"He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: 'To Harry Potter—the boy who lived!'"
The full moon shines through the cloud (the ubiquitous full moon) and the child squints tightly.
No sound peeps from the bundle except, perhaps, a convulsive movement every so often in a feeble effort to be free from the blanket. His eyes never open, although sometimes it is not too clear as to whether his is asleep or merely warding off the dark with the familiar one of his own eyelids. The streetlights—very strangely—do not flicker, all through the next hours.
It is a pink dawn that creeps into the porch, but another shadow falls over him. A pair of pale hands reaches out to him and stops suddenly. The hands instead throw transparent envelopes that crackle thinly into the mail slot in the door. The hands linger for a moment by the doorbell, but they rub together slowly and exit the area.
Another half-hour passes; another pair of hands bringing a rolled-up newspaper stray again to the doorbell. The child stiffens—he seems aware of the large belly protruding over him, but he does not open his eyes. The hands fall to the sides of the stomach and flinch into a wordless gesture (the lightning bolt). A whisper half-forms—spittle escapes a red mouth—but it is carried away by an odd blast of hot wind. The shadow of the stomach withdraws swiftly.
So the child rests near the gray of the newspaper whose contents rustle for a moment before settling down. The sun is now a creamy yellow filtered by the clouds. The streetlights abruptly vanish. A songbird twits briefly. A dry leaf scuttles roughly onto the porch grounds.
A pair of bony hands clicks open the door.
"VERNON!"
Petunia Dursley is mildly exhausted from a night of replacing bottle after bottle of warm, sweetened milk for Duddikins to drink. Of course the milk runs out, and she has to bring out the powdered milk, which he of course refuses to drink. She and Vernon stay up much of the night playing "Mozart for Toddlers" and attempting to make it a habit to walk softly and carry a big bottle of apple juice with them at all times.
But of course Dudley gets to sleep (the well-mannered darling; every developmentally normal child gives his parents a hard time at least once). The corners of her eyes begin to dim a little, and Vernon complains of something black eating at the edges of his vision. No idiot hoodlum races by with blaring music and blinding headlights. A restful sleep (albeit short) ensues.
At dawn she hears the mail splash onto the hallway but she manages to go back to sleep. A vague thought of owls crosses her mind for some reason. Later the newsman visits and she is fully awake. She pulls on her bathrobe and shuffles downstairs, absent-mindedly picking up painful-looking toys from the stairs. The mail is there all right—the newspaper she has to step outside for. A tray of empty glass bottles sits by the door. The doorknob is very dull, she notices, and makes a mental note to shine it later.
The doormat gets in the way, so she moves it back with the ball of her slippered foot. She picks up the tray. Another toy keels over beside the mat, so she picks that up too. Another mental note to buy a crate for Dudley (she remembers a particularly nice one at a store window). She straightens up slowly, for her back is not quite the back of her younger years. She reaches for the knob and turns it very slowly as to not wake up her family. A tiny yank should be sufficient for a hand to poke out, put down the tray, and grab the newspaper (no need for the neighbors to start gossiping about her night clothes).
The door requires a firmer pull, she gathers. She puts down the errant toy next to her and braces herself. Yet another mental note to oil the hinges on this door. It finally opens and she gets the full benefit of sunlight and a second for her pupils to contract—
But what is this?
What—
(The newspaper is sitting there undoubtedly, because we have just witnessed the man placing them there.)
"VERNON!"
Vernon Dursley is rudely awakened by an incoherent shriek from downstairs. He takes a well-earned moment to let the ringing in his ears subside into a lesser pounding. A series of rusty wheels churn behind his eyes.
Dudley. The little man is asleep (hopefully—lately he learned to open the spice cabinet and gave Petunia a panic attack) next door. His wife is sleeping next to him. No.
His wife is not lying beside him. Her bathrobe and slippers are missing from the dressing stool (but of course he does not register this quite so quickly; it is merely a statement of a fact). His eyes finally lock into a stable position, allowing him better eyesight. Getting out of the bed seems to be in order.
Getting out of bed seems to be in order, but for such a large man as he, it is not simple order. On bad days, it takes a second try to gain enough momentum to roll out. On good days, he can push himself up to a sitting position to stuff his feet into his slippers before actually getting out of bed.
Today is a better day. A vague thought of owls crosses his mind, but he of course only understands it as a ruffle and swish of feathers. He rumbles down the stairs and forgets to trip on the miniature fire truck on the last step.
The fluffy slippers (a gift from an aunt, thank you very much) come to a stop as he rounds the corner. It is an unconscious action, because his mind is barreling toward the prone woman in the doorway.
His feet lurch forward just in time for him to wonder.
"Petunia?"
Dudley garbles unintelligently for some time before he escapes his crib (his mother having patiently shown him how to open the latch in the hopes that she could brag to her friends that her son let himself out). He pushes the half-open door leading to the stairwell and waits, looking nervously at his parents' room. No one pulls him away, so he gingerly puts a toe on the consecutively lower step.
He repeats this show for every one of the fifteen steps. A little red truck catches his eye, so he plops down heavily on the landing and grabs it. A white plastic ladder snaps off. One of the wheels will not budge because a wad of hardened gum is wedged between the wheel and the body. It soon falls out of his hands onto the wooden floor with a sharp clash.
Two very thick arms rush into his world immediately and throw him into his playpen in the living room.
A flurry of two voices on the opposite sides of the decibel spectrum crash.
A loud noise similar to the sniffling of a bulldog and a loud cry ends the confusing babble. For a minute there is only the sound of a baby crying.
Then a small bundle with black wisps peeking out enters his world. Two pairs of ankles, one thin and one fat, appear beside the playpen. A piece of parchment falls to the floor in cascading arches. A brilliantly colored feather lands inside and tickles the soles of his feet.
"Won't!"
". . . He would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley."