Harry woke one fine Saturday to a beautiful ray of light shining through
his window. He hadn't realized that it was so late in the morning. He
looked over at the old and broken alarm clock that Dudley, his rather large
cousin, had broken only last year. So, as usual, Harry got the old hand-me-
downs of everything Dudley had once owned. The clock read 10:24. Harry
could barely make out the two because the light had burnt out also.
Harry was startled that it was so late. Why hadn't his aunt and uncle woken him up? This was quite odd to Harry as he found himself scrambling out of bed and putting on his clothes. He opened his door and ran down the steps, hoping beyond hope that the Dursleys had gone out for the day. Maybe he would be able to have the house to himself and use Dudley's television that he hadn't managed to break yet. Harry burst through the door expecting to find no one in the kitchen, came to a halt in front of his Uncle Vernon, who at this moment, looked furious.
"This, this person wants to talk to, to…you!" Uncle Vernon spat in his face. Slowly, and Harry was used to this by now, Uncle Vernon's face started to turn purple as he shoved the phone hard into Harry's chest.
"Hello?" Harry asked nervously.
"Harry? Harry, is that you?"
Harry recognized the voice immediately. It was Hermione, his best friend from Hogwarts.
"Hermione?? Is that really you?" Harry asked anxiously.
"Yeah! I just called to check on you. Have you gotten a letter from Ron yet? He was going to try and call you again, but I told him that I didn't think that that was such a good idea. After all that happened last time he tried." Hermione said matter-of-factly.
Harry remembered all too well what happened when Ron tried to call him two summers ago. Uncle Vernon had answered the phone to a voice that was screaming so loud through the phone that the neighbors probably had overheard. That was the first, and probably last time Ron would ever use a phone. Harry received a very long lecture from Uncle Vernon about giving out their phone number to "people of Harry's kind."
"No, I haven't gotten a letter from him yet. Do you know what it's about?" Harry asked hoping that she knew. But before Hermione could answer, there was a tat tat on the window.
Hedwig, Harry's snowy white owl, was sitting on the windowsill obviously waiting impatiently to get inside. Harry told Hermione to hold on while he ran over to the window to let Hedwig in. By this time, Uncle Vernon had left the room and Aunt Petunia and Dudley were nowhere in sight.
Hedwig swooped in and landed on the kitchen table and held out her leg revealing a small piece of parchment attached to it. Harry quickly ran over and untied the parchment. He unraveled it and read the letter quietly to himself:
Hey Harry!
Just wanted to write and tell you that Mum said that you can come over for the rest of the summer! Hope those Muggles let you come. If not, Mum and Dad have a back-up plan. I don't know what it is yet. Has Hermione called you? She told me that she was going to try and call you on that phone thing. I hope she does it better than I did. Send Hedwig back with your answer.
Ron
"Harry! HARRY!!"
Harry had completely forgotten about Hermione still being on the phone. He ran over while Hedwig flew back out through the window.
"Sorry 'bout that Hermione. Hedwig just came with the letter from Ron. I kinda got caught up reading it and forgot about you." Harry explained.
"Nice to know that I'm not that important." Hermione grunted into the phone.
"No, no! Don't take it that way!" Harry tried to reason.
"I'm just joking around! I would never get angry like that over something that little. You know, I am allowed a few jokes also rather than just you and Ron."
"Yeah. You had me worried there." Harry's head buzzed with the thought of being able to go back to the Weasley's house for the rest of the summer. Thoughts of being able to fly in their yard and just being with his friends danced around in his head.
"Hey Harry, I have to go. My parents are taking me shopping at a Muggle's mall. That should be fun. I'll talk to you later. Crooshanks says hi." Hermione spit out quickly. Harry could hear her parents calling her in the background.
"Bye." Harry said in a depressed sort of tone.
"Bye Harry. I'll see you soon." And Hermione hung up.
Harry hastily put the phone back down on the table and looked down the hallway. He thought he heard Dudley smashing his Smeltings stick around. He loved to beat Harry with the stick until Harry threatened that he would put a curse on him. For you see, Harry is unlike any other person. He is a wizard and he was going to his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But unfortunately, Dudley ran and told on Harry and he was thrown into his room and was forced to stay in there for two weeks.
Little to Harry's surprise, Dudley came running into the kitchen. Over the summer Dudley had gotten even bigger in size and Aunt Petunia had been frequently receiving letters from the nurse at Dudley's school saying that he is too big for his age (He's not big – he's just big boned!), and since then, Dudley had been on a diet of only a salad every day. And since Dudley had to suffer, Aunt Petunia made the rest of them suffer with him. Uncle Vernon would complain every day that he needed more food (NO! You have to go through what our Duddems has to go through). Harry, on the other hand, had a supply of food hidden in his room that his friends Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and, to his surprise, Dobby had also sent him food, over the summer.
Dudley had ran into the kitchen to try to smuggle some food into his pockets and stuff as much as he could into his mouth before Aunt Petunia found out. But no sooner had Dudley opened the fridge door, Aunt Petunia burst through and saw what Dudley was doing.
"DUDLEY! You're supposed to be on a diet! You can't lose weight by eating more. Now I'm going to have to lessen the amount of food you eat!" screamed Aunt Petunia.
"But I'm hungry!" barked Dudley.
"Oh, alright. Only one piece of cake. That's all. Then it's back to your original diet." Aunt Petunia always went soft on Dudley. He was her little angel. But if Harry had tried something like that, Aunt Petunia would have sentenced him to no food for a week. Life was always like this at the Dursley's house. Harry was used to it. After all, he had been living there for fourteen years of his life.
He had lived with the Dursleys since he was one because fourteen years ago, a dark and evil wizard named Lord Voldemort had came to Harry's house and killed his mother and father. But Harry had survived Voldemort's attack and it had backfired upon Voldemort and he was reduced to nothing and was barely alive. Voldemort had attempted to come back several times, but Harry had stopped him all those times also. But at the end of last year, something horrible had happened. Lord Voldemort had risen again. And now he was back. Harry had no idea where he was at right now, but he had a feeling that he would be seeing him again shortly.
But Harry wasn't concerned about that right now. All he cared about at that moment was convincing his aunt and uncle to let him go to the Weasley's house for the rest of the summer. Harry walked out into the living room where Uncle Vernon was sitting and reading the daily newspaper. On the front page he said a headline that made Harry stop dead in his tracks.
SIRIUS BLACK HAS BEEN SIGHTED NEAR LONDON
Sirius Black was Harry's godfather. He had been on the run from the guards at Azkaban, the wizard prison, for about two years now. He was convicted of a crime that he didn't do and was framed for. Only Harry, Dumbledore, and Harry's closest friends, Ron and Hermione, knew that he was innocent, but the rest of the world didn't believe him. Even the Muggles were looking to capture Sirius. Harry had helped him run and hide from the guards and get away. He had hoped that he would never see that headline, but there it was, right in front of him.
Harry ran over to Uncle Vernon and paused to think of what to say.
"What do you want, boy?" spat Uncle Vernon.
"Umm…Er…Do you think you can lend me that newspaper?" Harry asked sheepishly.
"For what?!?" Uncle Vernon was starting to turn purple again.
"I er…I wanted to er…to…to read it. Yeah, that's it. I just wanted to read it." Harry stumbled to get the words out.
"Fine. I'll give it to you when I'm done with it." Uncle Vernon said gruffly.
But Harry didn't move. He kept standing there.
"What else do you want?" Uncle Vernon's vein starting throbbing on his head.
"I er…I was asked to stay with the Weasleys again this summer." Harry tried to find the words.
"And…?" Uncle Vernon asked, trying hard not to strangle Harry.
"And I was wondering if I could go." Harry spoke very fast now.
"Fine. You can leave now if you want. Please do as a matter-of-fact." Uncle Vernon grumbled as he stared back down at the newspaper.
At this, Harry left the room and ran up to his own room. He found Hedwig sitting on the edge of his bed. He got it a piece of parchment and his quill and a bottle of ink. He wrote and short and simple letter that had only three written words on it:
I can come.
Harry was startled that it was so late. Why hadn't his aunt and uncle woken him up? This was quite odd to Harry as he found himself scrambling out of bed and putting on his clothes. He opened his door and ran down the steps, hoping beyond hope that the Dursleys had gone out for the day. Maybe he would be able to have the house to himself and use Dudley's television that he hadn't managed to break yet. Harry burst through the door expecting to find no one in the kitchen, came to a halt in front of his Uncle Vernon, who at this moment, looked furious.
"This, this person wants to talk to, to…you!" Uncle Vernon spat in his face. Slowly, and Harry was used to this by now, Uncle Vernon's face started to turn purple as he shoved the phone hard into Harry's chest.
"Hello?" Harry asked nervously.
"Harry? Harry, is that you?"
Harry recognized the voice immediately. It was Hermione, his best friend from Hogwarts.
"Hermione?? Is that really you?" Harry asked anxiously.
"Yeah! I just called to check on you. Have you gotten a letter from Ron yet? He was going to try and call you again, but I told him that I didn't think that that was such a good idea. After all that happened last time he tried." Hermione said matter-of-factly.
Harry remembered all too well what happened when Ron tried to call him two summers ago. Uncle Vernon had answered the phone to a voice that was screaming so loud through the phone that the neighbors probably had overheard. That was the first, and probably last time Ron would ever use a phone. Harry received a very long lecture from Uncle Vernon about giving out their phone number to "people of Harry's kind."
"No, I haven't gotten a letter from him yet. Do you know what it's about?" Harry asked hoping that she knew. But before Hermione could answer, there was a tat tat on the window.
Hedwig, Harry's snowy white owl, was sitting on the windowsill obviously waiting impatiently to get inside. Harry told Hermione to hold on while he ran over to the window to let Hedwig in. By this time, Uncle Vernon had left the room and Aunt Petunia and Dudley were nowhere in sight.
Hedwig swooped in and landed on the kitchen table and held out her leg revealing a small piece of parchment attached to it. Harry quickly ran over and untied the parchment. He unraveled it and read the letter quietly to himself:
Hey Harry!
Just wanted to write and tell you that Mum said that you can come over for the rest of the summer! Hope those Muggles let you come. If not, Mum and Dad have a back-up plan. I don't know what it is yet. Has Hermione called you? She told me that she was going to try and call you on that phone thing. I hope she does it better than I did. Send Hedwig back with your answer.
Ron
"Harry! HARRY!!"
Harry had completely forgotten about Hermione still being on the phone. He ran over while Hedwig flew back out through the window.
"Sorry 'bout that Hermione. Hedwig just came with the letter from Ron. I kinda got caught up reading it and forgot about you." Harry explained.
"Nice to know that I'm not that important." Hermione grunted into the phone.
"No, no! Don't take it that way!" Harry tried to reason.
"I'm just joking around! I would never get angry like that over something that little. You know, I am allowed a few jokes also rather than just you and Ron."
"Yeah. You had me worried there." Harry's head buzzed with the thought of being able to go back to the Weasley's house for the rest of the summer. Thoughts of being able to fly in their yard and just being with his friends danced around in his head.
"Hey Harry, I have to go. My parents are taking me shopping at a Muggle's mall. That should be fun. I'll talk to you later. Crooshanks says hi." Hermione spit out quickly. Harry could hear her parents calling her in the background.
"Bye." Harry said in a depressed sort of tone.
"Bye Harry. I'll see you soon." And Hermione hung up.
Harry hastily put the phone back down on the table and looked down the hallway. He thought he heard Dudley smashing his Smeltings stick around. He loved to beat Harry with the stick until Harry threatened that he would put a curse on him. For you see, Harry is unlike any other person. He is a wizard and he was going to his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But unfortunately, Dudley ran and told on Harry and he was thrown into his room and was forced to stay in there for two weeks.
Little to Harry's surprise, Dudley came running into the kitchen. Over the summer Dudley had gotten even bigger in size and Aunt Petunia had been frequently receiving letters from the nurse at Dudley's school saying that he is too big for his age (He's not big – he's just big boned!), and since then, Dudley had been on a diet of only a salad every day. And since Dudley had to suffer, Aunt Petunia made the rest of them suffer with him. Uncle Vernon would complain every day that he needed more food (NO! You have to go through what our Duddems has to go through). Harry, on the other hand, had a supply of food hidden in his room that his friends Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and, to his surprise, Dobby had also sent him food, over the summer.
Dudley had ran into the kitchen to try to smuggle some food into his pockets and stuff as much as he could into his mouth before Aunt Petunia found out. But no sooner had Dudley opened the fridge door, Aunt Petunia burst through and saw what Dudley was doing.
"DUDLEY! You're supposed to be on a diet! You can't lose weight by eating more. Now I'm going to have to lessen the amount of food you eat!" screamed Aunt Petunia.
"But I'm hungry!" barked Dudley.
"Oh, alright. Only one piece of cake. That's all. Then it's back to your original diet." Aunt Petunia always went soft on Dudley. He was her little angel. But if Harry had tried something like that, Aunt Petunia would have sentenced him to no food for a week. Life was always like this at the Dursley's house. Harry was used to it. After all, he had been living there for fourteen years of his life.
He had lived with the Dursleys since he was one because fourteen years ago, a dark and evil wizard named Lord Voldemort had came to Harry's house and killed his mother and father. But Harry had survived Voldemort's attack and it had backfired upon Voldemort and he was reduced to nothing and was barely alive. Voldemort had attempted to come back several times, but Harry had stopped him all those times also. But at the end of last year, something horrible had happened. Lord Voldemort had risen again. And now he was back. Harry had no idea where he was at right now, but he had a feeling that he would be seeing him again shortly.
But Harry wasn't concerned about that right now. All he cared about at that moment was convincing his aunt and uncle to let him go to the Weasley's house for the rest of the summer. Harry walked out into the living room where Uncle Vernon was sitting and reading the daily newspaper. On the front page he said a headline that made Harry stop dead in his tracks.
SIRIUS BLACK HAS BEEN SIGHTED NEAR LONDON
Sirius Black was Harry's godfather. He had been on the run from the guards at Azkaban, the wizard prison, for about two years now. He was convicted of a crime that he didn't do and was framed for. Only Harry, Dumbledore, and Harry's closest friends, Ron and Hermione, knew that he was innocent, but the rest of the world didn't believe him. Even the Muggles were looking to capture Sirius. Harry had helped him run and hide from the guards and get away. He had hoped that he would never see that headline, but there it was, right in front of him.
Harry ran over to Uncle Vernon and paused to think of what to say.
"What do you want, boy?" spat Uncle Vernon.
"Umm…Er…Do you think you can lend me that newspaper?" Harry asked sheepishly.
"For what?!?" Uncle Vernon was starting to turn purple again.
"I er…I wanted to er…to…to read it. Yeah, that's it. I just wanted to read it." Harry stumbled to get the words out.
"Fine. I'll give it to you when I'm done with it." Uncle Vernon said gruffly.
But Harry didn't move. He kept standing there.
"What else do you want?" Uncle Vernon's vein starting throbbing on his head.
"I er…I was asked to stay with the Weasleys again this summer." Harry tried to find the words.
"And…?" Uncle Vernon asked, trying hard not to strangle Harry.
"And I was wondering if I could go." Harry spoke very fast now.
"Fine. You can leave now if you want. Please do as a matter-of-fact." Uncle Vernon grumbled as he stared back down at the newspaper.
At this, Harry left the room and ran up to his own room. He found Hedwig sitting on the edge of his bed. He got it a piece of parchment and his quill and a bottle of ink. He wrote and short and simple letter that had only three written words on it:
I can come.