What I Would Call It: Why Does Harry Get A Thousand Hogwarts Letters When I Can't Even Get ONE?
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| It's okay to laugh, Harry. |
However, things are looking up--Dudley and his BFF Piers are going to some school called Smelting where they wear maroon tailcoats and orange knickerbockers. Apparently knickerbocker isn't just a funny word, they also look funny because Harry laughed on the inside when he saw Dudley in them. Harry Potter, my 11-year-old self would've have tried to marry you. Just sayin'.
Reading this book is making me nostalgic for this Harry. When Harry gets older and becomes a teenager he gets angsty and annoying and isn't nearly so funny anymore. But prepubescent Harry is cheeky and funny and manages to look on the bright side. I like this Harry. For example:
There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.
"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared ask a question.
"Your new school uniform," she said.
Harry looked into the bowl again.
"Oh," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."*High five*
Moving on, the plot thickens when the mail comes. After narrowly avoiding a thwack from the Smelting Stick, harry checks the mail and discovers A LETTER for himself.
I remember being 11 and being excited to get mail, even if it was just one of those little cards that said "It's Your Birthday April! Present this card at Bob Evans for a Free Meal!"
I feel so bad for Harry though, not knowing about Hogwarts.I'd be jumping out of my skin if I got my Hogwarts letter. Still, I think Harry could've handled the situation better. Instead of taking the letter into the kitchen where everyone was, why not just casually slip it into your cupboard on your way there so no one would know about it. I mean, you know your family is crazy and hates you and makes you sleep under the stairs, why chance it?
But, he didn't. Uncle Vernon took the letter and burned it. Harry = Sad Panda.
While he sulks in his cupboard, Uncle Vernon visits him and actually does something nice for Harry--He gives him Dudley's spare bedroom to sleep in. Goodbye Cupboard under the stairs, hello proper standing room. But Harry is sad because he knows, just like I knew, that he should've opened the letter before he went into the kitchen so he'd have it. Sleeping in a cupboard would've been worth having that letter. Harry can feel it.
And then, like magic, a new letter arrives. Instead of being addressed to the cupboard under the stair, it's to the smallest bedroom.
Apparently, this is when shit gets beef.
Thursday, Harry sneaks downstairs where Uncle Vernon is sleeping in front of the mailbox. Friday 12 letter's arrive. On Saturday 24 letters arrive in egg cartons.
Then Sunday arrives and, really, one of my favorite things ever in the whole series happens: The letters through the chimney attack. This drives Uncle Vernon so mad that they actually leave. But does that stop the letters? Heck no because you know what I already know, that Dumbledore is awesome. And while I've tried to figure out just how so many letters could've come through that chimney at once because there's no way that owls could do it, I just chalk it up to magic. There's no other way.
So, they go to a hotel where the letters find them and then Vernon gets desperate. A boat. In the middle of the ocean. In the middle of the storm on the eve of Harry's 11th birthday and drags them out to a hut on a rock where they stay the night.
Harry counts down the minutes to his birthday and at the very stroke of midnight there comes a banging sound on the door of the crappy little hut in the middle of the ocean. But who's at the door?
Hide ya kids. Hide ya wife.
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