'Mr. Dursley. Please tell us about your first encounter with wizards.'

  'Oh, I remember that dreadful night all too well. I was living on a rocky cliff, lost in the middle of the ocean. In a tiny, ramshackle house. A very beautiful place, fresh air, no motorbikes. Pity the weather turned foul—cold sea wind and rain kept blowing inside through a massive hole in the roof. And there was no heating in the house. Or food. That’s why I was lying on a wet mattress, unable to sleep. Thinking about my old life. Normally, I lived with my family in Little Whinging, on Privet Drive, number four, but we had only moved to that cliff the evening before.

  We were forced to hide from thousands of those owl-postmen. The vicious little beasts kept trying to deliver a thousand disgusting Hogwarts letters to my nephew Harry. Petunia and I had always hoped Harry would attend the lovely Stonewall High school near us - you know, the one right next to the post office.

  But one evil wizard disagreed with us. That damned Dumbledore set up some sort of sorcery den in an old castle up north, luring decent English children to study there. And to avoid getting caught by the police, he uses specially trained birds for all his mail! Quite a clever scheme, I must say!

  Long, long ago, he lured Petunia's sister – Leyla, if I'm not mistaken – into his so-called 'school.' And how did it all end, you ask? Tragically, I tell you. She and her husband Joseph were offed by some cultist thugs. And their boy Harry miraculously survived and turned up on our doorstep all by himself. Just imagine! A toddler, alone at night, with nothing but a basket and a blanket!

  Well, at least we're safe here. They can't reach us on this cliff. Oh what's that. Sounds like someone's knocking. Bet it's the housing association checking meters in the middle of night again. Like always, I won't answer. Maybe if I turn to the other side... Still knocking, goddammit! What a persistent inspector - she'll break the damn door down any second now. There we go, just like I said - kicked the door right in! Guess I gotta get up now. Where's my shotgun!

  Petunia and I threw on our soaking robes and stumbled into the living room. The living room – which also served as a hallway – was where our son Dudley and nephew Harry slept. They'd woken up too. Probably because the front door had been smashed in, and along with the rain and wind, a giant had squeezed into the house. While I was loading my shotgun and looking for a slipper to go deal with this, the giant had already made himself at home on the sofa, lit a fire in the fireplace, scattered his junk everywhere, pulled out a squashed cake that read 'Happy Birthday Harry,' and even started frying sausages in a pan. Very appetizing ones, by the smell – Hanoverian, I think, but I couldn’t be sure. So I say, 'Good evening, what do you want?' And he says to me, 'Shut it, Dursley,' and to my son Dudley, he says, 'Here, look, Harry, got a letter for ya.' And Harry – instead of explaining, 'Oh, there’s been a mistake, I’m Harry' – just starts eating the cake. And the cake was drenched in Hagrid’s melted toffee, which glued his mouth shut and made proper conversation impossible.

  Meanwhile, Dudley read the letter and got all emotional, then listened to the giant's tales about the 'wizarding world' – hah, what a load of nonsense! But Dudley didn't mind. He liked the whole magic rubbish, and the sausages too.

  And the giant, I noticed, kept glancing at Harry, who was hunched in the corner trying to peel that damned cake off his face. And instead of helping the poor boy – he was the one who baked that sticky abomination, after all – what does he do? He yells, 'Serves you right, you greedy little pig!' Snatches up a pink umbrella, points it straight at Harry's backside – and then, flash! A bolt of lightning, a crack of thunder, and what do we see? A pig's tail sprouting from Harry's rear end. Well, that was the last straw.

  So I says to the giant: 'Get out now or I'll shoot you with this here gun.' Then Hagrid comes up to me like, 'Let me have a look at that gun,' and I says: 'Careful now, it's expensive.' And that oaf grabs it with his meaty paw and bends the barrel clean in half.

  Right then I thought - to hell with Harry's tail anyway. Gives the boy some character, it does.

  And the giant, acting like nothing had happened, started settling in for the night right in our flat. 'Not like I'm flying back tonight in this downpour,' says he. Ha! Some aviator he is! And why'd he have to come flying here in the first place, I ask you?

  Early next morning - about ten o'clock when Petunia and I woke up - we discovered the giant had sailed away. On our boat, would you believe it! And Dudley had gone with him. Petunia, Harry and I spent the whole day running along the shore waving our arms until some fishermen picked us up and brought us back to the mainland. We finally got back to 4 Privet Drive late that night, and five minutes later Dudley shows up from London. With shopping bags. Can you imagine? He'd spent the whole day traipsing around London with Hagrid, listening to nonsense about the magical world, buying Merlin-knows-what from those freakish magic shops. So I asks him: 'Where'd you get the money? (Since when do we fund this nonsense?)' And he says: 'My aunt and uncle would never leave me penniless, it's all in the underground goblin bank guarded by dragons.' Well, that's it then - my boy's gone completely round the twist with these Hairy Krishna nutters!

  On the morning of September 1st, Dudley got up extra early, drew a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, and demanded we take him to King's Cross Station to catch the 11 o'clock red steam engine at Platform 9¾ so he could go learn magic.

  I was absolutely against this trip and wanted Dudley to attend Smeltings Academy. You know the one - just down the lane past the grocer's. I went to Woning's myself, and it's perfectly respectable, and the dinners are properly decent! To all my objections, Petunia declared she was delighted we finally had a wizard in the family.

'What in Merlin's name,' I countered, 'are we suddenly pleased about having a wizard in the family for? We used to celebrate exactly the opposite!' But she insisted that 'opposite' was when Lily was the witch and I wasn't, and now it was completely different.

  'I've hated magic,' she says, 'ever since that day at the station when Lily walked through some magical barrier and just... vanished. I tried to follow her, but Mother stopped me. Said only witches could pass through.' You know Petunia's mother - absolute dragon of a woman

  'But it's that blasted Harry who got the Hogwarts letter, not Dudley,' I argue. 'That oaf Hagrid got everything mixed up! How's our Dudley supposed to pass through some cursed barrier?'

  'Nonsense!' she snaps. 'My Dudders could walk through any barrier he pleases! I could've done it myself back then if my parents hadn't held me back. I'd have gone to Hogwarts with Lily!'

  Well, no help for it. We dropped off nephew Harry at his new school, Stonewall High, on the way, then headed to London with our Dudders to King’s Cross Station. I heaved his enormous trunk onto a trolley—topped with that bloody owl cage. Imagine! That imbecile Hagrid thought it fitting to gift our son that filthy creature. What was he thinking? Were all the hamsters sold out? The screechy thing, naturally, hooted loud enough to draw stares from the entire station. Dudley decided to name the owl ‘Peepwig’ because of its intolerable noise.

  Then Dudders himself starts shrieking: ‘Stop following me! Quit embarrassing me in front of the students—just go back to the car!’ Where he spotted these so-called ‘students’ in the station is a mystery. The boy’s never seen a magical-school pupil in his life!

  We told Dudley we’d go back to the car. Instead, we hid behind a pillar and watched. And damn it all, the boy was right—there they were, swanning in like they owned the place. A whole pack of students with trolleys, trunks, cages, and owls. All ginger and loud, with some shrill mother hen leading the charge. They marched along, then suddenly stopped and started chanting, 'Go on, Percy! You first!' What’s this Percy going to do first, I wondered, on a perfectly normal platform? Then Percy took a running start with his trolley—straight into the wall—and poof! Gone. Vanished into thin air, the little bastard. Aha, I thought, so that’s the bloody barrier!

  Our Dudders’s no fool. He saw everything and marched right up to them, all polite-like: ‘Excuse me, where are these red steam trains you’ve got? Can’t seem to spot any.’

  Then their mum comes over and asks: ‘And who might you be, young man?’

  To which he replies: ‘Why, good woman, I’m Harry Potter—see for yourself: scar, letter, trunk, and owl. All present and correct, no complaints.’‘Well, I don’t know,’ she says, squinting. ‘You don’t look much like the Potters—and I knew them well. You should’ve had Lily’s eyes, but yours are just… nasty little things.’

‘Least I don’t have a ginger face like yours!’ Dudley snaps back.

‘OH, YOU—!’ One of the boys roars, lunging at Dudders—WHAM! A fist to the head!

  Well, that was the last straw. I burst from hiding, grabbed the first ginger brat—only for an identical one to latch onto my back. What nonsense is this, I thought—do wizards just clone their kids? But no! Then a third boy jumped me—completely different face—so I kicked him square in the shins.

  Their mum started wailing—‘AAAAH!’—then suddenly, ‘OH!’ I looked up to see Petunia, ever the pragmatist, whacking the woman over the head with her umbrella!

Dudley wasn’t about to be outdone. Next thing I know, he’s kneeing one of the little gingers—Ron, I think? Some redheaded girl had screeched that name right before getting accidentally booted by her own mum in the fray.

  So this Ron latches onto Dudley like a barnacle, and our Dudders decides to ‘adjust his attitude’—by slamming him into the wall. He hoists him up, winds back—WHAM! Except… no WHAM. Because the wall was that bloody magic barrier, and Ron went flying straight through.

  Then—what the devil?! Dudley gets yanked in after him! Our boy vanished into thin air, like he’d never existed!

  I froze in shock, dropped the ginger twins mid-scuffle, and sprinted to the barrier—only to slam into solid brick. No matter how hard I pushed, it wouldn’t budge. Next to me, Petunia wheezed and headbutted the wall like a deranged goat, with equal success.

  'WHERE’S OUR SON?! OUR ONLY CHILD?!' she wailed. I glared at the redheaded mob, elbowed Petunia sharply, and said quickly: 'I mean, he’s practically our son! But technically our beloved nephew Harry. Harry Potter. Exactly as described in the letter'.

  The ginger brood watched our pathetic wall-dancing routine, gathered their junk, and slipped through the barrier one by one. Their mum—the one now sporting a shiner—even had the nerve to grab Dudley’s trolley. ‘You’ll get your Harry Potter back next summer,’ she tossed over her shoulder. ‘Use the owl until then.’ Then—poof!—she stepped through and vanished, taking our son’s luggage with her. Just us and the empty platform left.

  Petunia and I stood there for a while longer, but what could we do? We drove home empty-handed, and didn’t lay eyes on our Dudders again until Christmas.'