The next morning, Harry heard the click of the postbox and the rustling of letters on the doormat. He went to check on them. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge, who was on holiday 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 pounding like a giant rubber band. No one, ever, in his entire life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so clearly 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 seal. Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal with a coat of arms: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a larger letter 'H'.
Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard before slowly beginning to open the yellow envelope.
Uncle Vernon opened the note, snorted in disgust, and turned the postcard over. "Marge's sick," he informed Aunt Petunia. "I ate a funny buccino."
"Dad! Look!" Dudley suddenly shouted. Harry was about to unfold his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when Dudley roughly snatched it from his hand and passed it to Uncle Vernon's house. "Harry's got a letter!"
"Give it back, it's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.
"Yours? Who would write to you?" Uncle Vernon scoffed, shaking the letter with one hand and looking at it.
Uncle Vernon's face went from red to green faster than a traffic light. Aunt Petunia read the first line and for a moment looked like she might faint. Dudley, Uncle Vernon, and Aunt Petunia all turned to Harry, who was completely bewildered.
----
On Friday, no fewer than twelve letters arrived for Harry. Since they couldn't get through the letterbox because Uncle Vernon had bricked it up, they were pushed under the door, placed along the sides, and some were even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.
Uncle Vernon stayed home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and plugged the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could get out. He hummed "Tiptoe through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at the slightest noise.
On Saturday, things started to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters for Harry arrived at the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that his very confused milkman had delivered to Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious phone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.
On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.
"Good day, Sunday. In my opinion, the best day of the week." Uncle Vernon spoke with a smug smile. "Why, Dudley?"
Dudley shrugged as Harry handed out cookies to the family.
"Because there's no mail on Sundays?" Harry replied confidently, handing Uncle Vernon a biscuit.
"You're right, Harry! There's no publication on Sundays. Ha!" Uncle Vernon cheered. "No bloody letters today! No, sir. Not a single bloody letter. Not one! No, sir, not one bloody, miserable one..."
Something whizzed down the kitchen chimney as he was talking and flew straight at his face. The next moment, thirty or forty letters shot out of the chimney like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry laughed, stood on the coffee table, and grabbed a letter.
"Give me that!" Uncle Vernon ordered as Harry leaped onto the sofa and headed for the stairs. "Give me that letter!"
Harry reached his door where Uncle Vernon grabbed him by the waist as the letters continued to fly all over the house.
"Get down!" Harry shouted. Aunt Petunia and Dudley came running out with their arms over their faces and stopped in the corridor where they saw Harry trying to escape from Uncle Vernon. "They're my letters! Let me go!"
"That's it! We're off!" Uncle Vernon shouted over the cards. "Far away, where they can't find us!"
----
They ended up staying in the most miserable two-story shack imaginable, perched atop a rock surrounded by water. The interior was awful; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There was only one bed.
As night fell, the storm raged around them. Spray from the high waves splashed against the walls of the cabin, and a fierce wind rattled the grimy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few musty blankets in a cupboard and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went to the bulging bed upstairs, and Harry stayed behind to find the softest floor he could and curl up under the thinnest, most tattered blanket.
The storm grew increasingly fierce as the night wore on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach growling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned out by the low rumble of thunder that began near midnight.
Harry began to draw a birthday cake on the dirt floor. He turned to Dudley's watch, which hung over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, and it chimed.
"Make a wish, Harry." He told himself before pretending to blow out the candles.
Eye.
The whole cottage shook. Harry sat up straight and hid around the fireplace as Dudley woke up with a start. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon came downstairs, lighting a lamp while Uncle Vernon held a rifle in his hands.
Boom. They called again.
"Who's there?" shouted Uncle Vernon.
Crush.
The door was hit so hard that it came off its hinges and crashed to the floor with a deafening bang.
A giant man stood in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by long, shaggy hair and a wild, tangled beard, but his eyes could be seen, gleaming like black beetles beneath all the hair.
The giant made his way to the cabin, pausing so that his head touched the roof.
"I'm sorry," she said before bending down, picking up the door, and easily placing it back in its frame. She turned to look at them all.
"I demand you leave immediately. You're trespassing and breaking in," Uncle Vernon said.
"Dry yourself, Dursley, you big prune," said the giant. He grabbed the rifle barrel and bent it upwards. A shot rang out, and there was a hole in the ceiling. Then he walked over to the sofa where Dudley was sitting, frozen with fear. "I haven't seen you since you were a baby, Harry. You're a bit further along than I expected. Particularly in the middle."
"I'm not Harry." Dudley stammered in fear.
Harry stepped out of the fireplace and looked at the giant. "I am."
"Well, of course you are. I've got something for you. I'm afraid I sat on it, but I imagine it'll taste good all the same. I baked it myself, words and all," said the giant. From an inside pocket of his black coat, he took out a slightly crushed box and handed it to Harry.
Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with 'Happy Birthday Harry' written on it in green icing.
"Thank you," Harry said to the giant.
"It's not every day your youngster turns eleven, is it?" The giant smiled as he sat down on the sofa, took out a pink umbrella, and leaned over the fireplace. Shots of small flames flew from the umbrella and into the chimney.
It filled the entire damp cabin with a flickering light, and Harry felt the heat upon him as if he had sunk into a hot bath. Harry's eyes widened in shock.
"Excuse me, but who are you?" Harry asked as he placed the cake at the other end of the sofa.
"Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." He replied, "Of course, you know about Hogwarts."
"Sorry, no," Harry said.
Hagrid looked surprised. "No? Blimey Harry, didn't you ever wonder where your mum and dad learned everything?"
"What did you learn?" Harry asked.
"You're a wizard, Harry," Hagrid told him.
There was silence inside the cabin. Only the sea and the whistling of the wind could be heard.
Harry's eyes widened. "Am I a what?"
"A wizard," Hagrid said with a grin. "And a pretty good one, I'd wager, once you've got a bit of practice."
"No, you've made a mistake. I mean... I can't be a w-wizard. I mean, I'm just Harry. Just Harry." Harry said.
"Well, Harry, did you ever make anything happen? Anything you couldn't explain when you were angry or scared?" Hagrid wondered. And when Harry frowned, remembering the zoo, Hagrid got up from the sofa and handed Harry a letter.
Harry finally reached out to take the yellowed envelope. He pulled out the letter and read: "Dear Mr. Potter, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"He's not going!" Uncle Vernon exclaimed as he ran to Harry's side. "We swore that when he took him in we'd put an end to all this nonsense."
"Did you know?" Harry asked. "You knew all along and never told me?"
"Of course we knew!" Aunt Petunia cried. "How could we not? My perfect sister, just being who she was. My mother and father were so proud the day she got her letter. 'We have a witch in the family. Isn't that wonderful?' I was the only one who saw her for what she was. A freak! Then she met that Potter, and then she had you... and she knew you'd be the same. Just as strange, just as abnormal. And then it all blew up and we landed with you."
"Exploited? You told me my parents died in a car accident," Harry said.
"A car crash?" roared Hagrid. "Did a car crash kill Lily and James Potter?"
"We had to say something," Aunt Petunia said as Dudley grabbed Harry's cake and carried it to the corner of the room.
"It's an outrage! An outrage!" Hagrid shouted.
"He won't go," said Uncle Vernon.
Hagrid grunted. "I suppose a great Muggle like yourself will stop him."
"Muggle?" asked Harry, intrigued.
"Non-magical people," Hagrid replied. "This boy has had his name since birth. He's going to the best school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. And he'll be under the best headmaster Hogwarts has ever seen, Albus Dumbledore."
"I won't pay some crazy old fool to teach me magic tricks!" shouted Uncle Vernon.
Hagrid grabbed his umbrella and held it up to Uncle Vernon. "Never insult Albus Dumbledore... in front of me."
He lowered the umbrella in the air to point at Dudley: there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a high-pitched 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 out of the hole in his trousers.
Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley towards the stairs, he shot one last terrified look at Hagrid before running up the stairs.
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone at Hogwarts about that. Strictly speaking, I'm not allowed to do magic," Hagrid told Harry.
Harry nodded. "Okay."
"We're running a bit late. You'd better go," said Hagrid, checking his watch before walking over to the door and simply pulling it off its hinges. "Unless you'd rather stay, of course."
And with that, Harry made his decision and followed Hagrid.