The Magical Letter
Harry Potter was glad that summer holidays had finally arrived. Not only had it arrived, but it signified the end of primary school. For the first time in his life, Harry won’t be with his cousin, Dudley! Dudley had a place at his father’s, Uncle Vernon’s, old school. Fortunately, Smeltings required either the parents spending a lot of money on their child, or the child being smart enough to gain one of their rare scholarships. Harry wasn’t near smart enough for that, and the Dursley’s didn’t care enough about him to spend what they had on him.
Instead, Harry was going to Stonewall High and, despite it’s not-so-great reputation, he had been looking forward to it… until he woke up one morning and entered the kitchen to a horrible smell. Aunt Petunia was poking at a metal tub in the sink, which seemed to be the source of the stink. Harry went to have a look. It appeared to be full of rags soaking in dirty grey water.
“What’s this?” he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips and eyes narrowed at his question. The first rule of living quietly with the Dursleys – Don’t Ask Questions.
She deigned to answer anyway, “Your new school uniform.”
“Oh,” he looked into the bowl, “I didn’t realise it had to be so wet.”
“Don’t be stupid! I’m dyeing some of Dudley’s old things grey for you. It’ll look just like everyone else’s when I’ve finished.”
He seriously doubted that, but arguing will do nothing except earn him some time locked in his cupboard. There went his hope for a fresh start at Stonewall. It was a futile hope anyway, Harry silently sighed as he sat at the table. Honestly, he doesn’t remember ever wearing anything other than Dudley’s old things, which were about four sizes too big for him, and he wasn’t sure if he’d even be comfortable in something that fitted. He’d been looking forwards to having the chance to find out, though.
The day before, Aunt Petunia had taken Dudley to London to buy his brand-new uniform (leaving Harry locked in his cupboard), and Dudley had modelled it for his family that evening. The Smeltings uniform included maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, flat straw hats, and knobbly sticks, that they apparently used (and Dudley will definitely use) to hit each other.
Uncle Vernon called it the proudest moment of his life, Aunt Petunia was crying over how grown up her son was, and Harry had almost broken multiple ribs trying not to laugh.
Dudley Dursley took after his father in looks. Both were overweight (Dudley much more so than Uncle Vernon), with small blue eyes and thick blond hair that lay flat on their heads. In his Smeltings uniform, he looked like a pig in a wig being forced to dress up. Aunt Petunia, on the other hand, was as thin as Uncle Vernon was thick, and her neck seemed longer than it should be, almost as if she had to make up for her husband and son’s lack of one as well. She had blond hair too, but her eyes were a pale green.
Harry was very much the black sheep of the family, with his messy black hair and bright green eyes, hidden behind round glasses held together with sticky tape (Dudley enjoyed hitting him in the face as often as he could). His mother was Aunt Petunia’s sister, apparently, but he couldn’t see any resemblance. He didn’t think anyone from school even realised he lived with Dudley (other than Dudley’s gang, of course, since his house was their main base over the holidays). He didn’t know what either of his parents looked like…
Uncle Vernon and Dudley both wrinkled their noses at the smell when they entered the kitchen, but sat down without comment. Uncle Vernon probably already knew and Dudley just didn’t care – as long as his breakfast didn’t smell like that, he was fine. Harry flinched minutely as Dudley slammed his Smeltings stick on the table (Harry didn’t think it’d left arm's reach since he’d gotten it), and Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper, as per usual.
“Get the post, Dudley,” Uncle Vernon said, at the tell-tale click of the letterbox and soft thump of letters.
“Make Harry get it.”
“Get the post, Harry.”
“Make Dudley get it.”
“Poke him with your Smeltings stick, Dudley.”
Harry easily dodged the swipe, having expected it, and went to get the post. Three things were waiting for him: a postcard from Aunt Marge (Uncle Vernon’s sister) who was holidaying on the Isle of White, a brown envelope whose plainness indicated it contained a bill, and… a letter for Harry.
Swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, he picked up his letter with shaking fingers. No one had ever, in his entire life, written to him. Who would? He didn’t have any friends, and if he had any other family, the Dursley’s would have dumped him there long ago. School only ever wrote to his aunt and uncle, and he never borrowed anything from the library (even if he had tried to get his guardian’s permission for a library card, and if they had miraculously agreed, Dudley would have destroyed anything he brought home so he wouldn’t have risked it anyway).
But here there was, undoubtably, a letter for him.
Mr H. Potter
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Winging
Surrey
It even had his cupboard on it! His heart twinged. The envelope was made of yellowish parchment and written on in emerald-green ink, with no stamp. On the other side was a purple wax seal with an unfamiliar coat of arms: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake, surrounding a large letter ‘H’.
“Hurry up, boy!” Uncle Vernon shouted. “What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?” He chuckled at his own joke.
Heart still thumping strongly in his chest and eyes still glued to his letter, Harry returned to the kitchen. Absentmindedly, he handed Uncle Vernon his mail, and sat down to open his letter. He carefully pealed the seal off, not wanting to damage it or the envelope too much, as Uncle Vernon told Aunt Petunia about whatever they had received. He had taken the letter out, marvelling at the texture of the identical parchment it was made of, and was just about to unfold the letter when-
“Dad! Dad, Harry’s got something!”
-the letter was jerked out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.
“That’s mine!” Harry said, trying to snatch it back. No, no,no, it was his. Not the Dursley’s, his. They’re not taking it away from him.
“Who’d be writing to you?” Uncle Vernon sneered, flipping the letter open and glancing at it. The only thing stopping Harry from jumping over the table and snatching it before running away, damn the consequences, was Uncle Vernon’s drastic face colour change. He went from red, to green, to a sickly greyish white within a few seconds.
“P-P-Petunia!” he gasped.
Keeping the letter out of Dudley’s grasping reach, he handed it to Aunt Petunia, whose reaction was just as fast and drastic as her husband’s. She clutched her throat and choked, looking like she might faint.
“Vernon! Oh my goodness – Vernon!”
They stared at each other, lost in their own world. Harry was gearing up to jump on the table and take back his letter when Dudley smacked his father with his Smeltings stick.
“I want to read that letter,” he said, loudly.
“I want to read it,” Harry said, furious, “as it’s mine.”
“Get out, both of you,” Uncle Vernon croaked, stuffing the letter back into its envelope and definitely creasing it. At least it hasn’t ripped yet.
“I WANT MY LETTER!” he shouted.
“Let me see it!” Dudley demanded.
“OUT!” Uncle Vernon roared, taking them both by the scruffs of their necks and tossing them into the hallway, slamming the door behind them. Dudley won the brief fight for the privilege to listen at the keyhole, so Harry was stuck laying on the ground to listen at the crack between the floor and the door.
Aunt Petunia’s voice quivered as she spoke, “Vernon, look at the address – how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don’t think they’re watching the house?”
“Maybe – no, no,” Uncle Vernon muttered. “They never helped with the accidents,” Uncle Vernon twisted the word scornfully. “And if they cared they’d come in person.”
“They never came to help with her either,” Aunt Petunia whispered, her voice steadier.
“See, if they are spying on us, they don’t care,” Uncle Vernon voiced decisively. “Once he’s out of the house, they’ll go back to ignoring us. We couldn’t stamp it out, but we planned for this.”
“Okay,” Aunt Petunia sighed in relief. “I’ll send him off tomorrow, get it over with, then we can forget about it.”
Were they going to get rid of him?
Before Harry could wrap his head around that, Uncle Vernon’s heavy footsteps moved towards the door. Harry jumped to his feet and backed away with Dudley, just in time to avoid his uncle running into him. Uncle Vernon grunted at the sight of them and frowned unhappily. His letter wasn’t anywhere in sight.
His hand lashed out and grabbed onto Harry’s arm, dragging him the short distance to his cupboard, and threw him inside. The deadbolt rasped shut before he walked away again, trying to calm down his whining son. Great, he was locked in. He’ll never get his letter now!
Growling to himself, he flopped down to lay on his bed and glared at the stairs above him. It wasn’t fair! That letter was his! And Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia knew something about it before they even read it! Who were the ‘they’ they were talking about? Why were ‘they’ spying on them? Why didn’t ‘they’ care about him, if Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon thought ‘they’ would?...
…Was he really getting kicked out of the house?
His aunt and uncle had threatened it before, of course, but they sounded more serious now than they ever had then. And even though Harry didn’t like living here – even though he dreamed of a long-lost family member coming to take him away from here… he’d rather stay here than live on the streets.
During the holidays he avoided the house (and Dudley’s gang which congregated there) as much as possible, and if he didn’t make it back before curfew, he was locked out for the night. It was not fun, especially in winter, and it hadn’t taken him long to learn to make it back to the house early.
Hopefully he wasn’t getting kicked out…
…and hopefully he’ll get another chance to read his letter.
Mrs Grey was chasing Crawley out of her corner when Uncle Vernon returned from work. They froze alongside all the other spiders as he stomped up the stairs, making the stairs shake slightly and dropping some dust onto Harry. He shook the dust from his hair with a sigh and focused his ears on whatever his uncle was doing.
Scraping metal on wood… Sawing… Drilling…
Finally, Uncle Vernon made a final trip downstairs and unlocked his cupboard.
“Where’s my letter?” Harry asked the moment the door opened. “Who’s writing to me?”
“SILENCE!” Uncle Vernon yelled. He took a few deep breaths and continued a bit more calmly, “It’s upstairs, in your new room.”
“What?” That didn't make sense.
Uncle Vernon gritted his teeth. “You are moving into Dudley’s second bedroom.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask questions!” Uncle Vernon snapped. “Get your things and go!”
Harry’s mouth snapped shut and turned to gather his things. He didn’t have a lot, and he managed to carry it all at once, whispering a near-silent goodbye to his spider roommates before taking it all upstairs.
The Dursleys’ house had four bedrooms: a master bedroom for his aunt and uncle, a guest bedroom, Dudley’s bedroom, and Dudley’s second bedroom for all the toys that didn’t fit in his first bedroom. The source of the noises earlier was quickly apparent: Dudley’s second bedroom had a cat-flap and three different locks installed in the door. So it was just a bigger version of his cupboard now? Did this mean they were keeping him?
Stepping inside, Harry spotted another addition: bars on the window, which seemed a bit excessive. What were they expecting him to do, jump out the window?
Nearly everything in Dudley’s second bedroom was broken (such as the toys that only managed to survive a few days of Dudley’s play) or unwanted (such as the books on the shelves that Dudley had probably only touched the once to put them up there). Harry wondered which group he belonged to.
The door slammed behind him and the multiple locks clicked with a finality Harry recognised from his time in his cupboard. Dudley could be heard bawling downstairs, complaining about losing his space, but Harry barely heard it as his eyes found his letter waiting on the old dingy desk by the window. He dropped his things at his feet and ran to pick it up and read it.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump,
International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Mr Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
What? Hogwarts School? Witchcraft and wizardry? As in… magic? But magic didn’t exist! It was just Freakish nonsense that belonged in Disney movies. It wasn’t real!
But then… why did Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia react so strongly to the letter if it was just nonsense?
And Freakish nonsense did happen a lot around Harry, and he was always punished for it… as if it was his fault it had happened in the first place. There was that time his hair grew back overnight after Aunt Petunia sheared it off, the time his teacher’s hair turned blue while she’d been yelling at him, the time he shrunk the horribly ugly jumper Aunt Petunia had been trying to force on him, the time he ended up on the roof of the school kitchen when he’d been trying to get away from Dudley’s gang…
Questions about Freakish things always got him into more trouble than any other questions… which means they were purposely trying to hide something about it, right?
Harry wasn’t going to get his hopes up just yet. The letter wasn’t enough proof - neither were the Dursleys’ reactions, though both were convincing. No, he was going to wait and see. Aunt Petunia had said something about ‘sending him off’ tomorrow. He’ll see then.
It was completely dark outside by the time his door was unlocked and Uncle Vernon called him out. Warily, Harry complied and blinked in shock as his uncle pushed a piece of paper in his hands, before grabbing him and dragging him down the stairs.
“Go outside and give this to the owl,” he whispered harshly, eyes shifting furtively as if one of the neighbours could overhear him. “Make sure no one sees you!”
Harry was pushed out the back door before he could make sense of what his uncle had ordered. Owl? Like his letter had said? Did it mean an actual owl?
The back garden didn’t have any lights, so Harry struggled to read what was written on the paper as he flipped it open.
To whom it may concern,
Harry Potter will go to Hogwarts.
Short and much ruder than his aunt and uncle’s usual correspondence. The writing also looked rushed, as if they were trying to get the words out without having to think about what they meant too much.
A hoot startled him out of his thoughts and he jumped as an owl landed on the fence not far from him. That’s an owl. A real, live owl. Hope burned as hot as a supernova in his chest and he couldn’t stop a smile growing on his face.
It was real.