Mr. Dursley Arrives Home and Watches the News

PAGES: 6-6

Mr. Dursley arrives home to find the same strange cat from that morning, now perched on his garden wall and staring at him with an unusual intensity. Dismissing it as odd but unimportant, he goes inside, resolved not to share any of his peculiar sightings with his wife. During dinner, Mrs. Dursley recounts her uneventful day, and later, as Mr. Dursley watches the evening news, he hears baffling reports about daytime owl sightings and an inexplicable shower of shooting stars across Britain. He tries to dismiss these events, but they leave him unsettled, especially as they seem connected to whispered mentions of the Potters.

Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door’s problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word (“Won’t!”). Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:

“And finally, bird watchers everywhere have reported that the nation’s owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern.” The newscaster allowed himself a grin. “Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?”

“Well, Ted,” said the weatherman, “I don’t know about that, but it’s not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they’ve had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early—it’s not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight.”

Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters...