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by
J.K. Rowling
Read between
June 19 - June 21, 2019
It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar — a cat reading a map.
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As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive — no, looking at the sign; cats couldn’t read maps or signs.
He didn’t see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead.
It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying. “The Potters, that’s right, that’s what I heard —” “— yes, their son, Harry —” Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.
because he didn’t approve of imagination.
but it’s not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they’ve had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating
Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters . . . Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He’d have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. “Er — Petunia, dear — you haven’t heard from your sister lately, have you?”
“Their son — he’d be about Dudley’s age now, wouldn’t he?” “I suppose so,” said Mrs. Dursley stiffly. “What’s his name again? Howard, isn’t it?” “Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me.” “Oh, yes,” said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. “Yes, I quite agree.”
His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind. . . . He couldn’t see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on — he yawned and turned over — it couldn’t affect them. . . .
Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man’s name was Albus Dumbledore.
For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, “I should have known.”
He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again — the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn’t be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement.
woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes.
Shooting stars down in Kent — I’ll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense.”
“We’ve had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.”
Everyone knows you’re the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of.”
“What they’re saying,” she pressed on, “is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric’s Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are — are — that they’re — dead.” Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped. “Lily and James . . . I can’t believe it . . . I didn’t want to believe it . . . Oh, Albus . . .” Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. “I know . . . I know . . .” he said heavily. Professor McGonagall’s voice trembled as she went on. “That’s not all. They’re saying he tried to kill the Potters’ son, Harry. But — he
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i got CHILLS
These people will never understand him! He’ll be famous — a legend — I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day in the future — there will be books written about Harry — every child in our world will know his name!”
But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?” She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it. “Hagrid’s bringing him.” “You think it — wise — to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?” “I would trust Hagrid with my life,” said Dumbledore.
“Hagrid,” said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. “At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?” “Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir,” said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. “Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I’ve got him, sir.”
“No, sir — house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin’ around. He fell asleep as we was flyin’ over Bristol.”
Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning. “Is that where — ?” whispered Prof...
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“Good luck, Harry,” he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.
Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours’ time by Mrs. Dursley’s scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley. . . . He couldn’t know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: “To Harry Potter — the boy who lived!”
He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. He had a funny feeling he’d had the same dream before.
Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.
is this foreshadowing of the pig tail?
The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn’t make them happen.
Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off.
i still don’t get this ?
The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn’t fit Harry.
As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, “Brazil, here I come. . . . Thanksss, amigo.”
Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead.
Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all
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“No, thanks,” said Harry. “The poor toilet’s never had anything as horrible as your head down it — it might be sick.” Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he’d said.
The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water. “What’s this?” he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question. “Your new school uniform,” she said. Harry looked in the bowl again. “Oh,” he said, “I didn’t realize it had to be so wet.”
Mr. H. Potter The Cupboard under the Stairs 4 Privet Drive Little Whinging Surrey
“Who’d be writing to you?” sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn’t stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge. “P-P-Petunia!” he gasped. Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise. “Vernon! Oh my goodness — Vernon!”
“It was not a mistake,” said Harry angrily, “it had my cupboard on it.”
“There’s another one! ‘Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive —’”
“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 realized 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.
“Do you mean ter tell me,” he growled at the Dursleys, “that this boy — this boy! — knows nothin’ abou’— about ANYTHING?” Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren’t bad. “I know some things,” he said. “I can, you know, do math and stuff.”
“DURSLEY!” he boomed.
“Harry — yer a wizard.” There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard. “I’m a what?” gasped Harry. “A wizard, o’ course,” said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, “an’ a thumpin’ good’un, I’d say, once yeh’ve been trained up a bit. With a mum an’ dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An’ I reckon it’s abou’ time yeh read yer letter.”
Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea.
His name was . . .” Hagrid gulped, but no words came out. “Could you write it down?” Harry suggested. “Nah — can’t spell it. All right — Voldemort.”
by then. But he couldn’t do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That’s what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh — took care of yer mum an’ dad an’ yer house, even — but it didn’t work on you, an’ that’s why yer famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill ’em, no one except you,
Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die.
“Why were you expelled?”
this is still such bs
“Seems a shame ter row, though,” said Hagrid, giving Harry another of his sideways looks. “If I was ter — er — speed things up a bit, would yeh mind not mentionin’ it at Hogwarts?”
“They say there’s dragons guardin’ the high-security vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way — Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground.
