The Forgotten Twin

Chapter 2

By twelve o'clock the next day, Delilah was ready to leave. She had already packed her school trunk with all of her stuff, including her last few treats. She had even triple checked every nook and cranny in the whole room to make sure she wasn't missing anything.

The atmosphere inside number four, Privet Drive was extremely tense. The imminent arrival at their house of an assortment of wizards was making the Dursleys uptight and irritable. Uncle Vernon had looked downright alarmed when Delilah and Harry informed him that the Weasleys would be arriving at five o'clock the very next day.

"I hope you told them to dress properly, these people," he snarled immediately. "I've seen the sort of stuff your lot wear. They'd better have the decency to put on normal clothes, that's all."

Delilah doubted that the Weasleys would be in Muggle clothes. She had never seen them wear anything other than wizard robes, except for the few occasions the kids wore them during the winter holidays. Frankly, she didn't really care. The Dursleys wouldn't like them anyway.

Uncle Vernon had put on his best suit. To some people, this might have looked like a gesture of welcome, but Delilah knew it was because Uncle Vernon wanted to look impressive and intimidating. Dudley, on the other hand, looked somehow diminished. This was not because the diet was at last taking effect, but due to fright. Dudley had emerged from his last encounter with a fully grown wizard with a curly pig's tail poking out of the seat of his trousers, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had had to pay for its removal at a private hospital in London. It wasn't altogether surprising, therefore, that Dudley kept running his hand nervously over his backside, and walking sideways from room to room, so as not to present the same target to the enemy.

Lunch was an almost silent meal. Dudley didn't even protest at the food (cottage cheese and grated celery). Aunt Petunia wasn't eating anything at all. Her arms were folded, her lips were pursed, and she seemed to be chewing her tongue, as though biting back the furious diatribe she longed to throw at Delilah and Harry.

"They'll be driving, of course?" Uncle Vernon barked across the table.

"Er," said Harry.

He obviously hadn't thought about it. Neither had Delilah, but she wasn't as bothered by it as he seemed to be. They had lost their car, a Ford Angela, during their second year at Hogwarts. Harry, the everlasting idiot he was, had flown it into the Whomping Willow with Ron.

"I think so," Delilah answered.

Uncle Vernon snorted into his mustache. Normally, Uncle Vernon would have asked what car Mr. Weasley drove; he tended to judge other men by how big and expensive their cars were. But Delilah doubted whether Uncle Vernon would have taken to Mr. Weasley even if he drove a Ferrari.

Delilah spent most of the afternoon in her room. She couldn't stand to watch Aunt Petunia peer out through the net curtains every few seconds, as though there had been a warning about an escaped rhinoceros. Finally, at a quarter to five, Delilah and Harry went back downstairs and into the living room.

Aunt Petunia was compulsively straightening cushions. Uncle Vernon was pretending to read the paper, but his tiny eyes were not moving, and it was obvious that he was really listening with all his might for the sound of an approaching car. Dudley was crammed into an armchair, his porky hands beneath him, clamped firmly around his bottom. Harry couldn't take the tension; he and Delilah left the room and went and sat on the stairs in the hall, their eyes on Harry's watch and her heart pumping fast from excitement and nerves.

But five o'clock came and then went. Uncle Vernon, perspiring slightly in his suit, opened the front door, peered up and down the street, then withdrew his head quickly.