The hottest day of that summer was coming to an end. The large square houses of Privet Drive were wrapped in a lethargic silence, while the cars, which usually gleamed with cleanliness, now stood dusty on the lawns. The once lush and well-kept grass was parched and shriveled – due to the drought, people had been forbidden to water with hoses. The residents of Privet Drive, deprived of their usual activities of washing their cars and mowing their lawns, had retreated into the cool shade of their homes. However, they had left their windows wide open, hoping to entice a non-existent breeze. The only one outside was a teenager, lying on his back in a flowerbed in front of number 4.

He was a thin boy with black hair, round glasses, and the worn, slightly sickly look of a child who had grown too quickly. He wore a shabby, dirty pair of jeans, a baggy, faded T-shirt, and his sneakers had started to split where the sole met the upper. Harry Potter’s appearance did not make him particularly popular with the neighbors. Most of them were the sort of people who believed that an unkempt appearance ought to be punishable by law. That afternoon, however, hidden behind a hydrangea bush as thick as a shrub, he was invisible to passersby. The only way anyone could see him was if Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia came to the living room window and looked down at the flowerbed directly below.

So, Harry congratulated himself on the idea of hiding there. He might not have been very comfortable lying on the hard, sun-baked earth, but on the other hand, there was no one to glare at him, grind their teeth so loudly he couldn’t hear the news, or bombard him with annoying questions, as happened every time he decided to sit in the living room to watch television with his aunt and uncle.