Letters From No One
The boa constrictor’s escape gave the two of us one of the especially terrible punishments that were saved for when we did truly terrible things, like when I had accidentally burned a special dinner when guests were coming over or when my brother had been tripped by Dudley and fell on Petunia’s precious petunias (narcissist, much?).
These beatings for the boa constrictor were deeper than most of our past ones and had barely scabbed over when we were allowed out, and by then, summer break had already started. And, somehow, Dudley had already broken half his birthday gifts.
I was very relieved to find that school was over, but now Dudley had much more time to invite his friends over and play his favourite game. Twin Tackling.
Every morning, after a hasty and miniscule breakfast, I dragged my brother and myself outside to spend our days hiding away from our unimaginably horrible family.
What was even better? We were going off to secondary school at Stonewall High, the local public school while Dudley got into Uncle Vernon’s old private school, Smeltings, along with Piers Polkiss.
“They stuff people’s heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall,” Dudley told us. “Want to come upstairs and practice?”
“No thanks,” Harry told him.
“The poor toilet’s never had anything as horrible as your head down it,” I told Dudley. Harry snickered before finishing my statement.
“Yeah, it might get sick,” he said.
Then, we ran away before Dudley could work out what we had said, dumb brute that he was.
One day, in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform. This meant that we were allowed to stay with Mrs Figg. Apparently, she broke her leg because she tripped over one of her cats, and so we were allowed to watch the television and have a bit of old chocolate cake. Well, Harry watched the television. I went to do my usual, reading some old classics that Mrs Figg owned.
That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room in his uniform: maroon tailcoats, orange knicker-bockers, and flat straw hats that were called boaters. Apparently, the students carried around knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren’t looking, which was supposed to be good training for later life.
I thought it was a load of crock.
Uncle Vernon said that this was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears because Dudley looked so “handsome and grown-up.”
I saw Harry stifle his laughs, clutching at his side. I agreed the most with him.
The next morning, I was awoken to a horrible smell drifting throughout the house. Coughing, I quickly readied myself, waking up my twin in the process.
“Ugh, that smell!” Harry groaned when I nudged him awake with my foot.
“Come on, Harry,” I whispered to him.
We walked out of the cupboard minutes later and entered the kitchen, nearing Aunt Petunia by the sink.
“What’s this?” Harry asked.
Our aunt’s lips tightened.
“Your new school uniform,” she told us stiffly.
I moved to the stove to prepare breakfast as Harry stated, “Oh. I didn’t realise it had to be so wet.”
I rolled my eyes, smirking behind Aunt Petunia’s back as she snapped, “Don’t be stupid. I’m dyeing some of Dudley’s old things grey for the two of you. It’ll look just like everyone else’s when I’ve finished.”
Yeah. It’ll look just like everyone else’s . For some reason, I doubted that.
Our uncle and cousin came in then, wrinkling their noses from the smell. Uncle Vernon settled down at the table with his newspaper and Dudley banged his Smelting stick on everything it could reach. Luckily, that didn’t include me and the hot stove.
I heard the click of the mail slot and the thump of the letters.
“Get the mail, Dudley,” Uncle Vernon ordered from behind his paper.
“Make one of the twins get it!”
“Get the mail, you two.”
“Make Dudley get it.”
“Poke them with your Smelting stick, Dudley.”
I swiftly dodged the stick and slipped into the hallway to get the mail. Once out of reach of the prying eyes and ears of our family, I smacked Harry’s arm.
“You just had to object!” I hissed at him.
Four things lay on the doormat by the door. 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... two letters, one for each of us.
Harry picked up two letters, the postcard and the one addressed to him, and I got the other two.
We both stared at them, then looked at each other in shock. Was this really happening?
They were nearly identical. I read the swirly green words on the front of the letter in my hand.
Miss J. Potter
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey
No stamp. Just the emerald green ink on the yellowish parchment. We both turned ours over at the same time to see a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms—a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding the letter H.
“Hurry up, you lousy kids!” Uncle Vernon shouted at us. “What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?”
Harry, in a daze, walked slowly back towards the kitchen. I took a step to follow before quickly realising that we would get our letters confiscated. Better to not let them see , I thought to myself.
I shoved my letter in through the vent on the door to our cupboard, and turned to tell Harry to do the same, but he had vanished.
“Harry!” I hissed.
Oh no .
I paled. He had already gone to give the letters to our uncle!
I ripped the door to the cupboard open hastily, grabbing my letter from where it had landed on our bed. I carefully peeled the seal off and pulled the contents out, shoving them under the bed as I grabbed a piece of useless parchment from one of the shelves. I slipped it into the envelope to act as a filler as I quietly slammed the door closed. Rushing to join my brother, I licked the seal and smashed it closed again.
In the kitchen, I saw Harry hand over the postcard. I quickly followed, handing the bill I held to our uncle. He ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped the postcard over.
“Marge’s ill,” he informed us. “Ate a funny whelk.”
“Dad!” Dudley suddenly exclaimed. “Dad, Harry’s got something!”
I whipped around to Harry, and sure enough, he was slowly opening his letter. Too late to save it now, I thought miserably. Here we go...
“That’s mine!” my brother shouted, trying to snatch back his letter when Uncle Vernon ripped it from his grip.
“Who’d be writing to you?” our uncle sneered at him, shaking out the contents of the letter into his palm. His eyes darted down to the letter, and his red face paled, turning green.
“P-P-Petunia!” he stuttered, gasping.
Dudley tried to read the letter over his shoulder, but Uncle Vernon held it high over his head, out of reach. Aunt Petunia took it and read the first line. She paled as well, looking like 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 the three other children in the room. Dudley wasn’t used to being ignored and gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.
“I want to read that letter,” he whined loudly.
“I want to read it,” Harry said furiously. “As it’s mine.”
“Get out, both of you,” croaked Uncle Vernon.
My brother and I didn’t move.
“I WANT MY LETTER!” he shouted.
“Let me see it!” demanded Dudley.
“OUT!” roared Uncle Vernon, taking both boys by the scruffs of their necks before throwing them into the hall and slamming the kitchen door. Then, he turned on me. “Do you have a letter like this, girl?”
I slowly nodded my head.
“Give it,” he snapped curtly.
Just as slowly as I had nodded my head, I pulled the letter out from behind my back and handed it to him.
“Did you open it?” he asked, his eyes narrowed as he inspected it.
Lying smoothly, I told him, “No, but I’m guessing it has the same thing inside as Harry’s letter.”
His eyes narrowed, and his moustache bristled. “Fine. Outside, now.”
I nodded, not objecting, and opened the door to find the two boys fighting. I slipped past them, sticking to the wall, and edged towards the cupboard, closing the door behind me.
I turned around in the darkness and started frantically searching for the contents of the letter. I got down onto my stomach, not even minding the dust and dirt, and started to reach under the makeshift bed.
Ah! Here!
My hand touched my letter, and I yanked it towards me. Sitting up, I brushed the dust off of it.
Frantically, I started reading in the dark, straining my eyes.
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 Miss Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress
“Owl?” I wondered under my breath. “Huh?”
I found another piece of parchment behind the first, but I heard a few sounds outside the door, so I quickly stuffed all of the items under my pillow.
Standing, I braced for the worst.
It... didn’t come.
I peeked out the vents and saw Uncle Vernon stomp out the door, probably going off to work. Behind him, Dudley and Harry were still fighting, rolling around on the carpet of the hallway.
That evening, when Uncle Vernon got back from work, he did something that he had never done before. He visited the two of us in our cupboard.
“Where’s my letter,” Harry demanded the second the door cracked open. I rolled my eyes and continued to play chess against myself on a piece of spare parchment. “Who’s writing to me?”
“No one. It was addressed to you by mistake,” our uncle told us. “I have burned them both.”
“It was not a mistake,” Harry argued angrily. “It had the cupboard on it.”
“SILENCE!” yelled Uncle Vernon, and some dust and spiders fell down on us. I brushed them off my parchment. Uncle Vernon took a few deep breaths then forced a smile onto his face. It looked quite painful.
“Er—yes, Harry. And you, too, Jessie—about the cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking... you’re both really getting a bit too big for this... we think it might be nice if you two moved into Dudley’s second bedroom.”
“Why?” Harry asked.
“Don’t ask questions!” snapped Uncle Vernon. “Take this stuff upstairs, now.”
This house had four bedrooms. One for the two adults, one for any potential guest, Dudley’s sleeping room, and Dudley’s spare room where he keeps all his toys and other things.
It took one trip for the two of us to transfer our things into the empty room. Carefully, I snuck my letter down my shirt and shoved it into my undershirt. We sat together on the large bed and scanned the room. Everything in here, or at least nearly everything, was broken. The only thing in the room that was untouched were the books on the bookshelf. Finally, something to do!
Downstairs, I heard our cousin bawling. “I don’t want them in there... I need that room... make them get out...”
Next to me, Harry sighed and stretched out on our new bed.
“Yesterday, I would’ve done anything to get out of that terrible cupboard, but now...” he sighed. He frowned. “Wait, didn’t you get a letter, too?”
“Yeah. I, uh, have it here.” I reached down my shirt and pulled out the two folded pieces of paper.
“What?” He bolted upright, his eyes wide and his glasses askew on his face. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“SH!” I hushed him, reaching out to straighten his glasses. “Of course not. I handed Uncle Vernon the envelope with two blank pieces of parchment.”
“Can I read it?” Harry asked, enthusiastic.
“No, Harry. It’s not meant for your eyes.”
His face fell.
“Besides, I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of those letters...”
Harry frowned at me, sticking his lips out in a tiny pout, but after a moment, he shrugged his shoulders. He trusted my instincts. They were usually right, after all.
The next morning, at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock, as no matter what he’d done, he still didn’t get his room back. I felt Harry bristling beside me, probably regretting his choices the day before. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.
When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon made Dudley go to get it. Was he trying to be nice? Or did he just not want us near the mail? I heard Dudley banging things in the hallway with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then, we heard him shout, “There’s another one of each of them! ‘Mr H. Potter’ and ‘Miss J. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive-’”
With an enraged cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall with my brother right behind him. I stayed at the table until I heard a strangled cry of someone choking. I sighed and walked into the kitchen behind Aunt Petunia.
After a minute of very confused fighting, in which all three boys got hit by the Smelting stick Dudley held, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with our letters clutched in his hand.
“The two of you, go to your cupboard—I mean, your bedroom,” he wheezed at Harry and me. “Dudley—go—just go.”
Upstairs, in our new room, Harry walked round and round, muttering.
“Someone knew we had moved out of our cupboard, and they seemed to know we hadn’t received our first letters.”
“I told you,” I said while watching him pace. “Except, I did receive my letter, so these people are not as ‘all-knowing’ as they seem.”
“Yeah, but what do I do now?” he asked me.
“Easy,” I told him. “You wait.”
The next morning, at six am, the alarm clock that we spent the previous night fixing rang. Harry silenced it and got dressed quietly while I turned over and slept on.
“Thanks, Jessie,” he whispered at the door.
“No problem, Harry,” I told him back before diving back under the covers to sleep.
However, not five minutes later, an agonised “AAAAARRRGH!” sounded through the house.
I bolted upright, and groaned. Uncle Vernon! I groaned again, then laid back in bed to pretend I wasn’t there. I’m innocent. I’m sleeping. Leave me be.
I heard Uncle Vernon shouting at Harry for half an hour, and finally gave up on sleeping again.
That day, Uncle Vernon stayed home to nail the mail slot shut.
“See,” he explained to Aunt Petunia with his mouth full 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 fruit‐cake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.
I snickered at the sight from where I stood, peeking my head around the corner of the stairs.
On Friday, twelve total letters arrived, six letters for my brother and six letters for me. As they couldn’t go through the mail slot, they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few had even been forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.
Uncle Vernon stayed at home. Again. He burned all the letters and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” as he worked, jumping at small noises. As much as I wanted to make small creaks on the stairs or thump the book I was currently reading on the floor, I didn’t.
On Saturday, things began to get out of hand.
Twenty-four letters to us found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that the very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window.
While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.
“Who on earth wants to talk to you two this badly?” Dudley asked us in amazement.
“I wish I knew,” my brother had sighed.
On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking very tired and irritated, but also quite smug.
“No post on Sundays,” he reminded us cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers. “No damn letters today–”
That was when something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke, smacking into 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 my brother leapt into the air trying to catch one. Silently, I palmed two of them that had landed on the table in front of me and shoved it under my shirt, putting it next to my own letter, which hadn’t left my side since the day I got it. Literally.
“Out! OUT!”
Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw my brother into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces with me following behind them calmly, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. We could still hear the letters streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor and knocking around in the kitchen.
“That does it,” Uncle Vernon said, trying to speak calmly as he pulled great tufts out of his moustache 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 moustache missing that none of us dared to argue. Ten minutes later we had wrenched our way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; our uncle had hit him round the head for holding us up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.
We drove. And we drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn’t dare ask where we 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.
I rolled my eyes at his crazy antics, but didn’t comment. I valued my life, thanks.
We didn’t stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall, Dudley was howling. 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, Harry, and I shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets.
We would share a bed while Dudley got one all to himself. I tried to sleep, but Harry’s sighing and shuffling kept me up. Sitting up, I sighed.
“Harry,” I called softly. He turned from where he was sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars to look at me.
“Yeah?” he asked dejectedly.
“Guess what I got?” I asked him.
“What?” Harry asked hesitantly.
I reached down my shirt as his eyes lit up. I whipped out a yellowish letter with a purple seal and emerald green writing.
“You managed to grab one? Why didn’t you tell me before!” Harry exclaimed slightly loudly, jumping off the windowsill to bounce over to me.
“Because we were around our aunt, uncle, and cousin all day!” I told him before handing the letter to him. “Here.”
He ripped it open enthusiastically and pulled out the letter. I watched his eyes scan the paper, flitting back and forth quickly. A confused expression came up on his face.
“What does it say?” I asked him.
“Here, read it,” he told me, handing it over.
I scanned it. It said exactly what mine said, just addressed for Harry.
“It says what mine says,” I told him, handing it back over to Harry.
“What does it mean by owl?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know, Harry. I don’t know,” I sighed. “But don’t tell anyone about this, ’kay?”
Harry nodded and went back to sit on the windowsill. This time, I joined him, sitting opposite him.
I took out the second letter I had nabbed and carefully peeled the wax seal off. I took out the contents, barely giving their familiar words a glance as I swiftly replaced it with the parchment I had had for a while.
Even if I didn’t get to go to this Hogwarts , I at least wanted this as a memoir to remember all of the Dursleys’ panic. As for the other discarded pieces of paper, I folded them into tiny squares and decided to flush it down the toilet in the morning.
As the night continued, Dudley snored on while Harry and I stayed awake.
In the morning, we ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast. We had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to our table.
“’Scuse me, but is one of you Mr H. or Miss J. Potter? Only I got about an ’undred of these at the front desk.”
She held up a pair of letters so we could read the green ink address, one for me and one for Harry in
Room 17
Railview Hotel
Cokeworth
I gave my brother a pointed look, and Harry made a grab for a letter. Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.
“I’ll take them,” Uncle Vernon said, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.
Harry pretended to look upset, but I saw a small smirk tug at his lips. I gave a wink for only him to see.
“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 us knew. He drove us into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off we went again.
The same thing happened in several more places several more times. I didn’t care much. I had brought a few books with me from Dudley’s old room and was now reading my way through Pride and Prejudice .
“Daddy’s gone mad, hasn’t he?” Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked us all inside the car, and disappeared.
It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley snivelled.
“It’s Monday,” he told our aunt. “The Great Humberto’s on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television.”
Monday. This reminded me of something. If it was Monday—and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week because of television—then tomorrow, Tuesday, was my and Harry’s eleventh birthday. Of course, our birthdays were never exactly fun, but still, you only turn eleven once. Well, you only turn every age once, so it wasn’t quite special, but still.
Uncle Vernon came back, 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. I suppressed a shiver as I looked to where Uncle Vernon was pointing.It seemed to be a large rock way out at sea, the most miserable little shack I could’ve imagined perched on top of the rock. There was definitely no television in there.
“Storm forecast for tonight!” Uncle Vernon said gleefully, clapping his hands together. “And this gentleman’s kindly agreed to lend us his boat!”
A toothless old man came up to us, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron grey water below us.
“I’ve already got us some rations,” Uncle Vernon said, “so all aboard!”
It was absolutely freezing in the boat. The icy sea spray and rain was creeping down my neck, soaking my shirt through, and there was an obnoxiously chilly ocean wind that was whipping our faces with salt.
After what seemed to me like hours, we reached the rock. There, Uncle Vernon slipped his way to the broken down house.
The inside was horrible. It smelled like seaweed and salt, 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 one bag of chips for each of us and four bananas. He tried to start a fire, but the empty chip bags just smoked and shrivelled 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 us here in a storm to deliver mail. I privately agreed, though the thought didn’t matter much to me or my brother.
As night fell, the promised storm blew up around us. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few mouldy 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 and I were left to find the softest bit of floor we could and curl up together under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.
The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn’t sleep, and neither could I. He shivered and we huddled up closer to each other, trying to get warm.
Dudley’s snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started just before midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley’s watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told us that we’d be eleven in ten minutes’ time. We lay and watched our birthday tick nearer. I wondered if the Dursleys would remember at all.
Five minutes to go. I heard something creak outside. I hope the roof wasn’t going to fall in, although we might be warmer if it did.
Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be full of letters when we got back. Uncle Vernon would die of high blood pressure if that was the case. Wouldn’t that be hilarious.
Three minutes to go. I heard another noise. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rocks?
Two minutes to go. What was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?
One minute to go and we’d be eleven.
Thirty seconds... twenty... ten... nine—maybe we’d wake Dudley up, just to annoy him—three... two... one...
BOOM.
The whole shack shivered. Harry and I sat bolt upright, staring at the door.
Someone was outside, knocking to come in.