Emma Potter

86: Escape

By the time Harry and I arrived in the kitchen, the three Dursleyswere already seated around the table. None of them looked upas we entered or sat down. Uncle Vernon's large red face was hiddenbehind the morning's Daily Mail, and Aunt Petunia was cutting agrapefruit into quarters, her lips pursed over her horselike teeth.

 Dudley looked furious and sulky, and somehow seemed to betaking up even more space than usual. This was saying something,as he always took up an entire side of the square table by himself.When Aunt Petunia put a quarter of unsweetened grapefruit ontoDudley's plate with a tremulous "There you are, Diddy darling,"Dudley glowered at her. His life had taken a most unpleasant turnsince he had come home for the summer with his end-of-yearreport. 

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had managed to find excusesfor his bad marks as usual: Aunt Petunia always insisted that Dudley was a very gifted boy whose teachers didn't understand him, while Uncle Vernon maintained that "he didn't want some swottylittle nancy boy for a son anyway." They also skated over the accusations of bullying in the report — "He's a boisterous little boy, buthe wouldn't hurt a fly!" Aunt Petunia had said tearfully.However, at the bottom of the report there were a few well-chosen comments from the school nurse that not even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia could explain away. 

No matter how muchAunt Petunia wailed that Dudley was big-boned, and that hispoundage was really puppy fat, and that he was a growing boy whoneeded plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfittersdidn't stock knickerbockers big enough for him anymore. Theschool nurse had seen what Aunt Petunia's eyes — so sharp when itcame to spotting fingerprints on her gleaming walls, and in observing the comings and goings of the neighbors — simply refusedto see: that far from needing extra nourishment, Dudley hadreached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.

 So — after many tantrums, after arguments that shook our bedroom floor, and many tears from Aunt Petunia — the newregime had begun. The diet sheet that had been sent by the Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had beenemptied of all Dudley's favorite things — fizzy drinks and cakes,chocolate bars and burgers — and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things that Uncle Vernon called "rabbitfood."

 To make Dudley feel better about it all, Aunt Petunia hadinsisted that the whole family follow the diet too. She now passeda grapefruit bit each to Harry and me. I noticed that they were a lot smallerthan Dudley's. Aunt Petunia seemed to feel that the best way tokeep up Dudley's morale was to make sure that he did, at least, getmore to eat than Harry and me.

But Aunt Petunia didn't know what was hidden under the loosefloorboard upstairs. She had no idea that Harry and I were not followingthe diet at all. The moment we had got wind of the fact that we were expected to survive the summer on carrot sticks, Harry  and I had sentHedwig to our friends with pleas for help, and they had risen to theoccasion magnificently. Hedwig had returned from Hermione'shouse with a large box stuffed full of sugar-free snacks. (Hermione'sparents were dentists.) Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, hadobliged with a sack full of his own homemade rock cakes. (Harry and I hadn't touched these; we had had too much experience of Hagrid'scooking.) Mrs. Weasley, however, had sent the family owl, Errol,with an enormous fruitcake and assorted meat pies. Poor Errol, whowas elderly and feeble, had needed a full five days to recover fromthe journey, Zoe sent me cakes from spain, Nicholas and Draco sent wonderful wizard cakes I hadn't even tried at hogwarts. And then on Harry and my birthday (which the Dursleys hadcompletely ignored) we had received four superb birthday cakes--well, actually 7 Harry didn't want to touch them but he eventually did, I knew my brother's sweet tooth-- one each from Zoe, Draco, Nicholas, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and Sirius.

 Harry and I still had three of them left, and so, looking forward to a real breakfast when wegot back upstairs, we ate our grapefruit without complaint.