udley was quite as mad as the Dursleys thought he was, except that Mr. Weasley
felt sympathy rather than fear.
"Having a good holiday, Dudley?" he said kindly.
Dudley whimpered. Harry saw his hands tighten still harder over his massive
backside.
Fred and George came back into the room carrying Harry's school trunk. They
31
glanced around as they entered and spotted Dudley. Their faces cracked into
identical evil grins.
"Ah, right," said Mr. Weasley. "Better get cracking then."
He pushed up the sleeves of his robes and took out his wand. Harry saw the
Dursleys draw back against the wall as one.
"Incendio!" said Mr. Weasley, pointing his wand at the hole in the wall behind
him.
Flames rose at once in the fireplace, crackling merrily as though they had been
burning for hours. Mr. Weasley took a small drawstring bag from his pocket,
untied it, took a pinch of the powder inside, and threw it onto the flames, which
turned emerald green and roared higher than ever.
"Off you go then, Fred," said Mr. Weasley.
"Coming," said Fred. "Oh no - hang on -"
A bag of sweets had spilled out of Fred's pocket and the contents were now rolling
in every direction - big, fat toffees in brightly colored wrappers.
Fred scrambled around, cramming them back into his pocket, then gave the
Dursleys a cheery wave, stepped forward, and walked right into the fire, saying
"the Burrow!" Aunt Petunia gave a little shuddering gasp. There was a whooshing
sound, and Fred vanished.
"Right then, George," said Mr. Weasley, "you and the trunk."
Harry helped George carry the trunk forward into the flames and turn it onto its
end so that he could hold it better. Then, with a second whoosh, George had cried
"the Burrow!" and vanished too.
"Ron, you next," said Mr. Weasley.
"See you," said Ron brightly to the Dursleys. He grinned broadly at Harry, then
stepped into the fire, shouted "the Burrow!" and disappeared.
Now Harry and Mr. Weasley alone remained.
"Well . . . 'bye then," Harry said to the Dursleys.
They didn't say anything at all. Harry moved toward the fire, but just as he reached
the edge of the hearth, Mr. Weasley put out a hand and held him back. He was
looking at the Dursleys in amazement.
"Harry said good-bye to you," he said. "Didn't you hear him?"
"It doesn't matter," Harry muttered to Mr. Weasley. "Honestly, I don't care."
Mr. Weasley did not remove his hand from Harry's shoulder.
32
"You aren't going to see your nephew till next summer," he said to Uncle Vernon
in mild indignation. "Surely you're going to say good-bye?"
Uncle Vernon's face worked furiously. The idea of being taught consideration by a
man who had just blasted away half his living room wall seemed to be causing
him intense suffering. But Mr. Weasley's wand was still in his hand, and Uncle
Vernon's tiny eyes darted to it once, before he said, very resentfully, "Good-bye,
then."
"See you," said Harry, putting one foot forward into the green flames, which felt
pleasantly like warm breath. At that moment, however, a horrible gagging sound
erupted behind him, and Aunt Petunia started to scream.
Harry wheeled around. Dudley was no longer standing behind his parents. He was
kneeling beside the coffee table, and he was gagging and sputtering on a foot-long,
purple, slimy thing that was protruding from his mouth. One bewildered second
later, Harry realized that the foot-long thing was Dudley's tongue - and that a
brightly colored toffee wrapper lay on the floor before him.
Aunt Petunia hurled herself onto the ground beside Dudley, seized the end of his
swollen tongue, and attempted to wrench it out of his mouth; unsurprisingly,
Dudley yelled and sputtered worse than ever, trying to fight her off. Uncle Vernon
was bellowing and waving his arms around, and Mr. Weasley had to shout to
make himself heard.
"Not to worry, I can sort him out!" he yelled, advancing on Dudley with his wand
outstretched, but Aunt Petunia screamed worse than ever and threw herself on top
of Dudley, shielding him from Mr. Weasley.
"No, really!" said Mr. Weasley desperately. "It's a simple process it was the toffee
- my son Fred - real practical joker - but it's only an Engorgement Charm - at least,
I think it is - please, I can correct it -"
But far from being reassured, the Dursleys became more panic- stricken; Aunt
Petunia was sobbing hysterically, tugging Dudley's tongue as though determined
to rip it out; Dudley appeared to be suffocating under the combined pressure of his
mother and his tongue; and Uncle Vernon, who had lost control completely, seized
a china figure from on top of the sideboard and threw it very hard at Mr. Weasley,
who ducked, causing the ornament to shatter in the blasted fireplace.
"Now really!" said Mr. Weasley angrily, brandishing his wand. "I'm trying to
help!"
Bellowing like a wounded hippo, Uncle Vernon snatched up another ornament.
"Harry, go! Just go!" Mr. Weasley shouted, his wand on Uncle Vernon. "I'll sort
this out!"
Harry didn't want to miss the fun, but Uncle Vernon's second ornament narrowly
33
missed his left ear, and on balance he thought it best to leave the situation to Mr.
Weasley. He stepped into the fire, looking over his shoulder as he said "the
Burrow!" His last fleeting glimpse of the living room was of Mr. Weasley blasting
a third ornament out of Uncle Vernon's hand with his wand, Aunt Petunia
screaming and lying on top of Dudley, and Dudley's tongue lolling around like a
great slimy python. But next moment Harry had begun to spin very fast, and the
Dursleys' living room was whipped out of sight in a rush of emerald-green flames.
34
CHAPTER FIVE - WEASLEYS' WIZARD WHEEZES
Harry spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to his sides, blurred fireplaces
flashing past him, until he started to feel sick and closed his eyes. Then, when at
last he felt himself slowing down, he threw out his hands and came to a halt in
time to prevent himself from falling face forward out of the Weasleys' kitchen fire.
"Did he eat it?" said Fred excitedly, holding out a hand to pull Harry to his fee
"Yeah," said Harry, straightening up. "What was it?"
"Ton-Tongue Toffee," said Fred brightly. "George and I invented them, and we've
been looking for someone to test them on all summer. . . ."
The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Harry looked around and saw that Ron
and George were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people
Harry had never seen before, though he knew immediately who they must be: Bill
and Charlie, the two eldest Weasley brothers.
"How're you doing, Harry?" said the nearer of the two, grinning at him and
holding out a large hand, which Harry shook, feeling calluses and blisters under
his fingers. This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie
was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both
long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and
so freckly that he looked almost tanned; his arms were muscular, and one of them
had a large, shiny burn on it.
Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also shook Harry's hand. Bill came as something
of a surprise. Harry knew that he worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and
that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts; Harry had always imagined Bill to be an
older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone
around. However, Bill was - there was no other word for it - cool. He was tall,
with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with
what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out
of place at a rock concert, except that Harry recognized his boots to be made, not
of leather, but of dragon hide.
Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and
Mr. Weasley appeared out of thin air at George's shoulder. He was looking angrier
than Harry had ever seen him.
"That wasn't funny Fred!" he shouted. "What on earth did you give that Muggle
boy?"
"I didn't give him anything," said Fred, with another evil grin. I just dropped it.... It
was his fault he went and ate it, I never told him to."
35
"You dropped it on purpose!" roared Mr. Weasley. "You knew he'd eat it, you
knew he was on a diet -"
"How big did his tongue get?" George asked eagerly.
"It was four feet long before his parents would let me shrink it!"
Harry and the Weasleys roared with laughter again.
"It isn't funny!" Mr. Weasley shouted. "That sort of behavior seriously undermines
wizard-Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the
mistreatment of Muggles, and my own sons
"We didn't give it to him because he's a Muggle!" said Fred indignantly.
"No, we gave it to him because he's a great bullying git," said George. "Isn't he,
Harry?"
"Yeah, he is, Mr. Weasley," said Harry earnestly.
"That's not the point!" raged Mr. Weasley. "You wait until I tell your mother -"
"Tell me what?" said a voice behind them.
Mrs. Weasley had just entered the kitchen. She was a short, plump woman with a
very kind face, though her eyes were presently narrowed with suspicion.
"Oh hello, Harry, dear," she said, spotting him and smiling. Then her eyes snapped
back to her husband. "Tell me what, Arthur?"
Mr. Weasley hesitated. Harry could tell that, however angry he was with Fred and
George, he hadn't really intended to tell Mrs. Weasley what had happened. There
was a silence, while Mr. Weasley eyed his wife nervously. Then two girls
appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Mrs. Weasley. One, with very bushy
brown hair and rather large front teeth, was Harry's and Ron's friend, Hermione
Granger. The other, who was small and red-haired, was Ron's younger sister,
Ginny. Both of them smiled at Harry, who grinned back, which made Ginny go
scarlet - she had been very taken with Harry ever since his first visit to the
Burrow.
"Tel