CHAPTER ONE
with the Potters? If it did . . . if it got out that they were related to
a pair of — well, he didn’t think he could bear it.
The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but
Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last,
comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters
were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and
Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia
thought about them and their kind. . . . He couldn’t see how he
and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going
on — he yawned and turned over — it couldn’t affect them. . . .
How very wrong he was.
Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but
the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was
sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far cor-
ner of Privet Drive. It didn’t so much as quiver when a car door