Vernon would manage to gloss the whole thing over (‘Just our nephew – very disturbed – meeting strangers upsets him, so we kept him upstairs …’) He shooed the shocked Masons back into the dining room, promised Harry he would flay him to within an inch of his life when the Masons had left, and handed him a mop. Aunt Petunia dug some ice-cream out of the freezer and Harry, still shaking, started scrubbing the kitchen clean.
Uncle Vernon might still have been able to make his deal – if it hadn’t been for the owl.
Aunt Petunia was just handing round a box of after-dinner mints when a huge barn owl swooped through the dining room window, dropped a letter on Mrs Mason’s head and swooped out again. Mrs Mason screamed like a banshee and ran from the house, shouting about lunatics. Mr Mason stayed just long enough to tell the Dursleys that his wife was mortally afraid of birds of all shapes and sizes, and to ask whether this was their idea of a joke.
Harry stood in the kitchen, clutching the mop for support as Uncle Vernon advanced on him, a demonic glint in his tiny eyes.
‘Read it!’ he hissed evilly, brandishing the letter the owl had delivered. ‘Go on – read it!’
Harry took it. It did not contain birthday greetings.
Dear Mr Potter,
We have received intelligence that a Hover Charm was used at your place of residence this evening at twelve minutes past nine.
As you know, underage wizards are not permitted to perform spells outside school, and further spellwork on your part may lead to expulsion from said school (Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage sorcery, 1875, Paragraph C).
We would also ask you to remember that any magical activity which risks notice by members of the non-magical community (Muggles) is a serious offence, under section 13 of the International Confederation of Warlocks’ Statute of Secrecy.
Enjoy your holidays!
Yours sincerely,
Mafalda Hopkirk
Improper Use of Magic Office
Ministry of Magic
Harry looked up from the letter and gulped.
‘You didn’t tell us you weren’t allowed to use magic outside school,’ said Uncle Vernon, a mad gleam dancing in his eyes. ‘Forgot to mention it … slipped your mind, I dare say …’
He was bearing down on Harry like a great bulldog, all his teeth bared. ‘Well, I’ve got news for you, boy … I’m locking you up … you’re never going back to that school … never … and if you try and magic yourself out – they’ll expel you!’
And laughing like a maniac, he dragged Harry back upstairs.
Uncle Vernon was as bad as his word. The following morning, he paid a man to fit bars on Harry’s window. He himself fitted the cat-flap in the bedroom door, so that small amounts of food could be pushed inside three times a day. They let Harry out to use the bathroom morning and evening. Otherwise, he was locked in his room around the clock.
Three days later, the Dursleys were showing no sign of relenting and Harry couldn’t see any way out of his situation. He lay on his bed watching the sun sinking behind the bars on the window and wondered miserably what was going to happen to him.
What was the good of magicking himself out of his room if Hogwarts would expel him for doing it? Yet life at Privet Drive had reached an all-time low. Now the Dursleys knew they weren’t going to wake up as fruitbats, he had lost his only weapon. Dobby might have saved Harry from horrible happenings at Hogwarts, but the way things were going, he’d probably starve to death anyway.
The cat-flap rattled and Aunt Petunia’s hand appeared, pushing a bowl of tinned soup into the room. Harry, whose insides were aching with hunger, jumped off his bed and seized it. The soup was stone cold, but he drank half of it in one gulp. Then he crossed the room to Hedwig’s cage and tipped the soggy vegetables at the bottom of the bowl into her empty food tray. She ruffled her feathers and gave him a look of deep disgust.
‘It’s no good turning your beak up at it, that’s all we’ve got,’ said Harry grimly.
He put the empty bowl back on the floor next to the cat-flap and lay back down on the bed, somehow even hungrier than he had been before the soup.
Supposing he was still alive in another four weeks, what would happen if he didn’t turn up at Hogwarts? Would someone be sent to see why he hadn’t come back? Would they be able to make the Dursleys let him go?
The room was growing dark. Exhausted, stomach rumbling, mind spinning over the same unanswerable questions, Harry fell into an uneasy sleep.
He dreamed that he was on show in a zoo, with a card reading ‘Underage Wizard’ attached to his cage. People goggled through the bars at him as he lay, starving and weak, on a bed of straw. He saw Dobby’s face in the crowd and shouted out, asking for help, but Dobby called, ‘Harry Potter is safe there, sir!’ and vanished. Then the Dursleys appeared and Dudley rattled the bars of the cage, laughing at him.
‘Stop it,’ Harry muttered, as the rattling pounded in his sore head. ‘Leave me alone … cut it out … I’m trying to sleep …’
He opened his eyes. Moonlight was shining through the bars on the window. And someone was goggling through the bars at him: a freckle-faced, red-haired, long-nosed someone.
Ron Weasley was outside Harry’s window.
– CHAPTER THREE —
The Burrow
‘Ron!’ breathed Harry, creeping to the window and pushing it up so they could talk through the bars. ‘Ron, how did you – what the —?’
Harry’s mouth fell open as the full impact of what he was seeing hit him. Ron was leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car, which was parked in mid-air. Grinning at Harry from the front seats were Fred and George, Ron’s elder twin brothers.
‘All right, Harry?’
‘What’s been going on?’ said Ron. ‘Why haven’t you been answering my letters? I’ve asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you’d got an official warning for using magic in front of Muggles …’
‘It wasn’t me – and how did he know?’
‘He works for the Ministry,’ said Ron. ‘You know we’re not supposed to do spells outside school —’
‘Bit rich coming from you,’ said Harry, staring at the floating car.
‘Oh, this doesn’t count,’ said Ron. ‘We’re only borrowing this, it’s Dad’s, we didn’t enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles you live with …’
‘I told you, I didn’t – but it’ll take too long to explain now. Look, can you explain to them at Hogwarts that the Dursleys have locked me up and won’t let me come back, and obviously I can’t magic myself out, because the Ministry’ll think that’s the second spell I’ve done in three days, so —’
‘Stop gibbering,’ said Ron, ‘we’ve
