text stringlengths 2 72 |
|---|
another escalator, out into Paddington station; Harry only realized |
where they were when Hagrid tapped him on the shoulder. |
"Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves," he said. |
He bought Harry a hamburger and they sat down on plastic seats to eat |
them. Harry kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow. |
"You all right, Harry? Yer very quiet," said Hagrid. |
Harry wasn't sure he could explain. He'd just had the best birthday of |
his life -- and yet -- he chewed his hamburger, trying to find the |
words. |
"Everyone thinks I'm special," he said at last. "All those people in the |
Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander... but I don't know |
anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I'm |
famous and I can't even remember what I'm famous for. I don't know what |
happened when Vol-, sorry -- I mean, the night my parents died." |
Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he |
wore a very kind smile. |
"Don' you worry, Harry. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the |
beginning at Hogwarts, you'll be just fine. just be yerself. I know it's |
hard. Yeh've been singled out, an' that's always hard. But yeh'll have a |
great time at Hogwarts -- I did -- still do, 'smatter of fact." |
Hagrid helped Harry on to the train that would take him back to the |
Dursleys, then handed him an envelope. |
"Yer ticket fer Hogwarts, " he said. "First o' September -- King's Cross |
-- it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a |
letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me.... See yeh soon, |
Harry." |
The train pulled out of the station. Harry wanted to watch Hagrid until |
he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against |
the window, but he blinked and Hagrid had gone. |
CHAPTER SIX |
THE JOURNEY FROM PLATFORM NINE AND THREE-QUARTERS |
Harry's last month with the Dursleys wasn't fun. True, Dudley was now so |
scared of Harry he wouldn't stay in the same room, while Aunt Petunia |
and Uncle Vernon didn't shut Harry in his cupboard, force him to do |
anything, or shout at him -- in fact, they didn't speak to him at all. |
Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Harry |
in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did |
become a bit depressing after a while. |
Harry kept to his room, with his new owl for company. He had decided to |
call her Hedwig, a name he had found in A History of Magic. His school |
books were very interesting. He lay on his bed reading late into the |
night, Hedwig swooping in and out of the open window as she pleased. It |
was lucky that Aunt Petunia didn't come in to vacuum anymore, because |
Hedwig kept bringing back dead mice. Every night before he went to |
sleep, Harry ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned |
to the wall, counting down to September the first. |
On the last day of August he thought he'd better speak to his aunt and |
uncle about getting to King's Cross station the next day, so he went |
down to the living room where they were watching a quiz show on |
television. He cleared his throat to let them know he was there, and |
Dudley screamed and ran from the room. |
"Er -- Uncle Vernon?" |
Uncle Vernon grunted to show he was listening. |
"Er -- I need to be at King's Cross tomorrow to -- to go to Hogwarts." |
Uncle Vernon grunted again. |
"Would it be all right if you gave me a lift?" |
Grunt. Harry supposed that meant yes. |
"Thank you." |
He was about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke. |
"Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got |
punctures, have they?" |
Harry didn't say anything. |
"Where is this school, anyway?" |
"I don't know," said Harry, realizing this for the first time. He pulled |
the ticket Hagrid had given him out of his pocket. |
"I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven |
o'clock," he read. |
His aunt and uncle stared. |
"Platform what?" |
"Nine and three-quarters." |
"Don't talk rubbish," said Uncle Vernon. "There is no platform nine and |
three-quarters." |
"It's on my ticket." |
"Barking," said Uncle Vernon, "howling mad, the lot of them. You'll see. |
You just wait. All right, we'll take you to King's Cross. We're going up |
to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn't bother." |
"Why are you going to London?" Harry asked, trying to keep things |
friendly. |
"Taking Dudley to the hospital," growled Uncle Vernon. "Got to have that |
ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings." |
Harry woke at five o'clock the next morning and was too excited and |
nervous to go back to sleep. He got up and pulled on his jeans because |
he didn't want to walk into the station in his wizard's robes -- he'd |
change on the train. He checked his Hogwarts list yet again to make sure |
he had everything he needed, saw that Hedwig was shut safely in her |
cage, and then paced the room, waiting for the Dursleys to get up. Two |
hours later, Harry's huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the |
Dursleys' car, Aunt Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to |
Harry, and they had set off. |
They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry's |
trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him. Harry thought |
this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the |
platforms with a nasty grin on his face. |
"Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine -- platform ten. Your platform |
should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it |
yet, do they?" |
He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over |
one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and |
in the middle, nothing at all. |
"Have a good term," said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.