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To Peter Rowling, in memory of Mr Ridley and to Susan Sladden, who helped Harry out of his cupboard
He was dead before he hit the floor. Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start.
Dudley’s diet isn’t going too well. My aunt found him smuggling doughnuts into his room yesterday. They told him they’d have to cut his pocket money if he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and chucked his PlayStation out of the window.
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 any more.
Dudley had reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.
Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had been emptied of all Dudley’s favourite 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’.
P.S. I do hope we’ve put enough stamps on.
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,
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.
pointing her wand a little more vigorously than she had intended at a pile of potatoes in the sink, which shot out of their skins so fast that they ricocheted off the walls and ceilings.
if I was away from work for five days.’ ‘Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Perce?’ said Fred. ‘That was a sample of fertiliser from Norway!’ said Percy, going very red in the face. ‘It was nothing personal!’ ‘It was,’ Fred whispered to Harry, as they got up from the table. ‘We sent it.’
‘It’s classified information, until such time as the Ministry decides to release it,’ said Percy stiffly. ‘Mr Crouch was quite right not to disclose it.’ ‘Oh, shut up, Weatherby,’ said Fred.
Harry saw that they didn’t look remotely beautiful now. On the contrary, their faces were elongating into sharp, cruel-beaked bird heads, and long, scaly wings were bursting from their shoulders – ‘And that, boys,’ yelled Mr Weasley over the tumult of the crowd below, ‘is why you should never go for looks alone!’
‘Tripped over a tree-root,’ he said angrily, getting to his feet again. ‘Well, with feet that size, hard not to,’
Ron told Malfoy to do something that Harry knew he would never have dared say in front of Mrs Weasley.
Everybody present knew that ‘Mudblood’ was a very offensive term for a witch or wizard of Muggle parentage.
‘You dropped it?’ repeated Mr Diggory in disbelief. ‘Is this a confession? You threw it aside after you conjured the Mark?’ ‘Amos, think who you’re talking to!’ said Mr Weasley, very angrily. ‘Is Harry Potter likely to conjure the Dark Mark?’ ‘Er – of course not,’ mumbled Mr Diggory. ‘Sorry … carried away
Mr Roberts had a strange, dazed look about him, and he waved them off with a vague ‘Merry Christmas’.
‘Sometimes, when a person’s memory’s modified, it makes them a bit disorientated for a while … and that was a big thing they had to make him forget.’
‘you’re alive … oh, boys …’ And to everybody’s surprise, she seized Fred and George and pulled them both into such a tight hug that their heads banged together. ‘Ouch! Mum – you’re strangling us –’ ‘I shouted at you before you left!’ Mrs Weasley said, starting to sob. ‘It’s all I’ve been thinking about!
What if You-Know-Who had got you, and the last thing I ever said to you was that you didn’t get enough O.W.Ls? Oh, Fred … George …’
‘Do us a favour, Perce,’ said Bill, yawning, ‘and shut up.’
Harry liked this clock. It was completely useless if you wanted to know the time, but otherwise very informative. It had nine golden hands, and each of them was engraved with one of the Weasley family’s names. There were no numerals around the face, but descriptions of where each family member might be. ‘Home’, ‘school’ and ‘work’ were there, but there was also ‘lost’, ‘hospital’, ‘prison’ and, in the position where the number twelve would be on a normal clock, ‘mortal peril’.
‘Your father thinks very highly of Mad-Eye Moody,’ said Mrs Weasley sternly. ‘Yeah, well, Dad collects plugs, doesn’t he?’ said Fred quietly, as Mrs Weasley left the room. ‘Birds of a feather …’
‘Ah, think of the possibilities,’ said Ron dreamily. ‘It would’ve been so easy to push Malfoy off a glacier and make it look like an accident … shame his mother likes him …’
They had never yet had a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher who had lasted more than three terms. Harry’s favourite by far had been Professor Lupin, who had resigned last year.
‘Oh, hurry up,’ Ron moaned, beside Harry. ‘I could eat a Hippogriff.’
If Harry, Ron and Hermione were wet, it was nothing to how these first-years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailing.
When he had lined up with his terrified-looking peers, he caught Colin Creevey’s eye, gave a double thumbs-up and mouthed, ‘I fell in the lake!’ He looked positively delighted about it.
For Hufflepuff, hard workers were Most worthy of admission;
‘Now, Ron, the Sorting’s much more important than food,’ said Nearly Headless Nick, as ‘Madley, Laura!’ became a Hufflepuff. ‘’Course it is, if you’re dead,’ snapped Ron.
‘I have only two words to say to you,’ he told them, his deep voice echoing around the Hall. ‘Tuck in.’ ‘Hear, hear!’ said Harry and Ron loudly,
well, it’s quite out of the question, you know what he’s like, utterly uncivilised, can’t see a plate of food without throwing it.
‘Oh, the usual,’ said Nearly Headless Nick, shrugging. ‘Wreaked havoc and mayhem. Pots and pans everywhere. Place swimming in soup. Terrified the house-elves out of their wits –’
‘Oh, c’mon, ’Er-my-knee,’ said Ron, accidentally spraying Harry with bits of Yorkshire pudding. ‘Oops – sorry, ’Arry –’ He swallowed.
The rain was still drumming heavily against the high, dark windows. Another clap of thunder shook the windows, and the stormy ceiling flashed,
It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year.’ ‘You’re JOKING!’ said Fred Weasley loudly. The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody’s arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.
‘I am not joking, Mr Weasley,’ he said, ‘though, now you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag and a leprechaun who all go into a bar –’
October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Hallowe’en.
‘Bubotubers,’ Professor Sprout told them briskly.
‘I’ve got two Neptunes here,’ said Harry after a while, frowning down at his piece of parchment, ‘that can’t be right, can it?’ ‘Aaaaah,’ said Ron, imitating Professor Trelawney’s mystical whisper, ‘when two Neptunes appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harry …’ Seamus and Dean, who were working nearby, sniggered loudly,
‘That expression she’s got, like she’s got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?’ Malfoy’s pale face went slightly pink. ‘Don’t you dare insult my mother, Potter.’ ‘Keep your fat mouth shut, then,’ said Harry, turning away.
The next two days passed without great incident, unless you counted Neville melting his sixth cauldron in Potions.
Telling Neville what Professor Sprout had said, Harry thought, had been a very tactful way of cheering Neville up, for Neville very rarely heard that he was good at anything. It was the sort of thing Professor Lupin would have done.
‘Not going to have a very good month, are you?’ she said sardonically, as Crookshanks curled up in her lap. ‘Ah well, at least I’m forewarned,’ Ron yawned. ‘You seem to be drowning twice,’ said Hermione.
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit obvious you’ve made these up?’ said Hermione. ‘How dare you!’ said Ron, in mock outrage. ‘We’ve been working like house-elves here!’ Hermione raised her eyebrows. ‘It’s just an expression,’ said Ron hastily.
There was a pause in which Hermione beamed at the pair of them, and Harry sat, torn between exasperation at Hermione, and amusement at the look on Ron’s face.
Harry and Ron grinned at each other. They knew Hermione would rather eat Bubotuber pus than miss such an important lesson.
Miss Granger remains the only person in this class who has managed to turn a hedgehog into a satisfactory pincushion. I might remind you that your pincushion, Thomas, still curls up in fright if anyone approaches it with a pin!’
