•°THE BOY WHO LIVED 1°•

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say

that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last

people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious,

because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made

drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have

a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly

twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so

much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The

Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no

finer boy anywhere.

The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and

their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn’t think

they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was

Mrs. Dursley’s sister, but they hadn’t met for several years; in fact, Mrs.

Dursley pretended she didn’t have a sister, because her sister and her good-

fornothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be.

The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Pottersarrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn’t want Dudley mixing with a child like that.

When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story

starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strangeand mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs.

Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his

high chair.

None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.

At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Durs-

ley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because

Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls.

“Little tyke,” chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car

and backed out of number four’s drive.

It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something

peculiar – a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn’t realize what

he had seen – then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a

tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn’t a map in

sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the

light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Durs-

ley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror.

It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive – no, looking at the sign;

cats couldn’t read maps or signs. Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake

and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of noth-

ing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.

But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something

else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn’t help noticing

that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn’t bear people who dressed in funny clothes –the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid

new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell

on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering

excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them

weren’t young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing

an emeraldgreen cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley

that this was probably some silly stunt – these people were obviously collec-

ting for something... yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few

minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind

back on drills.

Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the

ninth floor. If he hadn’t, he might have found it harder to concentrate on

drills that morning. He didn’t see the owls swooping past in broad daylight,

though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed

as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even

at nighttime. Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morn-

ing. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone

calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime,

when he thought he’d stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy him-

self a bun from the bakery.

Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the

ninth floor. If he hadn’t, he might have found it harder to concentrate on

drills that morning. He didn’t see the owls swooping past in broad daylight,

though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed

as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even

at nighttime. Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morn-

ing. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone

calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime,

when he thought he’d stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy him-

self a bun from the bakery.

AUTHOR:

HAI I AM STARTED TO WRITE HARRY POTTER......COPYRIGHT TO J.K.ROWLING......DON'T REPORT PLZ🙏🙏🙏

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