it wasn’t.
At the end of their first year—when they were five—report cards were sent home. Dudley’s report? A disaster. Low marks, no homework, constant detentions, trips to the headmaster for bullying. Harry and Holly’s? Glowing. Every teacher praised their cleverness, their discipline, their drive. The only negative? A noted lack of socialization.
They knew the Dursleys wouldn’t care about their grades.
But still… a part of them hoped…. Just a little. That maybe, maybe, this could be the thing. The thing that made Aunt Petunia smile at them. The thing that made Uncle Vernon nod and say “well done.” The thing that made them wanted.
“We’re so dumb,” Holly muttered later that night as they huddled in the cold cupboard, their thin blanket doing little against the chill.
“We’re not dumb, Holly,” Harry said. And they weren’t. They were the best in their class, always competing for top spot. But he knew what she meant. He felt it too.
She didn’t seem to hear him. Or maybe she just had to say it anyway. “How could we think that doing good would make them like us? They’ll always hate us!”
“Maybe they will,” Harry whispered, “but we’ll always have each other.”
He had to say it sometimes. Especially on nights like this—when the Dursleys had been particularly cruel. He had to remind her. That he wasn’t going anywhere. That he’d never leave.
“Promise?” Her voice trembled in the dark.
“I promise, little sis,” Harry swore, far too solemn for a five-year-old.
Holly elbowed him sharply. “By thirty minutes! You’re only older by half an hour!”
“Still older, Hols. That makes me the big brother.”
And in every book he’d ever read, the big brother’s job was to protect the little one. He took that seriously.
“H-how’s your hand?” she asked, her voice wobbling. She did that sometimes—jumped topics like her brain couldn’t hold still.
Harry flexed his left hand. “It’s not so bad. Just sore.” Vernon had stomped on it when Harry tried to pick up the shredded remains of their report cards. He’d called them cheats. Said no freaks could ever be better than his boy.
“It’s not fair,” Holly whispered.
It wasn’t.
But what could they do about it?
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They tried to do something about it a year later.
At six years old, they'd sort of figured out their strange powers. Odd things happened when they were scared or angry—or when they really wanted (or really didn’t want) something.
They also realized they could ask the snakes from the playground to slither by the back garden of Number Four, so they wouldn’t feel quite so alone… or outnumbered.
It all came to a head mid-August.
Their bedroom cupboard was so cramped, they had to practically lie on top of one another, squeezed onto the small, too-thin toddler mattress they'd had since forever. The same worn blanket they've had since they came to live at the Dursleys barely covered them both now, and the pillow they once shared—stolen just last week, another punishment for being "freakish."
"It's magic," Holly whispered in the dark, "there's nothing else it could be."
She was right, of course. Harry is a wizard. Holly is a witch. Not that they had any way to confirm it—yet.
Their parents had been too, a witch and a wizard. But all they ‘knew’ of them were the lies the Dursleys spat like poison:
"Your mother was a whore!"
"Your father was a drunk!"
"They were good-for-nothing layabouts!"
"They got themselves killed drink-driving!"
And worst of all: "They didn’t want you. They dumped you on our doorstep to be rid of you both!"
They’d believed those vile lies when they were really little. But they knew better now. The Dursleys lied. Adults couldn’t be trusted. Most people… couldn’t be trusted.
"We should practice," Harry said one night, voice low and fierce. "Learn how to control it properly. Make things better for us."
"Make the Dursleys pay," Holly added.
Harry didn’t argue. He just hummed, and that silence said everything. He liked the idea of terrifying their horrid relatives.
"We start tomorrow. When we’re out in the garden and no one’s looking. Make notes about how and why the magic works. Figure out how to make it happen on purpose. We’ll use our school notebooks."
"Booo, more homework," Holly groaned.
"Magic homework, Holly," he said. "And if we can study it, we can master it—and never be powerless again."
The next morning, bright and early—thanks to Holly’s relentless optimism and a notebook liberated from Dudley’s room—the twins planted themselves in the back garden like tiny, determined scientists.
They had work to do.
“We write down everything weird that’s ever happened,” Holly said, tapping the front page titled in wobbly capitals: "MAGIC TESTS - H&H ONLY"
Harry grinned and added a skull and crossbones beneath the title. “So Dudley knows it's cursed.”
They sat cross-legged in the grass and scribbled down every strange, impossible thing they could remember.
MAGICAL INCIDENTS – Remembered and Recorded
1. Lights flickering when scared.
2. Things flying off shelves when someone shouted.
3. Cupboard door unlocking when they were starving.
4. Harry disappearing and reappearing on the school roof when Dudley chased him.
5. Toasters sparking.
6. Doors unlocking.
7. Holly breaking a vase with a scream.
8. Weird grass growth after laughing.
9. Floating chocolate bar. Still unconfirmed.
“There are patterns,” Harry said, frowning thoughtfully. “Scared equals boom. Starving equals escape. Angry equals snap.”
“Exactly,” Holly agreed, flipping to a clean page. “So we test the easiest one first. Push things.”
They set an old football in front of them. The lawn was dry, the ball scuffed and patchy—just like everything else at Number 4. Holly stared at it like it had insulted her mother.
Ten minutes passed.
Nothing.
Then she snapped. “Move!”
Still nothing.
Harry leaned in, voice low and serious. “Try being scared. Like… it’s Dudley again. He’s laughing. You can’t run this time. He’s saying something awful—about Mum.”
Holly’s breath caught—and the football jerked, rolled halfway across the lawn. She gasped, then exploded into movement, leaping up and flailing her arms in victory. “I did it! I did it, I DID IT!”
They practiced for a full week.
Fear was their starter fuel—memories of fists and cruel laughter, of cold nights and locked cupboards—but by the end of the week, they didn’t need fear.
They needed want.
Desire.
Intention.
Next test: Pulling.
Holly placed a red apple on the grass between them. It was a little bruised but still smelled amazing.
“Okay,” she said like a professor. “Imagine you’re locked in. Haven’t eaten in days. You're so hungry you can feel your belly chewing itself.”
Harry stared hard at the apple. His stomach gave a theatrical growl.
The apple twitched. Then rolled. Rolled again—right up to his foot. He bent down and picked it up, stunned. “That… was easy.” He grinned, eyes glowing. “Your turn, Hols!”
They had managed to Push things and Pull things, but they still had to try out the rest
Unlock doors, Explode things (accidental, but repeatable), Fix things (Holly once un-cracked a plate by crying), Grow things, Float things (maybe—needs more tests), and Change colours (that means substitute teachers wig went blue once).
“We did good,” Holly declared, arms folded. “But there’s loads more.”
“And more to figure out,” Harry added. “This can’t be all there is.”
“Then we figure it out,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Together.”
“Together.”
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The next day, just before dawn, Harry was woken by a whisper-yelling, bouncing gremlin.
“Wake up, wake up! TODAY’S THE DAY WE BLOW STUFF UP!”
Harry groaned and buried his face in his pillow. “Why are you like this… We’re locked in, remember?” he mumbled. “Petunia only lets us out to make breakfast, and Mr. Meatball and Meatball Jr. sleep in on weekends.”
“Then we open the cupboard,” Holly grinned, like it was obvious and easy. “Like we did before.”
“That was an accident.”
“Then we do it on purpose this time. Come on, Harry!”
With exaggerated groaning and the world’s slowest sit-up, he joined her at the door. They stood side by side, palms lightly pressed to the wood.
“Think about really wanting it to open,” Holly whispered. “We’re not staying in here. We refuse. We are not prisoners. We will not stay cold and locked away and hungry.”
“We deserve light,” Harry added, something fierce in his chest. “We deserve to get out.”
They pushed with their minds. With their hearts. With magic.
“OPEN!”
—Click.
The lock turned. The door creaked open.
“I love magic,” Holly gushed, she grabbed his hand and tugged him out of the cupboard—and into the dawn, and freedom, and the day’s main event: Explosions.
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It took them months, but eventually, they mastered every magical feat on their checklist. They could pull and push objects at will, make them fly, explode, and stitch themselves back together. They could float, levitate, regrow dead things, and change the colours of anything they touched. They unlocked the cupboard door nightly now—to steal food, to practice magic, to plan.
Tonight, all their hard work came to fruition: The Dursley Rebellion of '87 had officially begun.
The cupboard opened with a soft click, and the twins crept out barefoot, light as whispers. It was easy now. Second nature. Like breathing.
“Where do we start?” Holly asked from the shadows of the kitchen. It was just past midnight; they'd already had their snack.
Harry hummed thoughtfully. “When they wake up, we start with Petunia. She’s always first. But pre-planning...” He grinned. “Dudley sleeps like the dead. Won’t wake up for anything.”
“Perfect. I want his toys to bite him when he tries to play with them,” Holly said, already darting off with a snicker that promised chaos.
Harry followed—calmer, quieter, but no less thrilled.
They turned Dudley’s bedsheets pink, unplugged his computer and spelled it to slap anyone who tried to plug it back in. His toy dinosaurs would bite, his race car would scream instead of rev, and his comic books would insult him with cruel commentary about his weight and intelligence.
Then, with twin grins, they hexed away every last hair on his fat little head.
Harry was just turning to go when he noticed Holly leaning back over Dudley’s sleeping form, marker in hand.
“Holly, what are you doing? We’re done here,” he whispered sharply.
“Just one last thing. A gift from me to him.” Her voice was syrupy with mischief.
Harry leaned over to look. Holly was drawing a ridiculous, curly mustache across Dudley’s upper lip—something straight out of a cartoon villain from one of those cheesy old movies.
“That looks stupid,” Harry muttered.
“That’s the point,” she replied, eyes rolling.
Job finished, they crept across the landing and into the upstairs bathroom. In there, they swapped the toothpaste for wasabi, spelled the soap to stain hands instead of clean them, cursed the shower to blast only freezing water, and enchanted the mirror to reflect a slightly warped version of whoever looked into it—just wrong enough to be unsettling.
Next, the stairs. They laid traps:
One step was now half an inch lower than it should be.
Another would always groan loudly no matter how lightly stepped on.
A third would feel inexplicably wet and slimy underfoot.
Downstairs, their sabotage got psychological.
They crossed out the eyes on every photograph and portrait in the house. Not that they were in any of them, of course. The Dursleys had made it clear—the twins weren’t family. Never were.
So the twins had made it clear in return: we see you.
Last task: collecting their friends.
They slipped out to the garden and returned with snakes—lots of snakes. Most people were terrified of them, and the twins figured that when morning came, having snakes casually draped across their shoulders would only enhance the intimidation factor.
Holly chose a particularly large one, curling it around her neck like a living, scaly scarf. Harry let one slither up his sleeve and coil around his arm.
Back inside, they sat at the kitchen table like polite children: books open, homework out, snacks at the ready.
“And now we wait,” Holly murmured.
“And now we wait,” Harry echoed.
Tomorrow would be a good day.