o0o0o0o

The Madness of Mr Dursley

Everyone was very rushed in packing their things. Vernon instructed them to only take what they needed and none of them wanted to cross him while he was in this state. This didn't stop Dudley from trying to pack his television in a sports bag. Harry would have laughed if he wasn't so terrified by the look on his Uncle's face.

Only Vernon himself packed anything substantial. For some reason, he had packed a tent, sleeping bags, a first aid kit and some tinned food. It was as if he thought they were going on a camping trip.

Once they'd forced their way through the boarded-up door; Harry, Dudley and Petunia sat anxiously in the car, waiting for Vernon to drive them off to who-knows-where. The big man strode briskly out of the house and towards them. When he reached the driver's side door, he paused. He stood as still as stone, staring at something in the direction of the street.

Harry wound down his window and poked his head out to have a look. Outside, he could see that every house on the street was covered by grey, brown and black shapes that had not been there a few minutes ago. He heard a noise behind him and twisted his head to look back at Number 4. The same shapes blanketed that building and up close he could see them for what they were. Cats, all staring down at the car with curious eyes. Some of them Harry recognised as belonging to Mrs Figg, but most of them were unfamiliar to him. The felines all seemed to be hissing and growling in the direction of Uncle Vernon. Harry could see that several of the neighbours had come outside to find out what the commotion was.

He was snapped out of his rapture by a shout of surprise from the front seat. He looked over. Petunia had opened the glove box, probably to look for a map, but instead a large stack of parchment letters with emerald writing had fallen onto her lap. Her shout had brought Vernon to his senses as well and he clambered into the front seat hastily.

Harry tried to lean forward and grab one of the letters, but his Uncle stuck an arm out to block him. "Dudley," he said, "Get control of your cousin."

Harry felt one of Dudley's fists impact his side, but he kept scrambling to reach the letters, ignoring the pain. It wasn't until Dudley grabbed his arm and yanked it back hard, that Harry fell back into his seat with a gasp and clutched at his bruised body. Vernon wasted no time in starting the engine and leaving Privet Drive, while Petunia tossed the letters out of her window and into the street.

They drove for hours in what appeared to be a random direction. Vernon had his eyes fixed on the road in front of him and didn't react to any of them, almost as if he wasn't aware that there were other people in the car with him. Every so often, he would change direction sharply and drive that way instead. Apparently, even he didn't know where they were going. Petunia spent most of the journey watching her husband with worried eyes, also ignoring the two boys in the back. Dudley was the loudest. He spent the entire trip complaining about every little thing; he'd missed his favourite TV show, he needed the toilet, he wanted his computer games, he was hungry, he'd missed his other favourite TV show. He even got close to a breakdown at one point, wailing about how unfair his parents were being and smacking at his father's seat with his fists.

Harry blanked out all three of them and stared out of the window, watching the scenery fly past. He was too wrapped up in his own mystery to notice his relatives. Every time something strange happened or another letter showed up, Harry always ended up even more clueless than he was before. It used to be easy to wave off his oddness, since he knew so little about what was happening that he assumed nothing was happening at all. Now, he knew just enough about it to understand that he had absolutely no idea what was going on.

Vernon stopped quite suddenly at a dingy little hotel on the outskirts of a large city and announced that they would be staying here for the night. Harry stepped out and looked up at the building. It was bland and grey, with a worn sign proclaiming it to be the Railview Hotel; an apt name considering it was sat right next to a railway line, though not at all a good location for a hotel. It was the sort of place you would drive past without even noticing it was there, which Harry suspected was why his uncle had chosen it.

They checked in and he and Dudley were given a shared room with a pair of damp, musty beds. His cousin fell asleep almost instantly, but Harry remained awake, sitting on the windowsill and staring out into the cloudy night sky. The room shook lightly and there was a low rumbling sound as a train passed by beneath the window. Harry watched it go by with a thoughtful frown on his face.

It was in this gloomy little room, far away from the confines of his cupboard, that Harry Potter finally sat down and tried to piece together what had been happening to him throughout his life. He started by mentally listing everything he knew was connected to his current situation in an effort to gain some tiny bit of understanding,

'My parents, how they lived, how they died, how I ended up at the Dursleys', every strange thing that happened in my childhood, my dreams, the zoo, the letters, my kind, those cats.'

He decided to focus on his childhood; before the zoo, before the letters, back when he was just the boy in the cupboard, to whom strange things always seemed to happen. He knew it had to be linked somehow. He tried to remember every detail of the odd events in his life. 'They always happen when I'm angry,' he thought, 'Or scared or embarrassed. It's like the feeling takes over and then these things just happen, but how do they happen and why?'

He stood up abruptly and tiptoed past Dudley's snoring form and into the little adjoining bathroom. He flicked the light on and stared at himself in the mirror. Never before in his life had he looked at his own reflection and not recognised the boy that stared back, but the more he seemed to learn about himself, the more that feeling grew. He had to change that.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to recreate the feelings of anger or fear he always felt before something strange happened. He picked a moment, back in Year 4, to build the feeling from. He and Dudley had been in P.E. and his fat cousin was using it as an excuse to be rougher than necessary with the other kids, especially so with Harry. Harry had been getting more and more angry at Dudley as the game went on, but strangely it wasn't his own pain that set him off. Dudley had actually taken a short break from harassing him to go and push around someone else for a bit.

Harry had watched from a distance as other kids were tripped, nipped and shoved by his cousin, well outside of the teacher's view. All of them were too scared to speak out for fear of worse treatment from the boy later. Harry could still remember the look on his cousin's face as he tormented those kids, so much sadistic joy and pride. He could remember the dark feeling which bloomed inside him and how Dudley was suddenly on the floor, clutching a grazed knee and screaming that Harry had pushed him. Harry of course, was punished for using excessive violence in a game.

Back in front of the mirror, present-day Harry screwed his face up in concentration and tried to recall the exact moment it had happened. He brought the image of Dudley's face into his mind and tried to call the same feelings to the surface. He didn't find it hard to make himself angry, annoyed and even violent. His hands balled into fists and he began to shake. He became a torrent of emotions, to the point where he just wanted to punch something, anything.

Finally, he released his held breath and gasped for air. Nothing had happened. He had felt the emotions clearly, but they hadn't overwhelmed him like they usually did. He hadn't felt that rush which came before the event. It wasn't really an emotion, but he didn't know how else to explain it. He hadn't even noticed it was there until a month ago. It was this strange sensation which ran through his entire body and blocked out his thoughts, even if it never lasted for more than a split-second. Normally when it came, he would mistake it for his own anger at the situation, however in the time after the incident with the snake, he'd realised that it was something very different. This time, it hadn't come at all.

Harry wasn't one to give up easy though, so he straightened up and shut his eyes once more. This time, he just began to think about his life. Not a single moment of raw emotion, but his life in general and how terrible it all was. Almost immediately, faces and voices came to his mind. He was three and watching Dudley play with a toy spaceship, while his Aunt sat him in front of an abacus. He was five, on his first day at school, and Dudley was punching him in the gut for getting more questions right than him. He was six and locked in his cupboard, with no meals, for something he didn't understand. He was eight and his Aunt was screaming at him for letting the bacon burn. He was nine and stuck at Mrs Figg's while his relatives went to France for a week. He was ten and being slammed against the wall by his Uncle. He was watching his Uncle burn his letters in the sink. He was listening to his Uncle talk to his Aunt about his kind.

It all came to his mind's eye. Moment after moment of misery, pain and confusion. He could see Dudley's piggy little smile when he got something he wanted. He could see Petunia's upturned nose when she spoke to him in her shrill, snappy tone. He could see Vernon's expanding purple face while he fumed at him for something outside of his control. He was fed up. Fed up of how his relatives treated him, how they always seemed to know more about him than he did. He felt the rage flickering to life, so he pushed more memories into the building fire, fuelling the flames inside him. His body tensed and his fingers clutched at the sink hard, turning his knuckles white. He could feel the moment coming and his whole body quivered in anticipation. For some reason, he knew something would happen this time.

Without warning, he could feel it. That strange rushing sensation that left him unable to hear or feel anything else. It arced through his entire body and made it thrum with power. His ears were pounding rapidly in time with his heartbeat, blocking out any kind of outside sound. Harry wouldn't have been surprised if he opened his eyes and saw himself glowing in the mirror. An entire second of this passed and the feeling kept growing stronger. Two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, five seconds. The small part of Harry's mind not swallowed by the energy was starting to panic. It had never lasted this long before.

Half a minute passed and Harry was getting scared. His skin was starting to tingle and a faint light was blooming behind his eyelids. He tried to scream, but found that his jaw wouldn't move, nor would any part of his body. Very little of his mind was left now, as the feeling threatened to consume his entire being. The small capability of thought which he retained was repeating the same thing over and over, 'Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop! MAKE IT-'

CRACK!

The feelings were gone. Harry slumped to the floor, unable to keep control of his own muscles. He was panting and wheezing, trying to gulp down as much air as he could. He rested his head back against the sink. Hot tears were trickling down his face and his skin was coated in sweat.

He had never felt like that before in his life. He had simultaneously been filled with that strange power and yet been completely powerless. He had entered this bathroom seeking understanding, but at the moment every second which passed brought him a new volley of questions to which he had no answers. He massaged his temples, where a headache had just kicked in, and tried not to think too much after that- whatever it was just happened. Slowly, he pulled himself off the floor and looked into the mirror.

He should have been surprised. Any normal ten-year-old would be by what they saw, but Harry was so far from normal that he probably would have been more surprised if he found the mirror in the same condition he left it. The surface had been split clean in two by a single jagged line. Harry knew exactly what the shape was. A lightning bolt.

He raised a hand and touched his scar, staring at its exact replica carved on the mirror. He sniffed and wiped his eyes, trying to compose his thoughts and make sense of what had just happened. Before he could even begin to process his experience, a loud rumble cut through the silent air. Frowning, Harry poked his head back into the room. Dudley was sat up, groggily wiping his eyes and looking at the window. It appeared that the same sound had woken him up.

Harry stepped towards the window and looked out into the dark. Raindrops were falling heavily from the sky and hammering against the glass. Looking up, he saw that the sky itself remained unchanged from when he was sat on the sill a minute ago. Out of nowhere, lightning flashed across the horizon and thunder rumbled in the distance, causing Harry to step back and blink away the light. Behind him, his cousin grumbled something under his breath and went quiet, probably already asleep again.

As Harry stared in wonder at the strange storm that seemed to have kicked in randomly, he became aware that the rain was actually dying down. Within three minutes, the world outside was back to same dull grey that it had been before.

Even though this strange occurrence had raised a hundred new questions for Harry, he had for once gained an answer to one of his others. He still had no idea who was sending him letters or who his kind were, but he knew now, for certain, that the strangeness around him was not just coincidence. It was him and it had always been him. He was the cause of it all, but rather than comfort him, this revelation did the exact opposite. He didn't know what exactly had happened while he was stood in front of that mirror, but the echo of that powerlessness still clung to him afterwards. It wasn't just that he didn't understand this power any more, he was starting to fear it.

o0o0o0o

When Harry awoke the next morning, he lay in bed for a good half an hour, mulling over what had happened the previous night. In a few minutes he had gone from being single-mindedly curious about his life, to being awed, overwhelmed and scared by it as well. Part of him still wanted to know what was happening of course, but there was now another part which was slowly growing inside him, which wanted nothing more than to push this away and pretend it had nothing to do with him. He was having trouble deciding which half was more the reasonable one.

After he eventually pulled himself out of bed, Harry made his way downstairs and into the Hotel's cramped dining area. There he found his Aunt and Uncle already awake and sat over a breakfast, which was made up of some cornflakes and a few slices of beans on toast. Harry took the seat furthest from them and grabbed a bowl of cereal. While he munched on the flakes, which tasted like cardboard, he listened to his relatives bicker over their situation.

"I understand," his Uncle was saying, not looking quite as ill as yesterday, "But I still think we should stay on the road for a day or two. We want to be sure that we've thrown them off."

"Vernon, I think you need to calm down," Petunia was saying warily, "All this driving around the country isn't good for Dudders. I'm sure that you've made your point to those people by now, there haven't been any letters this morning have there?"

"I just have to be sure," countered Vernon, "You know what they're like. If an extra day travelling keeps them away from us, then it's worth it. Dudley will forgive us once we're home again and this is all for him anyway. I think even the boy would understand if he knew what these people were like."

Harry looked up when they mentioned him and scowled. The moment of raw emotion from last night had left a big effect on how much of the Dursleys' current attitude he was willing to deal with this morning. "So why won't you tell me?" he asked.

Vernon and Petunia both looked over in surprise, as if noticing his presence for the first time that morning. "Tell you what?" snapped Vernon.

"Who's writing to me," said Harry, "You keep telling me that they're dangerous and you don't want me to talk to them, but you won't tell me why."

"Why should we tell you?" asked his Uncle. Petunia was looking between the two of them cautiously.

"Well they are my letters," Harry shot back, "It's me your dragging across the country and apparently it's my kind who are writing to me. So, give me a good reason why you shouldn't tell me."

"Because I do not want to," said Vernon shortly.

"And I should care about that, should I?" asked Harry scathingly, "I'm not your son, as you're so fond of reminding me."

"No you most certainly are not!" snapped Vernon, his face beginning to colour again, "But you still sleep under my roof, you eat the food off my table, you wear my son's clothes. So you will sit quietly and do as you are told."

"This isn't your roof though," said Harry, pointing upwards, "Or your table. You've dragged us away from all that, remember? So why won't you tell me why we're here. What is it that's got Vernon Dursley running for the hills with his tail between his legs?"

If Harry had been thinking straight, then he would have noticed the multitude of mistakes he had just made with that one sentence, but as it was, his tiredness and anger wouldn't allow him to see anything past his Uncle's fat face.

Vernon rose from his seat and towered over Harry, his face now turning its trademark shade of purple. "Now you listen here, boy!" he hissed, wagging a finger at him, "You-"

"'Scuse me," said a voice to their right.

Vernon turned and opened his mouth, presumably to tell whoever it was to bugger off, but stopped short when he saw the hotel owner stood there. "Yes, what is it?" said Vernon, trying to compose himself.

"I was just wonderin' if one of you was Mr H Potter?" the woman asked.

Uncle Vernon stared at her for a moment, then said, "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you see," she said, reaching into her pocket, "I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk this mornin'."

In her hand was a parchment envelope with emerald writing, which was clearly addressed to:

Mr H Potter

Room 17

Railveiw Hotel

Cokeworth

Harry reached out to take it, but Uncle Vernon snatched it away with a stiff "Thank you."

The owner frowned at his poor manners, then asked rather pointedly, "How long did you say you were stayin' again?"

"Oh, I expect we'll be leaving within the hour," said Vernon, both to the woman and to his wife and nephew.

Sure enough, it wasn't forty minutes later that they were back in the car and speeding off down the road. Despite the protests of both Dudley and Petunia, Vernon drove not in the direction of Surrey, but further north. He would change directions even more frequently than before, constantly muttering to himself all the way.

After about an hour of driving, they stopped in the middle of a ploughed field. Vernon climbed out and walked away from the car. He came to a stop and stood with his hands on his hips, where he began to scan his surroundings carefully. Everybody else stood by the car as he alternated between pacing back and forth, circling the car and staring the sky.

"Has Daddy gone mad?" Dudley asked his mother timidly.

"No sweetums," she cooed, though not sounding completely convinced herself, "He's just a bit upset, that's all. He's trying to keep you and Mummy safe from these people."

Harry snorted at that and his Aunt glared at him, "Do you have a problem, boy?" she asked.

"No," said Harry sarcastically, "No, this is just brilliant. I mean, who wouldn't want to be stood in a freezing cold field, while their mad old uncle drags them from one place to the next with no explanation."

His Aunt's glare dropped a bit. It seemed that she wasn't totally inclined to disagree with him, however that didn't stop her from snapping at him not to talk about his uncle that way. He turned away from her and shivered as a cold wind blew through the place. He wrapped his arms around himself and muttered, "Never thought I'd miss the cupboard."

Apparently, this field wasn't what Vernon was looking for, because he ushered them all back into the car after a few minutes and set off again. A similar thing happened two hours later at the top of a multi-storey car park and again halfway across a suspension bridge. They didn't stop properly again until just before sunset. Vernon pulled over in the middle of a thick forest and stepped out to repeat the same routine, only this time, when he returned, he announced that they would be staying here for the night.

It was now clear why Vernon had brought so many provisions with him. He had most likely suspected that the Hotel plan wouldn't work and that they may need to camp out for the night. Dudley wailed at his parents constantly throughout their quick dinner of tinned beans and tomatoes. Petunia looked like she wanted to protest again, however Vernon had returned to his manic obsession with escaping the mysterious letters, so she remained silent. Harry kept entirely to himself and didn't speak to any of them, though he had to bite back several snappy retorts whenever Dudley started moaning again.

Eventually, they all managed to get bedded down for the night. Harry, Dudley and Petunia took the tent, while Vernon slept in the car. For the first time in several nights, Harry was not kept awake by his thoughts and drifted off almost immediately.

o0o0o0o

Harry woke up very suddenly and shot upright in his tattered sleeping bag. He lay back and wiped sweat from his brow. He'd had the dream with the green flash again, minus the parting scream this time. No matter how many times this vision came to him, he didn't think he would ever get used to it.

Deciding that he needed some fresh air, he pulled on his shoes and glasses and tiptoed out of the tent, being extra careful not to wake up his relatives. Once outside, he yawned and stretched, looking up at the night sky. It was still dark and cloudy up there, but Harry took a guess that it was probably very early morning. He was far too awake for it to still be around midnight. He paced around the clearing for a bit, kicking around random rocks in boredom.

He had no idea what Vernon was trying to achieve with this little road trip of his. It would be far easier to get an idea of what was happening if he could get his hands on one of those letters, but there was that part of him which kept insisting that it might be better not understanding. After his experiment in the hotel room, he wasn't quite as disbelieving about his uncle's claims that these people were dangerous.

On his third circuit of the area, he looked back up into the trees and nearly fell over in surprise. At least fifty pairs of eyes were staring down at him from the branches, glowing faintly against the dark leaves. Harry was pretty sure that it wasn't his neighbours' cats this time, so he made his way quickly and quietly back into the tent and grabbed a torch. He flicked on the light and directed it up into the branches.

Sat in the highest branches of every tree, were owls. Big and small, tawny and barn, they came in all shapes and sizes, but they were most certainly owls. Their piercing gaze was fixed on Harry, who suddenly felt very small surrounded by these birds. Out of nowhere, something landed on his head and made him jump backwards with a yell. Shining his torch on the forest floor at his feet, he found it. It was one of the letters.

Without bothering to check the address this time, Harry scooped up the parchment and tore off the seal. A thrill of excitement ran through him as he snapped the purple wax and pulled back the lip of the envelope. He finally had it, he was finally going to learn what was happening. The thought both thrilled and terrified him.

Upon opening the letter, he found that there were actually several pieces of parchment inside. He grabbed the closest one without thinking and unfolded it. The top of the page was printed with the same crest that was on the seal and the letter itself was written in emerald ink.

Dear Mr H J Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that have been accepted at Hogwarts-

Harry was unable to read any further as the parchment was snatched from his hands. He looked up and found the face of his uncle not a foot from his own. His eyes were dark and menacing, his face already turning purple.

"Go to the car," he ordered.

"No," said Harry, hoping his voice didn't tremble, "I want that letter." He made a grab for it, but his Uncle held it out of his reach and pushed him away roughly.

"Haven't you been listening, boy?" he snapped, "This letter isn't for you. You are not getting involved with these people. I'm not having you running off to become a-"

Vernon stopped short, having said more than he meant to, but the damage was done. "A what?" asked Harry, "A what, exactly? Who are these people? Why are you so scared of them? What's a Hogwarts?"

If Vernon had been angry before, it was nothing compared to what he was after he heard the word Hogwarts. He grabbed a fistful of Harry's jacket in each hand and pulled him close, Harry quivered at the look Vernon gave him and struggled against the grip.

"Get in the car, boy!" he hissed menacingly. Spit flew out of his mouth and hit Harry in the face with every word.

The minute Harry was released, he ran for the car, trying his hardest to get away from his Uncle. Harry had no idea what Hogwarts meant, but apparently his Uncle did and he didn't like it one bit. Harry was mentally screaming at himself. He'd had the letter in his hands, he'd been reading it and he was still no closer to finding out what was happening. All he had was a word which he could add to the growing pile of things which he didn't understand.

Harry watched as Vernon woke his wife and son and they all hurried to pull the tent down. Just as they were finishing, the owls began to screech around them. Suddenly, the Dursleys were being dive-bombed by the birds from all sides. Dudley threw up his arms and ran screaming for the safety of the car, a particularly persistent barn owl chasing him all the way. Vernon and petunia hunched over against the assault and made their slow way in the same direction. The entire scene was so comical that Harry couldn't help but give a small smile, his first since this business with the letters started.

His relatives eventually piled into the car, covered in peck marks and feathers, Dudley even had some owl droppings in his hair. Vernon sped off again into the darkness. They drove for the whole day this time, without stopping for food or toilet breaks. Dudley whined worse than ever.

It was through Dudley's whining that Harry actually gained an interesting piece of information, the date. Since they had left on Sunday, Harry had not been able to keep track of the days, but he overheard Dudley whining about it being Monday, meaning he was going to miss some TV show.

'If today is Monday,' he realised, 'Then that means tomorrow is Tuesday the thirty-first, my birthday.'

Most people would be shocked to forget something as important to them as their birthday, however the celebration had never really meant much to Harry, mainly due to the lack of any celebration at all. The Dursleys' rarely remembered the date and even when they did, their presents consisted of nothing more than old socks and bent coat hangers. Occasionally, they would even give him his present on the wrong day. Harry would normally do a little something in his cupboard, drawing a cake with candles to blow out in the dust and humming Happy Birthday to himself.

Finally, Vernon stopped the car on the edge of a rocky coast and told everyone to wait for him to return. When he did, he was grinning like a madman and holding a long, thin package under one arm. He stepped up and told everyone to grab their things.

"I've found the perfect place," he said as he led them down to the shoreline. He pointed out to sea at a tiny speck of land in the distance. "You can't quite see it from here," he said in response to their confused stares, "But there's a little house sat out there. Four walls, a roof, everything we need."

It was clear that Dudley did not agree with his Uncle's assessment of the place and neither did Petunia, from the looks of things. Vernon ignored them and led everyone to an old, wooden rowing boat nearby. He told them that it was forecast for storms tonight, still with that odd grin on his face.

After a very wet and tiring boat journey, in which everyone got soaked by sea spray and rain, they arrived at the island. The house, as Vernon had called it, was little more than a shack that just about made it to two floors. The entire structure looked like one good gust of wind might finish it off. The inside was no better. Cold wind and rain found its way through the gaps in the walls and ceiling and the whole place smelled like seaweed.

They had a short meal of cold beans and a few bags of crisps, then Vernon used the empty packets to try and start a fire in the damp fireplace. After abandoning his efforts, Uncle Vernon pulled four dusty old blankets from a broken cupboard and separated them out. He and Petunia took the single bedroom upstairs, while Dudley curled up uncomfortably on the couch. That left Harry to seek out a spot of floor to sleep on. He settled in one of the corners where there were a few less holes in the walls. Making a makeshift pillow from his bag he laid back, his limbs shivering and his stomach growling.

As the promised storm blew through and made the structure creak and sway on its stony platform, Harry curled up tighter in his corner, trying to trap as much warmth as he could. Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that Vernon had made the perfect choice of housing. There was no way that anyone would dare try to deliver a letter out here.

Harry glanced over at Dudley and his eye was caught by the glow of his cousin's watch. The face told him that it was five minutes to twelve. He would be eleven years old in five minutes. While not his most enjoyable birthday ever, it was easily going to be his most memorable.

One minute to go and Harry began to consider waking Dudley up. His cousin would be very angry, but it was his birthday, he needed to celebrate somehow. As he pondered this, he almost missed the moment the watch ticked over to twelve o'clock.

'That's it,' Harry thought lying back again, 'I'm eleven. Doesn't really feel that diff-'

BOOM.

Harry sat bolt upright and looked over toward the door. The entire building was shaking after the tremendous blow it had just received from outside.

BOOM.

The second hit woke Dudley, who rolled over and fell hard onto the floor in a heap. Harry had stood up and was approaching the door carefully.

BOOM.

It sounded like someone was knocking to come in. A very big someone. Harry looked over as Uncle Vernon came crashing down the stairs with a rifle in his hands. His wife was a few steps above him.

BOOM.

Everyone was staring at the door now. "Who's there!" shouted Vernon, "I demand you tell me who you are!"

SMASH!

On the fifth blow, the door finally gave, splintering at the hinges and falling forward with an almighty crash. Dudley screamed and Aunt Petunia shrieked as a gigantic figure appeared in the doorway. The giant stepped through the broken door with one great stride and stood there towering over all of them.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said in a booming voice, as he bent and lifted the door back into its frame with one massive hand.

He turned to face the room again and said, "Couldn' pop the kettle on could yeh? I need a brew after tha' journey."