By the time Harry and I arrived in the kitchen, the three Dursleyswere already seated around the table. None of them looked upas we entered or sat down. Uncle Vernon's large red face was hiddenbehind the morning's Daily Mail, and Aunt Petunia was cutting agrapefruit into quarters, her lips pursed over her horselike teeth.

 Dudley looked furious and sulky, and somehow seemed to betaking up even more space than usual. This was saying something,as he always took up an entire side of the square table by himself.When Aunt Petunia put a quarter of unsweetened grapefruit ontoDudley's plate with a tremulous "There you are, Diddy darling,"Dudley glowered at her. His life had taken a most unpleasant turnsince he had come home for the summer with his end-of-yearreport. 

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had managed to find excusesfor his bad marks as usual: Aunt Petunia always insisted that Dudley was a very gifted boy whose teachers didn't understand him, while Uncle Vernon maintained that "he didn't want some swottylittle nancy boy for a son anyway." They also skated over the accusations of bullying in the report — "He's a boisterous little boy, buthe wouldn't hurt a fly!" Aunt Petunia had said tearfully.However, at the bottom of the report there were a few well-chosen comments from the school nurse that not even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia could explain away. 

No matter how muchAunt Petunia wailed that Dudley was big-boned, and that hispoundage was really puppy fat, and that he was a growing boy whoneeded plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfittersdidn't stock knickerbockers big enough for him anymore. Theschool nurse had seen what Aunt Petunia's eyes — so sharp when itcame to spotting fingerprints on her gleaming walls, and in observing the comings and goings of the neighbors — simply refusedto see: that far from needing extra nourishment, Dudley hadreached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.

 So — after many tantrums, after arguments that shook our bedroom floor, and many tears from Aunt Petunia — the newregime had begun. The diet sheet that had been sent by the Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had beenemptied of all Dudley's favorite things — fizzy drinks and cakes,chocolate bars and burgers — and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things that Uncle Vernon called "rabbitfood."

 To make Dudley feel better about it all, Aunt Petunia hadinsisted that the whole family follow the diet too. She now passeda grapefruit bit each to Harry and me. I noticed that they were a lot smallerthan Dudley's. Aunt Petunia seemed to feel that the best way tokeep up Dudley's morale was to make sure that he did, at least, getmore to eat than Harry and me.

But Aunt Petunia didn't know what was hidden under the loosefloorboard upstairs. She had no idea that Harry and I were not followingthe diet at all. The moment we had got wind of the fact that we were expected to survive the summer on carrot sticks, Harry  and I had sentHedwig to our friends with pleas for help, and they had risen to theoccasion magnificently. Hedwig had returned from Hermione'shouse with a large box stuffed full of sugar-free snacks. (Hermione'sparents were dentists.) Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, hadobliged with a sack full of his own homemade rock cakes. (Harry and I hadn't touched these; we had had too much experience of Hagrid'scooking.) Mrs. Weasley, however, had sent the family owl, Errol,with an enormous fruitcake and assorted meat pies. Poor Errol, whowas elderly and feeble, had needed a full five days to recover fromthe journey, Zoe sent me cakes from spain, Nicholas and Draco sent wonderful wizard cakes I hadn't even tried at hogwarts. And then on Harry and my birthday (which the Dursleys hadcompletely ignored) we had received four superb birthday cakes--well, actually 7 Harry didn't want to touch them but he eventually did, I knew my brother's sweet tooth-- one each from Zoe, Draco, Nicholas, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and Sirius.

 Harry and I still had three of them left, and so, looking forward to a real breakfast when wegot back upstairs, we ate our grapefruit without complaint.

 Uncle Vernon laid aside his paper with a deep sniff of disapproval and looked down at his own grapefruit. 

"Is this it?" he said grumpily to Aunt Petunia.Aunt Petunia gave him a severe look, and then nodded pointedlyat Dudley, who had already finished his own grapefruit quarter andwas eyeing Harry's with a very sour look in his piggy little eyes.

 Uncle Vernon gave a great sigh, which ruffled his large, bushymustache, and picked up his spoon.The doorbell rang. Uncle Vernon heaved himself out of his chairand set off down the hall. Quick as a flash, while his mother was occupied with the kettle, Dudley stole the rest of Uncle Vernon'sgrapefruit.

 I heard talking at the door, and someone laughing, andUncle Vernon answering curtly. Then the front door closed, andthe sound of ripping paper came from the hall.Aunt Petunia set the teapot down on the table and looked curiously around to see where Uncle Vernon had got to. She didn't haveto wait long to find out; after about a minute, he was back. Helooked livid. 

"You both," he barked at Harry and me. "In the living room. Now." 

Bewildered, wondering what on earth we were supposed to havedone this time, Harry and I got up and followed Uncle Vernon out of thekitchen and into the next room. Uncle Vernon closed the doorsharply behind both of them."

So," he said, marching over to the fireplace and turning to faceHarry as though he were about to pronounce him under arrest."So."

 I would have dearly loved to have said, "So what?" but I didn't feel that Uncle Vernon's temper should be tested this early inthe morning, especially when it was already under severe strainfrom lack of food. So did Harry, He therefore settled for looking politely puzzled. I had to bite my tongue.

 "This just arrived," said Uncle Vernon. He brandished a piece ofpurple writing paper at Harry and me. "A letter. About you both." 

my confusion increased. Who would be writing to UncleVernon about us? Who did we know who sent letters by thepostman?Uncle Vernon glared at Harry and me, then looked down at the letterand began to read aloud:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, 

We have never been introduced, but I am sure you haveheard a great deal from Harry and Emma about my son Ron. 

As Harry  and Emma might have told you, the final of the QuidditchWorld Cup takes place this Monday night, and my husband,Arthur, has just managed to get prime tickets through his connections at the Department of Magical Games and Sports.I do hope you will allow us to take Harry to the match, asthis really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; Britain hasn'thosted the cup for thirty years, and tickets are extremely hardto come by. 

We would of course be glad to have Harry and Emma stay forthe remainder of the summer holidays, and to see them safelyonto the train back to school.It would be best for Harry and Emma to send us your answer as quicklyas possible in the normal way, because the Muggle postman hasnever delivered to our house, and I am not sure he even knowswhere it is. 

Hoping to see Harry and Emma soon,

 Yours sincerely,

Molly Weasly

 P.S. I do hope we've put enough stamps on. 

Uncle Vernon finished reading, put his hand back into his breastpocket, and drew out something else.

 "Look at this," he growled.He held up the envelope in which Mrs. Weasley's letter hadcome, and Harry and I had to fight down a laugh. 

Every bit of it wascovered in stamps except for a square inch on the front, into which Mrs. Weasley had squeezed the Dursleys' address in minutewriting. 

"She did put enough stamps on, then,"I said, trying tosound as though Mrs. Weasley's was a mistake anyone could make. Our uncle's eyes flashed.

 "The postman noticed," he said through gritted teeth. "Very interested to know where this letter came from, he was. That's why herang the doorbell. Seemed to think it was funny." 

Harry and I didn't say anything. Other people might not understandwhy Uncle Vernon was making a fuss about too many stamps, but we had lived with the Dursleys too long not to know howtouchy they were about anything even slightly out of the ordinary.Their worst fear was that someone would find out that they wereconnected (however distantly) with people like Mrs. Weasley. 

Uncle Vernon was still glaring at Me and Harry , who tried to keep his expression neutral.I knew what he was thinking, If he didn't do or say anything stupid, he mightjust be in for the treat of a lifetime. 

We waited for Uncle Vernon tosay something, but he merely continued to glare. Harry decided tobreak the silence.

 "So — can I go then?" he asked. 

A slight spasm crossed Uncle Vernon's large purple face. Themustache bristled. I thought I knew what was going on behind the mustache: a furious battle as two of Uncle Vernon's mostfundamental instincts came into conflict.

 Allowing Harry and me to gowould make Harry and me happy, something Uncle Vernon had struggledagainst for thirteen years. On the other hand, allowing Harry and me todisappear to the Weasleys' for the rest of the summer would get ridof us two weeks earlier than anyone could have hoped, andUncle Vernon hated having Harry and me in the house.  To give himself thinking time, it seemed, he looked down at Mrs. Weasley's letteragain. 

"Who is this woman?" he said, staring at the signature withdistaste.

 "You've seen her," said Harry. "She's our friend Ron's mother, shewas meeting him off the Hog — off the school train at the end oflast term."

 He had almost said "Hogwarts Express," and that was a sure wayto get our uncle's temper up. Nobody ever mentioned the name ofHarry and my school aloud in the Dursley household.Uncle Vernon screwed up his enormous face as though trying toremember something very unpleasant. 

"Dumpy sort of woman?" he growled finally. "Load of childrenwith red hair?"

 I frowned. I thought it was a bit rich of Uncle Vernon tocall anyone "dumpy," when his own son, Dudley, had finallyachieved what he'd been threatening to do since the age of three,and become wider than he was tall.Uncle Vernon was perusing the letter again.

 "Quidditch," he muttered under his breath. "Quidditch — whatis this rubbish?" 

Harry must;ve felt a second stab of annoyance

 "It's a sport," harry said shortly. "Played on broom —"

 "All right, all right!" said Uncle Vernon loudly. I saw, withsome satisfaction, that our uncle looked vaguely panicky. Apparently his nerves couldn't stand the sound of the word "broomsticks" in his living room. He took refuge in perusing the letteragain. I saw his lips form the words "send us your answer . . .in the normal way." He scowled.

"What does she mean, 'the normal way'?" he spat. 

"Normal for us," said Harry, and before his uncle could stophim, he added, "you know, owl post. That's what's normal forwizards." 

That idiot. 

Uncle Vernon looked as outraged as if Harry had just uttered adisgusting swear word. Shaking with anger, he shot a nervous lookthrough the window, as though expecting to see some of the neighbors with their ears pressed against the glass."How many times do I have to tell you not to mention that unnaturalness under my roof?" he hissed, his face now a rich plumcolor. "You both stand there, in the clothes Petunia and I have put onyour ungrateful back —" 

"Only after Dudley finished with them," said Harry coldly, andindeed, he was dressed in a sweatshirt so large for him that he hadhad to roll back the sleeves five times so as to be able to use hishands, and which fell past the knees of his extremely baggy jeans, I was dressed in a similar manner.

 "I will not be spoken to like that!" said Uncle Vernon, tremblingwith rage.But I wasn't going to stand for this.

 Gone were the dayswhen we had been forced to take every single one of the Dursleys'stupid rules. We weren't following Dudley's diet, and I wasn't goingto let Uncle Vernon stop my brother and me from going to the Quidditch WorldCup, not if I could help it. 

I probably wouldn't understand the match but. I'd manage.

I took a deep, steadying breathand then said, "Okay, we can't see the World Cup. Can we go now,then? Only we've got a letter to Sirius we want to finish. You know — our godfather." 

I had done it. I had said the magic words. Now I watchedthe purple recede blotchily from Uncle Vernon's face, making itlook like badly mixed black currant ice cream. Harry looked as though Christmas had come early.

"You're — you're writing to him, are you?" said Uncle Vernon,in a would-be calm voice — but I had seen the pupils of histiny eyes contract with sudden fear. 

"Well — yeah," I said, casually. "It's been a while since heheard from us, and, you know, if he doesn't, he might start thinking something's wrong."

 I stopped there to enjoy the effect of these words. I could almost see the cogs working under Uncle Vernon's thick, dark, neatlyparted hair. If he tried to stop Harry and me writing to Sirius, Sirius wouldthink Harry and I were being mistreated. If he told Harry and me we couldn't goto the Quidditch World Cup, Harry and I would write and tell Sirius,who would know we were being mistreated. There was only onething for Uncle Vernon to do. 

I could see the conclusionforming in his uncle's mind as though the great mustached facewere transparent. Harry tried not to smile, to keep his own face asblank as possible. But I was openly smirking; I knew I had won. And then — 

"Well, all right then. You can go to this ruddy . . . this stupid . . .this World Cup thing. You write and tell these — these Weasleysthey're to pick you up, mind. I haven't got time to go dropping youoff all over the country. And you can spend the rest of the summerthere. And you can tell your — your godfather . . . tell him . . . tellhim you're going."

 "Okay then," said Harry brightly. 

We turned and walked toward the living room door, fighting theurge to jump into the air and whoop. We were going . . . we were going to the Weasleys', we were going to watch the Quidditch WorldCup!Outside in the hall we nearly ran into Dudley, who had beenlurking behind the door, clearly hoping to overhear Harry and me being told off. 

He looked shocked to see the broad grin on Harry'sface. And the smirk on mine

 "That was an excellent breakfast, wasn't it?" said Harry. "I feelreally full, don't you?"

 Laughing at the astonished look on Dudley's face, Harry and I tookthe stairs three at a time, and hurled ourselves back into our bedroom.The first thing we saw was that Hedwig was back. She was sittingin her cage, staring at Harry and me with her enormous amber eyes, andclicking her beak in the way that meant she was annoyed aboutsomething. Exactly what was annoying her became apparent almost at once. 

"OUCH!" said Harry as what appeared to be a small, gray,feathery tennis ball collided with the side of his head. Harry massaged the spot furiously, looking up to see what had hit him, andsaw a minute owl, small enough to fit into the palm of his hand,whizzing excitedly around the room like a loose firework. I then realized that the owl had dropped a letter at my feet.

 I bent down, recognized Ron's handwriting, then tore open the envelope. Inside was a hastily scribbled note.

 Harry, Emma — DAD GOT THE TICKETS — Ireland versusBulgaria, Monday night. Mum's writing to the Muggles to askyou both to stay. They might already have the letter, I don't knowhow fast Muggle post is. Thought I'd send this with Piganyway. 

Harry and I stared at the word "Pig," then looked up at the tiny owlnow zooming around the light fixture on the ceiling. I had never seen anything that looked less like a pig. Maybe we couldn't readRon's writing. He went back to the letter: 

We're coming for you whether the Muggles like it or not, youcan't miss the World Cup, only Mum and Dad reckon it's betterif we pretend to ask their permission first. If they say yes, sendPig back with your answer pronto, and we'll come and get youat five o'clock on Sunday. If they say no, send Pig back prontoand we'll come and get you at five o'clock on Sunday anyway.Hermione's arriving this afternoon. Percy's started work —the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Don'tmention anything about Abroad while you're here unless youwant the pants bored off you. 

See you soon —

Ron

"Calm down!" Harry said as the small owl flew low over hishead, twittering madly with what I could only assume waspride at having delivered the letter to the right person. 

"Come here,I need you to take our answer back!"

 The owl fluttered down on top of Hedwig's cage. Hedwig lookedcoldly up at it, as though daring it to try and come any closer.Harry seized his eagle-feather quill once more, grabbed a freshpiece of parchment, and wrote: 

Ron, it's all okay, the Muggles say we can come. See you fiveo'clock tomorrow. Can't wait

He folded this note up very small, and with immense difficulty,tied it to the tiny owl's leg as it hopped on the spot with excitement. The moment the note was secure, the owl was off again; itzoomed out of the window and out of sight. 

I turned to Hedwig."Feeling up to a long journey?" I asked her.Hedwig hooted in a dignified sort of a way."Can you take this to Sirius for us?" I said, picking up the letter. "Hang on . . . I just want to finish it." 

I unfolded the parchment and hastily added a postscript.

 If you want to contact us, we'll be at my friend Ron Weasley's forthe rest of the summer. His dad's got us tickets for the Quidditch World Cup! 

The letter finished, I tied it to Hedwig's leg; she kept unusuallystill, as though determined to show me how a real post owl shouldbehave. 

"we'll be at Ron's when you get back, all right?" I told her.She nipped my finger affectionately, then, with a soft swooshingnoise, spread her enormous wings and soared out of the openwindow. 

Harry and I watched her out of sight, then Harry crawled under his bed,wrenched up the loose floorboard, and pulled out a large chunk ofbirthday cake, he passed half to me. We sat there on the floor eating it, savoring the happiness that was flooding through us. We had cake, and Dudleyhad nothing but grapefruit; it was a bright summer's day, we would be leaving Privet Drive tomorrow, my scar felt perfectly normalagain, and we were going to watch the Quidditch World Cup. It washard, just now, to feel worried about anything —

even LordVoldemort.