Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)

by J.K. Rowling

Dear Harry, Happy birthday! Look, I’m really sorry about that telephone call. I hope the Muggles didn’t give you a hard time. I asked Dad, and he reckons I shouldn’t have shouted. It’s amazing here in Egypt. Bill’s taken us around all the tombs and you wouldn’t believe the curses those old Egyptian wizards put on them. Mum wouldn’t let Ginny come in the last one. There were all these mutant skeletons in there, of Muggles who’d broken in and grown extra heads and stuff. I couldn’t believe it when Dad won the Daily Prophet Draw. Seven hundred Galleons! Most of it’s gone on this trip, but they’re going to buy me a new wand for next year.

Don’t let the Muggles get you down!

Extremely unusual though he was, at that moment Harry Potter felt just like everyone else — glad, for the first time in his life, that it was his birthday.

Dudley smirked and withdrew his gaze from the television. Watching Harry being bullied by Uncle Vernon was Dudley’s favorite form of entertainment.

My name is Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor this eve —”

“’Choo fall over for?” sniggered Stan.

“’Choo lookin’ at?” said Stan.

While Muggles have been told that Black is carrying a gun (a kind of metal wand that Muggles use to kill each other),