A/N: Here's Chapter 4! Sorry for the lateness, I was on vacation.
Also, here's the age difference for the children:
Teddy: 19
Victoire: 17
Domonique, Molly (grandchild), Fred, and Roxanne: 12
Louis, Lucy, and James: 10
Rose and Albus: 9
Hugo and Lily: 7 (Can most people read full novels at 7? If not, let's just pretend they can.)
Chapter 4: The Letters from No One
"Dad, can I read next?" Bill asked.
"Sure," Arthur said, handing his oldest son the book.
"Chapter 3," Bill said. "The Letters from No One."
"Harry? Did you get your Hogwarts letter?" Teddy asked.
"Yes," Harry replied.
"Then why are they devoting a whole chapter to it?"
"Well, there's a picture above the chapter. It's a picture of a bunch of letters coming out of the fireplace," Bill said.
"Well, Hogwarts are very persistent," Percy said.
George gave a fake gasp. "Percy? Badmouthing Hogwarts? Who are you and what have you done with the real Percy?" Percy scowled and rolled his eyes at him.
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 summer holidays had started
"Dad, how many weeks was that?" Lily asked.
"Oh, don't worry, it was only one. That wasn't too bad. Once, they locked me in there for three weeks."
All the girls gasped.
"Oh, don't worry. They gave me some food every two days."
"And what was that?" Ginny asked, giving her husband a stern look.
"Cheese and crackers. It was enough to last for two days."
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.
Molly (A/N: Now, for the grandchild Molly, I'm just gonna put "Molly II") gasped, and said, "Oh, if I ever find him, I'm gonna kill him for hurting my friend in her time of pain!"
Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Harry Hunting.
"Hey! They stole that from Voldemort! He started that!" Fred said. "Maybe we can continue it? How 'bout that, Roxy?" Fred asked his twin.
"NO!" Roxanne yelled. "I am NOT going to hunt Uncle Harry!"
"Okay, I'll just hunt him by myself," Fred said.
"I will put a Tracking Charm onto you," his mother said, "so I will always know where you are, and you won't hurt poor Uncle Harry. He already had enough on his plate during his time at Hogwarts."
"Fine! I won't hunt him!"
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 could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley. 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.
"No, you won't. You'll be going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the finest school of the magical arts in the world. You just wait," Albus said.
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?"
"WHAT!" all the girls yelled, causing some of the boys to cover their ears.
"How could he do that to you?" Lily asked.
"He never actually did that. I always got away from him," Harry said.
"No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it — it might be sick." Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he'd said.
"Harry, that was a good one," George said. "And also, he is that stupid?"
"Yep," Harry said. "He barely ever understood what I said right when I said it, so I could get away."
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 turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry watch television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.
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.
"Okay," Angelina said. "Smeltings also doesn't have a sense of fashion. I mean, really, maroon tailcoats with orange knickerbockers. That doesn't even match!"
They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.
"WHAT WOULD THAT BE TRAINING FOR? SELF DEFENSE? I DON'T THINK SO!" Molly said. Every person scooted at least a little bit away from Molly.
"I think she should go away for the later part of the book and for the rest of the series," Ron mumbled to Hermione and Harry. They both nodded their heads vigorously.
As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Duddykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.
Everyone burst out laughing at that.
There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.
"What the h—" George began, but his mother gave him a look that said, "Curse under my roof, and I will kick you out of this house."
"Heck," George finished, "is that?"
"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question.
"Your new school uniform," she said.
"That's your school uniform?" Bill asked. "Dirty, grey rags!"
"Yeah, I guess," Harry said.
Harry looked in the bowl again. "Oh," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."
Nobody laughed. "That was not one of your better jokes, Uncle Harry," Fred said.
"It should've been, 'Is that my uniform, or did you just shave an elephant,'" Roxanne said. Everyone laughed at that.
"I was actually thinking of saying that, but she would've punished me. No food for two whole months, I'm guessing," Harry said.
"Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dying some of Dudley's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."
Harry seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue. He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High — like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.
"It's a good thing that Hogwarts sent you your letter, or you would've been the laughing stock of the entire school," Charlie said.
"Actually when I got my letter, I was thanking God, and Professor Dumbledore and McGonagall, that I was going to Hogwarts," Harry said.
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.
"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.
"Good, you're making him do something," Molly II said.
"That useless lump is actually good for something," her namesake said.
"Make Harry get it."
"Get the mail, Harry."
"Now that's not fair," both Mollys said.
"Make Dudley get it."
"YEAH! YOU TELL HIM!" Lucy said.
"Lucy, despite your quiet parents, you are very loud. Where did you get it from?" Ron said, putting his fingers in his ears. Lucy just shrugged.
"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."
"Oh no, you won't," Ginny said. "That's my husband your talking about."
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.
"Oh, so you got your letter," Teddy said. "Now what's your uncle gonna do about it."
"You'll see," Harry said.
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?
"ME!" everyone yelled.
"Yeah, if we knew where you were at the time," Ron said.
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 did they know where you slept?" Domonique asked.
"It's Hogwarts," Arthur said. "When Ron got his, they put The Room Right Below the Attic."
"DAD!" Ron yelled.
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.
"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.
"That is just wrong," George said. "Laughing at your own joke, honestly!"
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…"
"Good for her. She deserved it. She also deserved you blowing her up," George said to Harry.
"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"
"Oh, great observation, Einstein," Hermione said.
"Who?" Ron asked.
"A Muggle scientist," Hermione said, rubbing her temples.
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.
"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.
"Really, Dudley!" Louis yelled. "He doesn't even respect his own parents. What a monster!"
"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.
"Wow!" James said. "I always thought Lily got her temper from Mum, now I know it's from you, 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 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.
"Really!" Audrey yelled. "That kid gets whatever he wants!"
"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…"
Fred made a buzzing noise, like a sound you would here when a game show contestant gets an answer wrong. "WRONG!" both he and Roxanne yelled at the same time.
"That's not gonna work," Roxanne said.
"They're going to keep trying—" Fred said.
"—until they get an answer," Roxanne finished.
"Twins, twins," Molly said. "I remember taking care of them, always finishing their sentences, dressing alike to fool you, and always tricking you to see if you can tell who's who. It's a good thing you have fraternal twins. You can tell them apart."
"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?"
That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.
Most of the people listening widened their eyes in surprise.
"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."
"Yep," Ron said, stifling a laugh, "it had your cupboard on it. Harry, it's not your cupboard, it's the Dursleys'."
"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.
"THAT KID HAD A SECOND BEDROOM AND MADE POOR HARRY SLEEP IN THE CUPBOARD!" Ginny yelled. Everyone around her backed away 2 feet from her. Everyone knew what she was like in one of her "moods."
"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.
Ginny looked like she was about to explode with anger. "GAH—ICK—BA—" Ginny made those noises. Harry and her children looked at her like she grew another head.
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.
"Calm down, Ginny," Ginny muttered to herself. "It's not happening now, Harry's right here and safe. Nothing to worry about."
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…"
"Yay! For once, that little brat doesn't get what he wants!" Lily exclaimed.
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.
"That kid throws a lot of tantrums," Hugo said.
Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall.
"Yeah, that would have been the practical thing to do," Albus said. "Why didn't you think of that, Dad?"
"I was 10 years old. Look at James, that's how I was," Harry said.
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.
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,"
"Yeah, he really means a lot to you," Victoire said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "He even remembered where you slept."
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.
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.
"Nice plan," Rose said, "but watch it blow up."
His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door —
"AAAAARRRGH!"
Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat — something alive!
"See," Rose said.
Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face.
Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face.
"I hope you left a big footprint on his face," Bill said.
"Sadly, no," Harry said.
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.
"That's a little bit too much," Arthur said.
"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."
"Well, at least one of them has brains," Charlie said.
"Well, she is related to my mum," Harry said, "and she's smart."
"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.
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.
"Hogwarts, his real people, us!" Angelina 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 marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today —"
"Oh, so that's why he's so bloody happy," Ron said. "Happy for not getting any letters. I bet something's going to happen."
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 —
"YOU CAN DO IT, UNCLE HARRY!" Fred and Roxanne yelled at the same time, jumping up and down.
"Out! OUT!"
Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall.
"NOOOOOOOO!" the twins yelled at the same time, sitting back down.
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's all that stuff?" Ron asked.
"Honestly, Ronald," Hermione said. "You need to research some Muggle stuff sometimes. Anyways, you know what a television is, a VCR is a device where you can watch videos on the TV, and a computer is where you search things up, some people say that it's easier than a library. I don't."
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.
"Foul little git," Arthur muttered.
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.
"Oh, no! Poor Dudley can't go this long without his poor little electronics! Boo hoo!" George said.
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 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.
"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 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.
"And you just realized that now, Dursley?" Albus said.
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 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.
"Wow! That must have been the best birthday in the world!" Domonique said, sarcastically.
Still, you weren't eleven every day. 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.
"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.
"THAT WAS THE BEST DAMN PLACE THEY COULD FIND!" Ginny yelled. Molly didn't even care that her daughter just cursed, she was too busy shaking with anger herself.
"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.
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.
"Key word: thought," Rose said. "He thought that no one could deliver Harry a letter, but I bet he was wrong, as he usually is."
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.
Harry nervously put a hand on his wife's shoulder, trying to help her calm down, because she was shaking so much with anger.
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.
"At Hogwarts, of course," George said.
"Guys, can we please stop interrupting the story, it's already 6:00, and we started at 2. We need to stop soon," Hermione said.
"Okay," George said.
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 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.
The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.
"And that's the end," Bill said.
"Let's continue in the morning, after breakfast," Molly said. "Charlie, would you like to read next in the morning?"
"Sure," Charlie said.
A/N: I don't know when the next chapter will be up, but hopefully, soon.
Please review telling me your ideas, your favorite part, or just your comments!
Thanks for reading!