Harry Potter was a wizard -
a wizard fresh from his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
And if the Dursleys were unhappy to have him back for the holidays,
it was nothing to how Harry felt.
He missed Hogwarts so much it was like having a constant stomach ache.
He missed the castle, with its secret passageways and ghosts,
his lessons (though perhaps not Snape,
the Potions master),
the post arriving by owl, eating banquets in the Great Hall,
sleeping in his four-poster bed in the tower dormitory, visiting the gamekeeper,
Hagrid, in his cabin in the grounds next to the Forbidden Forest and, especially,
Quidditch, the most popular sport in the wizarding world (six tall goalposts,
four flying balls and fourteen players on broomsticks).
All Harry’s spellbooks, his wand, robes,
cauldron and top-of-the-range Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick had been
locked in a cupboard under the stairs by Uncle Vernon the instant Harry had come home.
What did the Dursleys care if Harry lost his place in the house Quidditch team because
he hadn’t practised all summer?
What was it to the Dursleys if Harry went back to school without any of his homework done?
The Dursleys were what wizards called Muggles (not a drop of magical blood in their veins)
and as far as they were concerned, having a wizard in the family was a matter of deepest shame.
Uncle Vernon had even padlocked Harry’s owl, Hedwig, inside her cage,
to stop her carrying messages to anyone in the wizarding world.
Harry looked nothing like the rest of the family. Uncle Vernon was large and neckless,
with an enormous black moustache; Aunt Petunia was horse-faced and bony; Dudley was blond,
pink and porky. Harry, on the other hand,
was small and skinny, with brilliant green eyes and jet-black hair that was always untidy.
He wore round glasses, and on his forehead was a thin, lightning-shaped scar.
It was this scar that made Harry so particularly unusual,
even for a wizard. This scar was the only hint of Harry’s very mysterious past,
of the reason he had been left on the Dursleys’ doorstep eleven years before.