Percy dried a dish that Harry had passed him. The Dursleys make them do all the chores. Breakfast had just ended, and they left their dishes for them to clean.

Harry and Percy made a good team. They were twins, so they had this special twin bond thing. They could talk to each other through their minds.

They disagreed at times, but rarely had any real, big arguments.  They had a lot of similarities — many people attributed that to the fact that they're twins, but really they'd just learned over the years to work together.

They both lived in the same house, their Aunt's house with her husband and their son. They were both treated terribly by them — but Dudly, their Aunt's son, wasn't.

They both liked to swim and they read a lot.  Well, Harry did — Percy preferred for Harry to read to him through the mental link because of his dyslexia.  Harry had dyslexia as well, but it was far more manageable; they also had ADHD, but their levels of that were more balanced between them.

They had plenty of differences, but most people didn't look close enough to see their differences beyond the very obvious: namely that Harry wore glasses, while Percy did not.

They stuck together. They were inseparable.

It was known throughout their school.

One time, they had gotten different schedules with only two classes, lunch, and recess with each other.

They had both gone to the principle and managed to convince him to change their schedules. The pair could be persuasive, but it had really only actually worked because the principal was new in town and so had not yet been told all of the rumors about the them yet.

"Boys," came the voice of Vernon Dursley, their aunt's husband. "Are you done yet?"

"Yes," both of the boys said at the same time.

"Good. You boys better get to cleaning the house."

"Okay," they said at the same time again.

So Percy passed Harry Dudley's toys while Harry ran to put them away.

Teamwork. It makes it all get done faster.

That's what the twins thought. And they were right, of course.

(A/N Wtf cheezy sht is this—sounds like some kid cartoon lmao—)

When they were done cleaning up the whole house, they walked into the room where the Dursleys all were.

"Uncle?" They both said at the same time.

"What?" He replied.

"May we please-" Percy started.

"Go to the-" Harry continued.

"Library?" They both finished.

"Okay whatever. Be back in an hour to make dinner if you want to eat tonight."

"Thank you," they both said, and they walked out of the room, then out of the house, and to the library.

They returned the books they had finished reading. The librarian smiled at them.

"Back again, are you?" She asked.

"Yep," the twins said. The librarian was the only person that was nice to them, though even she watched them more carefully than she would other kids.

Harry found a few books. They stayed at the library for a while, Harry reading to himself and Percy in his head and Percy twirling a pen absently as he listened and pretended to read a different book.

After a while, they rushed on back to number four, Privet Drive so that they could make dinner — because they knew that when their uncle said for them to come back in an hour for dinner, what he really meant was for them to make dinner and have it ready in an hour.

The twins made dinner before retreating to their room for a while, not allowed to eat with the rest of their "family." When they got back downstairs, Dudley had just waddled off to play on his computer or something. The twins' aunt and uncle were just finishing up.

Petunia gestured at the scraps and then walked out of the room with her husband.

They ate the leftovers eagerly, then cleaned all the plates from lunch and dinner.

This time, Percy cleaned them while Harry dried them and put them away.

Then they ran upstairs and went to sleep. The next day was Dudley's birthday.

* * *

"Up! Get up! Now!" Their Aunt Petunia's shrill voice woke them up.

"Coming!" The twins shouted at the same time. They quickly got ready.

They walked out and into the kitchen.

"Now look after the bacon," Aunt Petunia said. "And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."

They groaned at the same time.

"What did you say?" Their aunt snapped.

"Nothing," they both said, and started cooking the bacon.

The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. As to why Dudley wanted the racing bike was a mystery to the twins, because Dudley was very fat and hated exercise -- unless of courage it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bags were the twins, but he couldn't often catch up. And when he was able to, it was only because the twins Uncle Vernon said Dudley could help with the abuse.

The twins had always been fast -- the fastest in their schools, that is, not if they had been abused right before school. If that happened, they were limping (still fast, but with a limp) to school. They won all the races in gym class — and the twins always tied with each other.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as the twins were flipping over the bacon.

"Come you hair!" he barked, by a way of a morning greeting.

Uncle Vernon shouted that the twins needed a haircut about once a week. They probably had more haircuts than any other person in their school, but it didn't matter. Their hair grew back very quickly.

Percy was frying eggs.

Dudley arrived in the kitchen with Aunt Petunia. He looked like his father. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel — and the twins often said (in the privacy of their own minds) that he looked like a pig in a wig.

Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table while Percy took a bit upstairs for them to eat later.

When Percy came back downstairs, Dudley was counting his presents. His face fell.

"Thirty six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, its under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty seven then," said Dudley, getting red in the face. The twins both quickly took a few steps away from the table. They didn't want to be hit by an overturned table during a huge Dudley tantrum.

"And we'll buy you another two presents when we're out today," Aunt Petunia rushed to say. "How's that, popkin? Another two presents. Is that alright?"

Dudley thought for a moment, scrunching up his face like it was hard work. The twins rolled their eyes in unison.

"So then I'll have thirty . . . thirty . . ."

"Thirty nine, sweetums," Aunt Petunia said.

"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."

Uncle Vernon chuckled.

"My little boy wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair. The twins both crossed their arms and rolled their eyes again from a corner.

At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while the twins and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking worried and angry.

"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take them." See jerked her head in the twins' direction.

Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but the twins' heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and one of his friends out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, the twins were left with Mrs. Figg, an old lady who lived two streets away.

"Now what?" Aunt Petunia said, looking furiously at the twins as if they had planned it. They felt bad for Mrs. Figg, but they were kind of happy that they would be able to stay home or even go with them.

"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boys."

"What about what's her name, your friend ---- Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.

"You could just leave us here," the twins said hopefully.

Aunt Petunia looked like she just swallowed a lemon.

"And come back to find the house in ruins?" She snarled.

"We won't blow up he house," they protested, but they weren't listening.

"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, ". . . and leave him in the car. . . ."

"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone. . . ."

Dudley began to cry -- well, more like he pretended to.

"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.

"I . . . don't . . . want . . . them . . . t-t-to . . . come!" he yelled in between huge, pretend sobs.

The doorbell rang. "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia. A moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.

Half an our later, the twins were sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the fist time in their lives.

Their aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with them, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had pulled them aside.

"I'm warning you," he had said, "any funny business, any at all, and—" he raised his fist threateningly.

The boys had nodded in unison, as usual.

While they drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked complaining about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Percy, the bank, and the twins were just some of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.

". . . roaring like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said as a motorcycle overtook them.

"We had a dream—"

"About a motorcycle," the twins said.

"It was flying."

Uncle Vernon almost crashed into the car in front. He turned right around and yelled at them: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"

Dudley and Piers sniggered.

"We know that."

"It was just a dream."

It was a sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at then trance, and then, because the smiling lady had asked the twins what they wanted before they could be rushed away, they bought them cheep lemon ice pops. They were great anyway — they never got dessert.

The twins watched a gorilla scratching his head.

It looks a lot like Dudley, Percy remarked through their mind link.

Except he isn't blond, Harry thought back. The two had started laughing. The Dursleys looked at them like they were crazy, which made them feel like laughing harder, but instead they wisely calmed themselves down.

After lunch, they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone.

Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can — but at the moment it didn't seem in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.

Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass.

"Make it move," he whined to his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.

"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.

"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.

The twins moved up in front of the tank and stared intently at the snake. They wouldn't have been surprised if he died of boredom.

Do you think it gets lonely? Harry asked Percy through the mind link.

Probably. Or at least bored. I wish we could talk to it, or maybe set it free, replied Percy.

The snake suddenly opened its eyes and raised its head so that it was level with the twins.

It winked.

The twins stared. As one, they looked around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't, so they looked back at it and both the twins winked at the same time.

(A\N For now on, I'm not going to keep saying "they said it at the same time" or anything. Just assume that. I'm getting kind of bored of writing that over and over.)

The snake jerked it's head towards Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. The message was quite clear:

"I get that all the time."

"It must be really annoying," the twins whispered through the glass.

The snake nodded vigorously.

"Where are you from?" they asked.

The snake jabbed his tale at a little sign next to the glass. The twins looked at it.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

They almost asked if it was nice there, but then they saw that there was more writing. "So you've never been there?" The twins asked. The snake shook his head.

"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THE SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley came waddling towards them.

"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry as he passed.

Caught by surprise, Harry fell to floor. He and his twin glared at Dudley angrily.

What happened next occurred so fast no one could know what had happened. One second, Dudley and Piers had been leaning up against the glass, and the next, the had kept away from it with howls of horror.

The twins looked at each other, then back at the exhibit.

The glass is gone, Harry thought to Percy.

Did we do that? Percy thought back.

I don't know.

Maybe I did. I was mad at him for punching you.

Maybe it was me. . . . maybe it was a coincidence. . . we'll probably figure it out eventually.

People throughout the reptile house were screaming and running for the exits.

As the Boa Constrictor slithered past the twins, they could've sworn they heard a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come. . . . thanksss, amigos."

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"

The zoo keeper gave Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea as he apologized over and over. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake had done nothing other than snap playfully at their heels, but by the time they were all back in the car, Dudley was telling them about how out had nearly bitten off his leg, and Piers was saying it had almost squeezed him to death.

"You two were talking to it, weren't you?" Piers asked when he had calmed down enough to say anything.

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry and Percy.

Vernon had seen Harry on the ground when the glass had disappeared, and so assumed he was the cause of the glass disappearing. He tried to grab Harry, but Percy pushed his twin out of the way.

"It was all me, Uncle," Percy said. "I got mad at Dudley for punching him and I think I let loose the snake on him, though I don't know how."

Percy seemed unsure in their minds that it would work, but he didn't need to worry, as Vernon didn't really seem to care which one of them got punished, as long as one of them did, and barely paused before gruffly responding.

Percy looked back at his twin, who was staring at him. Percy smiled at him reassuringly.

Harry watched his brother get half lifted and half dragged away by his Uncle, knowing that he couldn't interfere without making things worse for both of them.

Harry heard Percy think, It'll be okay, before he shut off the mind link.