Harry Potter 01 - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

possibly know where he sleeps? You don’t think they’re watching the house?’
    ‘Watching – spying – might be following us,’ muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.
    ‘But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don’t want –’
    Harry could see Uncle Vernon’s shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.
    ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘No, we’ll ignore it. If they don’t get an answer … yes, that’s best … we won’t do anything …’
    ‘But –’
    ‘I’m not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn’t we swear when we took him in we’d stamp out that dangerous nonsense?’
    That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he’d never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.
    ‘Where’s my letter?’ said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. ‘Who’s writing to me?’
    ‘No one. It was addressed to you by mistake,’ said Uncle Vernon shortly. ‘I have burned it.’
    ‘It was not a mistake,’ said Harry angrily. ‘It had my cupboard on it.’
    ‘SILENCE!’ yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.
    ‘Er – yes, Harry – about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking … you’re really getting a bit big for it … we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley’s second bedroom.’
    ‘Why?’ said Harry.
    ‘Don’t ask questions!’ snapped his uncle. ‘Take this stuff upstairs, now.’
    The Dursleys’ house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon’s sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn’t fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old cine-camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over next door’s dog; in the corner was Dudley’s first-ever television set, which he’d put his foot through when his favourite programme had been cancelled; there was a large bird-cage which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air-rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they’d never been touched.
    From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother: ‘I don’t want him in there … I need that room … make him get out …’
    Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he’d have given anything to be up here. Today he’d rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.
    Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He’d screamed, whacked his father with his Smeltings stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof and he still didn’t have his room back. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he’d opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.
    When the post arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smeltings stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, ‘There’s another one! Mr H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive –’
    With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smeltings stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry’s letter clutched in his hand.
    ‘Go to your cupboard – I mean, your bedroom,’ he wheezed at Harry. ‘Dudley – go – just go.’
    Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn’t received his first letter. Surely that meant they’d try again? And this time he’d make sure they didn’t fail. He had a plan.
    *
    The repaired alarm clock rang at six