HARRY POTTER:the Brothers

The upper school uniforms weren't cheap, he knew that, though they were quite a bit cheaper than Dudley's. The only good part about Stonewall, as far as Harry could gather, was that Dudley wouldn't be there. Which meant that Harry would no longer be able to show Dudley up if he did well in class. It would be eight hours a day without a single Dursley around him.

Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both demanding their breakfast. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual, and Dudley banged his Smeltings stick, which he was apparently going to carry everywhere, on the table. Harry snagged a piece of bread off the table and retreated to the corner like he did most mornings.

Midway through breakfast, they heard the click of the letter-box.

"Get the post, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

"Make Harry get it," Dudley said around his eggs.

"Get the post, boy."

Harry had to go around Dudley to get out of the room, and had to dodge the Smeltings stick on his way.

Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was holidaying on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill and – a letter for Harry.

Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives – he wasn't allowed to belong to the library he sometimes escaped to, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back.

Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

Mr H. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp. Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger and a snake surrounding a large letter 'H'.

"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter-bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.

Without thinking, Harry went back to the kitchen, letter in hand, staring at it in disbelief. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down and slowly began to open the yellow envelope. Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust and flipped over the postcard.

"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk …"

"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"

Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.

"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.

"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it.

His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the greyish white of old porridge.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach.

Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though 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 that Harry and Dudley were still in the room.

Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smeltings stick.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.

"I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Harry didn't move.

"I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted, damn the consequences.

"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took Harry by the scruff of his neck, threw him into his cupboard, and slammed the lock into place. A moment later, Dudley's whining got louder, as he too was thrown out of the kitchen.

Morgan slithered up to him, and coiled into his lap. She didn't say a thing, just offered him comfort. He really should have thought before taking the letter into the kitchen. It was just such a shocking thing.

Letting his head fall against the thin wall, he could hear a bit of what they were talking about.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, 'look at the address – how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?'

"Watching – spying – might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? James said –"

They both went quiet for a moment, then…

"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer … yes, that's best … we won't do anything …"

"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.

"But –"

'I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?'

"James — "

"Petunia!"

They went silent after that. A few minutes later, Harry heard the front door open and close, twice. Both Uncle Vernon and Dudley had left for the day.

A little while later, Aunt Petunia let him out.

"Where's my letter?" he asked as soon as he was standing in the hallway. "Who's writing to me?"

It was always better, if he had to ask a question, to ask Aunt Petunia. She was much less likely to hit him or deny him meals than Uncle Vernon. He'd take extra chores any day.

"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," she said shortly. "Vernon burned it."

"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily. "It had my cupboard on it."

"SILENCE!" she screeched at him.

A beat passed, as they stared at one another. They both knew she was lying, but he had just been released from weeks inside his cupboard. He wouldn't rise to the bait.

She huffed and glared at him. "Gather your things," she said. "Then go upstairs. And stay there."

The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old cinecamera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over next door's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favourite programme had been cancelled; there was a large bird-cage which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air-rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched. In fact, the only person that had ever touched them was Harry, not that anyone knew that.

Sometimes, like when Mrs. Bradley, his Year 3 teacher, made a report, he was moved to Dudley's spare room for a week or two. Then, when a social worker came by they saw nothing but what the Dursley's wanted them to see. Little orphan boy taken in by his kind relatives when his drug addict parents got themselves killed. Poor Harry was in the car, who knows what kind of damage they did. He's so very difficult, but we do our best. This was at least the fifth time he'd been sent up here.

In a week or two, when either whoever sent the letter showed up or failed to contact them again, he'd be right back to his cupboard.

Harry sighed and stretched out on the rickety old bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting's stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof and he still didn't know what was in the letter or why he'd been thrown out. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.

When the post arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smeltings stick all the way down the hall. He came back without a letter for Harry.