Harry Porter

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M r. 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 knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even
        seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they
        didn’t want Dudley mixing with a child like that.
        When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story
        starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and
        mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley
        hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley
        gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.
        None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.
        At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs.
        Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because
        Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls.
        “Little tyke,” chortled Mr.