"MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!" Daddy screamed, turning around in the driver's seat to glare at Harry. Dudley's cousin Harry had big eyes obscured by thick, round glasses and a mass of wild black hair, and looked nothing like blue-eyed, blond-haired Dudley. He was tiny for his age (it was why he fit so well in a cupboard) and skinnier even than mummy, who spent ten minutes on the scale every morning and would take a swing at Harry's head if her numbers ever got too high.
Motorcycles don't fly. This, Dudley knew as well as anyone, and as Daddy roared and Harry quietly tried to explain himself, he and Piers exchanged looks and sniggered.
Motorcycles don't fly, but the glass in front of a reptile exhibit doesn't disappear without warning either. But on Dudley's eleventh birthday, that was just what it did, right after Harry talked to the snake.
This was just a fact about Harry. Around him, things did what they shouldn't.
/
Dudley found class dull. He always had. Teachers droned on, used big words and looked at you with a scowl if you didn't understand. They looked at you with a scowl if you didn't pay attention, too, but that at least made you cool. Dudley had lots of practice in not paying attention: he was an expert in keeping quiet and never asking questions. One afternoon, he'd folded seven different paper airplanes in a single period, tearing out his blue-lined notebook paper to do it. He knew he wouldn't be sent to the principal's office, because the last time mummy and daddy had met with the principal the man had come out of the meeting shaking and with a pronounced fear of drills.
But he'd got tired of paper airplanes a while ago. That's why, when he'd seen the book on folded paper ("or-i-ga-mi" they called it) he'd nicked it from the school library.
/
What Dudley did not find dull was spending time with his friends. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon had all grown up in Little Whinging just like Dudley had, in the same square streets. They had spent years sitting next to each other and fussing at their mothers as the housewives of Little Whinging gossiped. When they got big enough to toddle, they toddled after each other and attempted to push each other down the stairs. Dudley knew the insides of his friends' houses as well as his own, and better than they knew his, although they came to visit every week without fail.
Because what Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon didn't know was that the Second Bedroom, the one that had the door always shut, was Dudley's and not Harry's.
Dudley was never to tell. "Whenever anyone comes over," mummy had always explained to him, "that's your cousin's room." And she pointed to Dudley's Second Bedroom.
"No it's not," Dudley had protested once. "It's mine!"
"Of course it is, Sweetums," she'd cooed, giving him a hug, "but the neighbours aren't to know that. You understand?"
Dudley understood. It was one of those things no one was supposed to talk about, like the way that Harry could sometimes be found on top of very tall things like chimneys without ever having climbed up them.
The neighbours knew that Dudley's cousin, Harry, lived with him, and had lived with the Dursleys for almost as long as he had been alive. But what no one—except the Dursleys—knew was that Harry did not sleep in Dudley's Second Bedroom but in the Cupboard Under the Stairs.
Dudley knew this was how things were supposed to be. Harry was small and skinny, and he didn't have very many things, so he wouldn't know what to do with a bedroom even if he had one. Dudley was bigger and stronger, and had very many things that took up lots of room.
With his friends, Dudley played with his games, broke his toys, and hollered. Harry would never play with them, because he did not know the rules of being friends. He only knew about running.
Dudley got very good at "Harry Hunting," and at punching Harry on the nose.
"They have such energy," mum sniffed, dabbing her eyes as she watched Dudley running around with his friends.
"Little tykes," chortled dad.
/
As Harry got close to turning eleven, things got weird.
It started when Harry got a letter. This was odd, because Harry didn't know anybody. Who would want to write a letter to Harry? But it was mummy and daddy's reaction to the letter that first made Dudley begin to wonder.
Because it was obvious. They knew who'd sent Harry the letter.
Whoever it was, that person was scary, because it made mummy and daddy do what they swore they'd never do: they gave something to Harry that belonged to Dudley.
It was like the glass had been taken off the reptile exhibit and the snakes were sliding through the crowd next to people's ankles all over again.
Dudley knew he could convince mummy of anything if he bawled enough. So as daddy began throwing open the doors of Dudley's Second Bedroom and shoving a path through all his broken toys to deposit Harry on the pristinely-made bed, Dudley screwed up his eyes and cried big fat tears, making his voice wobbly. "I don't want him there… I need that room… make him get out…"
It was true that Dudley didn't need his month-old video camera (he'd never gotten the hang of all the buttons) or the small, working tank that had killed poor Rover, the neighbour's dog (in Dudley's defence, any dog that tiny shouldn't be allowed outside). His first-ever television set was useless, since he'd put his foot through it when his favorite program had disappeared forever, and mummy'd had to have a long talk with him about how TV programs get cancelled sometimes and you can't do anything about it but maybe get a box set or watch reruns.
He did not need the large birdcage, which had once held a parrot; he had not needed the parrot either, so he'd swapped it at school for a real air rifle.
And he didn't need the air rifle, because Dudley had put it aside one day and sat down, and when he sat up again the barrel had been bent.
He didn't need any of these things, but sometimes he would step into the room and sit on the edge of the bed and look around and remember that all these things were his, and they were his because he was special, and they were his because his parents loved him very much, enough to buy him anything he wanted.
He didn't need any of these things, but they were his, and they weren't supposed to go away. And they certainly weren't supposed to go to Harry. Nothing ever went to Harry.
What Dudley did need in his Second Bedroom was the shelves full of books that looked as though they'd never been touched. He had gotten the books as gifts from people who didn't know him and he'd stuck them on the shelf when the words were too difficult to read, but right in the middle of all those useless books was the one book Dudley did look at, the book of folded paper.
It had complicated instructions but also pictures, color-coded pictures that Dudley could always follow eventually. No one had ever figured out that Dudley had nicked the book because no one ever looked in the bookshelf in the Second Bedroom, but Dudley knew that if Harry was in the bedroom he would notice.
He would notice that the book was from the library because of the sticker on its spine. And he would notice that it had been touched because the edges of the pages were soft instead of sharp. And he would notice that Dudley had read the book because on the inside he had written, in big black pen, "DONE" next to every folded paper design he'd finished.
He screamed, whacked daddy with his Smelting stick, made himself barf, kicked mummy, and as a last-ditch effort, he even threw his tortoise through the greenhouse roof.
But for the first time, what Dudley wanted didn't matter.
He wasn't getting his room back.
/
Whoever was writing to Harry was trouble, and they didn't stop. The letter came back the next day. And the day after, Dudley was woken at six o'clock in the morning by a great "AAAAARRRGH!" that couldn't have come from anyone but daddy. Dudley sat up in bed in a panic, and then realized that daddy was just shouting at Harry from downstairs; Harry must have been sneaking out to try to get the post.
Dudley almost turned over again and went back to sleep, but then he realized his chance. He tiptoed out of his room and creaked open the door to the Smallest Bedroom. It was no longer Dudley's room, Dudley knew, because yesterday when Harry's letter had come it had been addressed to "Mr H Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive," like Harry really lived there.
It didn't look much different now that it was Harry's. The bed was a little rumpled, which Dudley frowned at—mummy would have a fit—and there was a pile of plastic army men on the dresser that Harry had once rescued from a bin on the side of the road. But most importantly, the bookshelf hadn't been touched.
Dudley crept through the room until he reached the shelf. He slid his folded paper book out, breathing a great sigh of relief, and sneaked back out of Harry's room. Then he went into his own room and looked around.
The problem with Dudley's room was that it was very clean, because mummy cleaned it every day. She was proud of how clean it was. She would know at once if there was something new in it. Dudley thought for a moment and then walked over to his schoolbag, and tucked the folded paper book inside it, under his textbook. It was the one place that wouldn't be cleaned out anytime soon.
Now that that was settled, Dudley climbed back into bed and fell asleep to the sound of screaming.
/
Daddy stopped going to work. First he boarded up the windows, then he boarded up the doors. Once that was done, no one could go in or out. Dudley called Piers and told him the Dursleys were going on a trip and he wouldn't be able to play for the next few days, so Piers wouldn't show up. Then he sat in his room with the door locked. He opened his school notebook and pulled out a piece of paper, folding in and creasing it until he got a perfect square, which was how you always started or-i-ga-mi. He made a cube. He was an expert on making cubes. He could make a cube in less than a minute.
Dudley hid the cube in his backpack and went down for lunch.
Daddy was in a frenzy, and the sitting room smelled like burnt parchment.
Dudley went back upstairs and figured out how to make cubes of different sizes, and then made a whole number of cubes, one inside the other, so that when he shook it the whole cube rattled with all the cubes that were inside.
/
On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Instead of egg yolks, all the eggs the milkman handed mummy through the window had rolled up letters inside them. Daddy puffed up like a bullfrog and stomped away to his study, where everyone could hear him making angry telephone calls to the post office, while Mummy calmly dumped the whole lot of eggs into the food processor and shredded them.
"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry, as he sat next to his cousin at the abandoned breakfast table.
"Told you I dunno," Harry said, shoving a piece of toast into his mouth. Dudley tried to tap Harry with his Smelting stick, but Harry dodged and reached for another piece, not even bothering to slather on marmalade. He knew as well as Dudley that mummy wouldn't be distracted for very long.
"You've got to have some idea," Dudley said. "People don't stick a letter in a bunch of eggs for no reason, do they?"
"Maybe if you'd let me read the letter we'd know who it was," Harry said, sending Dudley a glare.
It was true that Dudley was beginning to regret not letting Harry read the letter. It seemed like all of this trouble was as much the fault of mummy and daddy as it was the fault of the letter writer. If Harry had read the letter and written back, that would've been the end of it: but now Dudley was stuck inside on a summer morning while the milkman handed eggs in through the window.
/
On Saturday, there were more letters, and they came through the chimney. Dudley ducked. Harry, on the other hand, leaped towards them, even though they pelted through the air like bullets. He nearly caught one, too, but then daddy grabbed Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall with a great bellow of "out! OUT!" Dudley ran from the room after mummy and daddy slammed the door shut behind everyone.
"That does it," daddy said, pulling great tufts out of his mustache. "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. Dudley ran to his room and shoved his clothes into his sports bag in a messy heap, and then threw in his VCR. The bag had a bit of room in it still, so Dudley dragged his computer off his desk and put that inside too. But no matter what he tried, his television wouldn't go in, though Dudley gave it a good knock (not too good of one—he didn't want it going the way of his first television).
"Dudley Dursley!" daddy shouted. "It's been five minutes. Where the hell are you!"
"I'm almost done," Dudley shouted back.
Daddy tromped up the stairs as Dudley gave a great heave to the side of his sports bag, but no matter how much he pulled the zipper he couldn't get the edges even near each other.
"What's the holdup? Are you trying to put your entire damn room into that bag?" daddy roared, and clocked Dudley round the head. "Put it back. All of it."
"But I need—"
"ALL OF IT!"
Dudley took out the television, and the computer, and then, at daddy's glare, the VCR too. Daddy walked behind Dudley the entire way downstairs so Dudley couldn't sneak anything else into his bag, and in ten minutes they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway.
Dudley's sports bag had been thrown into the boot along with mummy's rollaway and Harry's school bag which he'd stuffed full of clothes. In the back seat, Dudley sniffled, wishing he'd thought to bring his Smelting stick with him.
They drove. And they drove. Even mummy didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then daddy 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.
They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By lunchtime Dudley was wishing he'd thought to bring a bag of crisps or beef jerky. By dinner he was having fond memories of tinned peas. By nightfall he was howling. 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.
Daddy stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city, where Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Fortunately Dudley could sleep through anything. He was asleep in minutes, while Harry, restless, had traded the smell of mold for the open windowsill, and was still curled up, staring down at the lights of passing cars.
/
Dudley had never been so grateful for stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast. He piled his plate as full as it would go and was scarfing down his breakfast when the owner of their hotel came over to their table, asking for a Mr H Potter and holding another letter. Harry made a grab for the letter, but daddy knocked his hand away.
"I'll take them," daddy said, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.
Dudley stood up too, and went to the sidebar. He fit three tins of tomatoes into his pockets before daddy got back.
"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" mummy said timidly, hours later: but daddy 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 said dully late that afternoon. Daddy 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 mummy. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television."
He had always figured that if he told mummy what he wanted, she would make it happen.
That had changed when the first letter came.
He had always figured mummy could make daddy do anything she wanted.
He rattled the handle of the car again, hoping it might open this time. It didn't. Dudley gave the locked door an ugly look and looked at Harry instead.
On the other side of the backseat, Harry was curled up with his feet under him. He was staring nowhere in particular, his green eyes even wider than usual under his patched-up glasses. He seemed like he was daydreaming, something mummy surely would've smacked him for on an ordinary day, when she wasn't sitting silent and pinch-faced in the front of the car.
Dudley wanted to blame Harry for all the trouble, but he knew that for once Harry wasn't being a freak at all. All Harry had tried to do was read a letter addressed to him.
Harry had what was called an Imagination. It was what always got him into trouble. But right now, Harry didn't seem to even notice that he was at the top of a parking garage, locked in, while rain beat its way down the windows. He was somewhere better.
For the first time, Dudley felt jealous of Harry's Imagination.
He'd have liked to be somewhere better, too.
/
When daddy came back and unlocked the car he was holding a long, thin package. Mummy spoke again, for the first time in hours. She said in a shaking voice, "V-Vernon, what is that thing? What did you buy?"
Daddy was smiling, even though he was covered in rain. "Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"
Dudley had seen enough guns to recognize one, even covered in brown paper. We're going to die, he thought. He stepped out of the car on shaking legs and Harry stepped out next to him. Mummy stepped out too and wrapped her arms around herself as her paisley shirt got soaked through.
It was very cold outside the car.
Daddy 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.
"Storm forecast for tonight!" daddy said 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," daddy said, "so all aboard!"
Nobody wanted to get on the boat, but the long, thin package in daddy's arms and the wickedly-grinning old man with his rowboat warned them not to argue. Mummy stepped in first, primly, and settled her skirts over her knees. Harry followed her, stationing himself on the other end, as though he'd figured if he was going to be on this boat anyway he might as well pick his own spot.
Daddy looked at Dudley with his hands on the long, thin package.
Dudley stepped into the boat beside Harry and waited while the rowboat jostled and daddy climbed in. Putting down the package, daddy grabbed the oars from where they were sitting in their oarlocks, and heaved them out into the waves.
It was freezing. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. Dudley grabbed onto the edges of the boat and tried not to be sick.
After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where daddy, 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.
Daddy'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. Dudley thought about opening his tinned tomatoes, but wondered if that would mean he'd need to share.
He decided, upon reflection, to save them for tomorrow.
"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" daddy said cheerfully.
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. Mummy found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and daddy went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry curled up on the floor beside Dudley under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.
Dudley pulled his own blanket up to his chin and closed his eyes. He could sleep through anything, even a terrible storm on a hut on a rock.
BOOM. BOOM. Dudley jerked awake.
"Where's the cannon?" he asked wildly, sitting up.
Daddy came skidding into the room, holding a rifle in his hands.
Suddenly the front door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.
A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles.
The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.
"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey…"
He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.
"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.
Dudley knew better than to disobey a giant. He jumped up and ran to hide behind mummy, who was hiding behind daddy, who was hiding behind the rifle.
"An' here's Harry!" said the giant, as though he knew him.
This must be the person who sent all those letters, Dudley realized.
"Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mum's eyes."
Dudley risked a glance at Harry.
Daddy made a funny rasping noise, and then blustered, "I demand that you leave at once, sir! You are breaking and entering!"
Dudley couldn't imagine talking back to a giant.
Obviously the giant couldn't either, because he said, "ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of daddy's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.
Daddy made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.
"Anyway—Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here—I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right." From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box, which Harry took from the giant and opened. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing.
"Who are you?" Harry asked, looking up at the giant.
The giant chuckled.
"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."
He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.
"What about that tea then, eh?" the giant said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."
The giant's eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there.
It was just like a fairy tale. Even though he was scared, Dudley couldn't help watching, eyes wide. The fire that hadn't been in the grate a moment ago filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Dudley felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath.
The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of whiskey that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. What was food made by a giant like?
Daddy said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley. "
The giant chuckled darkly.
"Yer great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry."
Dudley had heard worse things about his weight, but not from a giant twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. It was hardly fair.
The giant handed the sausages to Harry, who tore through them hungrily, though he kept his eyes on the giant the whole time.
"I'm sorry," Harry said when he was done, "but I still don't really know who you are."
The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts— yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."
"Er—no," said Harry.
The giant looked shocked.
"Sorry," Harry said quickly.
"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"
"All what?" asked Harry.
"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait jus' one second!"
He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. Daddy and mummy were cowering against the wall, and Dudley cowered with them.
"Do you mean ter tell me," Hagrid growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy—this boy!—knows nothin' abou,' about ANYTHING?"
"I know some things," Harry interrupted the giant fearlessly. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."
But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."
"What world?" Harry said.
Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.
"DURSLEY!" he boomed.
Daddy, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble." Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.
"But yeh must know about yer mum and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."
Harry, famous? Dudley thought. Freakish, loner Harry, who never talked to anybody?
"What?" Harry asked. "My—my mum and dad weren't famous, were they?"
"Yeh don' know… yeh don' know…" Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.
"Yeh don' know what yeh are?" he said finally.
Dudley remembered the way strange things always happened around Harry, and began to have a very funny feeling. He looked at Harry, sitting on the floor by the fire, bundled in his ragged blanket, with sausage juices on his fingers and his eyes bright. Harry was not afraid of the giant because Harry could make things happen too.
Like the glass disappearing from the reptile exhibit.
Daddy suddenly found his voice.
"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!"
A braver man than daddy would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.
"You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years?"
"Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly.
"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" daddy yelled in panic. Mummy gave a gasp of horror.
"Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," said the giant. "Harry—yer a wizard."
There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.
"I'm a what?" gasped Harry.
"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good 'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."
Harry stretched out his hand to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. And then at last he was able to pull out the letter, unfold it, and read out loud what was inside.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Mr Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress
Words and phrases that Dudley had never heard before were bouncing through his head: Warlock, Mugwump, International Confed of Wizards… it was like the storm that was shrieking its way around the hut on the rock was also shrieking through his head, tearing at all the cobwebs.
"What does it mean, they await my owl?" Harry asked.
Does this mean there are lots of you? Dudley wondered.
"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl—a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl—a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note, rolled it up, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.
"Where was I?" the giant said.
Still ashen-faced but looking very angry, daddy finally moved into the firelight.
"He's not going," he said.
Hagrid grunted.
"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said.
"A what?" said Harry.
"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."
Muggle, Dudley thought, as the word joined all the other words he'd never heard before.
"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!"
"You knew?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a—a wizard?"
"Knew!" mummy shrieked, her voice suddenly sharper and louder than the wind. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that—that school—and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was—a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"
Dudley stared in shock at mummy as she stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on in Harry's general direction as though she had been wanting to say all this for years. "Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as—as—abnormal—and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"
"Blown up?" Harry shouted. "You told me they died in a car crash!"
"CAR CRASH!" roared the giant, jumping up angrily. He seemed so wild in that moment that Dudley and mummy and even daddy scuttled back into the corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"
"But why? What happened?" Harry asked.
"I never expected this," Hagrid said, in a low voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh—but someone's gotta—yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'."
He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.
"Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh—mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it…"
He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with— with a person called—but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows—"
"Who?"
"Well—I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."
"Why not?"
"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went… bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was…"
Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.
"Could you write it down?" Harry suggested.
"Nah—can't spell it. All right—Voldemort." Hagrid shuddered. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this—this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too —some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches… terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him—an' he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway.
"Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before… probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.
"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em… maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an'— an'—"
Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.
"Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad—knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find— anyway…
"You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then—an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing—he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh—took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even—but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age—the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts—an' you was only a baby, an' you lived. Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot…"
"Load of old tosh."
Harry jumped.
"Now, you listen here, boy," daddy snarled at Harry, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured—and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdoes, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion—asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types—just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end—"
But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this toward daddy like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley—I'm warning you—one more word…"
In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, daddy's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.
"That's better," said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor.
"But what happened to Vol-, sorry—I mean, You-Know-Who?" Harry asked, not at all afraid.
"Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see… he was gettin' more an' more powerful—why'd he go?
"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was comin' back.
"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on—I dunno what it was, no one does—but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."
"Hagrid," Harry said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard."
Hagrid chuckled.
"Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?"
Harry looked into the fire thoughtfully, and when he looked back at Hagrid the giant was beaming.
"See?" said Hagrid. "Harry Potter, not a wizard—you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."
"Haven't I told you he's not going?" daddy hissed. "He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish—spell books and wands and—"
"If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter's son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he won't know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbled—"
"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" daddy yelled.
But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, "NEVER —" he thundered, "—INSULT—ALBUS—DUMBLEDORE—IN—FRONT—OF—ME!"
He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley—there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, and Dudley felt a pain in his bottom like something growing and twisting from his skin. I'm dying, he thought, howling in pain, clasping his hands over… something… that had burst right through the back of his trousers and curled behind his hand, the same temperature as his own skin.
Daddy roared. Pulling mummy and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.
In the other room, Hagrid and Harry kept talking by the warm fireplace, while Dudley sobbed in pain. "What—what's he done to me—mummy?"
"Shh, shh," mummy said, her face grey. "It's all right sweetums…"
"What's he done to me?" Dudley asked, turning to daddy.
"I don't…" Daddy cleared his throat. "Your mother's right, Dudders… you'll be fine…" he reached out to pat Dudley on the shoulder but then thought better of it, backing up a step and looking ill.
"What's… he… done?" Dudley bawled. He felt at the thing poking out through the back of his trousers, and it twitched as though it knew how scared he was. "It's a tail. It's a tail, isn't it."
"It… it's just a little…" mummy said.
"I don't want a tail!" Dudley shrieked. "I don't care if it's a little one!" He cried harder, salty tears pouring over his face. He had never felt worse in his life. Mummy was standing awkwardly in front of him as though she didn't know what to do. Daddy was sitting heavily on the edge of the lumpy bed, looking away from Dudley.
Mummy hugged him. She sat on the dirty miserable floor of the hut on the rock and petted Dudley's hair. She kissed his forehead and said in a trembling voice, "Diddy, dearest, everything's going to be fine."
There was a giant in the front room. Harry was a wizard and had befriended the giant somehow. Daddy had angered the giant over and over again, and then in revenge the giant had cursed Dudley with a tail.
But Dudley hadn't said anything to the giant. He hadn't blustered like daddy. He hadn't shrieked and cursed like mummy. He'd been quiet. He hadn't asked any questions. He'd pretended he wasn't there.
And when the giant wanted to hurt someone, he had still picked Dudley.
/
The boat was gone the next morning, and so was Harry and the giant. The Dursleys poked their heads out into the other room, where the fire had gone out, leaving the hut on the rock as damp and cold as it had ever been. Daddy stormed out of the hut the moment he was sure they were alone and waved his arms, shouting, toward land, trying to get the attention of the old man who had lent them the boat. Dudley had suffered a sleepless night, and he shifted on the lumpy grey couch as mummy used the thinnest and most tattered blanket to dust the warped floorboards. The tail twitched uncomfortably, smothered against the couch cushions. Dudley pulled his tinned tomatoes from his pocket and opened them, eating listlessly as mummy scrubbed at the floor. She looked over distracted as she crawled by the fireplace grate.
"Where'd you get that?" she said sharply.
"The hotel," Dudley said.
Mummy let out a breath. "Oh. Of course."
"You want one?"
"No," mummy said. "No, you have it, Duddykins."
"Alright."
Dudley at the rest of the tomatoes. His stomach growled, and the thought about the other two cans in his pocket.
"We're gonna be stuck here forever," Dudley said.
"No," mummy said. "No, of course we aren't."
Dudley didn't believe her. It turned out that mummy and daddy had been lying to him for his whole life about these strange people called wizards. Harry's parents hadn't even died in a car crash. They'd been famous. They'd fought some kind of international terrorist. Mummy and daddy had known Harry was a wizard this whole time, while they pretended they had no idea.
Eventually the old man seemed to notice the trouble. He rowed over to them in his boat, and mummy wrapped a blanket around Dudley's shoulders so the old man wouldn't see the tail before they all got in together. The old man cackled when he saw them.
The sun had come back, though it was cold and sharp. The water was choppy and grey, and the salt-spray was like a million small pins over Dudley's forehead and cheeks.
When they got off the boat the old man said, "It's double for the rescue."
Daddy huffed, and dug out his wallet. The old man took his money with a grin.
Daddy stormed off toward the car, and mummy followed him, holding Dudley's hand in her own clenched fist. Dudley dragged his feet, looking back at the old man with the boat, who winked at him and grinned a grin that showed all his long, yellowed teeth that hadn't been there before.
/
Harry was at home when they arrived. He peered at them from the top of the stairs when the Dursleys stormed in, and then quickly retreated to the Smallest Bedroom and closed the door behind him. For the whole next month, Dudley could hear the hooting of an owl from the bedroom across from his, and sometimes, when he walked past the door, he caught glimpses of a big, heavy trunk, and piles of books that looked like they'd been flipped through. But Dudley spent very little time with anyone else. Mummy had a terrible way of tearing up when she looked at him, as though he was sick, and daddy would get a thunderous frown. Harry, of course—Harry was a wizard. And whenever he came into the room, Dudley felt something hot and uncomfortable in his throat, and had to leave.
But he was able to avoid Piers for only a week before Piers showed up.
"Dudley?" mummy said, blocking the front door. "He's sick. Yes, I don't think he'll be able to play any time soon."
Dudley sat in his room and made folded paper cubes. He made so many they filled his school bag, and then his sports bag, and then his shoes. He made cubes that cluttered up his desk and cubes that filled the corners and crumpled to pieces under his feet. He used up all his school notebooks, and then took the cubes apart and made them all over again, until the delicate paper fell to pieces.
Finally, a week before he was to go to Smeltings, Dudley pulled on three pairs of briefs, one over the other to keep the tail still, and then his baggiest pair of jeans and his longest sweatshirt. He took a deep breath and walked casually out the door. Daddy was at work, and mummy was on the telephone, talking to the neighbours.
Dudley made it to Piers' house and threw a pebble at the window, and Piers looked out and grinned: a moment later he'd bounded down the stairs and outside onto the wide, paved streets of Privet Drive.
"God, I thought you were gonna be sick till school started!" Piers said with a laugh.
"Yeah," Dudley said. "So did I."
"Wanna mess someone up?" Piers asked.
"Yeah."
"Harry?"
"No," Dudley said with a shiver, "not Harry." He met Piers' curious look and shrugged. "He's at home with mum. I don't want to be at home right now."
"Alright, fair," Piers said. "Hey, how was your trip?"
"I caught the flu and puked the whole time," Dudley said. "It sucked."
/
On the day that Harry left with his trunk and his owl and all the rest of his wizard things to go to Platform 9¾, Dudley went to the hospital. Mummy was more scared of the idea than Dudley was. She held his hand in the waiting room and looked ill while daddy stepped into the hall to "have a look around."
She followed the nurses all the way to the surgery room as Dudley lay awkwardly on a stretcher, till they finally closed the doors, and then Dudley was inside a gleaming room with all sorts of shining devices, needles and knives set up around. The doctor in charge was named Mr Roberts, and he said, "now, this should be a simple procedure, there's nothing to worry about. We'll get you right as rain in a jiffy."
"But you can't see a lot of cases like this," Dudley said.
Mr Robert's smile didn't slip. "Well," he said. "It is a little unusual. But it's an external surgery. Not dangerous at all. Your parents went over this with you, right?"
"Yeah," Dudley said. He stared up at the bright lights. "I have to get it off before I go to Smeltings," he explained, "or the boys would beat me to death."
"Well," Mr Roberts said jovially. "They won't know. It'll be like nothing was even there."
The tail had hurt when it grew in, but Dudley wondered if it would hurt even more to suddenly have it gone with only a scar.
"I was cursed," Dudley said. "By a giant." He frowned down at the anasthesia going into his veins. "You probably think I'm barking."
He wasn't sure why he was saying all this. Piers had had his tooth out once and said all the anasthesia did was make him sleepy.
"Is this the ana-thesa?" Dudley asked. "Is that why I'm talking so much?"
And he woke up with his bottom aching in a room he'd never seen before, with mummy crying by his bedside. She jumped up when she saw him open his eyes. "I'll get the nurse, sweetums, don't move," she said.
Dudley's head pounded. His mouth felt weird too. He could tell that the tail was gone, and he didn't feel it anymore.
That was good, then.
He went to Smeltings.
He fit right in.
.
.
.