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. “Forgot 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, 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.
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.
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