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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
J. K. Rowling
1 - The Boy Who Lived
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that
they were perfectly al, thank you very much. They were the last people
you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they
just didn't hold with such nonsense.
Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made
drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have
a very large moustache. Mrs Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly
twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so
much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbours. The
Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no
finer boy anywhere.
The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret,
and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't
think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs Potter
was Mrs Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact,
Mrs Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her
good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The
Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbours would say if the Potters
arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son,
too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for
keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like
that.
When Mr and Mrs Dursley woke up on the dull, grey Tuesday our story
starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that
strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country.
Mr Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work and Mrs
Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his
high chair.
None of them noticed a large tawny owl flutter past the window.
At half past eight, Mr Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs
Dursley on the cheek and tried to kiss Dudley goodbye but missed, because
Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls.
"Little tyke," chortled Mr Dursley as he left the house. He got into his
car and backed out of number four's drive.
It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of
something peculiar - a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr Dursley didn't
realise what he had seen - then he jerked his head around to look again.
There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there
wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have
been a trick of the light. Mr Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It
stared back. As Mr Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he
watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet
Drive - no, looking at th |