Maya Dursley [ABANDONED, ENDING REVEALED]

1: Freakouts and Forked Tongues

They would never say it out loud, but Vernon and Petunia Dursley would definitely have liked their daughter and only child Maya to be a little more normal like them. They longed for a daughter who was well liked by everyone, who got invited to birthday parties and who brought her friends home, but Maya Dursley did none of the sort. She did not care much for social interaction, and always had a rather cold and distant expression on her face. She was not very outgoing either, preferring to stay in the quiet of her home and read books.

Not that the situation at four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, could be considered normal in the first place with her cousin Harry Potter sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry was about five weeks younger than she was and he was put on their doorstep when he was a mere one-year-old, because his parents had died. Maya's parents had reluctantly taken him in but did not consider him as their own, and it would be an understatement to say that Maya received preferential treatment. Vernon and Petunia initially could not be happier with their daughter, showering her with love and gifts, but they could not entirely turn a blind eye to the weird stuff that she and Harry occasionally made happen.

At school, a teacher's wig turned blue after he had given Harry a low grade for show and tell. Another teacher's car had miraculously ended up on the roof of the school even though Maya was sure she had only softly kicked it after a particularly tiring day of school, during which she had argued with her teacher again. The teachers at school always found that Maya acted like she did not care about anything, but she could assure them that it was not an act.

Maya and Harry had a bit of a complicated relationship. Maya never cared much about Harry or his predicament in her household; she did not feel sympathy for other people as long as her own situation was good. Harry did not like Maya much either, it was not like she bullied him a lot apart from the occasional remark, but he found her spoiled and no fun to be around. At school they sometimes sat together as neither of them had any friends there, but their relationship was mainly one of tolerance and not much more. Things got a little better for Harry after his uncle moved out of the house, though. Gone were the physical punishments and he also got a real room, rather than his cupboard.

Maya remembered the day of her father's departure well enough. Almost minute by minute. It was a movie that would sometimes play through her head, no matter how hard she would try to suppress it. Ten-year-old Maya was playing in the back garden, as carefree as a child could be. She always liked creating things, and on that sunny afternoon, just before dinner time, she had made three small doves out of sand. She was just perfecting their wings when her father came walking out the backdoor.

"Maya, dinner time!" he called.

"Okay dad," Maya said and then without thinking, she looked at her doves and clapped her hands.

The three doves immediately came to life, spread their wings and flew off. Maya smiled and got up, but her smile disappeared immediately upon seeing the look on her father's face. It was a mixture of shock, fear and anger and then his face became purple. He rushed over to her, grabbed her arm and violently dragged her inside.

"Daddy, what...!" she squealed.

"PETUNIA!" he bellowed when they had arrived in the kitchen, where Petunia was just getting ready to serve dinner.

"What's..." she started, but then Vernon exploded.

"OUR DAUGHTER'S A FREAK! SHE GOT IT FROM YOUR... FROM YOUR SISTER!"

Maya softly started crying; she hated it when people screamed and her father was still painfully squeezing her arm.

"Please, Vernon, we can talk about this..." Petunia pleaded, but it was no use; that same evening Vernon packed a suitcase and left to live with his sister, until he would find a place of his own. Maya watched how he threw his belongings in the back of the car and subsequently drove off. She kept looking until the car was fully out of sight. Petunia, who had tears in her eyes just the same, put her arms around her daughter's shoulders.

"I-I'm so very sorry, mum... I know it's my fault, I try so hard to be normal... I-I promise..."

"It's okay, sweetie," Petunia said with a trembling voice, hugging her crying daughter. It was the last time Maya saw her father, and soon the feelings of guilt made way for feelings of pure anger. Vernon had the decency to at least support his ex-wife financially, but he never bothered to write a letter or reach out in any other way, and as far as Maya was concerned she no longer had a father.

A few months after that event, on June 23, 1991, Maya turned eleven. She had hazel eyes, was rather short and skinny and her long brown hair fell to her waist. She was extremely intelligent, zealous and always eager for new knowledge, but she was very indifferent towards other people.

Maya was not terribly excited when she woke up that day. Petunia would take her and Harry to the zoo, because she thought it would be good for Maya to have a day out. In other years, on days like this, Vernon and Petunia would drop Harry at Mrs Figg's, an elderly lady who lived across the street, but ever since Vernon had left Petunia had become a bit nicer to Harry, albeit she still did not give him much attention. Maya yawned, got out of bed, took a quick shower and then put on the dark green dress that her mother had bought her for this occasion. She did not care much about fashion, or this occasion, but she did not want to be inconsiderate towards her mother and one could not go wrong with dark green.

In the hall she encountered Harry. "Happy birthday," he said half-heartedly.

"Thank you," she said, also without a lot of emotion. They walked down the stairs and into the living room. The first thing Maya noticed was that there were only a handful of presents on the table, as opposed to the big piles of previous years. She never really cared all that much for material possessions, but at the same time it definitely was another reminder of what had happened within the family.

"Happy birthday, dear," Petunia said when her daughter entered the living room, and she kissed her on the cheek. Maya forced a smile; she knew her mother meant well. "I know it's not much, but..." her mother said, pointing at the presents. Harry inadvertently rolled his eyes; he never got any presents.

"It's okay, mum, thank you," Maya said, still smiling. While Harry made breakfast she opened her presents, to her own surprise feeling a little sad when she was done so quickly, but trying her very hardest not to show it.

It was crowded at the zoo, as it was a sunny Sunday afternoon. The first few minutes Maya found it a little difficult to see happy families including a father, but then she realised that it was her birthday and that she was supposed to have fun. And fun she had, much more than she thought she would. The aquarium was breath-taking, there were fish of all colours swimming amongst the most beautiful coral, and also the majestic lions did not disappoint. Even though Maya had really liked the aquarium, she was generally more drawn to dangerous animals, and when they set foot in the reptile house she quickly found the largest snake. It was a boa constrictor from Brazil and its size was very impressive. It was sleeping and Maya considered rapping the glass to try and wake it up, but she liked the animal too much. She had always liked snakes, with the way they moved and their really beautiful colours. They were also very powerful creatures.

After about a minute, Petunia walked to the next enclosure and Maya followed at first, until she saw that her cousin had not moved an inch. "Are you coming, Harry?" she asked.

"In a minute," Harry said.

"Okay," Maya said, but instead of following her mother, she walked over to the enclosure on the opposite side of the boa's. Harry inadvertently started mumbling to the snake.

"It wouldn't surprise me if you had died in there out of sheer boredom..." he muttered and much to his shock the snake promptly woke up and blinked at him. "Can you hear me?" Harry asked flabbergasted, "it's just... I've never talked to a snake before."

Unbeknownst to Harry, Maya had been following his conversation with extreme interest. She turned around as soon as she had heard her cousin make hissing noises, and was appalled that the snake seemed to understand him. Not wanting to interrupt the scene she kept her distance, but made sure that she could see the snake's every movement. A few moments later, she felt very relieved to have kept her distance, because inexplicably the glass had disappeared and the snake calmly slid out of the enclosure. Harry made one final hissing sound to the creature heading for freedom, and everyone started screaming and running away. Petunia ran over to her daughter, who said she was okay and who could not stop looking at her cousin.

Back in the car Maya cast a pensive glance at Harry. She had noticed before that he too would sometimes make things happen, but the fact that he could actually talk to snakes was extraordinary and she was very intrigued, if not quite jealous. That evening she knocked on his bedroom door.

"What happened at the zoo?" she asked him the second Harry had opened the door.

He sighed. "I don't know, the snake understood what I was saying."

"You were making hissing noises," Maya said.

"Hissing noises? No, Maya, I was just speaking like I'm speaking to you now."

"I know what I heard, Harry. You can be honest with me."

"I am being honest with you," he replied.

Maya did not know what to say next. He seemed very genuine. Maybe this was something weird, well, it definitely was something weird, but maybe it was something so complex neither of them could even begin to comprehend.

"And how did the glass disappear?" Maya asked him.

"I don't know either, Maya. The snake told me he had been bred in captivity and wanted to see Brazil, I felt sorry for him and then it happened."

When Maya went to bed that night, she was quite sure that there was something seriously wrong with both her cousin as herself. If only she would ever find out what...

A few weeks passed and Petunia enrolled both Maya and Harry at the local state school, Stonewall High. Maya had always been destined to go to Smeltings, a prestigious boarding school, but Petunia could no longer afford it. Both children found it a daunting prospect; primary school had not been particularly fun to them, but now they would be at the bottom of the pile again.

One morning in July, Maya was told to get the post. She rolled her eyes; when her father was still around it was always Harry who had to do chores like that, but she did go anyway. On the doormat she found two identical letters, one for Harry and one for herself. On the back of the envelope was a crest with a lion, a snake, a badger and an eagle around a big H. Maya slowly walked back to the kitchen, intrigued by the letters.

"Harry and I got these weird letters, mum," she said cluelessly. She showed them to her mother, who gasped, and then she tried to give Harry his letter, but her mother came running over and snatched both letters right out of her hand. "Oi, what..." Maya started, but her mother stared at the letters completely shell-shocked and then started muttering.

"What... I knew that he... but you... it actually..." she rambled.

"Are you actually going to finish any of those sentences, mum?" Maya asked, trying to snatch the letters back, but her mother held them up, out of her reach.

"Get out..." her mother muttered.

"What, why..." Maya began, but then her mother suddenly exploded.

"GET OUT NOW, BOTH OF YOU! NOW!" This shocked both children, who quickly ran out of the room. Pretty much every time there had been screaming at four Privet Drive, it had been caused by Vernon so this was a rare occurrence to them.

"What were those letters?" Harry asked immediately when they had made their way upstairs.

"I don't know, I hadn't opened them yet. I just know that we each got one and that there was some kind of crest on the envelope. Maybe it's some kind of school, but that wouldn't explain my mother's somewhat odd reaction," Maya said.

"You should've opened them in the hallway!" Harry said, in what Maya found to be a rather accusatory tone.

She rolled her eyes. "If you'd been there to tell me that, I'd gladly have done so."

The next couple of days more letters arrived, but neither Maya nor Harry managed to get hold of one. Maya realised that the sender must be aware of the fact that they were not getting them, and wondered if they were being watched. She, however, could not figure out why her mother acted in such a bizarre and terrified way.

Tuesday, July 30, 1991 started out ordinarily enough, with the three of them having breakfast. "What'd you say to a girls' movie night, sweetie?" Petunia asked Maya, who looked up from her cereal. Maya figured that her mother felt guilty towards her about the letters, but she did not want to make it too easy for her.

"I don't know," she mumbled.

"It'll be..." Petunia started, but her words were drowned by a sudden outburst of noise. It was a rumbling sound that gradually became louder, until they realised that it was coming from the chimney. Next moment, the living room was bombarded with hundreds of letters. Petunia could do nothing more than scream, while Maya and Harry jumped up from their chairs and immediately caught a letter. They then quickly ran for it, until Maya noticed that her mother was not trying to stop them. Petunia just stood there shell-shocked for a few moments, and then spoke. "All right. I give up. Go read your letters," she mumbled in a defeatist tone.

They did not need to be told twice; it took them about a second to tear open the envelopes. "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?" Maya asked perplexed; she had finished reading faster than Harry had.

"Yes, dear. My sister, your aunt, his," (she looked at Harry) "mother went there. It's a school for people who can do magic."

"Magic?" Maya and Harry asked simultaneously.

"Yes, those inexplicable things you both made happen sometimes are done with magic," Petunia said wearily and in a very uncomfortable state, "we knew you," (she again cast a glance at Harry) "had powers, but apparently my own daughter now has too..." She sat down and gasped for breath.

"You knew? And you never told me, er, I mean us?" Harry asked angrily.

"Of course we knew. Why do you think your father," (she looked at Maya) "left us? He absolutely cannot handle this... this freakiness." Maya did not feel like responding to this and instead asked straight up what she wanted to know.

"So, Harry and I can go then?"

Petunia sighed. "I don't know..."

Maya rolled her eyes. "You do realise that if you don't let me go, it'll just mean that my father has left for literally nothing? This is my destiny."