Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

THE BOY WHO LIVED

 

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they

were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd

expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just

didn't hold with such nonsense.

 

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He

was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large

mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount

of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over

garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called

Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.

 

The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their

greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could

bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's

sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended

she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband

were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think

what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys