Harry Potter 1 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

HP 1 - Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone

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CHAPTER THREE
LETTERS FROM NO ONE
T  he  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,  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

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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.”
“Don’t 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,  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

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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.
“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.

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“I want to read that letter,” he said loudly.
“I 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.
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.”
“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

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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  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.

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“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 —
“AAAAARRRGH!”
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. 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 didn’t 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

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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 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.

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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
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. Dudley 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

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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.
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  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

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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.

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