3
" Jonquil went by with a full plate of food, and Petunia reached out and tried to snag a small cream puff from it. Jonquil lifted it over Petunia's head before she could, and clucked her tongue. " These are for Lily," she said." Oh really?" Petunia gave her a look." And possibly some are for that Analousian duke Jacques invited," Jonquil said with a sparkle in her eye. " But none are for you." Then she flipped one to Oliver. " You can have one, my lord earl," she said, and twirled away." These are excellent," Oliver said, eating half of it in one bite. He fed Petunia the other half so she wouldn't get cream on her knitting. Oliver was just leaning in to steal a kiss - " I hope this means you're planning on marrying her, boy," barked King Gregor.Oliver leaped to his feet. " Sire! Yes! I mean ... I ... sire!" " I didn't pardon you and restore your earldom so that you could loll around my gardens flirting with my daughters," King Gregor said. Then he bent down and gave Petunia a kiss on the cheek. " I like him," he whispered loudly in her ear." Me too," she whispered back, blushing. "
11
" Do you mean to tell me’, he growled a the Dursleys, ‘that this boy- this boy! - knows nothin’ abou’ - about ANYTHING?’
Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks were’nt bad.
’I know some things,’ he said. ’ I can, you know, do maths and stuff.’
But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, ‘About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer’ parents world.’
‘What world?’
Hagrid looked at though he was about to explode.
‘DURSLEY!’ he boomed.
Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like ’Mimblewimble’.
Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.
‘But yeh must know about yer mum and dad’, he said. ’I mean, they’re famous. You’re famous.
‘What? My - my mum and dad weren’t famous, were they?’
‘Yeh don’ know... yeh don’ know...’ Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.
‘Yeh don’ know what yeh are?’ he said finally.
Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.
‘Stop!’ he commanded, ’stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!’
A braver man than Vernon dudley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.
‘You never told him? Never told him what was in the latter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An’ you kept it from him all these years?’
‘Kept what from me?’ said Harry eagerly.
‘STOP! I FORBID YOU!’ yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.
Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.
’Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh,’ said Hagrid. ‘Harry - yer a wizard. "
― J.K. Rowling , Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)
12
" It was Colonel Parkman who upped stakes, crossed the border, and named our town, thus perversely commemorating a battle in which he'd lost. (Though perhaps that's not so unusual: many people take a curatorial interest in their own scars.) He's shown astride his horse, waving a sword and about to gallop into the nearby petunia bed: a craggy man with seasoned eyes and pointed beard, every sculptor's idea of every cavalry leader. No one knows what Colonel Parkman really looked like, since he left no pictorial evidence of himself and the statue wasn't erected until 1885, but he looks like this now. Such is the tyranny of Art.On the left-hand side of the lawn, also with a petunia bed, is an equally mythic figure: the Weary Soldier, his three top shirt buttons undone, his neck bowed as if for the headman's axe, his uniform rumpled, his helmet askew, leaning on his malfunctioning Ross rifle. Forever young, forever exhausted, he tops the War Memorial, his skin burning green in the sun, pigeon droppings running down his face like tears. "