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

o’clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn’t wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.
    He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall towards the front door –
    ‘AAAAARRRGH!’
    Harry leapt into the air – he’d trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat – something alive!
    Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realised that the big squashy something had been his uncle’s face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn’t do exactly what he’d been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen, and by the time he got back, the post had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon’s lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink.
    ‘I want –’ he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes.
    Uncle Vernon didn’t go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the letter-box.
    ‘See,’ he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, ‘if they can’t deliver them they’ll just give up.’
    ‘I’m not sure that’ll work, Vernon.’
    ‘Oh, these people’s minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they’re not like you and me,’ said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruit cake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.
    *
    On Friday, no fewer than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn’t go through the letter-box they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs toilet.
    Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed ‘Tiptoe through the Tulips’ as he worked, and jumped at small noises.
    *
    On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living-room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food mixer.
    ‘Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?’ Dudley asked Harry in amazement.
    *
    On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.
    ‘No post on Sundays,’ he reminded them happily as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, ‘no damn letters today –’
    Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one –
    ‘Out! OUT!’
    Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.
    ‘That does it,’ said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his moustache at the same time. ‘I want you all back here in five minutes, ready to leave. We’re going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!’
    He looked so dangerous with half his moustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding towards the motorway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, video and computer in his sports bag.
    They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn’t dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turning and drive in the opposite direction for a while.
    ‘Shake ’em off … shake ’em off,’ he would mutter whenever he did this.
    They didn’t stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He’d never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he’d missed five