Harry Potter 02 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

who was watching him almost nervously, as though waiting for his opinion.
    ‘It’s a bit small,’ said Ron quickly. ‘Not like that room you had with the Muggles. And I’m right underneath the ghoul in the attic, he’s always banging on the pipes and groaning …’
    But Harry, grinning widely, said, ‘This is the best house I’ve ever been in.’
    Ron’s ears went pink.

 
— CHAPTER FOUR —
     
At Flourish and Blotts
    Life at The Burrow was as different as possible from life in Privet Drive. The Dursleys liked everything neat and ordered; the Weasleys’ house burst with the strange and unexpected. Harry got a shock the first time he looked in the mirror over the kitchen mantelpiece and it shouted, ‘Tuck your shirt in, scruffy!’ The ghoul in the attic howled and dropped pipes whenever he felt things were getting too quiet, and small explosions from Fred and George’s bedroom were considered perfectly normal. What Harry found most unusual about life at Ron’s, however, wasn’t the talking mirror or the clanking ghoul: it was the fact that everybody there seemed to like him.
    Mrs Weasley fussed over the state of his socks and tried to force him to eat fourth helpings at every meal. Mr Weasley liked Harry to sit next to him at the dinner table so that he could bombard him with questions about life with Muggles, asking him to explain how things like plugs and the postal service worked.
    ‘Fascinating!’ he would say, as Harry talked him through using a telephone. ‘Ingenious, really, how many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic.’
    Harry heard from Hogwarts one sunny morning about a week after he had arrived at The Burrow. He and Ron went down to breakfast to find Mr and Mrs Weasley and Ginny already sitting at the kitchen table. The moment she saw Harry, Ginny accidentally knocked her porridge bowl to the floor with a loud clatter. Ginny seemed very prone to knocking things over whenever Harry entered a room. She dived under the table to retrieve the bowl and emerged with her face glowing like the setting sun. Pretending he hadn’t noticed this, Harry sat down and took the toast Mrs Weasley offered him.
    ‘Letters from school,’ said Mr Weasley, passing Harry and Ron identical envelopes of yellowish parchment, addressed in green ink. ‘Dumbledore already knows you’re here, Harry – doesn’t miss a trick, that man. You two’ve got them, too,’ he added, as Fred and George ambled in, still in their pyjamas.
    For a few minutes there was silence as they all read their letters. Harry’s told him to catch the Hogwarts Express as usual from King’s Cross station on September the first. There was also a list of the new books he’d need for the coming year.
     
    Second-year students will require:
     
    The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 by Miranda Goshawk
    Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart
    Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart
    Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart
    Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart
    Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart
    Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart
    Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart
     
    Fred, who had finished his own list, peered over at Harry’s.
    ‘You’ve been told to get all Lockhart’s books, too!’ he said. ‘The new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan – bet it’s a witch.’
    At this point, Fred caught his mother’s eye and quickly busied himself with the marmalade.
    ‘That lot won’t come cheap,’ said George, with a quick look at his parents. ‘Lockhart’s books are really expensive …’
    ‘Well, we’ll manage,’ said Mrs Weasley, but she looked worried. ‘I expect we’ll be able to pick up a lot of Ginny’s things second-hand.’
    ‘Oh, are you starting at Hogwarts this year?’ Harry asked Ginny.
    She nodded, blushing to the roots of her flaming hair, and put her elbow in the butter dish. Fortunately no one saw this except Harry, because just then Ron’s elder brother Percy walked in. He was already dressed, his Hogwarts prefect badge pinned to his knitted tank top.
    ‘Morning, all,’ said Percy briskly. ‘Lovely day.’
    He sat down in the only remaining chair but leapt up again almost immediately, pulling from underneath him a moulting, grey feather duster – at least, that was what Harry thought it was, until he saw that it was breathing.
    ‘Errol!’ said Ron, taking the limp owl from Percy and extracting a letter from under its wing. ‘