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 realize 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 the sign; cats couldn’t read maps or signs. Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.
The Boy Who Lived 2
But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning
traffic jam, he couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely
dressed people about. People in
cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn’t bear people who
dressed in funny clothes — the getups you saw on young people! He
supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the
steering wheel and his eyes
fell on a
huddle of these
weirdos standing quite
close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren’t young
at all; why, that man had to be
older than he was, and wearing an
emerald-green cloak! The
nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly
stunt — these people were
obviously collecting for something . . . yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley
arrived in the Grunnings
parking lot, his mind back on drills.
Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn’t, he might have found it harder to
concentrate on drills that morning. He didn’t see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and
gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead.
Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime. Mr. Dursley, however, had a
perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several
important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he’d stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery.
He’d forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed
a group of them
next to the baker’s. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn’t know why, but they made him
uneasy. This
bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn’t see a single
collecting tin. It was on his way back past them,
clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were
saying.
“The Potters, that’s right, that’s what I heard —” “— yes, their son, Harry —” Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear
flooded him. He
looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.
He
dashed back across the road,
hurried up to his office,
snapped at his
secretary not to
disturb him,
seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the
receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking . . . no, he was being stupid. Potter wasn’t such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to
think of it, he wasn’t even sure his
nephew was called Harry. He’d never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold. There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any
mention of her sister. He didn’t blame her — if he’d had a sister like that . . . but all the same, those people in cloaks . . .
The Boy Who Lived 3
He found it a lot harder to
concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o’clock, he was still so worried that he walked
straight into someone just outside the door.
“Sorry,” he
grunted, as the tiny old man
stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a
violet cloak. He didn’t seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground.
On the contrary, his face
split into a wide smile and he said in a
squeaky voice that made
passersby stare, “Don’t be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today!
Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone
at last! Even Muggles like yourself
And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and
Mr. Dursley stood
ed to the spot. He had been hugged by a
stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was
. He hurried to his car and
Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door’s problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word (“Won’t!”). Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room
“Well, Ted,” said the weatherman, “I don’t know about that, but it’s not only the owls that have been acting
today. Viewers as far
Mr. Dursley sat
in his armchair. Shooting stars