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,
25
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.
26
“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.
27
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.”
28
“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
29
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.
30
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
31
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
32
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.
33
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
34
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.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE KEEPER OF THE KEYS
BOOM. They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake. “Where’s the cannon?” he
said stupidly.
There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the
room. He was holding a rifle in his hands — now they knew what had been
in the long, thin package he had brought with them.
35
“Who’s there?” he shouted. “I warn you — I’m armed!”
There was a pause. Then –
SMASH!
The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and
with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.
A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost
completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled
beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles
under all the hair.
The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just
brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it
easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a
little. He turned to look at them all.
“Couldn’t make us a cup o’ tea, could yeh? It’s not been an easy
journey…”
He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.
“Budge up, yeh great lump,” said the stranger.
Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching,
terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.
“An’ here’s Harry!” said the giant.
Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the
beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.
“Las’ time I saw you, you was only a baby,” said the giant. “Yeh look a
lot like yet dad, but yeh’ve got yet mom’s eyes.”
Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise.
I demand that you leave at once, sit!” he said. “You are breaking and
entering!”
36
“Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune,” said the giant; he reached over
the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon’s hands, bent
it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it
into a corner of the room.
Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.
“Anyway — Harry,” said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, “a
very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here — I mighta sat on
it at some point, but it’ll taste all right.”
From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly
squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a
large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in
green icing.
Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words
got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, “Who are
you?”
The giant chuckled.
“True, I haven’t introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and
Grounds at Hogwarts.”
He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry’s whole arm.
“What about that tea then, eh?” he said, rubbing his hands together.
“I’d not say no ter summat stronger if yeh’ve got it, mind.”
His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and
he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn’t see what he
was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire
there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt
the warmth wash over him as though he’d sunk into a hot bath.
The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and
began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a
copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several
chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from
before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and
smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was
working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt
37
sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said
sharply, “Don’t touch anything he gives you, Dudley.”
The giant chuckled darkly.
“Yet great puddin’ of a son don’ need fattenin’ anymore, Dursley, don’
worry.”
He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted
anything so wonderful, but he still couldn’t take his eyes off the
giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said,
“I’m sorry, but I still don’t really know who you are.”
The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand.
“Call me Hagrid,” he said, “everyone does. An’ like I told yeh, I’m
Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts — yeh’ll know all about Hogwarts, o’ course.
“Er — no,” said Harry.
Hagrid looked shocked.
“Sorry,” Harry said quickly.
“Sony?” barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back
into the shadows. “It’ s them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren’t
gettin’ yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn’t even know abou’
Hogwarts, fer cryin’ out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yet parents
learned it all?”
“All what?” asked Harry.
“ALL WHAT?” Hagrid thundered. “Now wait jus’ one second!”
He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut.
The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.
“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.
38
“I know some things,” he said. “I can, you know, do math and stuff.” But
Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, “About our world, I mean. Your
world. My world. Yer parents’ world.”
“What world?”
Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.
“DURSLEY!” he boomed.
Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded
like “Mimblewimble.” Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.
“But yeh must know about yet mom and dad,” he said. “I mean, they’re
famous. You’re famous.”
“What? My — my mom and dad weren’t famous, were they?”
“Yeh don’ know… yeh don’ know…” Hagrid ran his fingers through his
hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.
“Yeh don’ know what yeh are?” he said finally.
Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.
“Stop!” he commanded. “Stop right there, sit! I forbid you to tell the
boy anything!”
A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious
look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled
with rage.
“You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore
left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An’
you’ve kept it from him all these years?”
“Kept what from me?” said Harry eagerly.
“STOP! I FORBID YOU!” yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.
Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.
39
“Ah, go boil yet heads, both of yeh,” said Hagrid. “Harry — yet a
wizard.”
There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind
could be heard.
“– 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.”
Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope,
addressed in emerald green to Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock,
The Sea. He pulled out the letter and read:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme
Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all
necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress
Questions exploded inside Harry’s head like fireworks and he couldn’t
decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, “What does
it mean, they await my owl?”
“Gallopin’ Gorgons, that reminds me,” said Hagrid, clapping a hand to
his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet
40
another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl — a real, live,
rather ruffled-looking owl — a long quill, and a roll of parchment.
With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could
read upside down:
Dear Professor Dumbledore,
Given Harry his letter.
Taking him to buy his things tomorrow.
Weather’s horrible. Hope you’re Well.
Hagrid
Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its
beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he
came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the
telephone.
Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly.
“Where was I?” said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still
ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.
“He’s not going,” he said.
Hagrid grunted.
“I’d like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him,” he said.
“A what?” said Harry, interested.
“A Muggle,” said Hagrid, “it’s what we call nonmagic folk like thern.
An’ it’s your bad luck you grew up in a family o’ the biggest Muggles I
ever laid eyes on.”
“We swore when we took him in we’d put a stop to that rubbish,” said
Uncle Vernon, “swore we’d stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!”
“You knew?” said Harry. “You knew I’m a — a wizard?”
“Knew!” shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. “Knew! Of course we knew! How
41
could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a
letter just like that and disappeared off to that-that school-and came
home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups
into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was — a freak!
But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that,
they were proud of having a witch in the family!”
She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed
she had been wanting to say all this for years.
“Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and
had you, and of course I knew you’d be just the same, just as strange,
just as — as — abnormal — and then, if you please, she went and got
herself blown up and we got landed with you!”
Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, “Blown
up? You told me they died in a car crash!”
“CAR CRASH!” roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys
scuttled back to their corner. “How could a car crash kill Lily an’
James Potter? It’s an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin’ his
own story when every kid in our world knows his name!” “But why? What
happened?” Harry asked urgently.
The anger faded from Hagrid’s face. He looked suddenly anxious.
“I never expected this,” he said, in a low, worried voice. “I had no
idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin’ hold of
yeh, how much yeh didn’t know. Ah, Harry, I don’ know if I’m the right
person ter tell yeh — but someone 3 s gotta — yeh can’t go off ter
Hogwarts not knowin’.”
He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.
“Well, it’s best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh — mind, I can’t
tell yeh everythin’, it’s a great myst’ry, parts of it….”
He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, “It
begins, I suppose, with — with a person called — but it’s incredible
yeh don’t know his name, everyone in our world knows –”
“Who? ”
42
“Well — I don’ like sayin’ the name if I can help it. No one does.”
“Why not?”
“Gulpin’ gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is
difficult. See, there was this wizard who went… bad. As bad as you
could go. Worse. Worse than worse. 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. ” Hagrid shuddered. “Don’
make me say it again. Anyway, this — this wizard, about twenty years
ago now, started lookin’ fer followers. Got ‘em, too — some were
afraid, some just wanted a bit o’ his power, ’cause he was gettin’
himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn’t know who ter trust,
didn’t dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches… terrible
things happened. He was takin’ over. ‘Course, some stood up to him –
an’ he killed ‘em. Horribly. One o’ the only safe places left was
Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore’s the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of.
Didn’t dare try takin’ the school, not jus’ then, anyway.
“Now, yer mum an’ dad were as good a witch an’ wizard as I ever knew.
Head boy an’ girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst’ry is why
You-Know-Who never tried to get ‘em on his side before… probably knew
they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin’ ter do with the
Dark Side.
“Maybe he thought he could persuade ‘em… maybe he just wanted ‘em
outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where
you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old.
He came ter yer house an’ — an’ –”
Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew
his nose with a sound like a foghorn.
“Sorry,” he said. “But it’s that sad — knew yer mum an’ dad, an’ nicer
people yeh couldn’t find — anyway…”
“You-Know-Who killed ‘em. An’ then — an’ this is the real myst’ry of
the thing — he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of
it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin’ by then. But he couldn’t
43
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, an’ he’d killed some o’ the
best witches an’ wizards of the age — the McKinnons, the Bones, the
Prewetts — an’ you was only a baby, an’ you lived.”
Something very painful was going on in Harry’s mind. As Hagrid’s story
came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more
clearly than he had ever remembered it before — and he remembered
something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel
laugh.
Hagrid was watching him sadly.
“Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore’s orders. Brought
yeh ter this lot…”
“Load of old tosh,” said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped; he had almost
forgotten that the Dursleys were there. Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to
have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were
clenched.
“Now, you listen here, boy,” he snarled, “I accept there’s something
strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn’t have cured
– and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no
denying it, and the world’s better off without them in my opinion –
asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types –
just what I expected, always knew they’d come to a sticky end –”
But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink
umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a
sword, he said, “I’m warning you, Dursley -I’m warning you — one more
word… ”
In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant,
Uncle Vernon’s courage failed again; he flattened himself against the
wall and fell silent.
“That’s better,” said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on
the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor.
44
Harry, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.
“But what happened to Vol–, sorry — I mean, You-Know-Who?”
“Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter
kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That’s the biggest myst’ry, see…
he was gettin’ more an’ more powerful — why’d he go?
“Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough
human left in him to die. Some say he’s still out there, bidin’ his
time, like, but I don’ believe it. People who was on his side came back
ter ours. Some of ‘em came outta kinda trances. Don~ reckon they
could’ve done if he was comin’ back.
“Most of us reckon he’s still out there somewhere but lost his powers.
Too weak to carry on. ‘Cause somethin’ about you finished him, Harry.
There was somethin’ goin’ on that night he hadn’t counted on — I dunno
what it was, no one does — but somethin’ about you stumped him, all
right.”
Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but
Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had
been a horrible mistake. A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He’d
spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and
Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn’t they been turned
into warty toads every time they’d tried to lock him in his cupboard? If
he’d once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley
had always been able to kick him around like a football?
“Hagrid,” he said quietly, “I think you must have made a mistake. I
don’t think I can be a wizard.”
To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled.
“Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or
angry?”
Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it… every odd
thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had
happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry… chased by Dudley’s
gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach… dreading going
to school with that ridiculous haircut, he’d managed to make it grow
back… and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn’t he got his
45
revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn’t he set a boa
constrictor on him?
Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively
beaming at him.
“See?” said Hagrid. “Harry Potter, not a wizard — you wait, you’ll be
right famous at Hogwarts.”
But Uncle Vernon wasn’t going to give in without a fight.
“Haven’t I told you he’s not going?” he hissed. “He’s going to Stonewall
High and he’ll be grateful for it. I’ve read those letters and he needs
all sorts of rubbish — spell books and wands and –”
“If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won’t stop him,” growled
Hagrid. “Stop Lily an’ James Potter’ s son goin’ ter Hogwarts! Yer mad.
His name’s been down ever since he was born. He’s off ter the finest
school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he
won’t know himself. He’ll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a
change, an’ he’ll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had
Albus Dumbled–”
“I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL To TEACH HIM
MAGIC TRICKS!”
yelled Uncle Vernon.
But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled
it over his head, “NEVER,” he thundered, “- INSULT- ALBUS- DUMBLEDOREIN-
FRONT- OF- ME!”
He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley
– there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a
sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with
his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned
his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig’s tail poking through a hole in
his trousers.
Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other
room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door
behind them.
Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.
46
“Shouldn’ta lost me temper,” he said ruefully, “but it didn’t work
anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like
a pig anyway there wasn’t much left ter do.”
He cast a sideways look at Harry under his bushy eyebrows.
“Be grateful if yeh didn’t mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts,” he
said. “I’m — er — not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin’. I was
allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an’ get yer letters to yeh an’ stuff
– one o’ the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job
“Why aren’t you supposed to do magic?” asked Harry.
“Oh, well — I was at Hogwarts meself but I — er — got expelled, ter
tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an’
everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man,
Dumbledore.” “Why were you expelled?”
“It’s gettin’ late and we’ve got lots ter do tomorrow,” said Hagrid
loudly. “Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an’ that.”
He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry.
“You can kip under that,” he said. “Don’ mind if it wriggles a bit, I
think I still got a couple o’ dormice in one o’ the pockets.”
CHAPTER FIVE
DIAGON ALLEY
Harry woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was
daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight.
“It was a dream, he told himself firmly. “I dreamed a giant called
Hagrid came to tell me I was going to a school for wizards. When I open
my eyes I’ll be at home in my cupboard.”
There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.
And there’s Aunt Petunia knocking on the door, Harry thought, his heart
sinking. But he still didn’t open his eyes. It had been such a good
47
dream.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“All right,” Harry mumbled, “I’m getting up.”
He sat up and Hagrid’s heavy coat fell off him. The hut was full of
sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed
sofa, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper
held in its beak.
Harry scrambled to his feet, so happy he felt as though a large balloon
was swelling inside him. He went straight to the window and jerked it
open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who
didn’t wake up. The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to
attack Hagrid’s coat.
“Don’t do that.”
Harry tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak
fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.
“Hagrid!” said Harry loudly. “There’s an owl
“Pay him,” Hagrid grunted into the sofa.
“What?”
“He wants payin’ fer deliverin’ the paper. Look in the pockets.”
Hagrid’s coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets — bunches of
keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags…
finally, Harry pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.
“Give him five Knuts,” said Hagrid sleepily.
“Knuts?”
“The little bronze ones.”
Harry counted out five little bronze coins, and the owl held out his leg
so Harry could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then
he flew off through the open window.
48
Hagrid yawned loudly, sat up, and stretched.
“Best be Off, Harry, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an’ buy
all yer stuff fer school.”
Harry was turning over the wizard coins and looking at them. He had just
thought of something that made him feel as though the happy balloon
inside him had got a puncture.
“Um — Hagrid?”
“Mm?” said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots.
“I haven’t got any money — and you heard Uncle Vernon last night … he
won’t pay for me to go and learn magic.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his
head. “D’yeh think yer parents didn’t leave yeh anything?”
“But if their house was destroyed –”
“They didn’ keep their gold in the house, boy! Nah, first stop fer us is
Gringotts. Wizards’ bank. Have a sausage, they’re not bad cold — an’ I
wouldn’ say no teh a bit o’ yer birthday cake, neither.”
“Wizards have banks?”
“Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins.”
Harry dropped the bit of sausage he was holding.
“Goblins?”
“Yeah — so yeh’d be mad ter try an’ rob it, I’ll tell yeh that. Never
mess with goblins, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer
anything yeh want ter keep safe — ‘cept maybe Hogwarts. As a matter o’
fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts
business.” Hagrid drew himself up proudly. “He usually gets me ter do
important stuff fer him. Fetchin’ you gettin’ things from Gringotts –
knows he can trust me, see.
“Got everythin’? Come on, then.”
49
Harry followed Hagrid out onto the rock. The sky was quite clear now and
the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon had hired was
still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.
“How did you get here?” Harry asked, looking around for another boat.
“Flew,” said Hagrid.
“Flew?”
“Yeah — but we’ll go back in this. Not s’pposed ter use magic now I’ve
got yeh.”
They settled down in the boat, Harry still staring at Hagrid, trying to
imagine him flying.
“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?”
“Of course not,” said Harry, eager to see more magic. Hagrid pulled out
the pink umbrella again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat, and
they sped off toward land.
“Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?” Harry asked.
“Spells — enchantments,” said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper as he
spoke. “They say there’s dragons guardin’ the highsecurity vaults. And
then yeh gotta find yer way — Gringotts is hundreds of miles under
London, see. Deep under the Underground. Yeh’d die of hunger tryin’ ter
get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat.”
Harry sat and thought about this while Hagrid read his newspaper, the
Daily Prophet. Harry had learned from Uncle Vernon that people liked to
be left alone while they did this, but it was very difficult, he’d never
had so many questions in his life.
“Ministry o’ Magic messin’ things up as usual,” Hagrid muttered, turning
the page.
“There’s a Ministry of Magic?” Harry asked, before he could stop
himself.
“‘Course,” said Hagrid. “They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, 0 ‘
50
course, but he’d never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the
job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Dumbledore with owls
every morning, askin’ fer advice.”
“But what does a Ministry of Magic do?”
“Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there’s still
witches an’ wizards up an’ down the country.”
“Why?”
“Why? Blimey, Harry, everyone’d be wantin’ magic solutions to their
problems. Nah, we’re best left alone.”
At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall. Hagrid
folded up his newspaper, and they clambered up the stone steps onto the
street.
Passersby stared a lot at Hagrid as they walked through the little town
to the station. Harry couldn’t blame them. Not only was Hagrid twice as
tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like
parking meters and saying loudly, “See that, Harry? Things these Muggles
dream up, eh?”
“Hagrid,” said Harry, panting a bit as he ran to keep up, “did you say
there are dragons at Gringotts?”
“Well, so they say,” said Hagrid. “Crikey, I’d like a dragon.”
“You’d like one?”
“Wanted one ever since I was a kid — here we go.”
They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five
minutes’ time. Hagrid, who didn’t understand “Muggle money,” as he
called it, gave the bills to Harry so he could buy their tickets.
People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and
sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent.
“Still got yer letter, Harry?” he asked as he counted stitches. Harry
took the parchment envelope out of his pocket.
51
“Good,” said Hagrid. “There’s a list there of everything yeh need.”
Harry unfolded a second piece of paper he hadn’t noticed the night
before, and read:
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
UNIFORM
First-year students will require:
1. Three sets of plain work robes (black)
2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear
3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)
4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)
Please note that all pupils’ clothes should carry name tags
COURSE BOOKS
All students should have a copy of each of the following:
The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling
A Beginners’ Guide to Transfiguration by Emetic Switch
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore
Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble
OTHER EQUIPMENT
52
wand cauldron (pewter, standard size 2) set
glass or crystal phials
telescope set
brass scales
Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad
PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED
THEIR OWN
BROOMSTICKS
“Can we buy all this in London?” Harry wondered aloud.
“If yeh know where to go,” said Hagrid.
Harry had never been to London before. Although Hagrid seemed to know
where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an
ordinary way. He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and
complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.
“I don’t know how the Muggles manage without magic,” he said as they
climbed a broken-down escalator that led up to a bustling road lined
with shops.
Hagrid was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Harry had to do
was keep close behind him. They passed book shops and music stores,
hamburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it
could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of
ordinary people. Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles
beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and
broomsticks? Might this not all be some huge joke that the Dursleys had
cooked up? If Harry hadn’t known that the Dursleys had no sense of
humor, he might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything
Hagrid had told him so far was unbelievable, Harry couldn’t help
trusting him.
“This is it,” said Hagrid, coming to a halt, “the Leaky Cauldron. It’s a
famous place.”
It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn’t pointed it out,
53
Harry wouldn’t have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn’t
glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the
record shop on the other as if they couldn’t see the Leaky Cauldron at
all. In fact, Harry had the most peculiar feeling that only he and
Hagrid could see it. Before he could mention this, Hagrid had steered
him inside.
For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were
sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was
smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old
bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The
low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know
Hagrid; they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a
glass, saying, “The usual, Hagrid?”
“Can’t, Tom, I’m on Hogwarts business,” said Hagrid, clapping his great
hand on Harry’s shoulder and making Harry’s knees buckle.
“Good Lord,” said the bartender, peering at Harry, “is this — can this
be –?”
The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.
“Bless my soul,” whispered the old bartender, “Harry Potter… what an
honor.”
He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward Harry and seized his
hand, tears in his eyes.
“Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back.”
Harry didn’t know what to say. Everyone was looking at him. The old
woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out.
Hagrid was beaming.
Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Harry
found himself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.
“Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter, can’t believe I’m meeting you at last.”
“So proud, Mr. Potter, I’m just so proud.”
54
“Always wanted to shake your hand — I’m all of a flutter.”
“Delighted, Mr. Potter, just can’t tell you, Diggle’s the name, Dedalus
Diggle.”
“I’ve seen you before!” said Harry, as Dedalus Diggle’s top hat fell off
in his excitement. “You bowed to me once in a shop.”
“He remembers!” cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. “Did
you hear that? He remembers me!” Harry shook hands again and again –
Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.
A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes
was twitching.
“Professor Quirrell!” said Hagrid. “Harry, Professor Quirrell will be
one of your teachers at Hogwarts.”
“P-P-Potter,” stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry’s hand,
“c-can’t t-tell you how p- pleased I am to meet you.”
“What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?”
“D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts,” muttered Professor Quirrell, as
though he’d rather not think about it. “N-not that you n-need it, eh,
P-P-Potter?” He laughed nervously. “You’ll be g-getting all your
equipment, I suppose? I’ve g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires,
m-myself.” He looked terrified at the very thought.
But the others wouldn’t let Professor Quirrell keep Harry to himself. It
took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid
managed to make himself heard over the babble.
“Must get on — lots ter buy. Come on, Harry.”
Doris Crockford shook Harry’s hand one last time, and Hagrid led them
through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was
nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.
Hagrid grinned at Harry.
“Told yeh, didn’t I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor Quirrell
55
was tremblin’ ter meet yeh — mind you, he’s usually tremblin’.”
“Is he always that nervous?”
“Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was
studyin’ outta books but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand
experience…. They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there
was a nasty bit o’ trouble with a hag — never been the same since.
Scared of the students, scared of his own subject now, where’s me
umbrella?”
Vampires? Hags? Harry’s head was swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was
counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.
“Three up… two across he muttered. “Right, stand back, Harry.”
He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.
The brick he had touched quivered — it wriggled — in the middle, a
small hole appeared — it grew wider and wider — a second later they
were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a
cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.
“Welcome,” said Hagrid, “to Diagon Alley.”
He grinned at Harry’s amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry
looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly
back into solid wall.
The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop.
Cauldrons — All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver — Self-Stirring
– Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.
“Yeah, you’ll be needin’ one,” said Hagrid, “but we gotta get yer money
first.”
Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every
direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at
once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their
shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as
they passed, saying, “Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they’re
mad….”
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A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl
Emporium — Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of
about Harry’s age had their noses pressed against a window with
broomsticks in it. “Look,” Harry heard one of them say, “the new Nimbus
Two Thousand — fastest ever –” There were shops selling robes, shops
selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen
before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels’ eyes,
tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion
bottles, globes of the moon….
“Gringotts,” said Hagrid.
They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other
little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a
uniform of scarlet and gold, was -
“Yeah, that’s a goblin,” said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white
stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry.
He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very
long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were
facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved
upon them:
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.
“Like I said, Yeh’d be mad ter try an’ rob it,” said Hagrid.
A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a
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vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high
stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing
coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses.
There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more
goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid and Harry made
for the counter.
“Morning,” said Hagrid to a free goblin. “We’ve come ter take some money
outta Mr. Harry Potter’s safe.”
“You have his key, Sir?”
“Got it here somewhere,” said Hagrid, and he started emptying his
pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits
over the goblin’s book of numbers. The goblin wrinkled his nose. Harry
watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as
glowing coals.
“Got it,” said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.
The goblin looked at it closely.
“That seems to be in order.”
“An’ I’ve also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore,” said Hagrid
importantly, throwing out his chest. “It’s about the YouKnow-What in
vault seven hundred and thirteen.”
The goblin read the letter carefully.
“Very well,” he said, handing it back to Hagrid, “I will have Someone
take you down to both vaults. Griphook!”
Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog
biscuits back inside his pockets, he and Harry followed Griphook toward
one of the doors leading off the hall.
“What’s the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?” Harry
asked.
“Can’t tell yeh that,” said Hagrid mysteriously. “Very secret. Hogwarts
business. Dumbledore’s trusted me. More’n my job’s worth ter tell yeh
that.”
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Griphook held the door open for them. Harry, who had expected more
marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with
flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little
railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came
hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in — Hagrid with some
difficulty — and were off.
At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry
tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left,
but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way,
because Griphook wasn’t steering.
Harry’s eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them
wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a
passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late - -
they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge
stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.
I never know,” Harry called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart,
“what’s the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?”
“Stalagmite’s got an ‘m’ in it,” said Hagrid. “An’ don’ ask me questions
just now, I think I’m gonna be sick.”
He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small
door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the
wall to stop his knees from trembling.
Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and
as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns
of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.
“All yours,” smiled Hagrid.
All Harry’s — it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn’t have known about
this or they’d have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had
they complained how much Harry cost them to keep? And all the time there
had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London.
Hagrid helped Harry pile some of it into a bag.
“The gold ones are Galleons,” he explained. “Seventeen silver Sickles to
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a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it’s easy enough. Right,
that should be enough fer a couple o’ terms, we’ll keep the rest safe
for yeh.” He turned to Griphook. “Vault seven hundred and thirteen now,
please, and can we go more slowly?”
“One speed only,” said Griphook.
They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became
colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went
rattling over an underground ravine, and Harry leaned over the side to
try to see what was down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and
pulled him back by the scruff of his neck.
Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.
“Stand back,” said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with
one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.
“If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they’d be sucked through
the door and trapped in there,” said Griphook.
“How often do you check to see if anyone’s inside?” Harry asked.
“About once every ten years,” said Griphook with a rather nasty grin.
Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault,
Harry was sure, and he leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous
jewels at the very least — but at first he thought it was empty. Then
he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on
the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry
longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.
“Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don’t talk to me on the way
back, it’s best if I keep me mouth shut,” said Hagrid.
One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside
Gringotts. Harry didn’t know where to run first now that he had a bag
full of money. He didn’t have to know how many Galleons there were to a
pound to know that he was holding more money than he’d had in his whole
life — more money than even Dudley had ever had.
“Might as well get yer uniform,” said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam
Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. “Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I
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slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them
Gringotts carts.” He did still look a bit sick, so Harry entered Madam
Malkin’s shop alone, feeling nervous.
Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.
“Hogwarts, clear?” she said, when Harry started to speak. “Got the lot
here — another young man being fitted up just now, in fact. ”
In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on
a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam
Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him) slipped a long robe over his
head, and began to pin it to the right length.
“Hello,” said the boy, “Hogwarts, too?”
“Yes,” said Harry.
“My father’s next door buying my books and mother’s up the street
looking at wands,” said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. “Then
I’m going to drag them off to took at racing brooms. I don’t see why
first years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully father into getting
me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.”
Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.
“Have you got your own broom?” the boy went on.
“No,” said Harry.
“Play Quidditch at all?”
“No,” Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.
“I do — Father says it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for my
house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you’ll be in yet?”
“No,” said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.
“Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know
I’ll be in Slytherin, all our family have been — imagine being in
Hufflepuff, I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?” “Mmm,” said Harry, wishing
he could say something a bit more interesting.
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“I say, look at that man!” said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the
front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing
at two large ice creams to show he couldn’t come in.
“That’s Hagrid,” said Harry, pleased to know something the boy didn’t.
“He works at Hogwarts.”
“Oh,” said the boy, “I’ve heard of him. He’s a sort of servant, isn’t
he?”
“He’s the gamekeeper,” said Harry. He was liking the boy less and less
every second.
“Yes, exactly. I heard he’s a sort of savage — lives in a hut on the
school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic,
and ends up setting fire to his bed.”
“I think he’s brilliant,” said Harry coldly.
“Do you?” said the boy, with a slight sneer. “Why is he with you? Where
are your parents?”
“They’re dead,” said Harry shortly. He didn’t feel much like going into
the matter with this boy.
“Oh, sorry,” said the other,. not sounding sorry at all. “But they were
our kind, weren’t they?”
“They were a witch and wizard, if that’s what you mean.”
“I really don’t think they should let the other sort in, do you? They’re
just not the same, they’ve never been brought up to know our ways. Some
of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter,
imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families.
What’s your surname, anyway?”
But before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin said, “That’s you done, my
dear,” and Harry, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy,
hopped down from the footstool.
“Well, I’ll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose,” said the drawling boy.
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Harry was rather quiet as he ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought him
(chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).
“What’s up?” said Hagrid.
“Nothing,” Harry lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Harry
cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you
wrote. When they had left the shop, he said, “Hagrid, what’s Quidditch?”
“Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin’ how little yeh know — not knowin’
about Quidditch!”
“Don’t make me feel worse,” said Harry. He told Hagrid about the pate
boy in Madam Malkin’s.
“–and he said people from Muggle families shouldn’t even be allowed
in.”
“Yer not from a Muggle family. If he’d known who yeh were — he’s grown
up knowin’ yer name if his parents are wizardin’ folk. You saw what
everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, what
does he know about it, some o’ the best I ever saw were the only ones
with magic in ‘em in a long line 0′ Muggles — look at yer mum! Look
what she had fer a sister!”
“So what is Quidditch?”
“It’s our sport. Wizard sport. It’s like — like soccer in the Muggle
world — everyone follows Quidditch — played up in the air on
broomsticks and there’s four balls — sorta hard ter explain the rules.”
“And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?”
“School houses. There’s four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o’
duffers, but –”
“I bet I’m in Hufflepuff” said Harry gloomily.
“Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin,” said Hagrid darkly. “There’s not a
single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin.
You-Know-Who was one.”
“Vol-, sorry - You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?”
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“Years an’ years ago,” said Hagrid.
They bought Harry’s school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts
where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as
paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in
covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with
nothing in them at all. Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have
been wild to get his hands on some of these. Hagrid almost had to drag
Harry away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and
Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs,
Tongue- Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor Vindictus Viridian.
“I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley.”
“I’m not sayin’ that’s not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the
Muggle world except in very special circumstances,” said Hagrid. “An’
anyway, yeh couldn’ work any of them curses yet, yeh’ll need a lot more
study before yeh get ter that level.”
Hagrid wouldn’t let Harry buy a solid gold cauldron, either (”It says
pewter on yer list”), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing
potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited
the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible
smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff
stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined
the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung
from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a
supply of some basic potion ingredients for Harry, Harry himself
examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule,
glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).
Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Harry’s list again.
“Just yer wand left - A yeah, an’ I still haven’t got yeh a birthday
present.”
Harry felt himself go red.
“You don’t have to –”
“I know I don’t have to. Tell yeh what, I’ll get yer animal. Not a toad,
toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh’d be laughed at - an’ I don’
like cats, they make me sneeze. I’ll get yer an owl. All the kids want
64
owls, they’re dead useful, carry yer mail an’ everythin’.”
Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been
dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Harry now
carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with
her head under her wing. He couldn’t stop stammering his thanks,
sounding just like Professor Quirrell.
“Don’ mention it,” said Hagrid gruffly. “Don’ expect you’ve had a lotta
presents from them Dursleys. Just Ollivanders left now - only place fer
wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wand.”
A magic wand… this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.
The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door
read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay
on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.
A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped
inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair
that Hagrid sat on to wait. Harry felt strangely as though he had
entered a very strict library; he swallowed a lot of new questions that
had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow
boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of
his neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle
with some secret magic.
“Good afternoon,” said a soft voice. Harry jumped. Hagrid must have
jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly
off the spindly chair.
An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like
moons through the gloom of the shop.
“Hello,” said Harry awkwardly.
“Ah yes,” said the man. “Yes, yes. I thought I’d be seeing you soon.
Harry Potter.” It wasn’t a question. “You have your mother’s eyes. It
seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten
and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm
work.”
Mr. Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he would blink. Those
65
silvery eyes were a bit creepy.
“Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches.
Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I
say your father favored it — it’s really the wand that chooses the
wizard, of course.”
Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose to
nose. Harry could see himself reflected in those misty eyes.
“And that’s where…”
Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead with a
long, white finger.
“I’m sorry to say I sold the wand that did it,” he said softly.
“Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in
the wrong hands… well, if I’d known what that wand was going out into
the world to do….”
He shook his head and then, to Harry’s relief, spotted Hagrid.
“Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again…. Oak, sixteen
inches, rather bendy, wasn’t it?”
“It was, sir, yes,” said Hagrid.
“Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got
expelled?” said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern.
“Er — yes, they did, yes,” said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. “I’ve still
got the pieces, though,” he added brightly.
“But you don’t use them?” said Mr. Ollivander sharply.
“Oh, no, sit,” said Hagrid quickly. Harry noticed he gripped his pink
umbrella very tightly as he spoke.
“Hmmm,” said Mr. Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look. “Well, now
– Mr. Potter. Let me see.” He pulled a long tape measure with silver
markings out of his pocket. “Which is your wand arm?”
“Er — well, I’m right-handed,” said Harry.
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“Hold out your arm. That’s it.” He measured Harry from shoulder to
finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round
his head. As he measured, he said, “Every Ollivander wand has a core of
a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix
tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands
are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite
the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with
another wizard’s wand.”
Harry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring
between his nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr. Ollivander was
flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.
“That will do,” he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on
the floor. “Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon
heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. just take it and give it a
wave.”
Harry took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Mr.
Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once.
“Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try –”
Harry tried — but he had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was
snatched back by Mr. Ollivander.
“No, no -here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy.
Go on, go on, try it out.”
Harry tried. And tried. He had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting
for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the
spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the
shelves, the happier he seemed to become.
“Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we’ll find the perfect match here
somewhere — I wonder, now - - yes, why not — unusual combination –
holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple.”
Harry took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised
the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air
and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework,
throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls. Hagrid whooped and
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clapped and Mr. Ollivander cried, “Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very
good. Well, well, well… how curious… how very curious… ”
He put Harry’s wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper,
still muttering, “Curious… curious..
“Sorry,” said Harry, “but what’s curious?”
Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare.
“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It
so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave
another feather — just one other. It is very curious indeed that you
should be destined for this wand when its brother why, its brother gave
you that scar.”
Harry swallowed.
“Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things
happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember…. I think we must expect
great things from you, Mr. Potter…. After all, He-
Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things — terrible, yes, but great.”
Harry shivered. He wasn’t sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much. He paid
seven gold Galleons for his wand, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his
shop.
The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Harry and Hagrid made
their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through
the Leaky Cauldron, now empty. Harry didn’t speak at all as they walked
down the road; he didn’t even notice how much people were gawking at
them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped
packages, with the snowy owl asleep in its cage on Harry’s lap. Up
another escalator, out into Paddington station; Harry only realized
where they were when Hagrid tapped him on the shoulder.
“Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves,” he said.
He bought Harry a hamburger and they sat down on plastic seats to eat
them. Harry kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow.
“You all right, Harry? Yer very quiet,” said Hagrid.
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Harry wasn’t sure he could explain. He’d just had the best birthday of
his life — and yet — he chewed his hamburger, trying to find the
words.
“Everyone thinks I’m special,” he said at last. “All those people in the
Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander… but I don’t know
anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I’m
famous and I can’t even remember what I’m famous for. I don’t know what
happened when Vol-, sorry — I mean, the night my parents died.”
Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he
wore a very kind smile.
“Don’ you worry, Harry. You’ll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the
beginning at Hogwarts, you’ll be just fine. just be yerself. I know it’s
hard. Yeh’ve been singled out, an’ that’s always hard. But yeh’ll have a
great time at Hogwarts — I did — still do, ’smatter of fact.”
Hagrid helped Harry on to the train that would take him back to the
Dursleys, then handed him an envelope.
“Yer ticket fer Hogwarts, ” he said. “First o’ September — King’s Cross
– it’s all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a
letter with yer owl, she’ll know where to find me…. See yeh soon,
Harry.”
The train pulled out of the station. Harry wanted to watch Hagrid until
he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against
the window, but he blinked and Hagrid had gone.
CHAPTER SIX
THE JOURNEY FROM PLATFORM NINE AND THREE-QUARTERS
Harry’s last month with the Dursleys wasn’t fun. True, Dudley was now so
scared of Harry he wouldn’t stay in the same room, while Aunt Petunia
and Uncle Vernon didn’t shut Harry in his cupboard, force him to do
anything, or shout at him — in fact, they didn’t speak to him at all.
Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Harry
in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did
become a bit depressing after a while.
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Harry kept to his room, with his new owl for company. He had decided to
call her Hedwig, a name he had found in A History of Magic. His school
books were very interesting. He lay on his bed reading late into the
night, Hedwig swooping in and out of the open window as she pleased. It
was lucky that Aunt Petunia didn’t come in to vacuum anymore, because
Hedwig kept bringing back dead mice. Every night before he went to
sleep, Harry ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned
to the wall, counting down to September the first.
On the last day of August he thought he’d better speak to his aunt and
uncle about getting to King’s Cross station the next day, so he went
down to the living room where they were watching a quiz show on
television. He cleared his throat to let them know he was there, and
Dudley screamed and ran from the room.
“Er — Uncle Vernon?”
Uncle Vernon grunted to show he was listening.
“Er — I need to be at King’s Cross tomorrow to — to go to Hogwarts.”
Uncle Vernon grunted again.
“Would it be all right if you gave me a lift?”
Grunt. Harry supposed that meant yes.
“Thank you.”
He was about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke.
“Funny way to get to a wizards’ school, the train. Magic carpets all got
punctures, have they?”
Harry didn’t say anything.
“Where is this school, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” said Harry, realizing this for the first time. He pulled
the ticket Hagrid had given him out of his pocket.
“I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven
o’clock,” he read.
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His aunt and uncle stared.
“Platform what?”
“Nine and three-quarters.”
“Don’t talk rubbish,” said Uncle Vernon. “There is no platform nine and
three-quarters.”
“It’s on my ticket.”
“Barking,” said Uncle Vernon, “howling mad, the lot of them. You’ll see.
You just wait. All right, we’ll take you to King’s Cross. We’re going up
to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn’t bother.”
“Why are you going to London?” Harry asked, trying to keep things
friendly.
“Taking Dudley to the hospital,” growled Uncle Vernon. “Got to have that
ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings.”
Harry woke at five o’clock the next morning and was too excited and
nervous to go back to sleep. He got up and pulled on his jeans because
he didn’t want to walk into the station in his wizard’s robes — he’d
change on the train. He checked his Hogwarts list yet again to make sure
he had everything he needed, saw that Hedwig was shut safely in her
cage, and then paced the room, waiting for the Dursleys to get up. Two
hours later, Harry’s huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the
Dursleys’ car, Aunt Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to
Harry, and they had set off.
They reached King’s Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry’s
trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him. Harry thought
this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the
platforms with a nasty grin on his face.
“Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine — platform ten. Your platform
should be somewhere in the middle, but they don’t seem to have built it
yet, do they?”
He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over
one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and
71
in the middle, nothing at all.
“Have a good term,” said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He
left without another word. Harry turned and saw the Dursleys drive away.
All three of them were laughing. Harry’s mouth went rather dry. What on
earth was he going to do? He was starting to attract a lot of funny
looks, because of Hedwig. He’d have to ask someone.
He stopped a passing guard, but didn’t dare mention platform nine and
three-quarters. The guard had never heard of Hogwarts and when Harry
couldn’t even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to
get annoyed, as though Harry was being stupid on purpose. Getting
desperate, Harry asked for the train that left at eleven o’clock, but
the guard said there wasn’t one. In the end the guard strode away,
muttering about time wasters. Harry was now trying hard not to panic.
According to the large clock over the arrivals board, he had ten minutes
left to get on the train to Hogwarts and he had no idea how to do it; he
was stranded in the middle of a station with a trunk he could hardly
lift, a pocket full of wizard money, and a large owl.
Hagrid must have forgotten to tell him something you had to do, like
tapping the third brick on the left to get into Diagon Alley. He
wondered if he should get out his wand and start tapping the ticket
inspector’s stand between platforms nine and ten.
At that moment a group of people passed just behind him and he caught a
few words of what they were saying.
“– packed with Muggles, of course –”
Harry swung round. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four
boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like
Harry’s in front of him — and they had an owl.
Heart hammering, Harry pushed his cart after them. They stopped and so
did he, just near enough to hear what they were saying.
“Now, what’s the platform number?” said the boys’ mother.
“Nine and three-quarters!” piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was
holding her hand, “Mom, can’t I go… ”
“You’re not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go
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first.”
What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten.
Harry watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it — but just as
the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large
crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last
backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.
“Fred, you next,” the plump woman said.
“I’m not Fred, I’m George,” said the boy. “Honestly, woman, you call
yourself our mother? CarA you tell I’m George?”
“Sorry, George, dear.”
“Only joking, I am Fred,” said the boy, and off he went. His twin called
after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later,
he had gone — but how had he done it?
Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier he was
almost there — and then, quite suddenly, he wasn’t anywhere.
There was nothing else for it.
“Excuse me,” Harry said to the plump woman.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “First time at Hogwarts? Ron’s new, too.”
She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and
gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.
“Yes,” said Harry. “The thing is — the thing is, I don’t know how to
–”
“How to get onto the platform?” she said kindly, and Harry nodded.
“Not to worry,” she said. “All you have to do is walk straight at the
barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don’t stop and don’t be scared
you’ll crash into it, that’s very important. Best do it at a bit of a
run if you’re nervous. Go on, go now before Ron.”
“Er — okay,” said Harry.
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He pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very
solid.
He started to walk toward it. People jostled him on their way to
platforms nine and ten. Harry walked more quickly. He was going to smash
right into that barrier and then he’d be in trouble — leaning forward
on his cart, he broke into a heavy run — the barrier was coming nearer
and nearer — he wouldn’t be able to stop — the cart was out of control
– he was a foot away — he closed his eyes ready for the crash –
It didn’t come… he kept on running… he opened his eyes. A scarlet
steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign
overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven O’clock. Harry looked behind him
and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the
words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it, He had done it.
Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd,
while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls
hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and
the scraping of heavy trunks.
The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging
out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats.
Harry pushed his cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat.
He passed a round-faced boy who was saying, “Gran, I’ve lost my toad
again.”
“Oh, Neville,” he heard the old woman sigh.
A boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.
“Give us a look, Lee, go on.”
The boy lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him
shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.
Harry pressed on through the crowd until he found an empty compartment
near the end of the train. He put Hedwig inside first and then started
to shove and heave his trunk toward the train door. He tried to lift it
up the steps but could hardly raise one end and twice he dropped it
painfully on his foot.
“Want a hand?” It was one of the red-haired twins he’d followed through
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the barrier.
“Yes, please,” Harry panted.
“Oy, Fred! C’mere and help!”
With the twins’ help, Harry’s trunk was at last tucked away in a corner
of the compartment.
“Thanks,” said Harry, pushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.
“What’s that?” said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at Harry’s
lightning scar.
“Blimey,” said the other twin. “Are you
“He is,” said the first twin. “Aren’t you?” he added to Harry.
“What?” said Harry.
“Harry Potter, “chorused the twins.
“Oh, him,” said Harry. “I mean, yes, I am.”
The two boys gawked at him, and Harry felt himself turning red. Then, to
his relief, a voice came floating in through the train’s open door.
“Fred? George? Are you there?”
“Coming, Mom.”
With a last look at Harry, the twins hopped off the train.
Harry sat down next to the window where, half hidden, he could watch the
red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying. Their
mother had just taken out her handkerchief.
“Ron, you’ve got something on your nose.”
The youngest boy tried to jerk out of the way, but she grabbed him and
began rubbing the end of his nose.
“Mom — geroff” He wriggled free.
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“Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?” said one of the
twins.
“Shut up,” said Ron.
“Where’s Percy?” said their mother.
“He’s coming now.”
The oldest boy came striding into sight. He had already changed into his
billowing black Hogwarts robes, and Harry noticed a shiny silver badge
on his chest with the letter P on it.
“Can’t stay long, Mother,” he said. “I’m up front, the prefects have got
two compartments to themselves –”
“Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?” said one of the twins, with an air of
great surprise. “You should have said something, we had no idea.”
“Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it,” said the
other twin. “Once –”
“Or twice –”
“A minute –”
“All summer –”
“Oh, shut up,” said Percy the Prefect.
“How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?” said one of the twins.
“Because he’s a prefect,” said their mother fondly. “All right, dear,
well, have a good term — send me an owl when you get there.”
She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left. Then she turned to the twins.
“Now, you two — this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl
telling me you’ve — you’ve blown up a toilet or –”
“Blown up a toilet? We’ve never blown up a toilet.”
76
“Great idea though, thanks, Mom.”
“It’s not funny. And look after Ron.”
“Don’t worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us.”
“Shut up,” said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already
and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.
“Hey, Mom, guess what? Guess who we just met on the train?”
Harry leaned back quickly so they couldn’t see him looking.
“You know that black-haired boy who was near us in the station? Know who
he is?”
“Who?”
“Harry Potter!”
Harry heard the little girl’s voice.
“Oh, Mom, can I go on the train and see him, Mom, eh please….”
“You’ve already seen him, Ginny, and the poor boy isn’t something you
goggle at in a zoo. Is he really, Fred? How do you know?”
“Asked him. Saw his scar. It’s really there - like lightning.”
“Poor dear - no wonder he was alone, I wondered. He was ever so polite
when he asked how to get onto the platform.”
“Never mind that, do you think he remembers what You-Know-Who looks
like?”
Their mother suddenly became very stern.
“I forbid you to ask him, Fred. No, don’t you dare. As though he needs
reminding of that on his first day at school.”
“All right, keep your hair on.”
A whistle sounded.
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“Hurry up!” their mother said, and the three boys clambered onto the
train. They leaned out of the window for her to kiss them good-bye, and
their younger sister began to cry.
“Don’t, Ginny, we’ll send you loads of owls.”
“We’ll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat.”
“George!”
“Only joking, Mom.”
The train began to move. Harry saw the boys’ mother waving and their
sister, half laughing, half crying, running to keep up with the train
until it gathered too much speed, then she fell back and waved.
Harry watched the girl and her mother disappear as the train rounded the
corner. Houses flashed past the window. Harry felt a great leap of
excitement. He didn’t know what he was going to but it had to be better
than what he was leaving behind.
The door of the compartment slid open and the youngest redheaded boy
came in.
“Anyone sitting there?” he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry.
“Everywhere else is full.”
Harry shook his head and the boy sat down. He glanced at Harry and then
looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn’t looked. Harry saw
he still had a black mark on his nose.
“Hey, Ron.”
The twins were back.
“Listen, we’re going down the middle of the train — Lee Jordan’s got a
giant tarantula down there.”
“Right,” mumbled Ron.
“Harry,” said the other twin, “did we introduce ourselves? Fred and
George Weasley. And this is Ron, our brother. See you later, then.
78
“Bye,” said Harry and Ron. The twins slid the compartment door shut
behind them.
“Are you really Harry Potter?” Ron blurted out.
Harry nodded.
“Oh -well, I thought it might be one of Fred and George’s jokes,” said
Ron. “And have you really got — you know…”
He pointed at Harry’s forehead.
Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar. Ron stared.
“So that’s where You-Know-Who
“Yes,” said Harry, “but I can’t remember it.”
“Nothing?” said Ron eagerly.
“Well — I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else.”
“Wow,” said Ron. He sat and stared at Harry for a few moments, then, as
though he had suddenly realized what he was doing, he looked quickly out
of the window again.
“Are all your family wizards?” asked Harry, who found Ron just as
interesting as Ron found him.
“Er — Yes, I think so,” said Ron. “I think Mom’s got a second cousin
who’s an accountant, but we never talk about him.”
“So you must know loads of magic already.”
The Weasleys were clearly one of those old wizarding families the pale
boy in Diagon Alley had talked about.
“I heard you went to live with Muggles,” said Ron. “What are they like?”
“Horrible -well, not all of them. My aunt and uncle and cousin are,
though. Wish I’d had three wizard brothers.”
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“Five,” said Ron. For some reason, he was looking gloomy. “I’m the sixth
in our family to go to Hogwarts. You could say I’ve got a lot to live up
to. Bill and Charlie have already left — Bill was head boy and Charlie
was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy’s a prefect. Fred and George mess
around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks
they’re really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others,
but if I do, it’s no big deal, because they did it first. You never get
anything new, either, with five brothers. I’ve got Bill’s old robes,
Charlie’s old wand, and Percy’s old rat.”
Ron reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was
asleep.
“His name’s Scabbers and he’s useless, he hardly ever wakes up. Percy
got an owl from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn’t aff
– I mean, I got Scabbers instead.”
Ron’s ears went pink. He seemed to think he’d said too much, because he
went back to staring out of the window.
Harry didn’t think there was anything wrong with not being able to
afford an owl. After all, he’d never had any money in his life until a
month ago, and he told Ron so, all about having to wear Dudley’s old
clothes and never getting proper birthday presents. This seemed to cheer
Ron up.
“… and until Hagrid told me, I didn’t know anything about be ing a
wizard or about my parents or Voldemort”
Ron gasped.
“What?” said Harry.
“You said You-Know-Who’s name!” said Ron, sounding both shocked and
impressed. “I’d have thought you, of all people –”
“I’m not trying to be brave or anything, saying the name,” said Harry, I
just never knew you shouldn’t. See what I mean? I’ve got loads to
learn…. I bet,” he added, voicing for the first time something that
had been worrying him a lot lately, “I bet I’m the worst in the class.”
“You won’t be. There’s loads of people who come from Muggle families and
they learn quick enough.”
80
While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of London.
Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep. They were
quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.
Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the
corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said,
“Anything off the cart, dears?”
Harry, who hadn’t had any breakfast, leapt to his feet, but Ron’s ears
went pink again and he muttered that he’d brought sandwiches. Harry went
out into the corridor.
He had never had any money for candy with the Dursleys, and now that he
had pockets rattling with gold and silver he was ready to buy as many
Mars Bars as he could carry — but the woman didn’t have Mars Bars. What
she did have were Bettie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, Drooble’s Best
Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs. Pumpkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Licorice
Wands, and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his
life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid
the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.
Ron stared as Harry brought it all back in to the compartment and tipped
it onto an empty seat.
“Hungry, are you?”
“Starving,” said Harry, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pasty.
Ron had taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it. There were four
sandwiches inside. He pulled one of them apart and said, “She always
forgets I don’t like corned beef.”
“Swap you for one of these,” said Harry, holding up a pasty. “Go on –”
“You don’t want this, it’s all dry,” said Ron. “She hasn’t got much
time,” he added quickly, “you know, with five of us.”
“Go on, have a pasty,” said Harry, who had never had anything to share
before or, indeed, anyone to share it with. It was a nice feeling,
sitting there with Ron, eating their way through all Harry’s pasties,
cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten).
81
“What are these?” Harry asked Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs.
“They’re not really frogs, are they?” He was starting to feel that
nothing would surprise him.
“No,” said Ron. “But see what the card is. I’m missing Agrippa.”
“What?”
“Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know — Chocolate Frogs have cards, inside
them, you know, to collect — famous witches and wizards. I’ve got about
five hundred, but I haven’t got Agrippa or Ptolemy.”
Harry unwrapped his Chocolate Frog and picked up the card. It showed a
man’s face. He wore half- moon glasses, had a long, crooked nose, and
flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache. Underneath the picture was the
name Albus Dumbledore.
“So this is Dumbledore!” said Harry.
“Don’t tell me you’d never heard of Dumbledore!” said Ron. “Can I have a
frog? I might get Agrippa — thanks
Harry turned over his card and read:
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS
Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is
particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in
1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, and his
work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore
enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.
Harry turned the card back over and saw, to his astonishment, that
Dumbledore’s face had disappeared.
“He’s gone!”
“Well, you can’t expect him to hang around all day,” said Ron. “He’ll be
back. No, I’ve got Morgana again and I’ve got about six of her… do you
want it? You can start collecting.”
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Ron’s eyes strayed to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be
unwrapped.
“Help yourself,” said Harry. “But in, you know, the Muggle world, people
just stay put in photos.”
“Do they? What, they don’t move at all?” Ron sounded amazed. “weird!”
Harry stared as Dumbledore sidled back into the picture on his card and
gave him a small smile. Ron was more interested in eating the frogs than
looking at the Famous Witches and Wizards cards, but Harry couldn’t keep
his eyes off them. Soon he had not only Dumbledore and Morgana, but
Hengist of Woodcroft, Alberic Grunnion, Circe, Paracelsus, and Merlin.
He finally tore his eyes away from the druidess Cliodna, who was
scratching her nose, to open a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.
“You want to be careful with those,” Ron warned Harry. “When they say
every flavor, they mean every flavor — you know, you get all the
ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and mar- malade, but then
you can get spinach and liver and tripe. George reckons he had a boogerflavored
one once.”
Ron picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a
corner.
“Bleaaargh — see? Sprouts.”
They had a good time eating the Every Flavor Beans. Harry got toast,
coconut, baked bean, strawberry, curry, grass, coffee, sardine, and was
even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one Ron wouldn’t
touch, which turned out to be pepper.
The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat
fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green
hills.
There was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced
boy Harry had passed on platform nine and threequarters came in. He
looked tearful.
“Sorry,” he said, “but have you seen a toad at all?”
When they shook their heads, he wailed, “I’ve lost him! He keeps getting
83
away from me!”
“He’ll turn up,” said Harry.
“Yes,” said the boy miserably. “Well, if you see him…”
He left.
“Don’t know why he’s so bothered,” said Ron. “If I’d brought a toad I’d
lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Scabbers, so I can’t
talk.”
The rat was still snoozing on Ron’s lap.
“He might have died and you wouldn’t know the difference,” said Ron in
disgust. “I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more
interesting, but the spell didn’t work. I’ll show you, look…”
He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking
wand. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the
end.
“Unicorn hair’s nearly poking out. Anyway
He had just raised his ‘wand when the compartment door slid open again.
The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was
already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.
“Has anyone seen a toad? Neville’s lost one,” she said. She had a bossy
sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.
“We’ve already told him we haven’t seen it,” said Ron, but the girl
wasn’t listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.
“Oh, are you doing magic? Let’s see it, then.”
She sat down. Ron looked taken aback.
“Er — all right.”
He cleared his throat.
“Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.”
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He waved his wand, but nothing happened. Scabbers stayed gray and fast
asleep.
“Are you sure that’s a real spell?” said the girl. “Well, it’s not very
good, is it? I’ve tried a few simple spells just for practice and it’s
all worked for me. Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such
a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I
mean, it’s the very best school of witchcraft there is, I’ve heard –
I’ve learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it
will be enough — I’m Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you.
She said all this very fast.
Harry looked at Ron, and was relieved to see by his stunned face that he
hadn’t learned all the course books by heart either.
“I’m Ron Weasley,” Ron muttered.
“Harry Potter,” said Harry.
“Are you really?” said Hermione. “I know all about you, of course — I
got a few extra books. for background reading, and you’re in Modern
Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great
Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century.
“Am I?” said Harry, feeling dazed.
“Goodness, didn’t you know, I’d have found out everything I could if it
was me,” said Hermione. “Do either of you know what house you’ll be in?
I’ve been asking around, and I hope I’m in Gryffindor, it sounds by far
the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw
wouldn’t be too bad…. Anyway, we’d better go and look for Neville’s
toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we’ll be there
soon.”
And she left, taking the toadless boy with her.
“Whatever house I’m in, I hope she’s not in it,” said Ron. He threw his
wand back into his trunk. “Stupid spell — George gave it to me, bet he
knew it was a dud.”
“What house are your brothers in?” asked Harry.
85
“Gryffindor,” said Ron. Gloom seemed to be settling on him again. “Mom
and Dad were in it, too. I don’t know what they’ll say if I’m not. I
don’t suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in
Slytherin.”
“That’s the house Vol-, I mean, You-Know-Who was in?”
“Yeah,” said Ron. He flopped back into his seat, looking depressed.
“You know, I think the ends of Scabbers’ whiskers are a bit lighter,”
said Harry, trying to take Ron’s mind off houses. “So what do your
oldest brothers do now that they’ve left, anyway?”
Harry was wondering what a wizard did once he’d finished school.
“Charlie’s in Romania studying dragons, and Bill’s in Africa doing
something for Gringotts,” said Ron. “Did you hear about
Gringotts? It’s been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don’t suppose you
get that with the Muggles — someone tried to rob a high security
vault.”
Harry stared.
“Really? What happened to them?”
“Nothing, that’s why it’s such big news. They haven’t been caught. My
dad says it must’ve been a powerful Dark wizard to get round Gringotts,
but they don’t think they took anything, that’s what’s odd. ‘Course,
everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case
You-Know-Who’s behind it.”
Harry turned this news over in his mind. He was starting to get a
prickle of fear every time You- Know-Who was mentioned. He supposed this
was all part of entering the magical world, but it had been a lot more
comfortable saying “Voldemort” without worrying.
“What’s your Quidditch team?” Ron asked.
“Er — I don’t know any,” Harry confessed.
“What!” Ron looked dumbfounded. “Oh, you wait, it’s the best game in the
86
world –” And he was off, explaining all about the four balls and the
positions of the seven players, describing famous games he’d been to
with his brothers and the broomstick he’d like to get if he had the
money. He was just taking Harry through the finer points of the game
when the compartment door slid open yet again, but it wasn’t Neville the
toadless boy, or Hermione Granger this time.
Three boys entered, and Harry recognized the middle one at once: it was
the pale boy from Madam Malkin’s robe shop. He was looking at Harry with
a lot more interest than he’d shown back in Diagon Alley.
“Is it true?” he said. “They’re saying all down the train that Harry
Potter’s in this compartment. So it’s you, is it?”
“Yes,” said Harry. He was looking at the other boys. Both of them were
thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale
boy, they looked like bodyguards.
“Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle,” said the pale boy carelessly,
noticing where Harry was looking. “And my name’s Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.”
Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigget. Draco
Malfoy looked at him.
“Think my name’s funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father
told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than
they can afford.”
He turned back to Harry. “You’ll soon find out some wizarding families
are much better than others, Potter. You don’t want to go making friends
with the wrong sort. I can help you there.”
He held out his hand to shake Harry’s, but Harry didn’t take it.
“I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks,” he said
coolly.
Draco Malfoy didn’t go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale
cheeks.
“I’d be careful if I were you, Potter,” he said slowly. “Unless you’re a
bit politer you’ll go the same way as your parents. They didn’t know
what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the
87
Weasleys and that Hagrid, and it’ll rub off on you.”
Both Harry and Ron stood up.
“Say that again,” Ron said, his face as red as his hair.
“Oh, you’re going to fight us, are you?” Malfoy sneered.
“Unless you get out now,” said Harry, more bravely than he felt, because
Crabbe and Goyle were a lot bigger than him or Ron.
“But we don’t feet like leaving, do we, boys? We’ve eaten all our food
and you still seem to have some.”
Goyle reached toward the Chocolate Frogs next to Ron - Ron leapt
forward, but before he’d so much as touched Goyle, Goyle let out a
horrible yell.
Scabbers the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk
deep into Goyle’s knuckle - Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung
Scabbers round and round, howling, and when Scabbets finally flew off
and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once. Perhaps they
thought there were more rats lurking among the sweets, or perhaps they’d
heard footsteps, because a second later, Hermione Granger had come in.
“What has been going on?” she said, looking at the sweets all over the
floor and Ron picking up Scabbers by his tail.
I think he’s been knocked out,” Ron said to Harry. He looked closer at
Scabbers. “No — I don’t believe it — he’s gone back to sleep-”
And so he had.
“You’ve met Malfoy before?”
Harry explained about their meeting in Diagon Alley.
“I’ve heard of his family,” said Ron darkly. “They were some of the
first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said
they’d been bewitched. My dad doesn’t believe it. He says Malfoy’s
father didn’t need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side.” He turned to
Hermione. “Can we help you with something?”
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“You’d better hurry up and put your robes on, I’ve just been up to the
front to ask the conductor, and he says we’re nearly there. You haven’t
been fighting, have you? You’ll be in trouble before we even get there!”
“Scabbers has been fighting, not us,” said Ron, scowling at her. “Would
you mind leaving while we change?”
“All right — I only came in here because people outside are behaving
very childishly, racing up and down the corridors,” said Hermione in a
sniffy voice. “And you’ve got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you
know?”
Ron glared at her as she left. Harry peered out of the window. It was
getting dark. He could see mountains and forests under a deep purple
sky. The train did seem to be slowing down.
He and Ron took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes.
Ron’s were a bit short for him, you could see his sneakers underneath
them.
A voice echoed through the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five
minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken
to the school separately.”
Harry’s stomach lurched with nerves and Ron, he saw, looked pale under
his freckles. They crammed their pockets with the last of the sweets and
joined the crowd thronging the corridor.
The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way
toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in
the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the
students, and Harry heard a familiar voice: “Firs’ years! Firs’ years
over here! All right there, Harry?”
Hagrid’s big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads.
“C’mon, follow me — any more firs’ years? Mind yer step, now! Firs’
years follow me!”
Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a
steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry
thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Neville, the
boy who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice.
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“Ye’ all get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” Hagrid called over
his shoulder, “jus’ round this bend here.”
There was a loud “Oooooh!”
The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black take.
Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in
the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.
“No more’n four to a boat!” Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little
boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry and Ron were followed
into their boat by Neville and Hermione. “Everyone in?” shouted Hagrid,
who had a boat to himself. “Right then — FORWARD!”
And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the
lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at
the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer
and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.
“Heads down!” yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they
all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain
of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried
along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the
castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they
clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.
“Oy, you there! Is this your toad?” said Hagrid, who was checking the
boats as people climbed out of them.
“Trevor!” cried Neville blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they
clambered up a passageway in the rock after Hagrid’s lamp, coming out at
last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.
They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, Oak
front door.
“Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?”
Hagrid raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle
door.
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