The Complete Harry Potter (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; Chapter 3

CHAPTER ONE

THE BOY WHO LIVED

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say

that they were perfectly normal, 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 mustache. 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

neighbors. 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 neighbors 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, gray 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 good-bye but missed,

Chapter 3: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone