At school they tell you be good. That’s all it ever is. Be a good boy and follow the rules and never ever say you hate someone. Only bad people hate.

At home they tell you how bad you are. Your mum was bad and so was your dad, and you’re as bad as it gets. Bad people hate.

I hate Aunt Marge.

I hate the way her fat jiggles when she hugs Dudley, and how she looks at me. I hate her dogs for being nasty and biting. I want to drown her dogs, but only after I’ve made them bite her. Hard.

‘Come out, boy,’ says Uncle Vernon. I push the dog – the one on the toilet – and watch it fall. It cracks, breaks into a million tiny pieces, Uncle Vernon telling me to hurry up outside. He hasn’t got all day, you know. The dog with the angel’s wings isn’t smiling no more. A pile of broken glass on the floor can’t smile.

‘What’s taking the boy so long? I haven’t got all day, you know.’

‘Damned if I know – Boy, hurry up!’

They pound at the door, but I’ve got to bin the broken angel-dog before I can come out. There is no rubbish bin, so I toss everything into the toilet and flush. It makes an awful noise – nails on a chalkboard – but the lot of it is down the drain.

Next minute, Uncle Vernon’s got my arm, and we’re going to the car again. This time there is no dog, but even a dog is better than being squished into the car door by Aunt Petunia and Dudley. Aunt Petunia says, ‘wipe that nasty smirk off your face, boy. I’ll not have you making faces all night, or you can stay back here.’

Aunt Marge don’t want me staying in her house alone. ‘God knows what a rotten boy like that would do if left to his own devices. No – no, I wouldn’t trust him with my dogs.’ She spits when she talks, and it flies all over Uncle Vernon’s windshield. I’m a rotten boy, I think, and it makes me smile. Rotten boys can hate rotten aunts all they want to.

o o o

Sometimes I think maybe I’m a film star. Like Tom Cruise or something. Aunt Petunia thinks he’s dashing. She reads about him in magazines and tells Uncle Vernon all about weddings and relationship scandals and all sorts of words I don’t understand. I think I am a film star because film stars are always having problems. Like, the one man’s girlfriend is sleeping with the man in this film she’s in, and then they have a divorce and all the magazines write things about it. I don’t see what’s so bad about going to sleep with someone, but maybe you’re only allowed to sleep with your husband when you’re married.

The people in films have always got a big adventure, and the really good characters – the ones the film is usually about – are always complaining because they’re got no friends, or their stepfather is drunk, or they’re orphans. If I was a film star, all my problems would be a story, and at the end I would be happy and always have the pretty girlfriend.

Film stars always get special attention when they go places. It’s in all Aunt Petunia’s magazines. We go to a hamburger bar, and I’m pretending to be a film star. All the people turn around to look at me.

See that boy?

The one with the black hair, and the glasses?

Yeah – that’s him.

Looks familiar, don’t he?

Course he do. He’s a film star, ain’t he?

Must be nice to be a film star.

Oh, yeah. I’m sure it is.

I pretend cameras are all following me – snapping photographs and film for the news and the magazines. All the kids at school will see me tonight on the BBC. Famous film star eats at hamburger bar. Full story at eight.

When you’re a film star, everyone likes you. You’ve always got the best clothes and cars and toys and everything. Nobody ever wants to beat you up, or take the mick out of you because you’ve got too-big clothes and sellotaped classes. Everyone thinks you are ace. People read about you in magazines and want to be you, and you get to be happy forever. Like a king.

Only, it don’t work that way. Uncle Vernon tells the lady to bring me a hamburger and water. She never even looks at my chair. I’m just Harry Potter, and Harry Potter is the biggest nobody what ever lived, full stop.

My hamburger is good, but now Dudley wants my chips as he’s eaten all his. Aunt Marge smiles, growing boys need food, you know. Uncle Vernon gives Dudley my chips, tells me drink my water if I’m so hungry, and goes off to the toilet. I don’t want water, but I’ll drink it. I didn’t need chips anyway. Who needs chips when they’ve got half a bit of tomato and a full glass of water? Not me.

‘Never seen a finer lad, Petunia,’ booms Aunt Marge as Dudley stuffs his face with cake. She slaps the table, and everything shakes like an earthquake. I promise that one day, when I’m rich and famous, I’ll come back here to the hamburger bar and buy six hamburgers. I’ll give four to the kids in London that Aunt Petunia complains about. Then I’ll eat the other two, drink a fountain of Coca Cola, and watch a football match on the TV. Leeds will be playing, and for once, they’re going to win.

We go back to Aunt Marge’s house, Dudley and Aunt Petunia squeezing me in the centre of the back seat. Uncle Vernon burps and Aunt Marge tells him about a wonderful bottle of sherry she’s just been given by Colonel Fubster, and would he like some? He says he does. I think I will go right upstairs when we get back.

My room at Aunt Marge’s house is the attic. It’s bigger than my cupboard back home, and Uncle Vernon tells me don’t be getting any big ideas, boy. I’m still only the boy, even if the attic is massive with windows and light bulbs and boxes of clothes. There’s a birdcage in there that used to have budgies in it, but they died when Dudley opened the door and put Ripper in with them. He locked me in there once and now the cage grins at me.

Coming in, Harry?

‘No,’ I tell it. ‘I’m too big for cages, anyway. Nine now, didn’t you know?’

Nine is big. Dudley got twenty-six presents for his ninth birthday. I didn’t get nothing, but that doesn’t matter. I don’t need new socks or a toothpick, anyway.

All my stuff is in a box on the floor, and I am sat on the edge of the bed. I haven’t got any idea what I’m supposed to do now. Should I sleep, or maybe someone will call? I haven’t got to listen to them, as they’re all too fat to climb up the staircase to the attic.

Ssssleep … Sssserpent child.

‘Who’s there?’

I must be going barmy. Uncle Vernon would have locked me in my cupboard for being stupid. Voices don’t come from nowhere, and nobody else is the attic. Besides, I don’t even know a serpent child. I think my head is clogged up from dinner, or something. Maybe hamburgers have got nasty side effects on people when you eat them sitting next to Dudley.

‘PETUNIA, FETCH THE BOY! PETUNIA!’

‘VERNON, WHAT’S – OH, MY, DUDDERS!’

‘NO TIME, PETUNIA. FETCH THE DO – BOY!

‘BOY! BOY! I KNOW YOU HEAR ME; COME DOWN THIS INSTANT!’

I’m the only boy in this house. Aunt Petunia is still shouting herself hoarse downstairs, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve got my bag on my back and I’m downstairs before she gets the chance to shout again.

‘About time,’ says Aunt Petunia; she pulls me by my shirt until we reach the car. Dudley is in the back, holding his stomach and moaning. He’s bright green, and his ears have gone biggish and floppy. Maybe hamburgers have got nasty side effects when you are Dudley, I think, and have to bite my lips to stop myself smiling.

‘Ow-ow, mummyyyyyy.’

This time, Dudley really is not faking it. He squeezes his eyes together and fat tears fall onto his cheeks. I’m tired, and I don’t care if Dudley turns blue and dies. I want to sleep.

-

‘He’s asleep.’

‘Well, wake him up.’

‘Boy! Boy, get up! Up!’

‘I’ll get up when I bloody well want.’

I heard a fifth year say that once, “when I bloody well want”. I think it sounds well hard, with the whole bloody bit and everything. Aunt Petunia doesn’t think so.

‘What did you say to me?’

Aunt Petunia does not like my attitude. She tells me that a lot, actually. I really am a rotten boy with a nasty attitude. My mouth is filthy as well.

I reckon if my mouth is so awful, it really don’t make much of a difference when I say, ‘Bugger off, you old hag.’

She hits hard, my Aunt Petunia does. Smacks me on my mouth for the things I say, and on my cheek for being such a rotten boy, and my arms and my legs and everything else until I am sitting up straight and promising to be a good boy.

We’re at the hospital. It says on a big sign “Hospital” with a red cross and loads of people running around. I don’t get to stay and watch the people and the ambulances flashing their lights. Dudley’s inside having himself checked in, as his ears have grown to about a foot by now and his face it brilliantly pink. It’s not temper tantrum pink, or crying pink, or any sort of pink I’ve ever seen on a face before. Dudley’s face is bright, girly pink. It’s changing colours, too. Red like a traffic light, green, blue, yellow. The lady checking in says she’s never seen anything like it, and Dudley gets taken back right away.

I’m to sit in the waiting room, and don’t move if I value my life. Everyone else is back with Dudley and his two metre ears. They all think it’s very funny, even if Uncle Vernon says it’s serious and freaky and needs to be taken care of right away. Who ever heard of a boy with a rainbow face that changed colour like a traffic light and made his ears grow so long they could touch the floor? The nurse laughed all the way to the back, and Aunt Petunia had that look on her face.

‘Hullo.’

The only empty seat is next to a woman who looks like Aunt Marge. She looks sort of nice, though. Bit sad and droopy, like an old dog Aunt Marge drowned once, but nice enough.

‘Hullo,’ she says back. I giver her my best film star smile, the one that makes Aunt Petunia slap me round the head with her magazines.

‘I’ll have that seat, if you don’t mind.’

She smiles back at me, so I sit.

We don’t talk, me and the Aunt Marge-ish lady. She watches the television and I watch the two boys playing cars on the train table. After a while, when my bum has gone a bit numb, she gets up and leaves. I don’t think she’ll be coming back, by the way she’s crying, so I giver her seat to a blonde lady with nice eyes.

‘Hullo,’ I say. She smiles at me.

‘Hullo. I’m Jo.’

Matthew Evans from a few blocks away says when a girl gives you her name it means she thinks you’re well fit. Matthew Evans knows a lot of things about girls, as he’s got a girfriend in the sixth year, and they’re going to be married after they’ve done A-Levels.

‘I’m Harry,’ I tell her, not half shy. She keeps smiling, so I reckon I might as well ask her and get it over with. ‘Do you think I’m well fit?’

I don’t think girls are supposed to laugh when you ask them that, but that’s what Jo does, so maybe they do sometimes.

Fixing her hair, she says, ‘You’re a very handsome boy.’

I dunno what’s better – handsome or fit. Older kids say “he’s well fit, isn’t he Mary?” and “Ben’s bird is fit, don’t you think?” Aunt Marge and Aunt Petunia say Dudley is a very handsome boy all the time, but never me, so I tell Jo, ‘I’m not handsome, you know.’

And she says, ‘Well, why not?’

Girls ask a lot of questions.

‘Well,’ I start, ‘Matthew Evans has got a girlfriend and he’s the only one what talks to me, as he’s in fifth year and can do whatever he bloody well likes, so he talks to me, and his girlfriend talks to me, as she’s in sixth year and thinks little kids are cute anyway, and Matthew Evan’s girlfriend – her name’s Anna, by the way – she thinks I’m fit and I’ll have girls all over me by the time I reach secondary. Anyway, my cousin Dudley is a handsome boy, according to my aunt, and he’s about as fat as anything, so I can’t be handsome cos I’m skinny as bones, or something like that.’

Jo is laughing at me now, but in a nice way, I think.

‘So, you see, I’ve got to be fit, and not handsome, or I’d be fat and stupid like Dudley.’

I wonder if I’ll ever have a girlfriend, the way Jo is laughing. She thinks I’m handsome, and that’s awful, because Dudley is handsome. Maybe Matthew Evans’s girlfriend Anna is wrong about me, because it’s been nine years, and I still haven’t had a girlfriend.

‘How old are you, Harry?’

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she is interested.

‘I’m nine; how old are you?’

She says twenty-nine, and I think that’s really, really old. Older than sixth year, and even uni. She must be out of uni by now. Wait until I tell Matthew Evans. He’ll be green.

‘We should go to the cinema.’ And one day, when I’m a famous film star, I’ll be able to say, “We should go see me in the cinema.”

Her face is laughing pink by now, and I’m afraid she’ll be a rainbow like Dudley is. I watch her ears to make sure she’s not growing them any bigger. They’re very normal, with little silver earrings hanging out of them.

‘Maybe lunch, then,’ I decide. Lunch is probably better anyway, so we could get to know each other.

‘Maybe lunch,’ Jo agrees, giggling. What is it with girls and giggling?

‘It was my ninth birthday a few days ago,’ I inform; I’m running out of things to talk about. When you’re Harry Potter you don’t do much talking. Nobody really likes me, and the ones who might are too afraid of Dudley to even say hullo.

‘That’s almost ten,’ Jo tells me. I think, I know.

‘And I can do maths and reading, and speak French a bit, and we play football in PE when Mr Tittup is in a good mood.’

Now Jo is very interested. Anna says girls love a man who can speak French, and I’ve been doing it for years in school – all the way back to nursery, when we learnt how to say hello.

‘Give us some French, then,’ she asks. She says it nicely, so I think I’ll tell her something good. If I can remember something good….

‘Well,’ I say, raising my eyebrows, ‘Pêche is pear.’

She thinks I may just be the best French-speaker in all of Surrey, maybe even all of England and well into Wales and Scotland. I’m probably not, but it’s nice for someone to say it. I always fail my French exams, especially practical, where Mrs Carson says things in French and we’ve got to answer in French. It’s very difficult.

‘Boy!’

Aunt Petunia’s come back without Uncle Vernon or Dudley. She looks between me and Jo for a minute, and I think she might be a bit jealous, as Jo is pretty with her blonde hair and lovely blue eyes, but Jo smiles, so Aunt smiles back, even though her smile is more like a painful-looking version of a frown.

‘I hope he hasn’t been a bother.’

I want to tell her to go away and let me talk to Jo alone, without her and her nosy face poking in and ruining everything, but she looks angry, so I let it be.

‘He’s wonderful,’ Jo answers. She smiles at me and I think I might be in love.

‘Yes, well…come along, then, Harry.’ Aunt Petunia doesn’t know what to say. She’d never guess anyone would say I was wonderful. Me with my messy hair and ugly scar. I don’t even get very good marks in school, and Mrs Carson says I’ll do badly on my GCSE if I don’t start using commas.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Home,’ she snaps at me.

I wave goodbye to Jo and tell her we’ll have to do lunch another time, as it’s past my bedtime and my cousin Dudley is changing colours. I don’t know if she understands, but she blows me a kiss, so I blow her own back, very shyly, and follow my aunt out past the people and a big ambulance and out to the car. We’re going back to Privet Drive, just me and her.