Previously:

"…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 usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table. They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat."

Harry swallowed hard, remembering what came after.

Now:

"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."

"He'd better not!" Remus growled.

"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."

"oooooooooohhhhhh…" the twin sang.

"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. Who would?"

Ron paused realising how lonely Harry had been his whole life. Ron winced at how many times he had complained about his sibling while Harry had no one. He swore to never do it again.

"He had no friends, no other relatives — he didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. 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 would the letter know about Harry living under the stairs and you didn't?" Hermione asked directing the question towards the Headmaster.

"Well, Miss Granger, the quill that write the admittance letters is charmed so we don't actually see them. They are written, addressed and sent automatically without our interference."

Hermione frowned at that, "…maybe it's time you changed that…"

The Headmaster nodded grimly, reflected on what Tom, Severus and Harry had been through when help could have and should have been offered to them.

"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 seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H."

"HOGWARTS!" Almost everyone shouted.

Harry smiled at the outburst, patting Remus' arm while he covered his sensitive ears.

Ron tried to supress his grin as he continued.

"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke."

"Well… it wasn't very good was it?" Ginny asked sarcastically.

"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.

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!"

"Can it! Pig in a wig!" the twins yelled.

"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 his hand by Uncle Vernon.

"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back."

"Here we go…" Harry muttered.

Remus and Severus looked at him curiously but Harry only shook his head.

"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 a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

"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 made a 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 a sharp 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 was surprised Ron managed to read so much without a comment but that was going to change.

Harry didn't move.

"I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.

"I should not have done that…" Harry whispered to himself.

Everyone could only imagine the punishment Harry faced for that outburst and many winced.

"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 door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.

"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're watching the house?"

"Watching — spying — might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.

"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?"

"What do they mean by "that dangerous nonsense", magic is completely normal," Andromeda said while Narcissa nodded her head in agreement.

"But it isn't." Hermione said.

Several heads turned to her as she began to explain.

"Imagine not having magic like muggles. Then you have a child expecting them to be like you only to suddenly and in some case violently realises that there is something wrong with your child. This is often the case when muggleborn or half-blood children raised in the muggle world, like Harry find out they have magic. Then as a parent you have to learn about this whole new world in order to understand your own child. It's stressful and hard! And yes, to some magic seem very dangerous if it isn't controlled and that is true."

Molly began to protest but Hermione continued.

"Take Harry for example, he apparated to the school roof, what if he fell? Without the ability to control his magic or the knowledge on how to slow or stop his descent he could have been seriously hurt or even killed."

Narcissa, Andromeda and Molly all turned a little pale at Hermione's words, falling silent once more.

"That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.

"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," said Harry angrily, "it had my cupboard on it."

"You didn't get your letter?" McGonagall asked.

"I did eventually…" Harry grumbled.

"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.

"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 you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."

"Second bedroom…" Molly whispered, absolutely dumbstruck.

Harry nodded to Ron to continue before anything else could be said.

"Why?" said Harry.

"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't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched."

Harry sighed wistfully, he had read every one of those books, cover to cover and loved each one.

Hermione recognised the adoring look on Harry's face, she did the exact same thing each time she cracked open a new book, no matter what it was about.

"What's your favourite book Harry?" She asked.

"Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card."

"I haven't read that one yet… is it any good?"

"It's amazing…" Harry sighed. "…my favourite quote is 'In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.' Very fitting, don't you think?"

Hermione nodded.

"Mine is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov."

"Controversial… isn't it?"

"What is it about?" Neville asked.

"Well, Ender's Game is about war, genocide and the consequences of them. Lolita is about a sexual relationship between a 12 year old and a 40 something man."

Many of the adult paled at that.

"I think this quote sums it up… 'I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither - I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.' It is about want and desire and how it will destroy even the best of us, but to me it also prove that love exists and endures even when it is wrong in society's eyes."

"If you like Lolita, you should try Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews," Harry added before nudging Ron to continue.

Ron cleared his throat before reading.

"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. . . ."

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.

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, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, 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. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly."

"Someone really ought to teach that child a lesson." Molly sighed.

"When 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 —'"

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 minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand.

"Go to your cupboard — I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. "Dudley — go — just go."

Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out 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't fail. He had a plan.

Hermione groaned at that.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Harry when do your plans ever work?"

At that Ron burst into laughter, quickly followed by Hermione as Harry pouted.

"Oh, shut it! Just keep reading."

"The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.

He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door —

"AAAAARRRGH!"

"Jesus, Ron! Did you have to scream?" Hermione yelled.

"Yes, it is written that way, see?" Ron said offering her book.

Hermione handed it back without further comment.

"Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat — something alive!"

"I wonder what it is?" Neville said.

"Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably 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 green ink.

"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."

"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."

"For once I agree with Petunia." Severus chimed.

"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."

"I have a feeling something is going to happen soon…" Hermione muttered.

Harry just smiled at Ron as he continued reading.

"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 the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.

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 doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, 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 through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.

"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement."

"This is ridiculous, just give Harry his letter." Andromeda sighed.

"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 marmalade on his newspapers, "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 letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one —

"Trying? I thought you were better than that, Harry?" Hermione giggled.

"Quiet, you! I was very excited. I know now, it would have been smarter to pick one off the floor."

"Out! OUT!"

Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall."

"I hope you were ok, Harry?" Luna asked.

"Bumped and bruised… but I was ok."

"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 still streaming 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!"

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 up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag."

"What is he trying to do?" Sirius asked, desperately trying to contain his laughter.

"I still have no idea…" Harry added.

"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."

"That isn't going to work my good man…" Fred started.

"… nope it isn't." George finished.

"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 without blowing up an alien on his computer."

Not even Molly or Narcissa commented on Dudley's behaviour.

"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. . . ."

"Where were you going Harry?" Tonks asked.

"You'll find out."

"They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"'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 the way. The woman stared.

"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room."

Everyone thought the situation was getting out of hand, but Harry knew this was only the beginning.

"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."

"Harry is it just me or does your aunt seem afraid of your uncle too?" Ginny asked.

Harry sighed, "I think she is but she won't admit it to anyone she's too proud for that. I… I just sometimes think about what she had to endure before I came along and became my uncle's favourite punching bag."

No one commented on that but everyone looked sadly in Harry's direction.

"Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension 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. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.

It 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 of the week, because of television — then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun — last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day."

The Weasley family looked appalled at this information, they didn't have much but their parents always made sure they had something they wanted on their birthdays and Christmas.

"Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought."

"Harry that isn't what I think it is, is it?" Hermione asked seriously.

"No comment." Harry deadpanned.

"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 no television in there.

"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 and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.

"Oh, Harry…" Molly sighed.

Harry just shrugged, he had mentioned this before to Molly and Arthur.

"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, though the 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 went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.

The eyes of the mothers in the room filled with tears at the treatment of the small boy. When Andromeda went to speak, Harry just shook his head and smiled when Tonks took her mother's hand in hers.

"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 rolls of 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 be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside."

Everyone leaned in, sensing something was about to happen.

"He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow. 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 rock crumbling 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 — three . . . two . . . one . . . BOOM."

"Jesus, Ronald! Some warning next time." Hermione glared.

"Sorry, Mione…" Ron said, blushing a little.

"The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door.

Someone was outside, knocking to come in."

"Who is it?" Ginny asked.

"That was the end of the chapter, Gin. I'll guess you will find out soon." Harry replied.

"Who wants to read next?" Ron asked.

"I will." Sirius exclaimed.

Harry, Hermione and Remus shook their heads as Ron passed the book over.

Sirius giggled gleefully as he read.

"Chapter four… The Keeper of Keys!"

Sirius paused thinking.

"Oh, I know who it is! I know!" Sirius cried.