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The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea

while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only

gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except

snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were

all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had

nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to

squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers

calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you,

Harry?"

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before

starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to

say, "Go -- cupboard -- stay -- no meals," before he collapsed into a

chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He

didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were

asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen

for some food.

He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as

long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents

had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when

his parents had died. 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 burn- ing pain on his forehead. This, he

supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green

light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and

uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask

questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.

When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown

relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the

Dursleys were his only family. 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 these

people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a23

closer look.

At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated

that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and

nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.

CHAPTER THREE

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,24

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,