center>Chapter One

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"Boy! Get up, now!" BANG! BANG! BANG! "I'm not going to tell you again!"

Little Harry (not that he knew that, in all his four years he had never been called anything but "Boy") woke to the sound of Aunt Petunia yelling and banging on his cupboard door. As always. Sigh. He got up and got ready to start his day. When he left his cupboard, Uncle Vernon was at the table reading the newspaper, but breakfast wasn't ready. He soon found out why.

"Boy, you have been living on our charity for the last three years and all you've given us is insolence and ingratitude," Aunt Petunia said. The boy didn't even know what the words 'insolence' and 'ingratitude' meant, but he did know not to ask. Don't ask questions, he was always told, sometimes with a slap across his face for good measure. He didn't want to get slapped. Aunt Petunia was still talking.

"Well, the free ride is over. It's time you started pulling your own weight around here. Get to it. I want breakfast on the table by the time Dudley gets up."

Of course, the little boy had no idea how to cook. He couldn't even see over the stove! But saying so didn't help so he tried his best. It was awful. Everything went wrong. And Aunt Petunia yelled at him the whole time, which didn't help. Finally, the boy started to cry. That made Aunt Petunia even madder and she hit him twice across the face. At that, the four-year-old cried harder yet, and the pans on the stove blew up! Uncle Vernon got really mad at that. He dragged the little boy into his cupboard, calling him a "useless freak." The child didn't know what that meant, but it sounded bad.

They didn't let him out of his cupboard or give him food or water for the next three days. Luckily, he was able to sneak out when they were asleep at night to take care of his needs.

When Aunt Petunia did bang on his door again, it was as bad as last time. She told him to cook and he still couldn't. He cried again and again got hit. But instead of locking him up again, Uncle Vernon dragged him out to the car, saying, "I won't have a freak like you in the house if you can't even make yourself useful." They didn't go to Mrs. Figg's house, the only other place the boy had ever been. They went much further away. Finally Uncle Vernon and the child got out at the edge of a forest. Uncle Vernon took the boy over the broken-down fence that separated woods and road and deep into the trees before telling him harshly to 'Stay right where he was or he'd regret it' and leaving his nephew there. Tired, confused, and abandoned, the little boy cried himself to sleep on the forest floor.

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Deep in the secret rooms of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the Registry of Potential Students, an ancient book containing the names and residences of every magical child in Britain. The Headmaster and Deputy are alerted when a name appears or vanishes indicating birth or death, but a child's location is updated every time the child sleeps in a new place and is not generally kept track of by the staff of the school. Harry Potter's case was no exception. No one noticed his change of address.