Chapter 1: The Cupboard Under the Stairs

"Up! Get up! Now!"

Xander woke to something loud pounding on the door and groggily sat up, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

"Up!" came the shrill screech of what he thought must be a banshee, before he heard footsteps walking and then the sound of a frying pan being put on the stove. He grumbled and pushed the blanket away sitting up only to bang his head on the stairs.

He winced and looked up, what was he doing in a small crawlspace underneath a staircase? He wondered. One moment he'd been leading a pack of children on the annual great quest for candy, and the next he was waking up here.

Carefully he felt around the room, before his hands hit a string hanging down in front of him. He gave it a tug hoping it was for an overhead light. Success! His spartan accommodations were revealed, beyond just the sliver of light that filtered in around the edge of the door.

Xander looked around in disgust. It was a depressingly small room; if what appeared to be a cupboard under the stairs could be called a room. The lady with the shrill voice was back at the door again.

"Are you up yet?" she demanded.

"Give me a moment," he called breathing heavily.

He doubled over as a sudden pain flared through his skull and he ran his fingers over his forehead instinctively to massage the pressure away. He ran his fingers through his hair and across his forehead, freezing in shock as he felt a jagged line.

"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddey's birthday."

That wasn't supposed to be there! His costume last night had a scar like that; but it was just makeup! The pain behind the scar kept building, until it felt like something released as the never quite healed scar burst open and he felt something wet drip down.

Xander groaned involuntarily.

"What did you say?" Petunia snapped through the door.

"Nothing, nothing..." All the while Xander wondered, Duddey? What sorry excuse for a parent name's someone Duddey? A memory hit him of a fat spoiled brat of a kid, and he winced. The crazy shop owner, Evan... no, Ethan? That was it; Ethan had convinced him to go as a wand waving wizard. The guy had managed to talk him into accepting a vastly discounted costume of, a glasses wearing wizard, with a scarred forehead, he'd even given him a small character sheet with a basic background. He'd muttered something about it being a mockup costume for an author friend.

What was the character's name again? Harvy? Hammy? Harry! The pain in his forehead was starting to go away making it easier to think. He looked around the room again, and grabbed the blanket to wipe the ichor off his face and hands. But that character was older, he felt like he was in a body of about age nine or ten. Not fifteen years old.

He looked down, these were clearly not his hands. He forced himself to calm down and examine the room around him. He started looking for clothes, scowling in disapproval at the slightly oversized pair of pants and shirt. He found a pair of socks under the bed and after flinging a spider off one of them, put them on.

Opening the door to the cupboard he froze as he caught the reflection in the mirror, thin face, knobby knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. The severity of the situation hit him like a train wreck. Something hell mouthy had happened, and now he wasn't even in his own body anymore. His eyes darted to his forehead and the vaguely lightning bolt shaped scar that had freshly scabbed over.

A large fat man, Xander labeled as Vernon, entered the kitchen as he was turning over the bacon.

"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting, and Xander got the impression that this was a fairly regular occurrence.

He'd moved onto the eggs by the time Petunia reappeared in the kitchen behind what Xander immediately dubbed as a land-whale. Dudley looked alarmingly like his father, Vernon; he had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Altogether, 'Dudley' gave Xander the distinct impression of an overly large pig that someone had stuck a wig on.

"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face.

Xander, who could see a huge tantrum coming, was forcing himself not to pay any attention to what was obviously a spoiled brat. He had the urge to reach over and smack the kid, tell him he was a spoiled fat tub of lard who didn't appreciate the things he had in life.

Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, Popkin? Two more presents. Is that alright?"

The entertainment value, and his own instinctive self-preservation kept Xander's mouth firmly closed. Xander hoped this was all temporary and that he'd wake up back in his own body in Sunnydale, but for the sake of not ruining it for the kid whose body he was currently in, he would hold his peace. At least for now, if he was still here tomorrow him and Mrs. Dursley would be having words about the accommodations.

Xander looked up at Dudley as the other boy's face scrunched up in concentration. All that thinking must be such hard work, Xander snarked in his head, having to fight the sudden urge to smirk.

"So, I'll have thirty... thirty..." the land-whale flailed at the number.

"Thirty-nine, sweetums," Mrs. Dursley provided.

"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."

Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.

Xander heard the phone ring, but, was too busy watching as Dudley continued to make a mess on the floor, further lowering Xander's opinion of the boy with each present.

"Rotten news, Vernon," Petunia said as she re-entered the room. "That was Mrs. Figg; she's broken her leg and can't take him." She jerked her head in Xander's direction.

Dudley froze, mid rip, the wrapping paper in his hand falling to the ground. Xander just watched on unsure how to take the announcement. Petunia glared in his direction as though he had somehow planned this sudden change of events in her otherwise perfectly orchestrated life

"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy." Petunia's tone conveyed the absurdity of the idea.

The name Mrs. Figg made him think of cabbage and cats for some reason. Xander pushed the topic to the back of his mind, doing his best to only pay enough attention for important details. He was drawn back to the conversation when Dudley began to cry, loudly, and in Xander's opinion obviously faked.

"I don't... want... him t-t-o come!" Xander watched in fascination as the boy yelled his protest in between huge pretend sobs. "He's going to ruin everything just like he always does." The land whale shot him a grin from beneath his mother's arms.

The tantrum was interrupted though by the sudden ring of the doorbell, and Dudley dashed off to answer the door as his mother paled and frantically exclaimed, "Dear lord, they're here." A moment later and Dudley walked back into the room pulling another boy and followed by his mother.

Half an hour later and Xander, who was slightly dreading this visit to the zoo, considering his last visit had saddled him with a head companion that had almost hurt his girls, was sitting in the back of the Dursley's car and pondering the weird cryptic warning Vernon had given.

"I'm warning you," Vernon had said his face inches from Xander's, "I'm warning you now, boy — any funny business, anything at all — and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."

Xander just nodded in acceptance for the moment and resolved to have that talk about their treatment that much sooner; his green eyes glinting in a manner almost reminiscent of the green glow from the hyena.

The car ride was mostly silent though Vernon complained about the traffic and the places they passed, while Petunia's scathing commentary on the state of the neighborhood had ended a few short minutes after leaving Little Whinging.

Xander was wondering just what was wrong with this family, it was several minutes into the trip, as Vernon's complaints while fairly normal in most respects always seemed to find their way back towards the original owner of Xander's current body; at the moment he was going on about motorcycles: "…roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them. "Boy, if I ever catch you even thinking about riding one of those blasted things..." Xander ignored the rest of the admonishment.

And a memory of a dream hit Xander like a sack of bricks, he was staring up at the sky while the sound and feel of a motorcycle lulled him. He kept his mouth firmly shut.

Xander silently observed as Vernon was forced to buy him a shaved ice with strawbery syrup from the icee truck, because the lady in the van had asked what he wanted, before Mrs. Dursley could shepherd them away. He could see there was something off about how the two adults treated Dudley and his host but he put it off as they walked through the zoo.

Walking through the lion exhibit, he froze mid bite as the hair on the back of his neck stood, slowly he turned around to see the lioness sitting on the other side of the glass.

He got the distinct impression that it was looking directly at him, and only him. Slowly the lioness lowered her head keeping her eyes centered on him. He slowly turned and walked back towards the Dursleys, every so often he'd turn to look back, and see the lioness was still watching him.

Spooked from the eerie behavior of the lioness, Xander didn't notice that they'd walked right into the observation point for the hyena enclosure. Hearing the laughter of the animals he froze. Feeling his legs and arms trembling, he looked into the enclosure to see the hyenas too had frozen and were now looking at him. Only this time he felt like they were deferring to his presence.

"No..." he muttered. Feeling light headed, he pushed through the people to the next intersection and a bench to wait for the Dursleys. His shaved ice was more of a liquid with little clumps of ice floating about now, and the cold of the cup made his hand numb. Xander stared ahead and mechanically sipped the melted liquid from the cup.

By the time he saw the Dursleys it was time for lunch, where Vernon bought the cheapest item on the menu for Xander, and Dudley threw an embarrassing tantrum when his dessert wasn't big enough. Of course, the remainder of Dudley's first dessert was pushed into Xander's hands, mainly because Vernon didn't believe in wasting, something he'd expounded upon at the time.

After lunch the Dursleys decided Xander would stick a little closer to them, Vernon muttering about the 'boy being trouble' and Dudley wanted to see the reptile house before they left. The inside was dimly lit and slightly damp with a clammy feeling, and all along the walls there were windows showing snakes and lizards of all sorts slithering over bits of wood and stone.

Xander shivered slightly, the place seriously wigged him out.

"Make it move," Dudley whined, drawing Xander's attention to the largest snake in the building. Vernon tapped on the glass, and Xander wondered for a moment if the large man's meaty knuckle would break the glass. But the snake didn't budge and the glass held firm.

Dudley complained about the snake being boring before shuffling off.

Xander slowly approached the exhibit holding the large snake, and heard the snake muttering, "Stupid two-leg, oh for a nice juicy rat."

Xander stepped back in shock. "You speak?"

"Some," the snake muttered in agreement.

"You're not a demon, are you?" Xander asked stupidly.

The snake looked directly at him, as if to imply contempt for even thinking the thought. "Right, just checking," Xander said hastily.

And suddenly he was knocked aside as Dudley's friend called them over with a shout. Xander rolled in reflex to the shove coming up a short distance from the cage. What happened next made him blink—Dudley was inside the cage and the snake was coiling around him, and commenting how it wasn't quite the juicy rat he wanted before sighing and continuing that he'd settle for scaring the boy and then let the servant that brought him food remove the pest from his cage.

Xander just huddled up against the far wall hyperventilating in response to all the strangeness throughout the day, and from the reactions of the Dursley family, this sort of thing was halfway expected even if it was feared, so it wasn't him but rather the person he'd replaced.

Since no one could explain just how the boy had gotten into the cage, and no harm had been done between boy and snake, the Dursley's couldn't do anything but yell for great lengths and with increasing volume about the potential safety hazard poor Dudley had been exposed to.

For the zoo though, it was Dudley's name that went on the list as a safety hazard. For them, the boy had somehow managed to slip past a locked door into a secure area for zoo employees only and then managed to get past a second secure lock into one of their more dangerous specimen in the snake exhibit.

Xander fought back a smirk as the Zoo employee at the snake exhibit had carefully removed Dudley from the snake's coils.

The ride home was made in complete silence, the only break in the tension when they dropped Dudley's friend off. As soon as they entered the door Vernon rounded on him, his face purple and shaking. "Cupboard... Now... No food."

Xander raised an eyebrow and with his own monosyllabic response, said, "No."

Vernon swung at him and Xander dodged raising his hands in a warding off gesture of defense as a golden shield formed in the air in front of him. He blinked as Vernon's fist grazed the field, the man stumbled back and yelped in shock as he held his arm his fingers now numb and unmoving.

"It's time we had a discussion Vermin," Xander intentionally mispronounced Vernon's name. "Living room, I think." Petunia's face was white as she nodded and guided Vernon into the living room.

Dudley, however, didn't like the way this was going. It was his birthday and in his mind the freak had ruined it. He shook his head clear of the shock seeing, the freak disobeyed his dad, and attempted to sneak around the shield as they walked into the living room. Only the barest hint of a plan in his desire to whack Harry a good one for ruining his birthday.

Unfortunately for Dudley, he didn't appear to know the meaning of the word sneak. One might even say, he was physically incapable of it, his heavy breathing, and the weight of his feet on the floorboards announced his presence behind Xander just in time for the other boy to dodge the attempt.

Dudley stumbled barreling past him into the couch opposite. Petunia squealed, "Duddy! What did you do to him you little freak!" she demanded.

Xander shrugged, "You're all complete and total idiots, and it'd be a service to humanity if your genes didn't get passed on. Vernon, Petunia, I think it's time we had a chat about my living arrangements."