Uncle Vernon is always angry. Always. You've got to watch out for his temper, and that's not too difficult, because he always turns red when he's angry. His neck swells. His eyes get big. He spits a lot when he talks. Uncle Vernon likes to tell me how awful I am. I am abnormal, and nasty, and skinny. My father might as well have been a bloody gypsy, he was so awful. My mother must have been adopted from France, because everyone knows the French are just about as horrible as they come. I'm a french-gypsy, and probably Irish or Welsh as well; I'm as useless as the lot of them.

Uncle Vernon likes to shout. He likes to be big. He likes to raise his hand and pretend he is going to hit me. Uncle Vernon almost never really hits. Sometimes, if I'm horrible enough, he gives me a slap round the head - hard - that leaves my brain spinning and my eyes swimming like the roundabout at school. But, Uncle Vernon is not hard. He doesn't like to hit me. Uncle Vernon doesn't like imagination, but he loves to pretend.

Aunt Petunia does not pretend.

'Slice the cheese.'

I'm not nearly fast enough.

WAP!

She's got pots and pans. She's got a fly swatter. She's got a wicked-fast fist.

'Milk.'

This time it's the spatula that sits on top of the cooker. Right across my cheek. It's not nearly as hard as Uncle Vernon hits when he does hit me, but Aunt Petunia knows how to make it sting for ages afterwards.

'Go and watch the telly or something. Go on, out!'

Now, I know something is very, very wrong. Aunt Petunia never tells me to watch the telly. The telly is for Dursleys only. No Potters allowed. Sometimes, I sneak it. Sometimes, I watch through the cracks in my cupboard door - football matches, cartoons, the news, Dr Who. Uncle Vernon likes weather and sport. Aunt Petunia likes mushy shows about men with no shirts and women that talk like twats - Don't leave me, Butte! But, I love him! I'm carrying his child, Alec. Dudley likes the best stuff. He likes Dr Who and cartoons about funny-looking birds hitting each other with frying pans and anvils.

'Haven't I told you to get out?'

She's at it with the spatula again.

'Going, I'm going!' I hurry out, because I don't fancy another purple mark on my cheek like the one she gave me yesterday for asking if chocolate milk comes from chocolate cows. Aunt Petunia is weird when it's just me and her. There's no Dudley to eat all the bacon, or Uncle Vernon to shout or make her angry with me. It's just me and her, and when she hasn't got a spatula or a frying pan, my Aunt Petunia isn't so horribly nasty.

Yesterday we had ice cream. Chocolate chip and mint. She let me have my own bowl, and we watched Dr Who and talked about the Prime Minister until she remembered I'm only the boy and sent me to my cupboard.

The telly makes a loud noise when you turn it on - a sort of pop, and then the picture comes, and theme music plays loudly until I turn it down. It's Newsround, which is a stupid show even without the animal cartoons, but I watch it anyway. It's not all the time that Aunt Petunia, or even anyone lets me watch the telly.

I watch it through Newsround, and reruns of ChuckleVision. Has Dudley got a television in the hospital? Do they let rainbow people watch the telly at all? Maybe he's missing ChuckleVision, which is one of his favourite programmes, and maybe Uncle Vernon is having to promise him all the Mars Bars and Chomps he can swallow to make him quiet again.

I don't care about Dudley and his stupid programmes. I hope he's a rainbow forever and never comes back to Privet Drive. What happens when Uncle Vernon brings him home again? I shan't watch Newsround or ChuckleVision, or anything. Aunt Petunia shan't let me have ice cream, and I'll almost never get to stay out of my cupboard for so long without doing chores.

'What's this, hm?'

Aunt Petunia's voice scares me, because you never know when she could be creeping up on you with the fly swatter.

'Oh, not this rubbish,' she moans, handing me a pack of crisps. 'Come on, change it. I'm not having this on all day.'

'It's nearly over,' I tell her, which is true, because Newsround comes on at five, and then there's really only time for another show or two before CBBC is over.

'Change it.'

So, I do, and we end up watching a boring news report about bears attacking in the West Midlands. We are very quiet, my Aunt Petunia and me. I eat the crisps she's given me, and she eats a sandwich and neither of us talks once.

And then she looks at me. Long and hard. It's the sort of look she's got for me when I've done something wrong, and she knows it, but isn't going to say anything so that Uncle Vernon doesn't get angry. Her eyebrows shoot up like bullets, and her lips get thin. She shakes her head at me. 'You're too skinny,' says Aunt Petunia.

'I know.'

Her eyebrows go higher, and now I'm frightened they might disappear into her hair.

'The state of your clothes - it's disgusting,' she tells me.

'OK.'

She takes my emptied packet and crushes it into a ball with her fist. 'Your shoes are filthy - all holes and dirty laces.'

'They're old.'

'And I can bet they don't fit you.'

'They don't.'

She looks at me with narrow eyes, nostrils very wide. I wonder if this is a test. Am I doing OK? Is she going to lock me in the cupboard until I am twenty-five and can't even fit anymore?

'The neighbours talk,' announces Aunt Petunia. She hates neighbours talking. When neighbours talk, they talk about awful things. They say I'm a rotten boy, and that Dudley Dursley has got a temper as large as his belly, and isn't Vernon Dursley a bit loud sometimes? I've heard him shouting at that boy from outside Magnolia Crescent. They say it's such a shame, isn't it, that skinny little Potter boy having no parents and turning into quite the nasty little sprog if his aunt is anything to go by. 'They say you are a disgrace.'

'Oh.'

'I'll not have a disgrace living under my roof.'

So, she takes me shopping.

---

Shopping with Aunt Petunia is the very worst kind of shopping there is. Aunt Petunia does not like crowds, lines, rude clerks, shoes with lights, striped socks, or patched jeans. She sniffs at the lady with loads of crying babies and whinges that the clerks are too slow. She's got a strict schedule, you know.

'Try these on, boy.'

This can't be me. I'm dreaming. I must be dreaming. No one ever buys me things. No one tells me to try on the red trainers - no, the blue, no, green. No one fits me for jeans, or matches t-shirts to my eyes, or buys socks just because I need them. No one ever takes me for a new jacket, two jumpers, new jeans, three t-shirts, socks, trainers, haircuts, ice cream, schoolbags, lunch-boxes, pants that have got Batman on them. The shops are closing by the time we finish, and she drives us home again, me sitting in the back between shopping bags full of stuff she's bought for me.

Aunt Petunia asks me about school. Do I like maths? How am I getting on with reading? Have I got any friends? I tell her lies to make her happy, and she smiles with tight lips and wide nostrils. When we finally get back, she makes me put everything into a box under my camp bed. I help with dinner, chopping carrots and dropping them into the steamy pot on the cooker while Aunt Petunia goes on about Dudley's condition. She hopes he comes back soon, her little Dudders. Such a lovely boy. Such a sweet little thing. Mummy's lovey-dovey boy. She calls him names that would have made him whinge, staring hard into the boiling carrots and potatoes in the pot.

'Go on and put a video in, will you? Dudley's got a new one, I think, just under the photos in the cabinet,' she says absently, stirring the vegetables. I've never put a video in, but I've watched Dudley do it a million times, and it's not very difficult. All you've got to do is put the tape in the machine, and then push the button for "play", and don't forget to turn it on first.

I used to hate Aunt Petunia because she was always nasty and whinged and laughed at me when I cut my finger or fell down the stairs. She was never nice, but she is now. I think she misses Dudley and Uncle Vernon so much she'll even be decent to me, for the company. I think she feels a bit sorry for me, with my tatty clothes and my scar and my dead parents. Even if she hated them for landing her with me. Even if they never did anything for her.h

We get to eat in the parlour, watching Dudley's film and never talking. She lets me have anything I want tonight - carrots and potatoes, aubergine, pork, bread and milk. Dudley's video is about cats and mice having war, and by the end, nearly all of the cats have died or spilt paint on themselves. Aunt Petunia snorts, and I know she thinks it's as stupid as I think it is. I help her clean up, and even though she is my horrible, nasty, old aunt, I turn to her as she gets ready for the nightly wipe-down.

'G'night, Aunt Petunia,' I tell her softly. She looks up, startled. 'I - thanks. Thanks for all of the clothes and everything. They're really cool.' Before she can get me with the fly swatter, I dart over and give her a kiss on the cheek. It doesn't feel cold or slimy like I thought it might, but it's not how I imagine kissing my mum would be like either. Aunt Petunia is stiff, her eyes wider than saucers as she watches me leave. I know she is wondering why I've kissed. I'm sort of wondering that myself. I don't like Aunt Petunia. I don't hate her, either. It's difficult to hate someone who buys you new clothes and schoolbags and shoes.

I'm wondering when I brush my teeth and put on my new pyjamas. I'm wondering under the sheets of the camp bed, picturing my new clothes in my head and thinking of how lucky it is that Dudley decided to become a rainbow two days ago. I wonder if my mum and dad can see me smiling into my pillow, and I decide it doesn't matter if they can or not, because it's not like a smile will ever bring them back to life or anything. But, it's got to count for something if they do see it, so I smile anyway. It's like kissing Aunt Petunia. It shan't make her any nicer to me when Dudley comes back. It shan't make her like me any more, but it feels nice to know I've done it at least once. Who knows if I'll ever have another day like this, just me and Aunt Petunia, shopping and watching the telly and not hating each other. Just normal things. Like buying new shoes, or getting a haircut, or kissing your mum goodnight. Normal things, like smiling because you're happy. Even if there's no one else to see it, or to know. It makes a difference just because you're smiling. Because you can.

---

Dudley and Uncle Vernon come back next day in a taxi. I've got school, but Dudley hasn't because he is still very pale and says he feels ill after changing colours so much. I know he's faking it. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon know he's faking it.

Dudley gets to stay home, and I leave for school in my new trainers and jumper over my uniform. My trainers are white and clean. They don't pinch toes or flap when I walk, and they say Adidas on the back. The jumper hasn't got bobbles or weird brown things on it. It's black and says Adidas, too. The clerk in the shop says everyone wears stuff like this, and I know it's true because I've seen people in school with the same jumper and trainers. Dudley turns green when he watches me leave, and for a minute I think he's a rainbow again, but then he's back to normal eating ice cream and watching the cat war video.

'New clothes, Potter?'

Liam Muggrer is the only boy who will talk to me in the fourth form. Sometimes he can be the worst boy to talk to, because he's got almost no friends. People with no friends always take the piss, because if you're taking the piss, who's left to take it out on you? When nobody else is round, Muggrer can be sort of cool. He hasn't got to show off for anyone.

'Yeah', I tell him, and point to my trainers, strutting about so he can them in action. 'Cool, huh? They're ah-dee-dahs. And look - ' I point out my jumper. 'That, too. And Pyooma socks.'

'Ace,' Liam smiles. I offer him the chair next to mine, which he takes. Maybe we can be friends, Muggrer and me. Until the bell rings, and the rest of the world comes back. Until I'm Harry Potter again, and he's just Liam Muggrer, who is only better than me because he hasn't got a cousin to make everyone hate him.

It's different when Dudley is not here to ruin things. Piers is an arse, but he's an arse either way, and nobody pays any attention to him without Dudley to back him up. Muggrer talks to me, and Sarah Adams, and Jack Ford, and Ronnie Deighton, and Brennan Docherty, and Luke and Adam and Blad, who is from Russia and speaks with a funny accent. They share sweets like creme eggs and Chomp and Mars Bars and Buttons. We all play motorbikes after maths, and laugh at Piers Polkiss when he falls off of the swings. Mrs Henley smiles, because she says she likes to see us having fun, and I smile back because I know she likes to see me and Muggrer having fun.

PE is OK today, as I've got new trainers and everyone is jealous of me.

'Look how fast they make me run!' I'm shouting and zooming across the field, until Mr Tittup tells me we're playing football today, Potter, not track. I'm picked third to play in Jamie Woolcroft's team. He's always got the best team, because his brother plays football professionally in the Championship. Everyone thinks my new shoes look good with the green of the grass and the red and white football. They all laugh and clap me on the back when I score for us. They tell me how fast I am, and they're all jealous because Woolcroft lets me play midfield instead of them.

We're all hot and sweaty and knackered out by the time Mrs Henley takes us back to the classroom for French and reading. I get all of my verbs right in the oral exam, and extra points for saying "Je joue au foot", which means I play football, because I do now. Me and my ace new shoes. I can read the big words like "miserable" and "foolish", and by the end of the day Mrs Henley says I'll pass my GCSE no problem.

Usually, I hate the walk home because it is long and hot, and sometimes weird people say hullo or ask to shake my hand. They smile and pretend to be excited about meeting me; it's scary. It makes me think of the news reports about little kids being kidnapped and having horrible things happen to them. Today, I've got my new shoes and jumper. I can outrun any kidnappers. I'm cooler than the kids that come from the comprehensive, the ones that sit on the roundabout at the park in Magnolia Crescent and shout to me when I walk by.

'Oi, squirt, how's it, then?'

'If yer startin', then!'

'Yeh lookin' ahme, yeh li'l twat?'

I don't look at them, and I don't say anything back. That's the best thing to do with people like this. You don't ever talk back to them, because that makes them angry. It makes them think you want to fight, and you don't. Especially not when you're nine and small and live in a cupboard. So, I walk. I ignore. After one hundred and twenty-five steps their voices fade away. I'm by myself again, with the occasional car flying past and mums pushing prams or little pushchairs with babies inside. I know some of the mums. Some of them walk here every day. We nod to each other, each thinking about the other until we're past and on to the next person. Then we forget each other, until tomorrow.

I'm busy showing off my trainers to a mum and a little kid, strutting past and stomping a bit to make sure they hear me, so I don't see the tall, blonde thing until I've smacked into it. I'm sat on my arse on the pavement, staring up at the most beautiful woman in the world. I've always known I'd see her around here sometime, but I hadn't expected her nearly so soon.

'Jo!'

'Harry!'

Helping me up, she ruffles my hair, grinning. 'Fancy seeing you here, Monsieur,' Jo teases me.

'I'm walking back from school,' I tell her, pointing away, towards wherever Sandcastle Primary is behind me. 'And I've got new shoes, and a new jumper and luncbox and bag, and look at my shoes! They're ace, aren't they?'

I've missed her lovely little laugh, the way she smiles at me with her eyes and her mouth. 'Very cool,' she says seriously. 'You'll have a girlfriend in no time, I just know it.' Well, obviously.

'And I've got friends, and my cousin's not a rainbow anymore, but he's home pretending to be ill.'

'That's brilliant, Harry,' Jo assures me. She checks her watch and ruffles my hair again. 'You're not far, are you, from where you live?'

No, I think sadly. Not far at all now. Not nearly long enough for a romantic walk with her. 'Nah, Privet Drive's just round the corner.'

'Oh, good.' Her face clears, she smiles brighter and bigger than before. 'I'm really sorry, Harry, but I've got to hurry if I'm to make it to the cinema. Be safe, will you? No talking to strangers on the way back.'

'Yeah, OK.'

We say bye. We smile.

It really is sort of useless, isn't it? Smiling won't make it any longer of a walk back to Privet Drive. It won't give Jo more time to get to the cinema, or stop me getting kidnapped or beat up on the way home. It doesn't stop Uncle Vernon shouting that I'm late, or Aunt Petunia making me hoover the parlour. It won't do my homework for me, or make sure I get to see Jo again. Mum and Dad are still dead. I'm still just Harry Potter, the Cupboard Under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England, Europe, the World, the Universe.

I smile at that, too, because it's funny living in the cupboard under the stairs, in such a very small place, when the universe is so really big. I finish my maths homework early and read the story in my book for Mrs Henley, and then I lie down. I'm not tired, or even really sad, or anything. I just want to lie down and think a bit. Me in my cupboard, with my new trainers and the thin little bars of light that pour in from the cracks. Normal things.