Chapter One—Prologue: The Keeper of the Keys

Holly Dursley thought her parents had finally gone around the bend. They had brought the family to this lonely little shack on a rock in the middle of the ocean, just to escape some letters sent to her cousin, Harry Potter. Why didn't her father just give the parchment envelopes with the emerald ink to Harry before things got out of control? Whoever was trying to contact him did not seem the type to stop just because they were in some rickety shack.

BOOM!

Holly stared at the ceiling and tried to fall asleep. It had been hours since they arrived at the house, wet and cranky from the rain that pelted the water as Vernon, her father, rowed the tiny boat to the rocky shore. Her brother, Dudley, hadn't stopped complaining since they left their home days ago. Just to shut him up, her mother said that he could have the couch (mum and dad took the only bed in the shack), leaving Holly and Harry to find the softest bit of floor they could find.

Holly didn't mind. Though her parents and Dudley hated Harry, she did her best to be his friend...at least when mum and dad weren't looking It was obvious that her parents preferred Dudley, but if a Dursley showed even the slightest compassion for Harry, they were sure to be disowned. So, those nights when Harry was sent to his cupboard under the stairs without supper, Holly always snuck downstairs, careful to skip the squeaky third step, and unlocked his cupboard. Harry was always grateful for his cousin's help, however secretive it may be.

BOOM!

Holly punched the rolled up sweater she brought as a pillow. If the thunder didn't keep her awake, the lump of a headrest surely would. She glanced at her cousin. Even across the room she could see his shock of dark hair and bright green eyes. Harry wasn't even trying to fall asleep; he was writing something in the dirt.

BOOM!

Harry glanced at Holly, who instantly pretended to be asleep. He went back to his drawing. Holly cracked her eyes open.

"Happy birthday, Harry," the boy whispered to himself. He blew on the cake he drew in the dirt like a candle.

BOOM!

Suddenly, the door to the shack made an even greater noise than the thunder.

BOOM!

Was someone knocking? Trying to come in? But who would be so foolish as to brave the storm, cross the water, and stop at a pile of boulders with a pathetic shack?

BOOM!

There was a crash behind her and Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands.

"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you—I'm armed!"

There was a pause. Then—

SMASH!

The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.

A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but Holly could make out his eyes, glinting like beetles under all the hair.

The giant pushed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling.

"Sorry 'bout tha'," the giant said as he turned to lift the door. He fit it easily back into its frame. The noise outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all. "An' here's Harry!" said the giant. "Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby. Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mom's eyes."

Vernon made a funny rasping noise. Holly giggled silently at the lovely shade of red her father's face had turned; it was usually only Harry who could do that.

"I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant. He reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into the corner of the room.

Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.

"Anyway—Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fo' yeh. Not every day a young man turns eleven, now is it?"

From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Holly moved away from her parents to see. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing.

Holly looked up at the giant.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The giant chuckled.

"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags Vernon has tried to light earlier and he snorted. Rubeus Hagrid bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Holly felt the warmth wash over her as though she'd sunk into a hot bath.

"I'm sorry," Harry said, looking up at the giant, "but I still don't really know who you are."

"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts—yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."

"Er—no," said Harry.

Hagrid looked shocked.

"Sorry," Harry said quickly.

"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew the two of yeh weren't getting' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Blimey, Harry, did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"

"All what?" asked Harry.

"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now jus' one second!"

He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. Holly's parents and brother were cowering against the wall.

"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy—this boy!—knows nothin' abou'—abou' ANYTHING?"

Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad.

"I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."

But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."

"What world?"

Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.

"DURSLEY!" he boomed.

Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble." Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.

"But yeh must know about yer mum and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. Yer famous."

"What? My—my mum and dad weren't famous, were they?"

"Yeh don' know…yeh don' know…" Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.

"Yeh don' know what yeh are?" he said finally.

Dad finally found his voice.

"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!"

A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.

"Yeh never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' yeh've kept it from him all these years?"

"Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly.

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Vernon in panic.

Petunia gave a gasp of horror.

"Yer a wizard, Harry," said Hagrid.

There was silence in the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.

"I'm a what?" gasped Harry.

"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank to the floor, "an' a thumpin' good'un I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yers, what else could yeh be? An' I reckon it's about time yeh red yer letter. You too, Holly Dursley."

Holly glanced at her cousin. She stretched out her hand with her cousin to take the yellowish envelopes. One was addressed in emerald ink to Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on the Rock, The Sea, and the other to Ms. H. Dursley, The Softer Floor, Hut-on the Rock, The Sea. Holly pulled out the letters and read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL

of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Ms. Dursley,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress

Questions exploded inside Holly's head like fireworks and she couldn't decide which to ask first. Her father, however, made the decision.

"You, you, you—" he raised his hands. "You can't be magic!" he roared.

Holly was frightened, much like Vernon was when Hagrid was breathing down his face a few minutes before.

"Dad, I'm no more magic than you are!" Holly shouted.

"No, the letter! THAT LETTER!" Vernon moved even closer.

"Yeh'll not lay a hand on the girl," Hagrid stepped between Holly and her father.

"She'll not be going, nor the boy," Vernon said.

Hagrid grunted.

"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop them," he said.

"A what?" said Holly, interested.

"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's yer bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."

"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! But now he's gone and—infected my daughter! Wizard indeed!"

"You knew?" said Harry, stepping around Hagrid. "You knew I'm a—a wizard?"

"Knew!" shrieked Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could we not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that—that school—and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was—a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"

She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.

"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as—as—abnormal—and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"

Holly saw that Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown up? You told me they died in a car crash!"

"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"

"Load of old tosh," said Vernon. He certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.

"Now you listen here, boy, and you, girl," he snarled. Holly whimpered. "I accept that there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured—and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdoes, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion—asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types—just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end—"

But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning yeh, Dursley—I'm warning yeh—one more word…"

"Haven't I told you he's not going?" he hissed. "He's going to Stonewall High, and she'll be joining him, and they'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish—spell books and wands and—"

"If they want ter go, a great Muggle like won't you won't stop them," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter's son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. Both their name's been down ever since they were born. They're off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and they won't know themselves. They'll be with youngsters of their own sort, fer a change, and they'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbld—"

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Vernon.

But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head.

"NEVER—" he thundered, "—INSULT—ALBUS—DUMBLEDORE—IN—FRONT—OF—ME!"

He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley—there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Holly saw a curly Pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

Dad roared and Mum screamed. Vernon pulled his wife and son into the other room, cast one terrified look at Hagrid, and slammed the door behind them.

Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.

"Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do."

He cast a sideways look at the cousins under his bushy eyebrows.

"Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm—er—not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff—one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job—"

"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.

"Oh, well—I was at Hogwarts meself but I—er—got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."

"Why were you expelled?" asked Holly.

"It's getting' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that."

He took off his thick black coat, pulled out a blanket, and threw them to Harry and Holly.

"Yeh can kip under that," he said. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."