Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets By J. K. Rowling chapter one the Worst Birthday

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. 

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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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