Adventures of Harriet Potter

The Vanishing Glass

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their niece on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets — but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another child lived in the house, too.

Yet Harriet Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Her Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.

"Up! Get up! Now!" Harriet woke with a start. Her aunt rapped on the door again. "Up!" she screeched. Harriet heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. She rolled onto her back and tried to remember the dream she had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. She had a funny feeling she'd had the same dream before.

Her aunt was back outside the door. "Are you up yet?" she demanded. "Nearly," said Harriet. "Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."

Harriet groaned. "What did you say?" her aunt snapped through the door. "Nothing, nothing . . ." Dudley's birthday — how could she have forgotten? Harriet got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. She found a pair under her bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harriet was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where she slept.

When she was dressed she went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harriet, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise — unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harriet, but he couldn't often catch her. Harriet didn't look it, but she was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harriet had always been small and skinny for her age. She looked even smaller and skinnier than she really was because all she had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than she was. Harriet had a thin face, knobbly knees, fiery red hair, and bright green eyes. She wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched her on the nose. The only thing Harriet liked about her own appearance was a very thin scar on her forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. She had had it as long as she could remember, and the first question she could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how she had gotten it. "In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions."

Don't ask questions — that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys. Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harriet was turning over the bacon. "Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.

About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harriet needed a haircut. Harriet must have had more haircuts than the rest of the girls in her class put together, but it made no difference, her hair simply grew that way — all over the place.

Harriet was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel — Harriet often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.