Ch 3. The letters from no one

The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his

longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard

again, the summer holidays had started and Dudley had already broken his

new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time

out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet

Drive on her crutches.

Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang,

who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and

Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and

stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite

happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Harry Hunting.

This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house,

wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where he

could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off

to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be

with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private

school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Harry, on the

other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley

thought this was very funny.

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall,"

he told Harry. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

"No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as

horrible as your head down it -- it might be sick." Then he ran, before

Dudley could work out what he'd said.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings

uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn 't as bad as

usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats,and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry watch

television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though

she'd had it for several years.

That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in

his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange

knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried

knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't

looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said

gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst

into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he

looked so handsome and grown-up. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He

thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to

laugh.

There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry

went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in

the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like

dirty rags swimming in gray water.

"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always

did if he dared to ask a question.

"Your new school uniform," she said.

Harry looked in the bowl again.

"Oh," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."

"DotA be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old

things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've

finished."

Harry seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue. He sat

down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look

on his first day at Stonewall High -- like he was wearing bits of old

elephant skin, probably.

Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the

smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as

usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the

doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the mail, Harry."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."

Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things

lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was

vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a

bill, and -- a letter for Harry.

Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant

elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who

would? He had no friends, no other relatives -- he didn't belong to the

library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet

here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

Mr. H. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the

address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.

Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax

seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake

surrounding a large letter H.

"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you

doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.

Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed

Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to

open the yellow envelope.

Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over

the postcard.

"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk. --."

"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"

Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the

same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of

his hand by Uncle Vernon.

"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.

"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open

with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster

than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds

it was the grayish white of old porridge.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it

high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first

line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her

throat and made a choking noise.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness -- Vernon!"

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and

Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He

gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly. want to read it," said

Harry furiously, "as it's mine."

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back

inside its envelope.

Harry didn't move.

I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.

"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the

scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the

kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but

silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry,

his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at

the crack between door and floor.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the

address -- how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think

they're watching the house?"

"Watching -- spying -- might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon

wildly.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't

want --"

Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the

kitchen.

"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an

answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything....

"But --"

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took

him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd

never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.

"Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed

through the door. "Who's writing to me?"

"No one. it was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly.

"I have burned it."

"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily, "it had my cupboard on it."

"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the

ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a

smile, which looked quite painful.

"Er -- yes, Harry -- about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been

thinking... you're really getting a bit big for it... we think it might

be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom.

"Why?" said Harry.

"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs,

now."

The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt

Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one

where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things

that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip

upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He

sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was

broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working

tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the

corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot

through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large

birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school

for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent

because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They

were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been

touched.

From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, I don't

want him in there... I need that room... make him get out...."

Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given

anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with

that letter than up here without it.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in

shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been

sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the

greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the

letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each

other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice

to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with

his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's

another one! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive --'"

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