Three…two…one…
'Happy birthday to me,' Harry whispered to himself.
Dudley continued to snore loudly on the moth-eaten sofa on the other side of the room.
Harry didn't move as lightning flashed outside the shack, and thunder crashed. He yawned, suddenly very tired, and closed his eyes. My first night of sleep being eleven…and I'm spending it on the floor of a broken-down hut.
He curled up as comfortably as he could, pulling the thin blanket over his head in a vain attempt to block out the noise of the storm, and went to sleep.
---
Uncle Vernon seemed cautiously happy the next morning.
'Pass a packet of crisps here, Dudley, there's a good lad,' he said cheerfully. He glanced nervously at the door, as though expecting a flood of letters to come bursting through it any minute.
By the time afternoon rolled around, Dudley found he had made no progress in his current situation by complaining of boredom, and was sulking in the bedroom. Harry lay on the floor where he had slept the night before, staring at the ceiling, wishing forlornly for a letter to show up. Aunt Petunia was busying herself by tidying as well as she could with no cleaning tools, and gingerly handling the oddly-shaped package Uncle Vernon had brought. Uncle Vernon's earlier nervousness seemed to have disappeared, and he was now even whistling a jaunty tune as he stretched out on the sofa. 'That's finally licked 'em! I'd like to see them get anything out here!' he said, laughing uproariously. No one else did.
Dudley continued to sulk for the rest of the day, and complained even more when he was eventually made to move to the sofa at bedtime. 'I'm hungry,' he whined. 'I want food! All I've had to eat is one packet of crisps, and that was tiny! I'm bored, when are we leaving? The sofa is lumpy and there's no TV and no computer and no food and I want to go home!'
Aunt Petunia tried to placate him by promising him all those things soon, very soon, Duddykins, and Uncle Vernon, completely not listening to Dudley, cheerily headed into the bedroom to finally get some restful sleep without having nightmares about the post. Harry just sighed and got his blanket, resigned to another night on the floor.
---
On their third day spent in the hut on the rocks, Harry was jolted awake by the sound of Uncle Vernon's voice. He sounded elated, even more ecstatic than last night.
'Good old-fashioned British ingenuity, that's all it takes!' he proclaimed. 'Thought they could beat me, eh? Director of Grunnings, Vernon Dursley! I've got you beat, you freaks!'
Even Aunt Petunia seemed quite pleased. She was smiling to herself as she made the bed and fluffed the pillows (as best she could, given the state of the pillows).
Dudley tugged on Uncle Vernon's shirt. 'Daaaaad,' he said.
Now that he wasn't worrying about letters anymore, Uncle Vernon finally paid attention to his son. 'Yes, Dudders?'
'I'm hungry. There's nothing left to eat. We're not gonna live here forever, are we?'
There was a pause.
'Dammit.'
---
A/N: Vernon obviously did not think his plan out very clearly. Desperation will do that to someone.
For those who need an explanation, because it may not be very clear, they clearly cannot live in the shack forever, but if they go home they might be deluged with letters again, which is the reason they went to the shack in the first place. Alas, dilemma.
I originally had this idea (that Vernon's 'escape to the shack out to sea to avoid those blasted letters' plan worked) and was all set to write out a plan for it and everything, but then I hit this snag and realised why it could never work. Which I found rather funny. If you're wondering, the reason the plan worked is because…the shack is near Azkaban or something, so the wards interfere with the letters…I don't know. Maybe the storm blew them off course.