第 3 页

hall carpet, looking around for Dobby. From the dining room he

heard Uncle Vernon saying, ". . . tell Petunia that very funny story

about those American plumbers, Mr. Mason. She's been dying to

hear. . . "

Harry ran up the hall into the kitchen and felt his stomach disappear.

Aunt Petunia's masterpiece of a pudding, the mountain of cream and

sugared violets, was floating up near the ceiling. On top of a

cupboard in the corner crouched Dobby.

"No," croaked Harry. "Please ... they'll kill me ......

"Harry Potter must say he's not going back to school -"

"Dobby ... please ...

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"Say it, sir -"

"I can't -"

Dobby gave him a tragic look.

"Then Dobby must do it, sir, for Harry Potter's own good."

The pudding fell to the floor with a heart-stopping crash. Cream

splattered the windows and walls as the dish shattered. With a crack

like a whip, Dobby vanished.

There were screams from the dining room and Uncle Vernon

burst into the kitchen to find Harry, rigid with shock, covered from head

to foot in Aunt Petunias pudding.

At first, it looked as though Uncle Vernon would manage to gloss the

whole thing over. ("Just our nephew - very disturbed meeting strangers

upsets him, so we kept him upstairs) He shooed the shocked Masons

back into the dining room, promised Harry he would flay him to within

an inch of his life when the Masons had left, and handed him a mop.

Aunt Petunia dug some ice cream out of the freezer and Harry, still

shaking, started scrubbing the kitchen clean.

Uncle Vernon might still have been able to make his deal - if it hadn't

been for the owl.

Aunt Petunia was just passing around a box of after-dinner mints when

a huge barn owl swooped through the dining room window, dropped a

letter on Mrs. Mason's head, and swooped out again. Mrs. Mason

screamed like a banshee and ran from the house shouting about

lunatics. Mr. Mason stayed just long enough to tell the Dursleys that his

wife was mortally afraid of birds of all shapes and sizes, and to ask

whether this was their idea of a joke.

Harry stood in the kitchen, clutching the mop for support, as Uncle

Vernon advanced on him, a demonic glint in his tiny eyes.

"Read it!" he hissed evilly, brandishing the letter the owl had delivered.

"Go on - read it!"

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Harry took it. It did not contain birthday greetings.

Dear Mr. Potter,

We have received intelligence that a Hover Charm was used at your

place of residence this evening at twelve minutes past nine.

As you know, underage wizards are not permitted to perform spells

outside school, and further spellwork on your part may lead to

expulsion from said school (Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of

Underage Sorcery, 1875, Paragraph C).

We would also ask you to remember that any magical activity that

risks notice by members of the non-magical community (Muggles) is

a serious offense under section 13 of the International Confederation

of Warlocks' Statute of Secrecy.

Enjoy your holidays! Yours sincerely,

Mafalda Hopkirk

IMPROPER USE OF MAGIC OFFICE

Ministry of Magic

Harry looked up from the letter and gulped.

"You didn't tell us you weren't allowed to use magic outside school,"

said Uncle Vernon, a mad gleam dancing in his eyes. "For got to

mention it .... Slipped your mind, I daresay .....

He was bearing down on Harry like a great bulldog, all his teeth

bared. "Well, I've got news for you, boy . ... I'm locking you up ....

You're never going back to that school ... never ... and if you try and

magic yourself out - they'll expel you!"

And laughing like a maniac, he dragged Harry back upstairs.

Uncle Vernon was as bad as his word. The following morning,

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he paid a man to fit bars on Harry's window. He himself fitted a cat-

flap in the bedroom door, so that small amounts of food could be

pushed inside three times a day. They let Harry out to use the

bathroom morning and evening. Otherwise, he was locked in his room

around the clock.

Three days later, the Dursleys were showing no sign of relenting, and

Harry couldn't see any way out of his situation. He lay on his bed

watching the sun sinking behind the bars on the window and wondered

miserably what was going to happen to him.

What was the good of magicking himself out of his room if Hogwarts

would expel him for doing it? Yet life at Privet Drive had reached an

all-time low. Now that the Dursleys knew they weren't going to wake

up as fruit bats, he had lost his only weapon. Dobby might have saved

Harry from horrible happenings at Hogwarts, but the way things were

going, he'd probably starve to death anyway.

The cat-flap rattled and Aunt Petunias hand appeared, pushing a bowl

of canned soup into the room. Harry, whose insides were aching with

hunger, jumped off his bed and seized it. The soup was stone-cold, but

he drank half of it in one gulp. Then he crossed the room to Hedwig's

cage and tipped the soggy vegetables at the bottom of the bowl into

her empty food tray. She ruffled her feathers and gave him a look of

deep disgust.

"It's no good turning your beak up at it - that's all we've got," said

Harry grimly.

He put the empty bowl back on the floor next to the cat-flap and lay

back down on the bed, somehow even hungrier than he had been

before the soup.

Supposing he was still alive in another four weeks, what would happen

if he didn't turn up at Hogwarts? Would someone be sent to see why

he hadn't come back? Would they be able to make the Dursleys let

him go?

The room was growing dark. Exhausted, stomach rumbling, mind

spinning over the same unanswerable questions, Harry fell into an

uneasy sleep.

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He dreamed that he was on show in a zoo, with a card reading

UNDERAGE WIZARD attached to his cage. People goggled through the bars

at him as he lay, starving and weak, on a bed of straw. He saw

Dobby's face in the crowd and shouted out, asking for help, but Dobby

called, "Harry Potter is safe there, sir!" and vanished. Then the

Dursleys appeared and Dudley rattled the bars of the cage, laughing at

him.

"Stop it," Harry muttered as the rattling pounded in his sore head.

"Leave me alone ... cut it out ... I'm trying to sleep . . . ."

He opened his eyes. Moonlight was shining through the bars on the

window. And someone was goggling through the bars at him: a freckle-

faced, red-haired, long-nosed someone.

Ron Weasley was outside Harry's window.

20

H-H A P T E RR T 11-H RR E E

THE BURROW

Ron.l" breathed Harry, creeping to the window and pushing it up so

they could talk through the bars. "Ron, how did you - What the -?"

Harry's mouth fell open as the full impact of what he was seeing hit

him. Ron was leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car,

which was parked in midair Grinning at Harry from the front seats

were Fred and George, Ron's elder twin brothers.

"All right, Harry?" asked George.

"What's been going on?" said Ron. "Why haven't you been answering

my letters? I've asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad

came home and said you'd got an official warning for using magic in

front of Muggles -"

"It wasn't me - and how did he know?"

"He works for the Ministry," said Ron. "You know we're not supposed

to do spells outside school -"

"You should talk," said Harry, staring at the floating car.

"Oh, this doesn't count," said Ron. "We're only borrowing this. It's

Dad's, we didn't enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles

you live with -"

"I told you, I didn't - but it'll take too long to explain now look, can you

tell them at Hogwarts that the Dursleys have locked me up and won't

let me come back, and obviously I can't magic myself out, because the

Ministry'Il think that's the second spell I've done in three days, so -"

"Stop gibbering," said Ron. "We've come to take you home with us."

"But you can't magic me out either -"

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"We don't need to," said Ron, jerking his head toward the front seat

and grinning. "You forget who I've got with me."

"Tie that around the bars," said Fred, throwing the end of a rope to

Harry.

"If the Dursleys wake up, I'm dead," said Harry as he tied the rope

tightly around a bar and Fred revved up the car.

"Don't worry," said Fred, "and stand back."

Harry moved back into the shadows next to Hedwig, who seemed to

have realized how important this was and kept still and silent. The car

revved louder and louder and suddenly, with a crunching noise, the

bars were pulled clean out of the window as Fred drove straight up in

the air. Harry ran back to the window to see the bars dangling a few

feet above the ground. Panting, Ron hoisted them up into the car.

Harry listened anxiously, but there was no sound from the Dursleys'

bedroom.

When the bars were safely in the back seat with Ron, Fred reversed

as close as possible to Harry's window.

"Get in," Ron said.

"But all my Hogwarts stuff - my wand - my broomstick -"

"Where is it?"

"Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and I can't get out of this

room -"

"No problem," said George from the front passenger seat. "Out of

the way, Harry."

Fred and George climbed catlike through the window into Harry's

room. You had to hand it to them, thought Harry, as George took an

ordinary hairpin from his pocket and started to pick the lock.

"A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of

Muggle trick," said Fred, "but we feel they're skills worth learning,

even if they are a bit slow."

22

There was a small click and the door swung open.

"So - we'll get your trunk - you grab anything you need from your

room and hand it out to Ron," whispered George.

"Watch out for the bottom stair - it creaks," Harry whispered back

as the twins disappeared onto the dark landing.

Harry dashed around his room, collecting his things and passing them

out of the window to Ron. Then he went to help Fred and George

heave his trunk up the stairs. Harry heard Uncle Vernon cough.

At last, panting, they reached the landing, then carried the trunk

through Harry's room to the open window. Fred climbed back into

the car to pull with Ron, and Harry and George pushed from the

bedroom side. Inch by inch, the trunk slid through the window.

Uncle Vernon coughed again.

"A bit more," panted Fred, who was pulling from inside the car.

"One good push -"

Harry and George threw their shoulders against the trunk and it slid

out of the window into the back seat of the car.

"Okay, let's go," George whispered.

But as Harry climbed onto the windowsill there came a sudden loud

screech from behind him, followed immediately by the thunder of

Uncle Vernon's voice.

"THAT RUDDY OWL!"

"I've forgotten Hedwig!"

Harry tore back across the room as the landing light clicked on - he

snatched up Hedwig's cage, dashed to the window, and passed it

out to Ron. He was scrambling back onto the chest of drawers when

Uncle Vernon hammered on the unlocked door and it crashed open.

For a split second, Uncle Vernon stood framed in the doorway; then

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he let out a bellow like an angry bull and dived at Harry, grabbing

him by the ankle.

Ron, Fred, and George seized Harry's arms and pulled as hard as

they could.

"Petunia!" roared Uncle Vernon. "He's getting away! HE'S

GETTING AWAY!"

But the Weasleys gave a gigantic tug and Harry's leg slid out of

Uncle Vernon's grasp - Harry was in the car - he'd slammed the

door shut

"Put your foot down, Fred!" yelled Ron, and the car shot suddenly

toward the moon.

Harry couldn't believe it - he was free. He rolled down the

window, the night air whipping his hair, and looked back at the

shrinking rooftops of Privet Drive. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and

Dudley were all hanging, dumbstruck, out of Harry's window.

"See you next summer!" Harry yelled.

The Weasleys roared with laughter and Harry settled back in his seat,

grinning from ear to ear.

"Let Hedwig out," he told Ron. "She can fly behind us. She hasn't had

a chance to stretch her wings for ages."

George handed the hairpin to Ron and, a moment later, Hedwig soared

joyfully out of the window to glide alongside them like a ghost.

"So - what's the story, Harry?" said Ron impatiently. "What's been

happening?"

Harry told them all about Dobby, the warning he'd given Harry and

the fiasco of the violet pudding. There was a long, shocked silence

when he had finished.

"Very fishy," said Fred finally.

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"Definitely dodgy" agreed George. "So he wouldn't even tell you who's

supposed to be plotting all this stuff?"

"I don't think he could," said Harry. "I told you, every time he got close

to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the wall."

He saw Fred and George look at each other.

"What, you think he was lying to me?" said Harry.

"Well," said Fred, "put it this way - house-elves have got powerful