Wot In The Harri Potter?

2 - The Captor

When Hagrid tries to take me from the hut, Dudley steps in front of us, blocking our path.

"You can't take her!" He pleads, the quiver in his voice giving away his fear as he looks up at my captor. "This is kidnap!"

Hagrid just laughs and points his flowery umbrella at him. "Get outta me way, Piggy!"

One bang later, and Dudley is clutching his arse with both hands, strangled gasps of fear leaving his lips as he fails to cover the newly grown pig tail.

This action has stirred my aunt and uncle out of their trance, who both begin shouting and screaming at Hagrid to leave their son alone.

"Dudley, it's okay!" I try and reassure him. "I want to go with Hagrid." I turn to the giant. "Please don't hurt my cousin, he means well. Maybe he can come with us?"

"OVER MY DEAD BODY!" Uncle Vernon bellows at the same time as Aunt Petunia makes a wailing sound.

"No can do," Hagrid says gruffly, unmoved by my aunt and uncle's yells of protest. "He's a Muggle, see."

"I'm a what?" Dudley asks at the same time as I gasp, "He's a what?"

Hagrid rolls his eyes, tutting as though he thinks us uneducated fools. "Non-wizarding folk. Can't take you with us even if we wanted ter."

"Sorry," I shrug at my cousin. I love him, but it isn't as though he doesn't have a cool school to go to as well. "I'll write, I promise."

"No effing use," Hagrid growls. "Not if that great bumbling idiot keeps trying ter hide yer post." He throws a glare at a puce coloured Uncle Vernon.

And then he just picks me up, tucks me under his arm, and strides me on out of there. I manage to throw a quick wave goodbye to Dudley, resisting the urge to stick my finger up at my so called guardians.

I am saved!

*****

Because of my atrocious upbringing, I honestly don't care about being kidnapped by a giant.

In fact, I am in complete awe as this Hagrid bloke takes me shopping in London. London - can you imagine?!

Except, instead of going to those glorious high street shops I've heard so much about, we enter a dingy little pub and go shopping up an alley out the back.

The cobbled street winds on ahead, and I stare in both wonderment and disgust at the sights in the window displays.

"This is... nice?" I say a little uncertainly as we pass by a shop that has a window full of shrunken heads. "You don't suppose they have a Primark here do you?"

But Hagrid just grunts a reply, not stopping until we reach a bank; a bank where I apparently hold quite a bit of money thanks to my dead magical parents.

I am all excited until I discover that my vault contains fake money.

"But I cannot spend this," I sigh, picking up a round gold coin which apparently is called a galleon. "I think my parents must have just been good at Monopoly or something."

Hagrid's roar of laughter is so loud, it even startles the goblin who escorted us down here. I nearly topple over as Hagrid jovially slaps me on the back. "Ah, Harri. You've a lot ter learn my girl."

*****

With my pockets now full of fake money, I find myself in a shop called Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. Hagrid, reluctant to escort me, decides to find himself an off license.

By this point in my life I am used to neglect so it doesn't bother me.

A squat woman - presumably Madam Malkin herself, comes waddling over to me, her kind face reminding me of Dudley's. I swallow down a lump, wondering when I am next to going to see him - if ever - again.