chapter 1

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say
that they were perfectly NORTMAL, 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.