Disclamer:-I don't own harry potter.
"Come on guys next chapter!!" James cried he was looking forward to reading about magic, all this muggle stuff was boring him.
"Yep, ok James calm down!" Rosie pulled him down so he was sitting and she picked up the book and began to read.
"Alright chapter three 'Letters From No One'" She read.
"Wait what?" Lily asked.
"Yeah how can you get letters form no one?" Al asked.
"No idea just let Rose read" Hugo told them.
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 summerholidays had started
"WHAT HE'S MISSING SCHOOL!!!" Rosie's head looked like it was on fire, and her face was as red as her hair.
"Yes Rosie that's the very worst thing that could possibly happen!" James told her (with much intended sarcasm!)
"Shut up" Rosie mumbled but continued reading.
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.
"Such a sweet, kind boy" Lily laughed.
"Poor Mrs. Figg" Al sighed.
"That's not fair Uncle Harry should have gotten the stuff he wouldn't have destroyed it all!" Rosie complained.
Hugo shook his head at his sister "Rose, I honestly don't think they care" he told her. She nodded and went back to reading.
Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang,
who visited the house every single day.
"Ugh that would suck!" James gasped "It's like detention on the weekends!"
"Yeah but you have had detention on the weekends, quite a lot too!" Lily pointed out.
"I know but it does suck" He told her.
"Whatever just keep reading!" Al knew the argument would have lasted ages had he not interrupted.
Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordonwere all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot,
James started to laugh, "He should be the leader!"
Hugo laughed too "He probably is!"
Hewas the leader.
Everyone was laughing now, James and Hugo were right about that.
Rosie shook her head "Why do people put idiots in charge?"
"When has that happened, other that just now I mean" James asked (he really loved proving Rose wrong).
"Well" Rosie thought then she smiled at James "They made you captain of the Quiddich team."
The comment made James gasp then shout "UNCALLED FOR!!!" Then he pretended to faint to make the scene more dramatic.
The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's
favorite sport: Harry Hunting.
Lily clenched her fists and Al and Hugo tried to calm her down.
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 couldsee a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off tosecondary school
"What?" James and Hugo asked.
"Secondary school, like high school" Rosie told them, it didn't seem to help though. "When muggles are little kids they go to primary school which is easier then they go to secondary school for older kids, which is a bit harder." Rose had slowed her voice down she sounded like she'd be explaining this to a little four year old.
"I don't see the point but whatever" James laughed.
and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley.
All the kids started celebrating "YAAY HE'S BEING SEPARATED FORM THE PIGGY GIT!!" James yelled.
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 asyour head down it — it might be sick." Then he ran, before Dudley could workout what he'd said.
"That's so cool" Lily and Al smiled. James on the other hand pouted,
"He says not to talk back to people, that's really hypocritical!"
"Wow big word Jamesey" Lily laughed. James pouted again.
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 turnedout she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quiteas fond of them as before. She let Harry watch television and gave him a bit ofchocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.
"oh that can be really bad for you, he shouldn't have eaten it!" Rosie exclaimed.
"Honestly Rosie it's the only chocolate he gets!!" Hugo argued. Rosie nodded in agreement.
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 knobblysticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking.
"I highly doubt that's what it's meant to be used for" Rosie shook her head, she couldn't believe how stupid this boy was.
"Wow I want one!!" James sighed.
"James you have a wand- you can hex people when teachers aren't looking" Lily told him.
"Oh yeah! I knew you weren't as dumb as people say you are!" James laughed and lily hit him on the back of the head.
This wassupposed to be good training for later he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon saidgruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life.
"poor man" Hugo sighed.
"Why?" Rosie asked him, she felt no pity whatsoever for her uncle's uncle.
"Well he can't have had many proud moments can he?" Hugo told her and everyone burst out laughing.
Aunt Petunia burst intotears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins,
This nickname earned another round of uncontrollable laughter from the kids.
he looked sohandsome and grown-up. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought twoof his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.
Everyone laughed at that too.
"I must say I'm impressed with his self control!" James knew he would make fun of any of his cousins had they looked so ridiculous.
* * *
There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went infor breakfast.
"Oh look, Dudley's up!" Lily giggled.
It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. Hewent to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming ingray water.
"What?" James turned to Rosie.
"I don't know lets read and find out." She told him.
"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did
if he dared to ask a question.
"Nooooo not a question, the horror!!!" Lily gasped mocking her father's crazy aunt.
"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."
"Don't 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."
"Doubt it!" Albus laughed.
Harry seriously doubted this,
"Haha, father son resemblance!" Rosie and Lily giggled.
but thought it best not to argue.
"Good" Rosie nodded in approval.
"BORING" James and Lily shouted , they were getting bored, and hoped their father would stir up some drama!
He sat downat the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his firstday at Stonewall High — like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin,probably.
"How nice" Lily sighed. (yes she knew she was kindof overdoing the sarcasm but some things cannot be helped!)
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 usualand Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on 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."
"That's unfair" Hugo complained.
"Yeah we know" Lily told him.
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.
"THE HOGWARTS LETTER" All the kids cheered .
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.
"That's sad!" Lily sighed, they had such a perfect life compared to how crappy her father's life had been.
Who would? He hadno friends, no other relatives — he didn't belong to the library, so he'd nevereven got rude notes asking for books back.
James got up and hugged Rosie then he patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry Rosie soon he will be able to get books I know it's horrible living without books but he will make it through!"
Rosie huffed and everyone else laughed.
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
"How nice it's addressed specificly to his cupboard!" Rosie laughed.
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 sealbearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a largeletter H.
"Well it's definantly the Hogwarts letter" Al said.
"Duh" Lily giggled.
"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you
doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.
"But it isn't funny" James pointed out.
"Whats a bomb?" Lily asked.
"It's a muggle thing used to blow things up" Rosie told them.
"Oh then yeah it's not funny!" Lily hadn't really expected it to be funny but whatever.
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.
"No!" Al said.
"What he needs to open his Hogwarts letter!" James told him as if he was a little kid.
"Yeah but not infront of the Dursleys!" Al told him.
"Oh right yeah, Don't open it!"
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 hishand 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 aset of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayishwhite of old porridge.
"cool his face is changing colors!" James looked completely awestruck!
"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 madea 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 asharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.
"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.
"I 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.
Lily smiled "way to keep your temper down Dad!"
"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 doorbehind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight overwho would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses danglingfrom one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door andfloor.
"Come on he should at least get to listen through the keyhole as it is his letter!" James pointed out.
"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'rewatching the house?"
"Someone's a little paranoid" Lily sang.
"Watching — spying — might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon
wildly.
James laughed, "someone's a lot paranoid."
"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?"
"Magic is not dangerous nonsence!" Lily growled. Rosie noticed her cousin looking particularly dangerous, so she said
"Except if you let James do magic outside of school" James pouted but didn't bother deniying it.
That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'dnever done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.
"Why aren't I surprised by this?" Rosie asked.
"Because they are all a bunch of prats and being un-pratty would be too hard for them" Lily hissed.
"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, it had his cupboard on it" Al said his temper going short.
"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily, "it had my cupboard on it."
Most of the kids couldn't help but laugh.
"That was sort of creepy" James said to a very annoyed looking Albus.
"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the
ceiling.
Hugo shuddered. Lily laughed at him and Hugo glared back.
He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which
looked quite painful.
"Yeah I doubt he's familiar with the highly complicated concept of smiling" James pushed his glasses up his nose to try and look professional. Rosie stared at him for a minute before saying "James I think that's the smartest I've ever heard you sound!"
"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 youmoved into Dudley's second bedroom.
"WHAT!!! DAD HAS TO SLEEP IN A BLOODY CUPBOARD AND THE BRAT GETS TWO ROOMS!!!!!!" Lily yelled, Al and James looked downright furious too.
"Why?" said Harry.
"Don't question it or they'll take it back!" Al instructed.
"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'tfit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip upstairs to moveeverything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bedand stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-oldvideo camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once drivenover the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-evertelevision set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program hadbeen canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot thatDudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf withthe end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books.
"Wow most of that room is filled with rubbish that that boy doesn't need, and they need a whole room to put it in" Rosie made it very obvious how disgusted she was.
"Let me guess Rose the part of the room that seems ok to you is the books" James knew he was right he just liked to tease his cousin.
"Shut up" Rosie snapped "but yes it is good the boy reads."
They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never beentouched.
"Or not" Hugo laughed again, Rosie looked horrified.
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..."
"Yeah yeah sure you do piggy boy now shut up" Lily yawned.
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.
"He's quite pessimistic really isn't he" James noted.
"No I think he's just overly curious" Rosie told him.
"Yeah right, he did tell me that too much curiosity can get you into trouble, I guess that's how he knows." James answered.
"When did he tell you that?" Al asked.
"Oh when you told Mum that I'd been called into the hedmistress' office for trying to get through that door that someone said lead to the kitchens in third year. Yeah he owled me then and said that too much curiosity can get you into trouble." James tried to explain the whole scenario really quickly.
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,
"How do you be sick on purpose?" James asked remembering that muggles couldn't charm themselves to be sick or charm anything to make them sick.
"You stick your fingers down your thought then you vomit" Lily told him.
"Ummmm, Lilz why do you know that?" Rosie asked concerned.
"A few girls in my dorm used to do that to make themselves lose weight, I don't though so don't worry" She told her.
"Girls are crazy" Hugo laughed, but then Rosie and Lily each hit him over the back of the head.
kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse
roof,
"Poor tortoise!!" Rosie cried.
"You're so much like Mum!" Hugo complained. The Potters laughed.
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.
"Yes that would have been smart!" Al sighed.
"But he didn't open it in the hall so get over it!" Lily giggled.
Uncle Vernonand Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other 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 —'"
"Haha now they should give Dad a bigger room!!" James laughed.
"I doubt it" Al sighed.
With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the
hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the
ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that
Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minuteof confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick,Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutchedin his hand.
"Go to your cupboard — I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry.
"Dudley — go — just go."
"Yeah go away piggy nobody wants you here so just leave!!" James shouted.
Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had movedout of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter.
Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time he'd make sure they didn'tfail. He had a plan.
"Something tells me something is going to go wrong here" Al told them.
"Shut up Al" Lily snapped.
The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned itoff quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stoledownstairs without turning on any of the was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and getthe letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across thedark hall toward the front door —
"AAAAARRRGH!"
Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the
doormat — something alive!
"Oh Merlin!" Rosie yelped, James yelled and Hugo cried.
"Yes yes yes yes" James chanted.
"What?" Lily was confused by how happy James was.
"He stepped on Piggy!" James yelled.
Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big,
squashy something had been his uncle's face.
"EVEN BETTER" James yelled.
Uncle Vernon had been lying atthe foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harrydidn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for abouthalf an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffledmiserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived,right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in greenink.
"I want —" he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces
before his eyes.
Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up
the mail slot.
"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they
can't deliver them they'll just give up."
"No they won't" James smirked.
"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."
"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like
you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of
fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.
"Does he mean that offensively?" Lily asked.
"No he just complimented all of wizardkind, intentionally" Rosie told her (with a lot of intended sarcasm!)
On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go
through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through thesides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairsbathroom.
"Well good to see they're consistant" Rosie giggled.
Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out
a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doorsso no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as heworked, and jumped at small noises.
On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry
found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two
dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia throughthe living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls tothe post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, AuntPetunia shredded the letters in her food processor.
"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in
amazement.
"Hogwarts!!" Everyone yelled.
* * *
On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking
tired and rather ill, but happy.
"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmaladeon his newspapers,
"Wait what?" Lily asked.
"He spread marmalade on his NEWSPAPERS?" James laughed "I don't know if that's some psycho muggle thing but that's just crazy!"
"no damn letters today —"
Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and
caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letterscame pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harryleapt into the air trying to catch one —
Al applauded quietly "Good some sence!"
"Out! OUT!"
Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall.
When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces,Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters stillstreaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.
"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great
tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five
minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No
arguments!"
"Sure that'll work" Rosie sighed.
"Well it might not, we've never tried to run away form letters" Hugo argued.
"Shut up" was the best Rosie could come up with.
He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared
argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-updoors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling inthe back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up whilehe tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.
"Stupid kid they said just a few clothes!" Rosie sighed.
They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they
were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and
drive in the opposite direction for a while.
"Shake 'em off…shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.
They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling.
He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five
television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long withoutblowing up an alien on his computer.
"This boy's life makes me feel sad!" Lily and Hugo chuckled.
Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the
outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and
damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the
windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering.…
They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast thenext day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to theirtable.
"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of
these at the front desk."
She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:
Mr. H. Potter
Room 17
Railview Hotel
Cokeworth
Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of theway. The woman stared.
"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her
from the dining room.
"Told you it wouldn't work Hugo" Rosie smirked.
"Shut up Rose!!" Hugo whined.
* * *
"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly,hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he waslooking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, gotout, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across asuspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.
"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that
afternoon.
"Yes darling, he has been for a while now" lily sighed trying to sound like her mother did. Everyone laughed and it took them a good five minutes to settle down again.
Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car,
and started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled.
"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I
want to stay somewhere with a television."
Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday — and you
could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television— then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Of course, hisbirthdays were never exactly fun — last year, the Dursleys had given him a coathanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven everyday.
"That sucks" James sighed.
"Yes James we know!" Rosie told him.
"At least he's staying positive!" Lily chirped.
Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thinpackage and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.
"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"
It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked
like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most
miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was notelevision in there.
"Oh no how will they go on" James gasped.
"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his
hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"
A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather
wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.
"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"
It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks anda chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reachedthe rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the brokendownhouse.
"This'll be good" James laughed wickidly.
The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled
through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty.
There were only two rooms.
Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four
bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and
shriveled up.
"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.
He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance
of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry privately agreed, thoughthe thought didn't cheer him up at all.
As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high
waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy
windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and
made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon wentoff to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry was left to find the softest bit offloor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.
"Ugh, They are so desperate to get away from these letters" Rosie sighed.
"I know but I bet something good will happen!!" James was still smirking.
The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry
couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his
stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rollsof thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch,which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd beeleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer,wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all,
"I hate to say this but they probably won't" Al said.
"Either that or he'll get some nice socks!" Lily said (overly sarcastically)
wondering where the letterwriter was now.
Lily snickered "Letter Writer, good name!"
Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the
roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did. Four minutesto go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they gotback that he'd be able to steal one somehow.
"ooh good plan!" Hugo laughed.
Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that?
And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rockcrumbling into the sea?
One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds...twenty…ten…nine —
maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him
"Oh my gosh do that, PLEASE" James pleaded.
— three…two…one…
BOOM.
"Wait what?" Lily asked.
"BOOM" Rosie repeated.
"Why boom?" AL asked.
"I don't know" Rosie snapped.
The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door.
Someone was outside, knocking to come in.
"I told you something cool would happen!" James laughed.
