THE WORST BIRTHDAY
“All right,” said Harry, “all right . . .”
Uncle Vernon sat back down, breathing like a winded rhinoceros
and watching Harry closely out of the corners of his small, sharp
eyes.
Ever since Harry had come home for the summer holidays, Un-
cle Vernon had been treating him like a bomb that might go off at
any moment, because Harry Potter wasn’t a normal boy. As a mat-
ter of fact, he was as not normal as it is possible to be.
Harry Potter was a wizard — a wizard fresh from his first year at
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And if the Dursleys
were unhappy to have him back for the holidays, it was nothing to
how Harry felt.
He missed Hogwarts so much it was like having a constant
stomachache. He missed the castle, with its secret passageways and
ghosts, his classes (though perhaps not Snape, the Potions master),
the mail arriving by owl, eating banquets in the Great Hall, sleep-
ing in his four-poster bed in the tower dormitory, visiting the
gamekeeper, Hagrid, in his cabin next to the Forbidden Forest in
the grounds, and, especially, Quidditch, the most popular sport in
the wizarding world (six tall goal posts, four flying balls, and four-
teen players on broomsticks).
All Harry’s spellbooks, his wand, robes, cauldron, and top-of-
the-line Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick had been locked in a
cupboard under the stairs by Uncle Vernon the instant Harry had
come home. What did the Dursleys care if Harry lost his place on
the House Quidditch team because he hadn’t practiced all sum-
mer? What was it to the Dursleys if Harry went back to school
without any of his homework done? The Dursleys were what wiz-
ards called Muggles (not a drop of magical blood in their veins),
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