Chapter 2: Between a Letter and a Hard Place

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Here it is!  A little later than promised, so sorry!

The scar on Rayne's forehead.^^ Don't worry, I'm not using this girl (I'm sorry i don't know her name) as Rayne's character thingy. I just wanted to put her scar on someone, and this girl seemed like a good fit. Anyway, read on!

Enjoy!

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Harry's POV:

The Boa Constrictor incident earned Harry and Rayne their longest punishment yet.   When they were finally let out of their cupboard, summer break had already begun, and Dudley had managed to break his video camera, crash his airplane, and nearly broke old Mrs. Figg's leg again when he crashed into her on his racing bike.

Harry was glad school was over, but that didn't mean he and Rayne had shaken offl Dudley and his gang.  Every member of the gang was big and stupid.  There were Piers, Malcolm, Gordon, and Dennis, but Dudley was by far the largest and stupidest of them all, being the ringleader.  They happily played Dudley's favorite sport:  Potter Hunting, and they visited the Dursleys house nearly every single day.     

That was why Harry and Rayne spent as much time away from the house as humanly possible.  They went to the park, walked around the block, Rayne went to the library and read, Harry followed her and played on the public computers; anything to pass the time.  However, there was a ray of light at the end of the tunnel.  In September, Harry and Rayne would be off to secondary school.  Dudley had been accepted to Smeltings, Uncle Vernon's old private school.  Piers Polkiss would be attending there as well.  Harry and Rayne would be going to Stonewall High, the local public school. 

Dudley found it particularly amusing.  "They stick people's heads down the toilet on your first day at Stonewall," he told them.  "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

"No," Harry said, "I don't think the toilet has ever had anything as foul as your head in it. The poor thing might be sick."  Rayne snickered and pulled him away before Dudley could work out what he had said.

On an early July day, Aunt Petunia and Dudley went to London to buy his Smeltings uniform.  They left Harry and Rayne to Mrs. Figg's.  Mrs. Figg was better than usual.  Turned out, she'd tripped over one of her own cats and broken her leg, so she wasn't quite as doting as usual.  She let them watch television and even gave them some chocolate cake一though it tasted as though she'd had it for a million years. 

Later than evening, Dudley swaggered around the living room, dressed in his new uniform, which consisted of a maroon tailcoat, orange knickerbockers, a flat straw hat called a boater, and a polished stick.  The sticker was used to hit other students.  It was supposed to 'train them for later life.'

Uncle Vernon gruffly said, "This is the proudest moment of my whole life."  Aunt Petunia sobbed about how grown up her Ickle Dudleykins looked.  Harry didn't trust himself to speak.  He was sure he'd already cracked his ribs from suppressing so much laughter.

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The next morning, a horrible smell wafted around the kitchen.  It was coming from a large metal tub in the sink.  It was full of old dirty gray rags floating around in equally grey water. 

"What's that smell?" Rayne asked Aunt Petunia as she walked in, stretching her arms over her head.  She was wearing one of Aunt Petunia's old green shirts and a ragged pair of Dudley's old shorts. 

There had been a time when this made Harry angry enough to talk back to Uncle Vernon.  It had earned him a particularly nasty beating.  Rayne had told him that she was fine with wearing a boys' old clothes, and made him swear never to argue with the Dursleys over her again.

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