The longest punishment Jessy ever received was from the Boa Constrictor Incident.

She was talking to a boa constrictor, which seemed to be nodding and agreeing with her, when Dudley shoved her out of the way, knocking her to the ground. She had gotten mad and then tried to calm down, because of the weird things that happen when she expressed emotions. However, the damage had been done: the glass disappeared and reappeared with Dudley trapped in the tank and the boa constrictor on the loose.

It could've been a malfunction of some sort, but she was blamed for it. It was like the time some man in a top hat bowed to her in a shop and she got punished for it because it was strange and therefore she needed to be grounded.

So she was stuck in the cupboard, bored out of her mind. Aunt Petunia only let her out when a few neighbours came over asking if Jessy can be a 'doll' and help out with a few chores, that would be nice, thanks. So Aunt Petunia would let her go out and do those chores, but when she came back, she would be forced back inside the cupboard.

As part of her punishment, October wasn't allowed to come 'round, but that didn't stop him. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon should've known that nothing was going to stop him from seeing his best friend. Aunt Petunia doesn't complain about it to much, but Dudley did.

He complained about having that 'freak' of a boy being 'round was bothering him and his friends.

Jessy knew it was because Dudley hated that she had a friend who wasn't deterred by Dudley's bullying and beatings, and she knew that Dudley hated that she was happy and had to ruin it.

Dudley had a tantrum because Aunt Petunia couldn't do anything to keep October from coming over. Jessy stayed in her broom closet, so she was technically following the rules of her grounding by not leaving. It didn't stop October from going in the kitchen to knick snacks for him and her, while she snuck off to knick books from Dudley's storage room.

October thought it was odd that Dudley had a second bedroom while she had a broom closet. He said that his parents may have hated him, they were at least decent enough to give him a bedroom.

"Here, I'll show you my room," Jessy said when October first came to Number 4. She walked over to the cupboard under the stairs and opened it. Her cot was there, along with a few odd toys that the neighbors gave her as additional payment for doing chores for them.

Her most prized possession was an old porcelain doll with red ringlets and emerald green eyes. She felt like it reminded her of someone, but she couldn't remember who it reminded her of.

October gave her a odd look, "Are you joking?"

"No," Jessy said. She was growing ashamed of showing him her 'room'.

"I know my parents hate me, but at least they gave me a bedroom." He walked in and Jessy followed after him. It was very cramped now. Jessy picked up a bucket and overturned it, sitting on it. She motioned to the cot, "Take the cot, since you're my guest. Take your shoes off first."

October did as he was told, putting his feet on the cot. He looked at the books that were on the shelf. "Can you please hand me that one? It seems interesting."

Jessy got off the bucket, which was rather uncomfortable, but what can she do? October was the first person that came to Number 4 to see her.

October always sat on the bucket when he visited her after that.

So, when the summer holidays came, she was finally ungrounded. She could enjoy her freedom while it lasted.

Dudley had his gang over almost every day, so to escape the game of 'Hunt the Freaks' when they inevitably got bored of playing a computer game, she went to the park that was on Magnolia Road with October.

Sometimes she hid out at his house, which was normally empty, although his mother would be there. Once she walked in to find October's mother, April, trying to dunk him in a bathtub. She had been so mad that she wanted to kill April for it. She was so freaked out by that thought, she ended up going back to Privet Drive.

It wasn't the last time she had thoughts of killing someone. She had thoughts of killing Petunia, Vernon, and Dursley just to rid herself of them, but she liked having October around, so her relatives were left living.

They would sit on the swings at the park and not say anything to each other. So, she waited on a swing for him to show up.

After a few minutes of waiting around, October finally showed up with a fresh black-eye and split lip. He wore a denim vest that had a patch of some band on the back.

For a moment, she wanted to kill October's parents and be rid of them, but October liked being her friend and thought his parents weren't worth the time anyway.

She tried to keep her emotions in check because she didn't want one of the swings to break and for one of them to end up with a bruised arse.

October pulled something out of his back pockets and handed it to Jessy.

She took it and looked at it. It looked to be made out of thick parchment paper and it had October's name and address written on it in emerald green ink. It even had 'The Small Bedroom' written on it.

Jessy asked, "How do they know where you sleep?"

October shrugged.

There was a wax seal with a coat of arms on it with a lion, eagle, badger, and serpent surrounding a capital H.

Jessy asked, "How come you didn't open it?"

"It's weird and I wanted to open it with you," October replied.

Together, they pressed on the wax seal trying to pop it.

After getting it open and October took out some letters. It looked like there was a train ticket and another letter.

October took out what looked to be a list. Jessy took out a letter.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT
AND WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc.,
Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump,
International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr Hansley,

We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Someone will arrive on July 30 to answer any questions you might have and to escort you to Diagon Alley.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress

Jessy reread October's 'acceptance' letter two more times to make sure that she had read that correctly. Unlike Dudley, she knew how to read. After reading it for the fourth time, it still made no bloody sense. She voiced that out loud, "This makes no bloody sense!"

She handed the letter to October so he can read it.

"Yeah, this makes no sense," October stated.

"Your parents aren't that imaginative to write this crap to you," Jessy told him.

October nodded, "I know." He handed her another piece of parchment, "Look at the supplies list."

Jessy took the parchment and looked at it. It made almost as sense as the 'acceptance' letter, which being said, meant it made none.

Uniform:

First-year students will require:

1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)
2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear
3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)
4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)

Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags

Set Books:

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda GoshawkA History of Magic by Bathlida Bagshot
A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Adalbert Waffling
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Emeric Switch
Magical Drafts and Potions by Phyllida Spore
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble

Other Equipment:

1 Wand
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1set glass or crystal phials
1 telescope
1 set brass scales

Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad
PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST-YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS

Jessy shook her head. This really was just strange. It was too detailed to be made up, but magic doesn't exist; although there were those strange incidents that they had...

No. Magic doesn't exist.

She tossed the letter back to her friend.

"It's just rubbish. Someone wants you too look like a prat," Jessy told him. October looked like he was thinking it over. She knocked her shoulder into his, "Stop thinking about it. Someone wants you to look like an idiot. The only good thing about it is that it's good burn material." October was looking at the letter again, "You're away with the fairies aren't you? Because if you are, then they'll say that I am too."

"Let them." October said, folding up the letter and sticking it back in his pocket, "As if you give a damn about what anyone else thinks about you."

That was true.

Jessy asked, "Want to see how long it'll take for that letter to burn?"

"Yes," October replied.

They took off to his house to burn a letter.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to get his Smeltings uniform in London. Jessy spent the day with Mrs Figg. It wasn't too bad. Mrs Figg broke her leg tripping over one of her cats and she didn't seem quite as fond as them before. She let Jessy watch television and gave her a bit of chocolate cake that tasted stale.

That evening, Dudley paraded around in his new knickerbockers and Uncle Vernon gruffly said that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and she said that she couldn't believe that it was her Ickle Dudleykins because he looked so handsome and grown-up. Jessy tried hard not to laugh at the sight.

The next morning, Jessy sat at her seat in the kitchen. Dudley was wearing his Smeltings uniform, brandishing his stupid Smeltings sick like a sword.

Apparently they were for hitting other boys when the teacher wasn't looking.

Jessy didn't understand how hitting someone was for 'training' for later life and October was the unfortunate victim of getting hit with it.

She was taken out of her thought by hearing the click of the letter-box and the flop of letters landing on the doormat.

"Get the post, Dudley," Uncle Vernon said from reading his paper.

"Make Jessamine get it," Dudley countered.

"Get the post, girl," Vernon said.

Jessy refrained from telling her uncle to have Dudley get it, so she got up to get the post. Vernon would tell her to get it or tell Dudley to poke her with his stupid stick. Dudley aimed a blow towards her legs, but she moved out of the way to avoid getting tripped. She glared at him for it, before going on.

Sometimes she thought about killing all of them in painful ways, but she knew she couldn't do it. She wasn't cut out for life in a juvenile detention center. Sure, she was certain that she would have it easier and maybe being placed in a foster home would be easier, but she had heard stories about foster homes and how life in them would be far worse than what she had with the Dursleys. She practically had it easy considering what she heard.

It was just easier waiting out 'til she came of age and moving far away from them as possible.

She got the post; a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was holidaying on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill – and a letter for Jessy.

Jessy looked at the parchment paper, her name written in green ink. It looked like what October had received.

An 'acceptance' letter to a made-believe school.

She turned it over, looking at the purple wax seal. She narrowed her eyes in anger at the envelope. How bloody stupid did this person think she was?

A lamp exploded and she jumped, cursing herself for being so stupid to get angry about a letter.

Aunt Petunia stormed in, "Girl!"

"Sorry, Aunt Petunia," Jessy said. "I got angry."

Aunt Petunia took the post from her, opened the cupboard door and shoved her in it, before locking her in.

Jessy heard Petunia go into the kitchen, then nothing. She took a book and sat on her cot to read. She got a page and a half in when she heard the kitchen door slam shut, then nothing.

An unexpected thing happened that evening; Uncle Vernon visited her in her cupboard.

Vernon started, "Your aunt and I have been talking about it..."

Jessy asked, "Talking about what?"

"Don't interrupt me!" Vernon shouted at her.

"Sorry," Jessy replied dryly. She tried to control her emotions, maybe Vernon should learn a thing or two from her.

Vernon said, "That letter was addressed to you by mistake. I have burned it."

Jessy blinked at him, "How was it a mistake if it had my broom cupboard on it?"

"Silence!" yelled Vernon. A couple of spiders fell on Jessy. Vernon smiled, which looked very painful. "Er – yes, Jessamine – about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking...you're getting a bit big for it, especially when that boy comes to visit...we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."

Jessy was confused, "Why?"

"Don't ask questions!" snarled Vernon. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."

Jessy was even more confused, but gathered her stuff in a bin liner. She was sure that it didn't have anything to do out of the goodness of their hearts.

She went upstairs and was going into Dudley's second room when Dudley came out of his room.

"What do you think you're doing, Scar-Neck?" Dudley exclaimed, "That room belongs to me!"

"I know it does," Jessy replied dully. "Your parents agreed to give your storage unit."

"No, they didn't," Dudley responded. "Stop lying."

Jessy said, "Why don't you ask them yourself?" She closed the bedroom door and locked it.

There were unread books lining the bookshelves that Dudley didn't or couldn't read. She even spotted the month-old cine-camera that was on top of a small, working tank that Dudley had purposely ran over the neighbour's dog with. In one corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, with the screen broken because Dudley put his foot through it when his favourite programme had been cancelled. A large bird-cage was up on a shelf, empty since Dudley traded the parrot for an air-rifle, which was now beside it, the end bent because Dudley had accidentally sat on it.

She heard Dudley wailing, which meant that he knew about her moving in his second bedroom.

It looked like Uncle Vernon had put a bed in the room.

It made no sense. This made no sense.

The next morning, everyone was silent. Dudley was mostly in shock because he had the worst tantrum he ever had. He screamed, hit his father with the Smeltings stick, been sick on purpose, kicked Pentunia, and even throw his poor tortoise through a greenhouse roof. Despite all that, he didn't get his room back.

Vernon and Petunia kept giving each other dark looks.

It was strange.

Jessy heard the post arrive, and she got up to get it.

"You sit down!" Vernon thundered at Jessy. He looked at Dudley, "Dudley, you get the post."

Jessy sat down and Dudley sputtered before getting up to get the post. Jessy heard Dudley banging his stick all the way down the hall.

This was even stranger.

There was a pause, "There's another one! Miss J. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive—"

Okay, that was creepy. How did this person know she switched bedrooms? Actually, how did this person know where she slept?

Vernon jumped to his feet and ran down the hall.

This person was dead-set on making Jessy look stupid.

She went into the hall to see what was going on.

Vernon had wrestled Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him. Dudley hit Vernon and even Jessy with the Smeltings stick, until Vernon emerged victorious with the letter.

"You, girl! Go to your cupboard – I mean, your bedroom," Vernon wheezed at Jessy. "Dudley – go – just go."

Jessy went to her new room and paced. Somehow this letter writer knew she didn't receive her letter, so they wrote a new letter, with updated information.

She knew what it contained though. It just made no sense to go out of their way to resend a letter. But what had her aunt and uncle terrified?

Uncle Vernon mailed the letter-box shut using a fruitcake, so Jessy assumed that either she got more letters or her uncle is losing his mind.

October had a new black-eye by Friday. He had come by to notice the boarded up cracks around the front and back doors.

Vernon had taken great pleasure in burning even more letters.

"God, your uncle lost his mind," October muttered.

"You should've heard him humming Tiptoe through the Tulips. I swear, for a moment there, I thought he was going to kill all of us," Jessy said.

"Get killed by a guy singing Tiptoe through the Tulips? That's terrifying," October said.

"Aunt Petunia shredded my letters in the food mixer," Jessy told him.

October stated, "They're really that paranoid?"

"Yeah," Jessy replied. "This person really wants me to look dumb."

October nodded.

On Saturday, things started to get tenser. Apparently twenty-four more letters came addressed to Jessy.

Petunia, once again, shredded the letters after she got two dozen eggs. She had cracked them open and letters kept popping out.

Jessy was stunned into silence by that trick.

By Sunday, Uncle Vernon was in a good mood because the post doesn't run on Sundays.

They were in the sitting room,

"Fine day, Sunday," Vernon stated, "In my opinion, best day of the week. Why is that Dudley?"

Dudley shrugged.

Jessy was serving biscuits, "Because there's no Post on Sunday."

"Right you are, Jessamine," Vernon stated, taking a biscuit. "There's no post on Sunday."

Jessy and October looked over at each other. October looked out the window and waved her over.

Jessy went over to the window.

"No blasted letters today. No, sir," Vernon was saying. "Not one single bloody letter. Not one."

She looked out the window and her jaw dropped at the sight of the large amount of owls, "It's like an Owl Brigade."

October nodded.

Vernon was saying something, but got cut off.

Jessy turned around to see what happened.

There was a rumbling sound coming from the chimney and then hundreds of letters came shooting out.

"Make it stop," Dudley said. "Please make it stop."

That was probably the only time that he ever said please. He jumped into Petunia's lap.

Maybe if she opened one, the Letterpocalypse would stop, she figured. She grabbed a letter off the ground and ran for the hallway, with Vernon following her. She went for the cupboard door, but Vernon grabbed the letter out of her hand and 'round the waist.

Jessy yelled, "Let me go!"

"That's it," said Vernon. "I want you all back here in five minutes, ready to leave. We're going away. Far away. Where they can't find us. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"

Dudley wailed, "Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?"

Jessy went up to her room, grabbed a tatty messenger bag and shoved some clothes in it. 

She grabbed her green army jacket and was ready to go.

Her aunt and uncle were waiting with their own bags, while October lingered in the hallway, confused.

Jessy said, "What's taking Dudley so long?"

"Good question, girl," Vernon replied. He bellowed up the door, "Dudley!"

Dudley came down the stairs with a sports bag over one shoulder. It looked like he was trying to take a computer, television, and video player.

"What is this?" asked Uncle Vernon.

"I need these," Dudley complained.

"That's not essentials," said Uncle Vernon. He smacked Dudley 'round the head, surprising Jessy. "You're holding us up. Get back up there and pack some of your clothes."

Dudley stomped back upstairs and came back down a few minutes later.

Jessy took October's arm and dragged him to the car.

Vernon grabbed October's shoulder. He stated, "He's not coming with us."

"Yes, he is," Jessy replied, glaring at him. "He's my stuff and is essential to my life."

October nodded in agreement. Wherever they were going had to be better than being stuck at his empty house.

They were on the road and Dudley took great pleasure in poking and prodding October. Every now and then, Uncle Vernon took a sharp turn and mutter, "Shake 'em off...shake 'em off."

Jessy would look through the back window to see if anyone was following, but she didn't see the same car twice.

Dudley eventually got bored of prodding and poking October, and started complaining about how he was having a bad day, because he missed five television programmes he wanted to see and he hadn't gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.

After what felt like hours of driving, Vernon stopped at the petrol station to fuel up and use the loo.

October went with Vernon, Dudley, and Jessy inside the store.

Vernon was taking four browning bananas while Dudley got some sweets.

"Get that box of cornflakes, girl," Vernon growled at Jessy as he grabbed some tinned tomatoes.

Jessy got the cornflakes, cringing at how dusty it felt. "Oh, these are going to be staler than Dudley's insults."

Dudley narrowed his beady eyes at her, "What was that, Scar-Neck?"

"You heard me," Jessy replied, as Vernon went into a different aisle.

"You, boy, make yourself and get four bottles of water," Vernon was telling October.

Vernon put the bananas, four bottles of water, and tinned tomatoes on the counter to pay for it.

Dudley tried putting his sweets on the counter.

"Put those back," Vernon told Dudley.

Dudley started wailing at that.

"You, boy, put those back," Vernon growled at October, who grabbed the sweets to put them back.

Jessy and October grabbed a paper bag each and went back to the car in a hurry because it was starting to sprinkle.

Dudley got in while Vernon fueled up the car, before he got in and started driving again.