A terrible silence lay over Number Four Privet Drive.Any stranger who may have stood on the drive of this house, would have thought that it was vacant or perhaps a place where something horribly wrong had happened and now its residents lay deathly still inside. This stranger would have been wrong of course,because they do not personally know the people who occupy this house.They,quite clearly, are the Dursleys-the average,typical snotty family of Little Whinging,Surrey. This silence often lies over their house because of the only thing in their life that isn't normal.This would be,to their disappointment, Harry Potter, a wizard known far and wide.

As they did every morning, Harry and his aunt,uncle,and rather large cousin sat around the kitchen table for breakfast. Petunia would spend her morning,glaring out the window,looking for anything that seemed odd or unusual with the neighbors. His uncle,Vernon, read the newspaper silently and would shake his head from time to time when he read about,for example, some bloke sueing some school administrator for not letting his imbusul of a child into Smeltings.This made Vernon laugh of course because his one and only spoiled son,Dudley, had made it into Smeltings just fine.He wouldn't have thought the same of him,if he had known what kind of bully his dear "Ickle Diddykins" was,but what he doesn't know won't hurt him. The last at the table, Harry, always sat in silence.He was too afraid to say anything really to the Dursleys, even though he knew that if things got bad,he could threaten this awful Muggle family with his wand. They knew he couldn't use magic outside of school,but that didn't stop them from remembering when that beast of a man gave Dudley the tail of a pig, or when Harry himself accidently blew up Aunt Marge into a balloonlike form.

When enough time had passed,and when Dudley was through stuffing his face with all that he could find in the kitchen, Harry would get up and leave,unnoticed by anyone. The rest of the family just sat there until Vernon went off to work at Grunnings, a drill company, and then Petunia would start on her "house work" (AKA-just more spying on the neighbors). Dudley would run off to play some new videogame that he had been given after complaining to his parents that his old games were out of fashion and that even the abnormal poor people had them now.

What the Dursleys didn't know,or even care to know, was that their despised nephew was upstairs, pulling up the floorboards in his bedroom. This was where he stored everything magical, so that Petunia would not go snooping through his things,or try to dispose of anything that was abnormal. His supplies there were pretty limited at the moment,but he knew that soon that would change.It was three days until his 17th birthday,and he knew that his best and most beloved friends would be sending him many a present.It was also just about the only thing that he had to look forward to in this house.

To fill his time during these boring and hot summer days, Harry would write letters to his best pals,Hermione,Ron,and Ginny. His letters to Hermione usually included something about a new spell she wanted to try out or how her parents were baffled by some new magical term they had learned. His letters to Ron were quite different,though, because all they really talked about was Quidditch and Ron's still lingering love for Hermione.His final friend that he often wrote to,had quite a different effect on him. They wrote about everything, nothing in particular, and each day that he recieved a new letter from her, the butterflies in his stomach started to flutter again.But enough of his letters;all he could think of at the moment was when he would be able to go to the Burrow to escape from the Dursleys.

Those long three days had passed at last.It was Harry's last birthday before the start of a new school year, and he was awoken by a scream that was unmistakably that of Dudley's.He shoved his glasses over his eyes to see, and ran down the hall to see what the commotion was about.He found Dudley in his room, being attacked by Ron's owl,Pigwidgeon. This slightly dumb owl had arrived at the wrong window, and was attacking Dudley for the pure and simple reason that he wasn't Harry. Dudley was whining and carrying on. "Get this bloody bird off of me!" Harry didn't feel like getting yelled at more than he knew he already would,so he pryed the owl off of Dudley's fat head,and detached the package from his claw..

It was indeed a birthday gift from Ron, but before he had the chance to open the present,Vernon and Petunia came bursting in.He didn't bother starting to unwrap the parcel because he knew that in 3..2..1.."Harry!What the bloody hell is going on!Those birds of yours a nuisance to everyone! "But uncle, I just..." yet Uncle Vernon stopped him,unspurprisingly,"You were just what? Trying to get my son killed? Oh no,boy, I don't think so.I've so patiently put up with you for these last 16 years.It's time you know what it's like to be a real man, and live on your yourself no longer a resident of Number Four Privet Drive."

Harry could not believe that he had just been kicked out.Actually, it wasn't that hard to believe, but it was all difficult to swallow because Uncle Vernon had never gone so far as to actually kick him out;Petunia had always stopped him,and would say something quietly about her sister. Yet, his aunt had not "saved" him this time,and he would finally be leaving the Dursleys house for good.Hm, he always thought he'd be happier when this day came.But,where to go?

This answer came instantly to Harry of course: The Burrow