3. A Chain
After the Flying Car Fiasco, Dudley rescued his folded paper book from the Cupboard Under the Stairs, when the door of the cupboard was still half-open. When Dudley went back to Smeltings he took the book with him, shoved into the bottom of his school trunk covered with all his clothes and other things. He knew better than to take it out and look at it at school. He only brought it with him because he knew it wouldn't end up locked in the cupboard this way.
Dudley took up boxing. He was good at it, much better than at kicking a ball around. Mum wrote flowery letters every fortnight that Dudley stuffed into his school trunk without reading.
Summer break arrived and Dudley and Piers went back to Privet Drive. The wide paved roads seemed smaller now than they had when Dudley was eleven. The neighbours watched everything from behind white lacy curtains. Piers and Dudley gave each other friendly nods and disappeared into their houses, like strangers. Dudley could not imagine, on Privet Drive, sniggering with Piers over dirty jokes the way they had done at Smeltings.
When Harry came back he was not particularly taller, and barely any wider, though he had calluses on his hands like an athlete. Dudley wondered about Harry's well-kept broomstick that dad locked so ferociously into the Cupboard Under the Stairs. Maybe wizards did fly, like in all the stories.
For a week or so everything was peaceful enough. Dad didn't lock the door of the Smallest Bedroom or even try to put the bars back up. Harry kept his head down.
Then the Telephone Call happened.
"Vernon Dursley speaking."
It was bad luck, probably, that dad happened to be in the kitchen instead of mum. Mum would've hung up the moment "that hooligan" started shouting.
"HELLO? HELLO? CAN YOU HEAR ME? I—WANT—TO—TALK—TO—HARRY—POTTER!"
The voice shouting through the telephone line was loud enough that Dudley put down his fork and turned away from the TV to see what was going on.
"WHO IS THIS?" Dad roared in the direction of the mouthpiece. "WHO ARE YOU?"
Harry hopped up and stared with a look of horror at the telephone.
"RON—WEASLEY!" the boy on the phone line bellowed back, as though he and dad were speaking from opposite ends of a football field. "I'M—A—FRIEND—OF—HARRY'S—FROM— SCHOOL—"
Dad turned his glare on Harry. "THERE IS NO HARRY POTTER HERE!" he roared, now holding the receiver at arm's length, as though frightened it might explode. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT SCHOOL YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! NEVER CONTACT ME AGAIN! DON'T YOU COME NEAR MY FAMILY!"
And he threw the receiver back onto the telephone as if dropping a poisonous spider.
Then dad stalked over to Harry with a wild look in his eye. "HOW DARE YOU GIVE THIS NUMBER TO PEOPLE LIKE—PEOPLE LIKE YOU!" dad roared, spraying Harry with spit. "FREAKS AND DEGENERATES! DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO USE A TELEPHONE! YOU'RE LIVING UNDER MY ROOF AND THAT MEANS YOU LIVE UNDER MY RULES! GOT IT?" He took Harry by the shoulders and shook him.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon," Harry said. "I'm sorry."
"SORRY! SORRY! YOU'D BLASTED BETTER BE SORRY! IF YOUR AUNT WASN'T SO GOODHEARTED YOU'D BE ON THE STREETS WHERE YOU DESERVE INSTEAD OF DIRTYING NORMAL PEOPLE'S HOUSES!"
"Yes Uncle Vernon."
Dad clocked Harry round the head. "YOU'D BETTER BE GRATEFUL WE EVEN LET YOU LIVE!"
"Yes Uncle Vernon."
"NOW GO TO YOUR ROOM!"
Harry didn't need telling twice. He ran upstairs as fast as he could, while Dad breathed in and out like a bagpipe, his face purple.
Dudley turned back to the TV and grabbed another bread roll.
After that fight Harry didn't come downstairs much. Mum sniffed about it. "Teenagers! I should have known the freak would turn out to be one of those sullen types!" she said, but she didn't force the issue; only making Harry come down when he needed to clean the house or weed the garden. This happened about once a week; other than that, all Dudley saw of Harry was during mealtimes, when his cousin was cooking breakfast or sitting sullenly at his spot at the table.
One afternoon, when Dudley had pulled himself up the stairs to use the bathroom, he stopped outside Harry's closed door. Harry, who had been talking quietly to his owl, stopped. A minute later Harry said, "what is it?"
He would never have taken that tone with mum or dad. Mum would've given him chores to do and dad would've yelled at him. But this last fight had been worse than even dad's usual yelling.
"Are you gonna stay in there all summer?" Dudley asked.
"Why shouldn't I?" Harry said. "It saves me from seeing your stupid face."
"Dad didn't mean it, you know," Dudley said.
Harry laughed bitterly. "Sure he didn't."
Dudley shifted from one foot to another. He wished he was back at school in a boxing match. Everything was simple then. You had one thing to do. You did it. It was easy.
"He's not gonna like you any better if he can't see you," Dudley said at last.
"Yes he will," Harry said. "He wishes he could lock me up like he did last year. I might as well save him the trouble."
Dudley chewed his lip. He didn't like to think about Harry sitting in the Smallest Bedroom all summer. Dudley had peeked in there once, after the Flying Car Fiasco, and had seen what a mess it was. Most of Dudley's broken toys had been taken to the curb by mum a long time ago. The bookshelves were still there, but empty. The window had wood splinters around it where the bars had been pulled out, and the cat flap on the door didn't look any better from the inside.
"That doesn't seem like you," Dudley said. "Saving anyone trouble."
Harry shifted around. The springs on his bed creaked. Dudley heard footsteps approaching and backed up. Harry creaked open the bedroom door and peered at him.
Dudley grinned, and Harry sighed. "All right," he said. "I guess the big bad wizard can lower himself to hanging out with muggles. I mean, as long as the muggles aren't scared."
"I'm not scared," Dudley sneered.
Harry rolled his eyes. "If I said a spell right now you'd puke."
"Ha. Says you."
Dudley waited just a moment, to prove he wasn't scared, then walked toward the hall steps.
He turned and looked back on the landing. Harry gave him the finger, and Dudley stuck out his tongue.
/
Dudley had been figuring out paper chains. Not those flimsy things made from a strip of paper put into a circle and taped. He was figuring out the chains from his folded paper book. You folded a piece of paper back and forth, on top of itself in patterns until it made a sturdy triangle, and then you folded another piece of paper and slid the edges into the previous link. In this way Dudley could make a chain that went in any direction, without a single piece of tape.
He made fat chains and skinny chains, curving chains and straight chains, tangled chains that went off in every direction and chains that stayed very small. He wrote "DONE" in big black letters next to the page on his folded paper book where it showed how to make them. But he wasn't done. He made little chain-links and lined them up one by one, and he made chains that could hang from the hook on his window. He made all the chains he wanted, but when he had made them he smushed them up and threw them in the trash, or unfolded them into crinkly paper, or hid them in his school bag, so that his room looked as spotless as ever.
/
The morning Harry turned thirteen, an escaped convict was announced on television. Dudley didn't consider for a moment that this might be connected, but he wouldn't have been surprised if you'd told him it was. Strange and terrible things always happened on Harry's birthday.
"Sirius Black, infamous for the mad killing spree, witnessed a decade ago, in which he shot and killed thirteen people, is on the loose. The public is warned that Black is armed and extremely dangerous. A special hot line has been set up, and any sighting of Black should be reported immediately." The man on the television had a gaunt face that was surrounded by a matted, elbow-length tangle, and his teeth were bared in a painful-looking snarl.
"No need to tell us he's no good," dad snorted, staring over the top of his newspaper at the prisoner. "Look at the state of him, the filthy layabout! Look at his hair!"
He shot a nasty look sideways at Harry, whose untidy hair had always been a source of great annoyance to dad.
The reporter had reappeared.
"The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will announce today—"
"Hang on!" dad barked, staring furiously at the reporter. "You didn't tell us where that maniac's escaped from! What use is that? Lunatic could be coming up the street right now!"
Mum whipped around and peered intently out of the kitchen window.
"When will they learn," dad said, pounding the table, "that hanging's the only way to deal with these people?"
"Very true," mum agreed, still squinting into next door's runner-beans.
Dad drained his teacup, glanced at his watch, and added, "I'd better be off in a minute, Petunia. Marge's train gets in at ten."
"Aunt Marge?" Harry blurted out. "Sh-she's not coming here, is she?"
"Marge'll be here for a week," dad snarled, "and while we're on the subject," he pointed a finger threateningly at Harry, "we need to get a few things straight before I go and collect her."
Dudley smirked and withdrew his gaze from the television. He knew what Dad was going to say, and he was sure Harry's reaction would be a riot.
"Firstly," dad growled, "you'll keep a civil tongue in your head when you're talking to Marge."
"All right," said Harry bitterly, "if she does when she's talking to me."
"Secondly," dad said, acting as though he had not heard Harry's reply, "as Marge doesn't know anything about your abnormality, I don't want any—any funny stuff while she's here. You behave yourself, got me?"
"I will if she does," said Harry through gritted teeth.
"And thirdly," dad said, his eyes now slits, "we've told Marge you attend St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys."
"What?" Harry yelled.
Dudley stifled a laugh.
"And you'll be sticking to that story, boy, or there'll be trouble," dad spat.
"Well, Petunia," dad said, getting heavily to his feet, "I'll be off to the station, then. Want to come along for the ride, Dudders?"
"No," said Dudley, turning his attention back to the television. He couldn't imagine anyone wanting to sit in a car with Aunt Marge—it would take more than a tenner, that's for sure.
"Duddy's got to make himself smart for his auntie," mum said, smoothing Dudley's thick blond hair. "Mummy's bought him a lovely new bow-tie."
Dad clapped Dudley on the shoulder.
"See you in a bit, then," he said, and he left the kitchen.
Harry jumped up and followed him into the hall.
"I'm not taking you," dad snarled, while the boys on TV opened fire.
"Like I wanted to come," said Harry coldly. "I want to ask you something."
Dudley cocked his head.
"Third years at Hog—at my school are allowed to visit the village sometimes," said Harry.
"So?" dad snapped.
"I need you to sign the permission form," said Harry in a rush.
"And why should I do that?" dad sneered.
"Well," said Harry, "it'll be hard work, pretending to Aunt Marge I go to that St. Whatsits…."
"St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys!" dad bellowed, a definite note of panic in his voice.
"Exactly," said Harry calmly. "It's a lot to remember. I'll have to make it sound convincing, won't I? What if I accidentally let something slip?"
"You'll get the stuffing knocked out of you, won't you?" dad roared.
"Knocking the stuffing out of me won't make Aunt Marge forget what I could tell her," Harry said grimly. "But if you sign my permission form, I swear I'll remember where I'm supposed to go to school, and I'll act like a Mug—like I'm normal and everything."
"Right," dad snapped finally. "I shall monitor your behavior carefully during Marge's visit. If, at the end of it, you've toed the line and kept to the story, I'll sign your ruddy form."
And he walked outside and slammed the door behind him.
The fact that Harry had decided to play along in order to get a school permission form was a level of cunning Dudley hadn't thought Harry capable of. In the past few weeks Harry had even convinced dad to agree to let Hedwig out at night, as long as he didn't send letters to any of his friends.
/
Dudley missed the second half of his programme so he could dress up for Aunt Marge, and he consoled himself with the thought of the tenner she'd hand him if he smiled and let her hug him with her sweaty hands.
No one could miss her arrival. The moment Harry opened the door she strode in and roared in a voice that rivalled dad's, "Where's my Dudders? Where's my neffy poo?"
Dudley shuffled down the hall, tolerating her one-armed hug and the slimy kiss she pressed on his cheek. Sure enough, a crisp tenner was slipped into his hand, and he stepped back with a triumphant smile the moment he'd gotten his prize.
"Petunia!" shouted Aunt Marge, striding past Harry as though he was a hat-stand to give mum a kiss. Mum, it was sad to say, had to take it without even a consolation tenner.
Dad now came in, smiling jovially as he shut the door.
"Tea, Marge?" he said. "And what will Ripper take?" The Ripper was Aunt Marge's bulldog that she was holding squashed under her strong arm.
"Ripper can have some tea out of my saucer," said Aunt Marge as they all proceeded into the kitchen, leaving Harry alone in the hall with the suitcase. Dudley, who knew how quick Harry could be even dragging a heavy piece of luggage, knew that Harry was dawdling as much as he could. At least Dudley got tea and fruitcake, although he had to sit beside Aunt Marge. Ripper got his saucer of tea, lapping noisily in the corner as dad shouted cheerfully back at his sister.
Mum watched Ripper with a wince as specks of tea and drool flecked her clean floor.
"Who's looking after the other dogs, Marge?" dad asked.
"Oh, I've got Colonel Fubster managing them," boomed Aunt Marge. "He's retired now, good for him to have something to do. But I couldn't leave poor old Ripper. He pines if he's away from me."
What Ripper pined for, Dudley decided, was not Aunt Marge so much as the treats he got if he suffered her embrace.
The dog, who had been happy with his saucer of tea, began to growl as Harry sat down across from Dudley. This directed Aunt Marge's attention to Harry for the first time.
"So!" she barked. "Still here, are you?"
"Yes," said Harry.
"Don't you say 'yes' in that ungrateful tone," Aunt Marge growled. "It's damn good of Vernon and Petunia to keep you. Wouldn't have done it myself. You'd have gone straight to an orphanage if you'd been dumped on my doorstep."
This was probably true. Harry had never figured out the trick of being nice in order to get treats. This may or may not have been Harry's fault, since Dudley could not remember a single time Harry had gotten a treat even when he wasn't making trouble.
Harry gave Aunt Marge a grimace that would've looked at home on the escaped convict Black.
"Don't you smirk at me!" boomed Aunt Marge. "I can see you haven't improved since I last saw you. I hoped school would knock some manners into you." She took a large gulp of tea, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and said, "Where is it that you send him, again, Vernon?"
"St. Brutus's," said dad promptly. "It's a first-rate institution for hopeless cases."
"I see," said Aunt Marge. "Do they use the cane at St. Brutus's, boy?" she barked across the table.
"Er—"
Dad nodded curtly behind Aunt Marge's back.
"Yes," said Harry. He paused thoughtfully and then added, "All the time."
"Excellent," said Aunt Marge. "I won't have this namby-pamby, wishy-washy nonsense about not hitting people who deserve it. A good thrashing is what's needed in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. Have you been beaten often?"
"Oh, yeah," said Harry, "loads of times."
Aunt Marge narrowed her eyes.
"I still don't like your tone, boy," she said. "If you can speak of your beatings in that casual way, they clearly aren't hitting you hard enough. Petunia, I'd write if I were you. Make it clear that you approve the use of extreme force in this boy's case."
Dad changed the subject before mum could say a thing. He probably knew that whatever mum was about to say, it wasn't going to endear her to Aunt Marge. Mum had that pinched look on her face that she only got when she wanted dearly to take things out on someone. But she shoved her fork in her fruitcake instead.
/
Despite Aunt Marge—or perhaps because of it—Harry's birthday passed without incident.
When dinner and society had been exhausted, the two were excused to their bedrooms on either side of the hall even though the grownups were still talking. Dudley couldn't have been happier to get away. He pulled the bowtie from around his throat and paused by the open doorway where Harry was still standing.
Dudley reached into his pocket and pulled out a five pence and a piece of cherry-flavoured gum. He held the items in Harry's direction without a word, and Harry took the five pence and stuck it into his pocket before unwrapping the gum and sticking it in his mouth.
"I hope you didn't chew this up before you gave this to me," Harry said, though it was obvious the gum had never been touched.
Dudley sniggered.
"Chewed-up gum from Dudley's pocket. My best birthday present ever," Harry continued with a smirk.
"Only the best for the big bad wizard," Dudley said.
/
Harry managed to keep his temper until lunch on the third day. Aunt Marge loved Harry. Loved having him around to criticize, that is. It got Dudley plenty of expensive gifts, so he couldn't complain. He was getting plenty of treats for tolerating Aunt Marge's presence.
Harry was only getting one.
"You mustn't blame yourself for the way the boy's turned out, Vernon," Aunt Marge said. "If there's something rotten on the inside, there's nothing anyone can do about it. It's one of the basic rules of breeding. You see it all the time with dogs. If there's something wrong with the bitch, there'll be something wrong with the pup—"
Dudley winced as the wineglass Aunt Marge was holding exploded in her hand. Shards of glass flew in every direction and Aunt Marge sputtered and blinked, her great ruddy face dripping.
Aunt Marge thought nothing of it, but Harry, who was staring at the scene in horror, excused himself before dessert.
/
Over the next three days, Harry made great use of his Imagination. Whenever Aunt Marge started on him, he would stare nowhere in particular until she was finished. This didn't slow her down a bit: she merely proceeded to accuse Harry of being mentally subnormal.
Dudley, meanwhile, stayed quiet and ate whatever was in front of him. In the mornings, Mum washed the dishes with particular vigour, trying to ignore the slobber that Ripper left on the floor.
Dudley's fingers itched for his paper folding, but there was no chance he'd get to practice with Aunt Marge about. Aunt Marge loved to have both him and Harry around at all times, so she had something to talk about. Even Dudley's method of staring into the television during breakfast couldn't entirely drown out the sound of Aunt Marge's loud, bellowing voice.
But at long last, the final evening of Aunt Marge's stay arrived.
Mum cooked a fancy dinner and dad uncorked several bottles of wine. They got all the way through the soup and the salmon without a single incident; during the lemon meringue pie, dad talked about nothing but Grunnings, his drill-making company; then mum made coffee and dad brought out a bottle of brandy.
"Can I tempt you, Marge?"
Aunt Marge had already had quite a lot of wine: her face was very red.
"Just a small one, then," she chuckled. "A bit more than that… and a bit more… that's the ticket."
Dudley shoveled down his fourth slice of pie and counted the minutes until his escape.
"Aah," said Aunt Marge, smacking her lips and putting the empty brandy glass back down. "Excellent nosh, Petunia. It's normally just a fry-up for me of an evening, with twelve dogs to look after…" She burped richly and patted her tweed stomach. "Pardon me. But I do like to see a healthy-sized boy," she went on, winking at Dudley. "You'll be a proper-sized man, Dudders, like your father. Yes, I'll have a spot more brandy, Vernon…
"Now, this one here—"
Dudley risked a glance up from his place and saw that Harry was using his Imagination again. He breathed a sigh of relief and reached for a glass of water.
"This one's got a mean, runty look about him. You get that with dogs. I had Colonel Fubster drown one last year. Ratty little thing it was. Weak. Underbred. It all comes down to blood, as I was saying the other day. Bad blood will out. Now, I'm saying nothing against your family, Petunia" —she patted mum's bony hand with her shovel-like one "but your sister was a bad egg. They turn up in the best families. Then she ran off with a wastrel and here's the result right in front of us."
Harry's Imagination seemed to slip. He stared down at his plate while Dudley's eyes widened. Dudley stared at mum and dad with a look of dawning horror as Aunt Marge continued.
"This Potter," said Aunt Marge loudly, seizing the brandy bottle and splashing more into her glass and over the tablecloth, "you never told me what he did?"
To insult Harry was fine. Expected, even. Mum and dad, Dudley and even Harry knew how it worked. But you didn't insult Harry's parents.
Mum and dad seemed to realize the danger, but the only person who responded to Dudley's silent plea was dad.
"He—didn't work," said dad, with half a glance at Harry. "Unemployed."
"As I expected!" said Aunt Marge, taking a huge swig of brandy and wiping her chin on her sleeve. "A no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger who—"
"He was not," said Harry suddenly. The table went very quiet, and Dudley suddenly remembered the way the giant had looked right before he lifted up his large pink umbrella.
"MORE BRANDY!" dad yelled, going very white. He emptied the bottle into Aunt Marge's glass. "You, boy," he snarled at Harry. "Go to bed, go on—"
"No, Vernon," hiccuped Aunt Marge, holding up a hand, her tiny bloodshot eyes fixed on Harry's. "Go on, boy, go on. Proud of your parents, are you? They go and get themselves killed in a car crash (drunk, I expect)—"
"They didn't die in a car crash!" Harry screamed, jumping to his feet.
"They died in a car crash, you nasty little liar, and left you to be a burden on their decent, hardworking relatives!" Aunt Marge shouted, swelling with fury. "You are an insolent, ungrateful little—"
But Aunt Marge suddenly stopped speaking. For a moment, it looked as though words had failed her. She seemed to be swelling with inexpressible anger—but the swelling didn't stop. Her great red face started to expand, her tiny eyes bulged, and her mouth stretched too tightly for speech —next second, several buttons had just burst from her tweed jacket and pinged off the walls—she was inflating like a monstrous balloon, her stomach bursting free of her tweed waistband, each of her fingers blowing up like a salami…
"MARGE!" yelled dad and mum together as Aunt Marge's whole body began to rise off her chair toward the ceiling. She was entirely round, now, like a vast life buoy, and her hands and feet stuck out weirdly as she drifted up into the air, making apoplectic popping noises. Ripper came skidding into the room, barking madly.
"NOOOOOOO!"
Dad seized one of Marge's feet and tried to pull her down again, but was almost lifted from the floor himself. A second later, Ripper leapt forward and sank his teeth into dad's leg.
Harry tore from the dining room. Dudley heard the door of the Cupboard Under the Stairs burst open, and then Harry was dragging his school trunk to the front door and sprinting up the stairs. A moment later, Harry was bounding back down, a pillowcase full of stuff in one hand and his owl's empty cage in another. Dad wrenched himself free of Ripper's hold, his trouser leg in bloody tatters, and pelted out of the dining room in Harry's direction.
"COME BACK IN HERE!" dad bellowed. "COME BACK AND PUT HER RIGHT!"
Harry kicked his trunk open and pulled out his wand, pointing it at dad.
"She deserved it," Harry said. "She deserved what she got. You keep away from me."
He fumbled behind him for the latch on the door.
"I'm going," Harry said. "I've had enough."
And in the next moment, he was out in the dark, quiet street, heaving his heavy trunk behind him, Hedwig's cage under his arm.
/
Dad was the only one who stayed with Marge in the dining room. It was hard to tell if Aunt Marge appreciated it, since the only noises she could make were popping ones. Mum pushed open the door to the back garden and stepped outside, collapsing in front of her rosebushes. Dudley followed her, holding his plate of pie in one hand. The air was crisp, and the streetlamps were only small pools of yellow light in a great blue darkness.
"That boy!" Mum said. "That freak! That horrible boy!" she heaved, splattering yellow vomit into the dirt, and raked her fingers through her brown hair like she was trying to claw it out.
Dudley sat on the back step and finished his pie, then put the empty plate beside him.
Mum began to shiver, and when she turned to look at Dudley her eyes were wet. Dudley held an arm out toward her, and mum crawled to the concrete beside him, sobbing into his shoulder.
Aunt Marge had been wrong about Harry's parents, Dudley knew. They had been killed in a war, or something like a war. The car crash story had been mum's idea, and neither Harry nor Dudley had known it was wrong until Harry's eleventh birthday, when the giant came and told Harry everything. Dudley suddenly wondered if mum had cried when she heard about her sister's death, all those years ago.
/
When the front doorbell rang, Dudley was the one who got up to answer. On the other side were two colorfully-dressed men that he recognized at once as wizards.
"This the Dursleys?" asked the taller man, who was wearing a great big polka-dotted blouse the color of lemon meringue.
"Yeah," Dudley said.
"We're from the Accidental Magic Reversal Department," said the shorter man, who was wearing a grey cloak and pointed hat. "We heard there was something of a blowing-up incident regarding a Miss Marjorie Dursley."
"Yeah, that's us," Dudley said. "She's in the dining room." He wondered why he wasn't more scared. Perhaps it was because the thought of Aunt Marge staying in the dining room was far more disturbing than even the idea of letting wizards into the house.
"Ah, good."
The wizards strode inside, making a beeline to the dining room, where dad, seeing them, shouted, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU FREAKS DOING IN MY HOUSE?"
"Not to worry, dear sir," said the man in the polka-dotted blouse. "Miss Marjorie will be just fine." He pulled a long wand out of his sleeve, and dad blanched, scurrying to the other side of the room as the wizard pointed his wand at Aunt Marge. Slowly, Aunt Marge floated back down to earth, where she sat beside the dining room table like a balloon made of flesh, in which only her beady eyes, roaming around, still seemed alive.
The shorter wizard drew a long, shining needle from inside his cloak.
"What—what are you doing with that thing!" Dad said.
"We've got to puncture her, don't we?" the shorter wizard said.
"Puncture her!" Dad said. "Can't you wave your—thing—around and fix this?"
"With a spell like this it's much less trouble just to do a quick poke. It won't take a minute," the shorter wizard said, and slid the long needle into Aunt Marge's distended side. There was a sound like a lot of air rushing out all at once, and Aunt Marge deflated until she looked like herself again, wearing nothing but the tattered remains of her socks.
"WHERE IS THAT IDIOT BOY!" Aunt Marge yelled. "I'LL KILL THAT UNGRATEFUL NEPHEW OF YOURS! HOW DARE HE DO THIS TO ME!"
The taller wizard winced and waved his wand, and in the next moment all of Aunt Marge's clothes had flown back on her and knitted themselves up. "I understand that Miss Marjorie does not know anything about wizards," the taller wizard said. "Is there anyone else in your household who needs a memory modification?" he looked at Dudley as he spoke, as though Dudley was the only one he expected might know the answer.
"Memory—whatsist?" Dad bellowed. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HER?"
"No," Dudley said. "No one else."
The wizard in the polka-dotted blouse nodded sharply and pointed his wand at Aunt Marge again. "Obliviate!" he said, and a funny look crossed Aunt Marge's face.
Ripper, who had been growling in the corner, came up to her uncertainly, and Aunt Marge hugged the bulldog to her chest. "My!" she said. "How did I end up on the floor! I must've lost my balance," she said, and hiccoughed. "Vernon, help me up, would you?"
The two wizards slipped away, and when Dudley showed them out the front door and peered out after them, he saw that they walked only a few steps into the middle of the street before—with a loud CRACK!—they vanished right into the air.
.
.
.