THE LETTERS FROM NO ONE

The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his
longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard
again, the summer holidays had started and Dudley had already broken his
new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time
out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet
Drive on her crutches.

Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang,
who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and
Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and
stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite
happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Harry Hunting.

This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house,
wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where he
could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off
to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be
with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private
school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Harry, on the
other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley
thought this was very funny.

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall,"
he told Harry. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

"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.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings
uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn 't as bad as
usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats,
and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry watch
television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though
she'd had it for several years.

That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in
his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange
knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried
knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't
looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said
gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst
into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he
looked so handsome and grown-up. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He
thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to
laugh.

There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry
went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in
the sink. He went to have a look. 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."

"DotA be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old
things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've
finished."

Harry seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue. He sat
down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look
on his first day at Stonewall High -- like he was wearing bits of old
elephant skin, probably.

Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the
smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as
usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere,
on the table.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the
doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the mail, Harry."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."

Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things
lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was
vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a
bill, and -- a letter for Harry.

Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant
elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who
would? He had no friends, no other relatives -- he didn't belong to the
library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet
here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

Mr. H. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the
address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.

Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax
seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake
surrounding a large letter H.

"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you
doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.

Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed
Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to
open the yellow envelope.

Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over
the postcard.

"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk. --."

"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"

Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the
same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of
his hand by Uncle Vernon.

"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.

"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!"

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and
Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He
gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly. want to read it," said
Harry furiously, "as it's mine."

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back
inside its envelope.

Harry didn't move.

I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.

"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the
scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the
kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but
silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry,
his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at
the crack between door and floor.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the
address -- how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think
they're watching the house?"

"Watching -- spying -- might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon
wildly.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't
want --"

Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the
kitchen.

"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an
answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything....

"But --"

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took
him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd
never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.

"Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed
through the door. "Who's writing to me?"

"No one. it was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly.
"I have burned it."

"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily, "it had my cupboard on it."

"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the
ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a
smile, which looked quite painful.

"Er -- yes, Harry -- about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been
thinking... you're really getting a bit big for it... we think it might
be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom.

"Why?" said Harry.

"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs,
now."

The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt
Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one
where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things
that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip
upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He
sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was
broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working
tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the
corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot
through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large
birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school
for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent
because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They
were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been
touched.

From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, I don't
want him in there... I need that room... make him get out...."

Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given
anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with
that letter than up here without it.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in
shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been
sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the
greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. Harry was
thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the
letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each
other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice
to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with
his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's
another one! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive --'"

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the
hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the
ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact
that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a
minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the
Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with
Harry's letter clutched in his hand.

"Go to your cupboard -- I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry.
"Dudley -- go -- just go."

Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out
of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first
letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time he'd make sure
they didn't fail. He had a plan.

The repaired alarm clock rang at six 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 toward the front door --

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. 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 mail 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 didnt go to work that day. He
stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.

"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 fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they
couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door,
slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small
window in the downstairs bathroom.

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 processor.

"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 cheerfully 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 mustache 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 mustache 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 toward the highway.
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, VCR, 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 turn 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 television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone
so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.

Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the
outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds
and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on
the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and
wondering....

They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for
breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the
hotel came over to their table.

"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred
of these at the front desk."

She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:

Mr. H. Potter

Room 17

Railview Hotel

Cokeworth

Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out
of the way. The woman stared.

"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following
her from the dining room.

Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested
timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly
what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the
middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in
the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle
of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of
a multilevel parking garage.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that
afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside
the car, and disappeared.

It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dud ley
sniveled.

"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I
want to stay somewhere with a television. "

Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday -- and you
could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of
television -- then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Of
course, his birthdays were never exactly fun -- last year, the Dursleys
had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks.
Still, you weren't eleven every day.

Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long,
thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd
bought.

"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"

It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what
looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was
the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was
certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his
hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his
boat!"

A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather
wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below
them.

"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"

It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their
necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like
hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding,
led the way to the broken-down house.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind
whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was
damp and empty. There were only two rooms.

Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four
bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked
and shriveled up.

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.

He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance
of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry privately
agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him up at all.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the
high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the
filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second
room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle
Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry was left to find
the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest,
most ragged blanket.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry
couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable,
his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the
low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of
Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat
wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and
watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would
remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the
roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did.
Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of
letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow.

Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like
that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was
the rock crumbling into the sea?

One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds... twenty ... ten...
nine -- maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him -- three... two...
one...

BOOM.

The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the
door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.
