Chapter Text
Moment 4
The glass vanished from the boa constrictor's habitat with no warning. Harry took a step back. Dudley, who'd been leaning as close to the barrier between reptile and man as possible, fell forward into the enclosure that the snake was rapidly fleeing from. His gut cushioned his fall, though the breath was knocked out of his lungs. Dudley's fat, stubby legs kicked fitfully over the edge of what used to be a viewing window, and Harry had to physically force himself to stop from laughing and instead listen to the boa's jaunty, hissed goodbye of, 'Brazil, here I come!"
Piers Polkiss started screaming bloody murder, more from the giant snake being loose than his best mate having taken a tumble. The boy's exclamations of fright sent the rest of the zoo-goers in the reptile house scrambling for the exits. Bodies bounced off of Vernon and his massive girth, and the man shrugged the contact off. His wife, however, was knocked unceremoniously to the floor and had her hand trampled upon.
Vernon finally saw an opening to reach for his freak of a nephew through the thinning crowd and took it. A meaty fist closed around a far-too-thin wrist, and Harry swore he could hear the bones there grinding against each other. He lost sight of the snake as it slithered its way out the open door and into the daylight, and instead found himself with a face full of seething walrus.
"You will put it right! This instant!" Vernon was apoplectic in his fury, and Harry wasn't feeling too much better in his quavering fear of his uncle. He truly hadn't meant for the glass to disappear, or even for Dudley to be caught up in its effects. While at first pleased with the mishap, Harry was now regretting his earlier mirth. His family always had a way of taking what little joys he had and thoroughly ruining them, and Harry had forgotten that sobering fact in the hullabaloo.
A stammered "I can't" was not a sufficient answer for an enraged Vernon. He forcibly grabbed Harry by the crown of the head and pivoted him so he was looking at Dudley, still face-down and wheezing in the otherwise empty habitat. Harry watched his cousin wriggle around like a flipped-over turtle unable to right itself and, despite the pain of his uncle's grip, began to smile.
A swift, hard kick to his shin saw the smile fall right off the boy's face. Vernon made no move to apologize for the violence, not that Harry expected him to. In truth, he expected a cuff to the back of the head and more sputtered indignities about how he was to blame and how freakish he was. It seemed, though, that Vernon was so red – almost purple – in the face that words were beyond him.
Harry decided that any action would be better than his uncle continuing his diatribe, and so he concentrated on the glass reappearing in the vacant space it once occupied. His stomach roiled at the effort and the fear of reprisal should he not be able to fix this. He knew the damage was already done, though; he'd inadvertently harmed their precious Diddikins and would be made to pay for it far beyond what was called for.
The tension suffusing his body suddenly snapped, and Harry opened his eyes wide, unaware he'd clenched them shut in his worry. His eyes grew even wider as Piers started screaming again, this time in concert with the agonized bellows coming from Dudley. Petunia fainted dead away, and Vernon went slack, his hands dropping from Harry's person as his mouth hung agape. Harry himself was the last to realize what had just happened.
The pane of glass was back in place, as sturdy as it had been before Harry's burst of accidental magic. That once-pristine piece of clear glass was now vividly splattered in red, dripping in large spurts. Unfortunately for Dudley, his chubby legs lay directly in the path of the enclosure's barrier. So, when Harry's more concentrated effort at magic had caused the glass to pop back, it had done so with massive force upon his lower extremities. Both of Dudley's legs had been severed just above the ankle, leaving smooth wounds behind. His feet rested upon the concrete floor, still trainer-clad and softly disgorging what little blood was left in them. Dudley's legs, though, were another story. They continued to release Dudley's essence in a dwindling flow as the flailing of the mangled limbs slowed.
The glass did a poor job at concealing the wails of anguish on the other side. Dudley was bleeding out in front of them all, in horrible pain, and the group were collectively stunned still. Writhing that Harry had found humor in just a minute ago was now an exercise in torture. His cousin was progressively getting more lethargic in his movements, his voice weaker as his vocal cords shredded under the constant strain of screaming. Though none of them could see it from their vantage point, Dudley had bit through his tongue at the moment of impact and was slowly drowning in the remaining blood he had.
All of the noise (and quite possibly the gaggle of concerned patrons) had brought a zoo official to the door of the reptile house. The man paled, taking in the rapidly-growing pool of blood and the various states of those around (and in) the mess. The two boys both looked shell-shocked. The one with the glasses had his whole front coated in blood, though he seemed too out of it to notice that fact. The other was pounding his fists upon the glass of the nearest enclosure, tears streaming down his face and a mantra of "nonoNO" pouring from his mouth. Who he assumed were the parents were both still: the wife from having fainted, and the husband likely in simple helplessness.
Well, he had a mess to clean up. And a lot of paperwork to fill out. The official swiftly, quietly, exited the scene, not wishing to stay to witness what he knew would be a heart-rending tableau he had no part in. He shut the door behind him, flipping the sign on it to 'closed.' No one else needed that horror seared into their brains today.