August 28, 1991 (evening)

"We never saw a single owl all afternoon," Dudley complained at supper. "But I could have shot it if one did come, right, Dad?"

"Quite right, Dudders. Are there any more saltines, Petunia?"

"Harry?"

In response to his aunt's passing the query to him, Harry pulled another packet of saltine crackers from the cardboard box, handing it to Vernon. The man ripped open the packet and crushed several crackers into his bowl of chili. He took a spoonful of the spicy concoction of meat and beans, chewed it without enthusiasm, then addressed Petunia.

"I'm looking forward to eating your home cooking again, my pet. This living out of tins is for the birds."

"Yeah," grumbled Dudley. "And it's because of the birds. The OWLS!" He guffawed at his own lame joke.

"So, when are we leaving for home, Vernon, dear?"

Vernon swallowed another spoonful of chili before answering. "As Dudley said, we didn't see any owls after lunch. I think we should wait another full day, just to be certain, and if we don't see any owls at all tomorrow, I think it will be safe to start home the following morning."

"And then it'll be time for me to get ready to go off to Smeltings, right, Dad?"

"Indeed," replied Vernon, rubbing his stomach, frowning a bit. "Petunia, dear, I don't suppose we have a supply of antacid with us?"

Petunia stared at her husband in concern. "Um ... no, dear. I believe I must have overlooked that item. We did leave home so abruptly, if you recall."

Vernon glared at Harry, standing in his usual corner by the fireplace. "Yes, I DO remember." He massaged his stomach again, grimacing. "I say, I believe this chili has decided to burn a hole

through my stomach. It seems to feel hotter than it tastes." He laid down the plastic spoon. "I think it's best if I don't eat any more of it. How is our bread supply holding out?"

Petunia cut a thick slice and passed it to her husband. "Butter, dear?"

"Not this time." Vernon bit into the bread. After chewing and swallowing, he grumbled, "I suppose I shouldn't have indulged in that second can of chili, although I was quite hungry after teaching Dudley how to shoot all afternoon. I really wish I could have a nice, thick vanilla milkshake right about now. That would settle my stomach."

Petunia stood up and began to rummage through the remaining supplies, but to no avail. "I'm sorry, dear, but I don't see anything that might help.There's no baking soda, and we even ran out of tinned milk this morning."

"We did?" Groaning in pain, Vernon lurched to his feet. "Are you sure? Here, let me look." He moved Petunia aside and began opening bags and boxes, pawing through their contents distractedly. "There MUST be something..."

But there wasn't.

The evening wore on with Vernon moaning and groaning, drinking bottle after bottle of water, trying to squelch the agonizing fire burning in his belly. The verbal sounds of his distress were eventually augmented by strange grumbles and squeals from deep within his distended abdomen as the effect of the chili worked its way ever deeper through his digestive system.

Outside, the wind picked up, whistling through the cracks of the Hut's delapidated walls.

"I think there's going to be a storm!" shouted Dudley. "Did you see lightning just now?"

Petunia glanced up the stairs nervously. "If it rains... Vernon, is it possible to get that bit of roofing back in place where you removed it to climb out?"

A deep groan answered her. Then Vernon growled, "Just let it rain in. It's not our property, is it? They can't accuse us of making a hole in the roof, can they? The storm itself could have done it. We can complain that there already WAS a hole."

Petunia shook her head, seeming to disagree, but replied, "Whatever you say, dear. Dessert, Diddykins?"

She had Harry serve Dudley a third of a two-layer spice cake, and when Vernon heard the word "spice", he moaned anew.

"Perhaps some tea," murmured Petunia soothingly, pouring water from a litre bottle into the large kettle hanging over the fire.

Vernon sipped optimistically at the tea, but it seemed to offer no relief. "It's going to be a LONG night," he groaned, clutching his belly with both hands, his spread fingers massaging and massaging to no avail.

From his usual corner by the fireplace, Harry watched silently. Thanks to his fine lunch, he wasn't HUNGRY-hungry, like he often was in the evenings, but he would have welcomed a slice of bread. However, with Uncle Vernon's temper racheting upwards, he decided not to risk asking for anything to eat. He certainly didn't want to give his uncle the idea of forcing him to eat the fiery tinned chili...

The Hut began to shudder under the onslaught of the wind. If the dismal abode had ever had glass panes in the windows, they had disappeared long ago.Petunia darted from window to window, closing the weathered wooden shutters to keep out the worst of the approaching rain. Through every single crack and gap, Harry could see lightning flashing, and thunder crashed ominously as the storm moved closer toward the Rock. They could hear the sound of waves crashing against the lower part of the Rock, and occasionally a larger wave would send spray through the gaps in the walls. An occasional metallic clunk seemed to indicate that the boat moored to the Rock was being forced against the unyielding stone. As the storm gathered strength, the frail humans could only hope that the Hut would neither be struck by lighting, nor be swept into the sea by a rogue wave.

An eternity seemed to pass as they waited for Nature to determine their Fate, and finally, with a deep sigh of relief, Petunia said, "It seems to be letting up, doesn't it, Vernon?"

Vernon nodded, then groaned aloud. During the worst of the storm, fear had seemed to distract him from his roaring stomach, but now that the storm was passing on, he relapsed into self-absorption once again. He clutched a mostly-full water bottle by the neck and stumbled to the stairs. Then he seemed to think of something and returned to grab hold of the shotgun. "No sense leaving this shotgun where Dudders might shoot his own foot off."

Dudley laughed. "Well, I could always shoot Harry's foot off instead!"

Harry glared at his cousin from the corner.

Already en route to the stairs again, Vernon whirled, pressing the plastic water bottle into his burning abdomen with one hand, while he hefted the shotgun with the other, pointing it directly at Harry. That mad gleam glowed in his eyes once again.

"This is all your fault, boy," he whispered, the end of the shotgun's muzzle waving a bit. "All ... YOUR ... bloody ... fault."

Harry's heart pounded fiercely in his mouth, the blood hissing through his eardrums. He dared not move. Even Petunia and Dudley seemed petrified.

"YOUR ... fault..."

At last ... at long last ... after an eternity of tension, Vernon took his mad-gleaming eyes, the threatening length of double-barreled steel, his rumbling, gurgling stomach, and the bottle of drinking water upstairs to the sagging loft.

Harry's knees gave out, and he sank down to a sitting position. Only the wall in the corner kept him from collapsing flat on his back. Uncle Vernon had gone mad. He was sure of it! And from the expression in his aunt's and cousin's faces, Harry knew that-for once-the three of them were all in agreement about something.

Outside, a fast-moving second storm grew in intensity, rain pelting the walls and roof of the Hut, and they could hear it splattering through the open hole over the old dresser.

After a long time, Vernon's anguished groans seemed to diminish in their frequency, and Petunia finally dared to move again. Wordlessly, she straightened up the table, disposing of trash and garbage in the cardboard box. After straightening the supplies that Vernon had left in disarray, she kissed Dudley goodnight and looked briefly at Harry huddled in the inwards corner next to the fireplace. On silent feet, she crept upstairs, holding her breath against disturbing her husband. The sooner they were out of this Hut and off the Rock, the better.

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Harry didn't know how long he had dozed fitfully on the floor in front of the dying fire, Dudley snoring above him on the worn sofa. He had spent a fair amount of time huddled in the corner, his arms wrapped tightly round his drawn-up knees, ears straining for any sign of Vernon moving around upstairs. Or worse, coming DOWN the stairs. Only as the second storm began to wane, sometime well after midnight, did Harry creep out of his corner and curl up before the fireplace.

Given that he could still hear thunder through the pouring rain, he guessed he couldn't have slept for very long before the door suddenly fell in. Lightning backlit a humongous, shaggy figure framed ominously in the doorway.

"Sorry ‘bout that," said the hulking silhouette in a matter-of-fact voice. As the gigantic man turned to lift up the door and replace it, Harry scuttled into the safety of his corner once again, pressed into it so tightly his shoulder blades seemed to fuse with the stones. Dudley gawked in horror at the silhouette from his bed on the sofa.

The commotion at the door had brought Vernon and Petunia creeping cautiously down the rickety stairs, preceded by the shotgun.

"Who are you?" shouted Vernon, pointing the gun at the bearded intruder who had

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approached the faint glow of residual firelight. "What do you want? WHAT do you WANT?!"

"'Arry Potter, o' course!"

BLAM!

Petunia screamed as the large man fell backwards, shaking the entire Hut with the force of his landing.

"VERNON!" she shrieked in horror, gasping for breath at the sight of the now-motionless intruder. "VERNON! VERNON! VERNON! You-you-you-sh-sh-SHOT him! You SHOT him!"

Dudley stared at the fallen great figure, his mouth hanging open in shock. Then, reality set in, and he burst into tears.

Harry couldn't even breathe-the tip of the shotgun was now pointed directly at him for the second time that night.

"Oh, VERNON! NO! NO! NO! Oh, PLEASE, NO!"

The shotgun never wavered.

Harry kept staring into those insidious black holes. Above the other end of the gun, he could sense the madness glowing brightly in his uncle's eyes, as his mind struggled to process his aunt's pleadings. When he finally understood, he wondered inanely if it would hurt. Or would he just die? What would they do with his body? Feed it to the sharks?

"NO! NO! NO! Vernon-you CAN'T! You CAN'T!"

Harry's emerald eyes didn't even blink as he kept staring into the twin black holes. It was almost like staring into a pair of black eyes. The strong smell of gunpowder hung in his nostrils from the last sharp inhalation he'd made before holding his breath. But he couldn't tell, just by looking, which barrel had already gone off. So, which hole would kill him? Left or right? Would he ... he swallowed at the thought, surprised that he could swallow at all ... would he finally see his parents again? The parents he couldn't even remember, not really, just ... sensations, sometimes ... a sense of déjà vu at others...

"VERNON! You CAN'T! NOT HARRY!"

"But it's HIS fault."

"NO!" Petunia's hands fluttered helplessly as her husband continued to point the gun at Harry. "Vernon, listen to me. LISTEN to me-we have to leave. We have to get OUT of here. NOW."

"Tonight?" Vernon looked startled. "But it's still storming, isn't it? Surely it would be better to wait for morning."

Petunia reached for his arm, then thought better of it. "Vernon, you just killed that man. We have to leave NOW."

Vernon stared at Harry. "But what about him?"

Petunia glanced quickly at Harry's face, then at Dudley, who had squeezed himself into a sniveling round ball on the sofa. "You can't shoot him, Vernon."

A long silence, punctuated by distant lightning.

"Very well," said Vernon. Harry recognized that calculating tone of voice from long experience. It never boded well. "We'll leave him here. We won't say anything about the hole in the roof, so nobody will come to check. There won't be any reason for anyone to come to the Rock anytime soon. The owner said nobody had stayed here in the past six years."

Petunia lifted her chin. "Agreed."

"But what about him?" whimpered Dudley, pointing at the fallen figure near the door.

"He's dead, son," Vernon said. "One of that freak lot, no doubt."

"No! He's NOT dead! I can see him breathing!" Dudley pointed again. "See?"

Vernon and Petunia cautiously approached the giant of a man-he must have measured eight or nine feet long, stretched out on the floor like that. And Dudley was right, Harry realized, peeking around the outer edge of his corner. The man's chest kept jerking slightly with each painful breath he took.

"You have to help him!" Harry burst out. "Don't you see-it was self-defense! He broke in during the storm, and he was a stranger, and he was big and scary, and you only shot him in self-defense, Uncle Vernon. Don't you see? If you help him, you might not be in any trouble!"

"Nonsense," snarled Vernon. "He wasn't a stranger. I don't know who he is, but he came here for YOU. This is YOUR fault, and we're leaving you behind with him."

This time, Petunia voiced no protest.

While Harry knelt by the injured man, Vernon directed his wife and son to gather up the remaining groceries and carry them down to the boat, which was pitching on the uneasy sea.

Pressure, Harry was thinking. Pressure on a wound stops the bleeding. He rummaged through the plastic bag that held some of Harry's own clothes-Dudley's hand-me-downs-and found his rattiest T-shirt. It had holes in it, but it was clean. After carefully unbuttoning the large man's very large shirt, Harry pressed the T-shirt to the bloody holes which pockmarked his torso. He leaned his weight upon the shirt to exert pressure, noting vaguely that the Dursleys were no longer traipsing in and out with packages and suitcases. He was alone with the very large man.

Harry kept leaning on the wounds, feeling the man's chest rising and falling spasmodically. Occasionally, the man's eyelids would flicker. "Can you hear me?" Harry asked. The man seemed to nod slightly. "I'm Harry Potter. You came to see me? Who are you, sir?"

For several long moments, there came no reply. Then, on a whispered breath, "Ha-grid. Ru- Ru-be-us ... Ha-grid. From ... Hog ... warts," or some such, Harry thought, confusion suffusing his face. Who was he, really?

The large man drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the night. Harry sat by his side long after the gunshot wounds seemed to cease their bleeding. He got up occasionally to feed wood to the fire from a dry supply piled halfway up the walls in one corner of the main room. Harry suspected the scraps of wood had actually been part of the Hut itself in times gone by.

As dawn slowly lightened the sky, Harry looked out to see a choppy sea, but not a surging, angry swell. No sign of any boats moored upon the Rock. Uncle Vernon was long gone, and he'd probably set this Hagrid fellow's boat loose, hoping it would sink. There was no telling if the Dursleys had made it safely to shore.

When Harry knelt again by the large man, he noticed a sheen of sweat upon his forehead, beneath his shaggy rug of a fringe. Tentatively, he touched the glazed skin and felt the fever burning from within. Harry's heart sank. He didn't know what he could do. The man might not bleed to death now, but surely he had an infection from the gunshot wounds that could kill him.

Harry himself wasn't much better off. Uncle Vernon had taken all of the food, and the few remaining bottles of drinking water wouldn't last forever. How long could they survive? And nobody knew where they were. As for the owls with the letters-if they had really stopped coming, there would be no chance to send out a message, if these owls acted like homing pigeons. Nobody would come in time.

Sighing, Harry sat crosslegged by Hagrid, considering his options. Suddenly, he noticed that the man's coat had a number of pockets. Wondering if there might be anything useful to their situation, like aspirin for fever, he began to search methodically, uncovering bits and pieces of things, some identifiable, some not. A small pouch containing foreign-looking coins, a wad of foul-smelling something-or-other. An envelope, heavy paper, with the same weird seal across the back flap that Harry had seen on that long-ago mysterious letter addressed to him in The

Cupboard Under the Stairs. Turning it over, Harry was startled to see the inscription: Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut on the Rock, The Sea.

For the longest time, Harry stared at the words, reading them over and over again. This letter was meant for HIM! Had Hagrid come to deliver it, after all the owls had failed? Was that why the owls had stopped coming? Because Hagrid was on the way? Should he open it?

It was addressed to him, after all.

Hagrid still seemed to be unconscious, in spite of the cool cloth-another T-shirt that Harry had soaked in the cold sea water-draped across his burning forehead.

Finally, Harry made up his mind. If he was going to die, he wanted to KNOW what these letters had been about. What had frightened Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia so badly that they would condemn him to death, rather than take him back to Privet Drive and risk more letters or more people coming? He carefully pried up the seal on the back flap and extracted the heavy paper pages-was this what they called parchment?

"Dear Mr. Potter (he read, his heart throbbing with excitement), We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry..."

Huh?

He must have said it out loud, for Hagrid's eyes fluttered open. "Found it, did yeh?" he man rasped through a dry throat.

Harry's startled glance met Hagrid's feverish but steady gaze.

"But ... but what does it mean? Witchcraft and Wizardry? I don't understand."

Despite his obvious pain, the man's dark eyes regarded him with the faintest hint of a twinkle beneath his shaggy fringe.

"Yeh're a Wizard, ‘Arry."