"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T
BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.
"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught
by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next
happened so fast no one saw how it happened -- one second, Piers
and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they
had leapt back with howls of horror.
Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's
tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly,
slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house
screamed and started running for the exits.
As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low,
hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come.... Thanksss,
amigo."
The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.
"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"
The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet
tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could
only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done
anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by
the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was
telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was
swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But worst of all,
for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry
was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"
Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before
starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He
managed to say, "Go -- cupboard -- stay -- no meals," before he
collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a
large brandy.
Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch.
He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the
Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk
sneaking to the kitchen for some food.
He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years,
as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his
parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in
the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his
memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange
vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burn- ing pain on his
forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't
imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember
his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and
of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no
photographs of them in the house.