orning's Daily Mail, and Aunt
Petunia was cutting a grapefruit into quarters, her lips pursed over her horselike
teeth.
Dudley looked furious and sulky, and somehow seemed to be taking up even more
space than usual. This was saying something, as he always took up an entire side
of the square table by himself. When Aunt Petunia put a quarter of unsweetened
grapefruit onto Dudley's plate with a tremulous "There you are, Diddy darling,"
Dudley glowered at her. His life had taken a most unpleasant turn since he had
come home for the summer with his end-of-year report.
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had managed to find excuses for his bad marks as
usual: Aunt Petunia always insisted that Dudley was a very gifted boy whose
teachers didn't understand him, while Uncle Vernon maintained that "he didn't
want some swotty little nancy boy for a son anyway." They also skated over the
accusations of bullying in the report - "He's a boisterous little boy, but he wouldn't
hurt a fly!" Aunt Petunia had said tearfully.
However, at the bottom of the report there were a few well-chosen comments from
the school nurse that not even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia could explain
away. No matter how much Aunt Petunia wailed that Dudley was big-boned, and
that his poundage was really puppy fat, and that he was a growing boy who needed
plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfitters didn't stock
knickerbockers big enough for him anymore. The school nurse had seen what
Aunt Petunia's eyes - so sharp when it came to spotting fingerprints on her
gleaming walls, and in observing the comings and goings of the neighbors -
simply refused to see: that far from needing extra nourishment, Dudley had
reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.
So - after many tantrums, after arguments that shook Harry's bedroom floor, and
many tears from Aunt Petunia - the new regime had begun. The diet sheet that had
been sent by the Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had
been emptied of all Dudley's favorite things - fizzy drinks and cakes, chocolate
bars and burgers and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things
that Uncle Vernon called "rabbit food." To make Dudley feel better about it all,
Aunt Petunia had insisted that the whole family follow the diet too. She now
passed a grapefruit quarter to Harry. He noticed that it was a lot smaller than
Dudley's. Aunt Petunia seemed to feet that the best way to keep up Dudley's
morale was to make sure that he did, at least, get more to eat than Harry.
But Aunt Petunia didn't know what was hidden under the loose floorboard
upstairs. She had no idea that Harry was not following the diet at all. The moment
he had got wind of the fact that he was expected to survive the summer on carrot
19
sticks, Harry had sent Hedwig to his friends with pleas for help, and they had risen
to the occasion magnificently. Hedwig had returned from Hermione's house with a
large box stuffed full of sugar-free snacks. (Hermione's parents were dentists.)
Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had obliged with a sack full of his own
homemade rock cakes. (Harry hadn't touched these; he had had too much
experience of Hagrid's cooking.) Mrs. Weasley, however, had sent the family owl,
Errol, with an enormous fruitcake and assorted meat pies. Poor Errol, who was
elderly and feeble, had needed a full five days to recover from the journey. And
then on Harry's birthday (which the Dursleys had completely ignored) he had
received four superb birthday cakes, one each from Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and
Sirius. Harry still had two of them left, and so, looking forward to a real breakfast
when he got back upstairs, he ate his grapefruit without complaint.
Uncle Vernon laid aside his paper with a deep sniff of disapproval and looked
down at his own grapefruit quarter.
"Is this it?" he said grumpily to Aunt Petunia.
Aunt Petunia gave him a severe look, and then nodded pointedly at Dudley, who
had already finished his own grapefruit quarter and was eyeing Harry's with a very
sour look in his piggy little eyes.
Uncle Vernon gave a great sigh, which ruffled his large, bushy mustache, and
picked up his spoon.
The doorbell rang. Uncle Vernon heaved himself out of his chair and set off down
the hall. Quick as a flash, while his mother was occupied with the kettle, Dudley
stole the rest of Uncle Vernon's grapefruit.
Harry heard talking at the door, and someone laughing, and Uncle Vernon
answering curtly. Then the front door closed, and the sound of ripping paper came
from the hall.
Aunt Petunia set the teapot down on the table and looked curiously around to see
where Uncle Vernon had got to. She didn't have to wait long to find out; after
about a minute, he was back. He looked livid.
"You," he barked at Harry. "In the living room. Now."
Bewildered, wondering what on earth he was supposed to have done this time,
Harry got up and followed Uncle Vernon out of the kitchen and into the next
room. Uncle Vernon closed the door sharply behind both of them.
"So," he said, marching over to the fireplace and turning to face Harry as though
he were about to pronounce him under arrest. "So."
Harry would have dearly loved to have said, "So what?" but he didn't feel that
Uncle Vernon's temper should be tested this early in the morning, especially when
it was already under severe strain from lack of food. He therefore settled for
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looking politely puzzled.
"This just arrived," said Uncle Vernon. He brandished a piece of purple writing
paper at Harry. "A letter. About you."
Harry's confusion increased. Who would be writing to Uncle Vernon about him?
Who did he know who sent letters by the postman?
Uncle Vernon glared at Harry, then looked down at the letter and began to read
aloud:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dursley,
We have never been introduced, but I am sure you have heard a great deal from
Harry about my son Ron.
As Harry might have told you, the final of the Quidditch World Cup takes place
this Monday night, and my husband, Arthur, has just managed to get prime tickets
through his connections at the Department of Magical Games and Sports.
I do hope you will allow us to take Harry to the match, as this really is a once-in-alifetime
opportunity; Britain hasn't hosted the cup for thirty years, and tickets are
extremely hard to come by. We would of course be glad to have Harry stay for the
remainder of the summer holidays, and to see him safely onto the train back to
school.
It would be best for Harry to send us your answer as quickly as possible in the
normal way, because the Muggle postman has never delivered to our house, and I
am not sure he even knows where it is.
Hoping to see Harry soon,
Yours sincerely,
Molly Weasley
P.S. I do hope we've put enough stamps on.
Uncle Vernon finished reading, put his hand back into his breast pocket, and drew
out something else.
"Look at this," he growled.
He held up the envelope in which Mrs. Weasley's letter had come, and Harry had
to fight down a laugh. Every bit of it was covered in stamps except for a square
inch on the front, into which Mrs. Weasley had squeezed the Dursleys' address in
minute writing.
"She did put enough stamps on, then," said Harry, trying to sound as though Mrs.
Weasley's was a mistake anyone could make. His uncle's eyes flashed.
21
"The postman noticed," he said through gritted teeth. "Very interested to know
where this letter came from, he was. That's why he rang the doorbell. Seemed to
think it was funny."
Harry didn't say anything. Other people might not understand why Uncle Vernon
was making a fuss about too many stamps, but Harry had lived with the Dursleys
too long not to know how touchy they were about anything even slightly out of the
ordinary. Their worst fear was that someone would find out that they were
connected (however distantly) with people like Mrs. Weasley.
Uncle Vernon was still glaring at Harry, who tried to keep his expression neutral.
If he didn't do or say anything stupid, he might just be in for the treat of a lifetime.
He waited for Uncle Vernon to say something, but he merely continued to glare.
Harry decided to break the silence.
"So - can I go then?" he asked.
A slight spasm crossed Uncle Vernon's large purple face. The mustache bristled.
Harry thought he knew what was going on behind the mustache: a furious battle as
two of Uncle Vernon's most fundamental instincts came into conflict. Allowing
Harry to go would make Harry happy, something Uncle Vernon had struggled
against for thirteen years. On the other hand, allowing Harry to disappear to the
Weasleys' for the rest of the summer would get rid of him two weeks earlier than
anyone could have hoped, and Uncle Vernon hated having Harry in the house. To
give himself thinking time, it seemed, he looked down at Mrs. Weasley's letter
again.
"Who is this woman?" he said, staring at the signature with distaste.
"You've seen her," said Harry. "She's my friend Ron's mother, she was meeting
him off the Hog - off the school train at the end of last term."
He had almost said "Hogwarts Express," and that was a sure way to get his uncle's
temper up. Nobody ever mentioned the name of Harry's school aloud in the
Dursley household.
Uncle Vernon screwed up his enormous face as though trying to remember
something very unpleasant.
"Dumpy sort of woman?" he growled finally. "Load of children with red hair?"
Harry frowned. He thought it was a bit rich of Uncle Vernon to call anyone
"dumpy," when his own son, Dudley, had finally achieved what he'd been
threatening to do since the age of three, and become wider than he was tall.
Uncle Vernon was perusing the letter again.
"Quidditch," he muttered under his breath. "Quidditch - what is this rubbish?"
Harry felt a second stab of annoyance.
22
"It's a sport," he said shortly. "Played on broom- "
"All right, all r