Star-Crossed

Chapter Three: Keeper of the Keys

Uncle Vernon kept his promise. In three days we had left Little Whining and had arrived on a rock of an island, somewhere out at sea. It was a tall rickety shack for lack of a better word. The minute we stepped foot on that island I knew there was no calling that building a house. It looked as though it would blow over with the slightest wind.

Currently, my thoughts were being completely disproven. It was the middle of the night and Harry and I were sharing an old, tattered blanket, littered with moth holes. We'd been fighting to go to sleep for hours. Harry had long given up, but I still tried my hardest, even with the sand getting caught in my hair.

The rest of the Durselys were sound asleep already. Dudley was knocked out cold on the couch just above us, and our Aunt and Uncle were dozing peacefully, despite the raging thunder and lighting and violent wind that shook the house every time it blew, upstairs in the single bedroom.

I turned over, groaning a string of complaints as I heaved myself up on my elbows to see what exactly my brother was doing.

"Harry...what on earth are you doing?" I sighed, rubbing my tired, bleary eyes.

"Look." He turned to me, smiling softly. He pointed to a drawing he'd made in the dirt above our heads.

A birthday cake was scrawled in front of us, reading Happy Birthday Harry and Natalie. I looked at my brother, grinning thankfully. Both of us knew this was the best we were going to get.

Soon Dudley's watch began to beep loudly. I turned to look at it and found that it read midnight on the dot.

"Make a wish, Has." I bumped his shoulder with mine, smiling.

"Make a wish, Natie." He teased back.

Both of us inhaled deeply and blew out the 'candles' on the cake, marking our eleventh birthday. But, out of nowhere, the door thudded loudly, perfectly in time with the flashes of lightning just outside the window.

Harry and I jumped, throwing the blanket off of our bodies as the door thudded loudly once again. This time, Dudley woke up, screaming as Harry and I backed away. My brother ran and pulled me behind the wall of the fireplace as our cousin idiotically went and climbed up onto the windowsill.

Upstairs, we could hear Petunia and Vernon shouting loudly as they bumbled down the stairs.

"Who's there!" Uncle Vernon thundered as he clutched a double barrel rifle in his pudgy hands.

All of us screamed loudly when the door banged loudly once more before the hinges snapped and the entire wooden door went falling to the floor. In the doorway stood a gigantic, hulking figure. The figure of the man soon ducked under the doorway and into the living area, lightning flashing ominously behind him.

"Agh!" Vernon yelped as soon as the man stepped into the threshold.

Harry and I watched with bated breath as the figure finally entered the light. But the moment his face was revealed, the tight uneasiness that clouded my mind dissipated quickly. He had the most jolly, trustworthy face of anyone I'd ever seen before.

"Sorry 'bout that." He apologised, picking up the door with ease and latching it back onto the hinges.

Uncle Vernon seemed far less eased by his appearance and quickly aimed his rifle toward the towering man, "I demand that you leave at once, sir! You are breaking and entering!"

Aunt Petunia gasped in fear as the man's once kind expression melted into one of supreme hatred as he stomped toward the two of them.

"Oh, dry up Dursley, you great prune." He hissed, snatching the barrel of Uncle Vernon's gun and twisting it upward, bending the metal with a terrible squeak. The gun set off, blasting upward and breaking a hole in the ceiling. Our Aunt and Uncle flinched and shrieked in fear as the giant man turned around and noticed Dudley cowering in the windowsill.