 Voldemort -- the most powerful Dark
wizard for a century, a wizard who had been gaining power steadily for eleven
years -- arrived at his house and killed his father and mother. Voldemort had then
turned his wand on Harry; he had performed the curse that had disposed of many
full-grown witches and wizards in his steady rise to power -- and, incredibly, it
had not worked. Instead of killing the small boy, the curse had rebounded upon
Voldemort. Harry had survived with nothing but a lightning-shaped cut on his
forehead, and Voldemort had been reduced to something barely alive. His powers
gone, his life almost extinguished, Voldemort had fled; the terror in which the
secret community of witches and wizards had lived for so long had lifted,
Voldemort's followers had disbanded, and Harry Potter had become famous.
It had been enough of a shock for Harry to discover, on his eleventh birthday, that
he was a wizard; it had been even more disconcerting to find out that everyone in
the hidden wizarding world knew his name. Harry had arrived at Hogwarts to find
that heads turned and whispers followed him wherever he went. But he was used
to it now: At the end of this summer, he would be starting his fourth year at
Hogwarts, and Harry was already counting the days until he would be back at the
castle again.
But there was still a fortnight to go before he went back to school. He looked
hopelessly around his room again, and his eye paused on the birthday cards his
two best friends had sent him at the end of July. What would they say if Harry
wrote to them and told them about his scar hurting?
At once, Hermione Granger's voice seemed to fill his head, shrill and panicky.
"Your scar hurt? Harry, that's really serious.... Write to Professor Dumbledore!
And I'll go and check Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions.... Maybe there's
something in there about curse scars. . . ."
Yes, that would be Hermione's advice: Go straight to the headmaster of Hogwarts,
and in the meantime, consult a book. Harry stared out of the window at the inky
blue-black sky. He doubted very much whether a book could help him now. As far
as he knew, he was the only living person to have survived a curse like
Voldemort's; it was highly unlikely, therefore, that he would find his symptoms
listed in Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions. As for informing the
headmaster, Harry had no idea where Dumbledore went during the summer
holidays. He amused himself for a moment, picturing Dumbledore, with his long
silver beard, full length wizard's robes, and pointed hat, stretched out on a beach
15
somewhere, rubbing suntan lotion onto his long crooked nose. Wherever
Dumbledore was, though, Harry was sure that Hedwig would be able to find him;
Harry's owl had never yet failed to deliver a letter to anyone, even without an
address. But what would he write?
Dear Professor Dumbledore, Sorry to bother you, but my scar hurt this morning.
Yours sincerely, Harry Potter.
Even inside his head the words sounded stupid.
And so he tried to imagine his other best friend, Ron Weasley's, reaction, and in a
moment, Ron's red hair and long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before
Harry, wearing a bemused expression.
"Your scar hurt? But ... but You-Know-Who can't be near you now, can he? I
mean ... you'd know, wouldn't you? He'd be trying to do you in again, wouldn't be?
I dunno, Harry, maybe curse scars always twinge a bit... I'll ask Dad. . . ."
Mr. Weasley was a fully qualified wizard who worked in the Misuse of Muggle
Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, but he didn't have any particular
expertise in the matter of curses, as far as Harry knew. In any case, Harry didn't
like the idea of the whole Weasley family knowing that he, Harry, was getting
jumpy about a few moments' pain. Mrs. Weasley would fuss worse than
Hermione, and Fred and George, Ron's sixteen- year-old twin brothers, might
think Harry was losing his nerve. The Weasleys were Harry's favorite family in the
world; he was hoping that they might invite him to stay any time now (Ron had
mentioned something about the Quidditch World Cup), and he somehow didn't
want his visit punctuated with anxious inquiries about his scar.
Harry kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. What he really wanted (and it felt
almost shameful to admit it to himself) was someone like - someone like a parent:
an adult wizard whose advice he could ask without feeling stupid, someone who
cared about him, who had had experience with Dark Magic....
And then the solution came to him. It was so simple, and so obvious, that he
couldn't believe it had taken so long - Sirius.
Harry leapt up from the bed, hurried across the room, and sat down at his desk; he
pulled a piece of parchment toward him, loaded his eagle-feather quill with ink,
wrote Dear Sirius, then paused, wondering how best to phrase his problem, still
marveling at the fact that he hadn't thought of Sirius straight away. But then,
perhaps it wasn't so surprising - after all, he had only found out that Sirius was his
godfather two months ago.
There was a simple reason for Sirius's complete absence from Harry's life until
then - Sirius had been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard jail guarded by creatures
called dementors, sightless, soul-sucking fiends who had come to search for Sirius
at Hogwarts when he had escaped. Yet Sirius had been innocent - the murders for
which he had been convicted had been committed by Wormtail, Voldemort's
16
supporter, whom nearly everybody now believed dead. Harry, Ron, and Hermione
knew otherwise, however; they had come face-to-face with Wormtail only the
previous year, though only Professor Dumbledore had believed their story.
For one glorious hour, Harry had believed that he was leaving the Dursleys at last,
because Sirius had offered him a home once his name had been cleared. But the
chance had been snatched away from him - Wormtail had escaped before they
could take him to the Ministry of Magic, and Sirius had had to flee for his life.
Harry had helped him escape on the back of a hippogriff called Buckbeak, and
since then, Sirius had been on the run. The home Harry might have had if
Wormtail had not escaped had been haunting him all summer. It had been doubly
hard to return to the Dursleys knowing that he had so nearly escaped them forever.
Nevertheless, Sirius had been of some help to Harry, even if he couldn't be with
him. It was due to Sirius that Harry now had all his school things in his bedroom
with him. The Dursleys had never allowed this before; their general wish of
keeping Harry as miserable as possible, coupled with their fear of his powers, had
led them to lock his school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs every summer
prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harry
had a dangerous murderer for a godfather - for Harry had conveniently forgotten
to tell them that Sirius was innocent.
Harry had received two letters from Sirius since he had been back at Privet Drive.
Both had been delivered, not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large,
brightly colored tropical birds. Hedwig had not approved of these flashy intruders;
she had been most reluctant to allow them to drink from her water tray before
flying off again. Harry, on the other hand, had liked them; they put him in mind of
palm trees and white sand, and he hoped that, wherever Sirius was (Sirius never
said, in case the letters were intercepted), he was enjoying himself. Somehow,
Harry found it hard to imaging dementors surviving for long in bright sunlight,
perhapse that was why Sirius had gone South. Sirius's letters, which were now
hidden beneath the highly useful loose floorboards under Harry's bed, sounded
chearful, and in both of them he had reminded Harry to call on him if ever Harry
needed to. Well, he needed to right now, all right...
Harry's lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold gray light that precedes sunrise
slowly crept into the room. Finally, when the sun had risen, when his bedroom
walls had turned gold, and when sounds of movement could be heard from Uncle
Vernon and Aunt Petunia's room, Harry cleared his desk of crumpled pieces of
parchment and reread his finished letter.
Dear Sirius,
Thanks for your last letter. That bird was enormous; it could hardly get through
my window. Things are the same as usual here. Dudley's diet isn't going too well.
My aunt found him smuggling doughnuts into his room yesterday. They told him
they'd have to cut his pocket money if he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and
chucked his PlayStation out of the window. That's a sort of computer thing you
17
can play games on. Bit stupid really, now he hasn't even got Mega-Mutilation Part
Three to take his mind off things.
I'm okay, mainly because the Dursleys are terrified you might turn up and turn
them all into bats if I ask you to.
A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. Last time that
happened it was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don't reckon he can be
anywhere near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years
afterward?
I'll send this with Hedwig when she gets back; she's off hunting at the moment.
Say hello to Buckbeak for me. Harry
Yes, thought Harry, that looked all right. There was no point putting in the dream;
he didn't want it to look as though he was too worried. He folded up the parchment
and laid it aside on his desk, ready for when Hedwig returned. Then he got to his
feet, stretched, and opened his wardrobe once more. Without glancing at his
reflection he started to get dressed before going down to breakfast.
18
CHAPTER THREE - THE INVITATION
By the time Harry arrived in the kitchen, the three Dursleys were already seated
around the table. None of them looked up as he entered or sat down. Uncle
Vernon's large red face was hidden behind the m