(Disclaimer: The first two paragraphs are modified excerpts from "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". I am not JK Rowling, all Harry Potter stuff belongs to her; I just like to hang out in her world.)

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed.

Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets - but Dudley Dursley and Harry Potter-Dursley were no longer babies, and now the photographs showed two large boys riding their first bicycles, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with their father, being hugged and kissed by their mother.

For Harry Potter-Dursley was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day, calling up the stairs.

"Harry-dear, come downstairs for your special double-birthday breakfast!"

Petunia would have walked up the stairs and opened the door, as she had when the boys were younger, waking each with a kiss on the forehead, but the long years of carrying a portly toddler on each hip had caused nightmares for her back and knees; the stairs were only a challenge to be taken when necessary. She called up again.

"Hurry, darling, or Duddey will have opened all his presents before you've gotten to yours!"

That was enough to pull him out of bed. The springs in the mattress creaked as Harry rolled and dangled his thick legs over the edge. He blinked, yawned widely, and promptly forgot the last traces of the previous night's dream (something about motorcycles or demolition derbies or maybe that toy car that his aunt and uncle had better have gotten him for Dudley's birthday).

The Dursley had not always given both boys presents for both birthdays. But not a single June would pass without Harry making a terrible fuss while he watched Dudley open present after present. The whining and crying and kicking would go on for weeks and weeks, and just when both Petunia and Vernon were at their wits end, July 31st would roll around and Harry would be happy. And Dudley would start throwing tantrums. On the boy's seventh year, they had realized that the easiest thing would be to give both boys two birthdays; and besides, who could deny their little angels one more special day each?

Harry hefted himself to his feet, letting his belly swing freely over the waist band of his pajamas. He brushed his hair back off of his shiny forehead, barely acknowledging the scar in the mirror as he got dressed. This time in a few months, he'd be putting on a smart new Smeltings uniform, but for now it was his sports jersey and jeans, an almost identical match to what Dudley was sure to be wearing. People thought they dressed alike to be closer; they knew they dressed alike so that neither could claim to look better than the other. They weighed exactly the same, wore the same haircut, and between their similar builds and Harry's top-of-the-line contacts, they could have passed as twins. All except for that stupid scar, left over from when his parents had died in some sort of car accident, or something like that.

He had heard a few stories about them, about how they were a couple of hippies that his aunt and uncle hadn't associated with that much. His dad hadn't worked and his mom had always been odd, and from all sounds of it, Harry had lucked out to be raised by his aunt and uncle instead.

He waddled downstairs into the cloud of bacon-smell and over to the dual piles of presents. He and Dudley had given Vernon and Petunia an extra challenge this year; they had asked for different things worth different amounts of money. Dudley's list had gone for quantity, a large number of items, whereas Harry had written down fewer, more expensive presents. Either way, the Dursleys were caught: if they both had the same amount of presents, Dudley would complain that Harry's were more expensive, and if they stuck to the lists, Harry would cry about his smaller pile. The compromise would inevitably be to buy both boys everything from both lists, with the added bonus of them never having to share. Harry and Dudley had spent days coming up with the plan, and they just hoped it would hold for Christmas too.

Vernon Dursley was already sitting at the table, reading the newspaper with his head in his hand, chewing on a burnt piece of bacon that Petunia had known the boys would have complained about. His relatively thin frame was wedged into his chair around the stacks of packages, squished against the edge of the table. The packages paid for with his hard-earned money.

He would never begrudge the boys anything; they were good kids with strong personalities and developed senses of exactly what they wanted out of the world. That was what he told himself every moment of his seventy hour work week, as he strived to earn just a bit more and get the boys everything they needed. No one could ever say he let his family go without.

The only thing he really needed to attend to was the reorganization of the house. With Petunia's joints being what they were, they needed to switch some of the rooms and give themselves a ground-floor bedroom. He would have done it weeks ago, but he just hadn't found the time, and he couldn't ask the boys to move boxes and furniture all day. This was their summer vacation; they had earned a break.

Dudley had finished counting both piles when Harry wheezed his way over to the table and sunk his thick backside into a chair. Dudley gave a quick thumbs up, the gesture almost lost in the expanse of his pudgy hand; their plan had worked. Harry grinned to himself and turned to the table, only to find the most horrible sight he had ever seen before his eyes.

"Why isn't there anymore bacon?"

Vernon stopped mid-bite and stared down at the greasy and crumb-covered, but otherwise empty, serving plate.

"I wanted bacon this morning. Why isn't there any?"

Vernon lowered the burnt quarter-piece slowly back down to the plate.

"That's burnt! Why isn't there any good bacon left? Why?"

The sound of impending screams brought Petunia shuffling back into the kitchen, struggling to hold the final stack of boxes. Vernon jumped to his feet to get them for her, grabbing before they dropped out of her thin arms. She turned her wide eyes on the black-haired boy.

"Is something wrong, Harry-sweetums?"

He glared at her, eyes squinting out between bulbous cheeks and eyebrows.

"There's not any bacon left! You didn't make enough!"

"No no no no, sweetie, I just wanted to make sure it was warm when you came down, it's in the oven. I would never forget to make enough on yours and Dudley's special day."

He rushed to the oven without another word, pulling out the overflowing pan, while Petunia leaned over to whisper into Vernon's ear.

"Dudley went through the first pound earlier, and that one is for Harry, so we only have three left. Could you run out to the store soon? We're cutting it very close."

Vernon nodded and set down the boxes, pecking Petunia on the cheek. He was out the door in a minute, always ready to provide for his son and nephew.

He stepped right over the parchment envelope on the doormat.