Between the Lines and Lies

The Letters from No One

The camera slowly pans up to reveal Dudley, in his smartest school uniform, posing and smiling grandly.)

Petunia: Smile. (She takes a photograph of him.) Vernon, just look at him. I can't believe it. In just a week, you'll be off to Smeltings.

Vernon: Caveat Smeltona. Proudest moment of my life.

Harry: (Trying not to make the disgust in his voice noticeable) Will I have to wear that too?

(The family's attention is drawn to Harry and Emma.)

Petunia: What, you? Go to Smeltings?

(Harry nods questionably.)

Vernon: Ha!

(They laugh in amusement.)

Petunia: Oh, don't be so stupid, you're going to the state school where you belong. (Goes to the kitchen and fishes out a grey shirt in a boiler.) And this is what you're gonna be wearing when I've finished dyeing it.

Emma: (Staring in disgust) Those are Dudley's old uniforms. If Harry wears that, he'lll look like an old elephant.

Petunia: No arguing. Go get the post.

(Emma makes her way down the hall, picking up some letters. One caught her interest. It was addressed to Mr. H Potter, the cupboard under the stairs, four Privet Drive.)

"If you knew where they slept, how come you did nothing about it?" Molly yells.

McGonagall explains with a humiliated expression. "We send them out with a self-addressing quill. We should've really been double checking them."

(Emma enters the living room, where Petunia is still crooning over Dudley. She hands the letter to Harry and shrugs as he gives her a curious look. Emma hands the other letters to Vernon and Petunia.)

Vernon: Marge is ill. Ate a funny whelk

(Dudley suddenly grabs Harry's letter out of his hands.)

Dudley: Dad, look, Harry a got letter!

Harry: Hey! That's mine!

Vernon: (Curiously) Who'd be writing to you?

"Hogwarts, you idiot!"

(Dudley, Petunia and Vernon gather to look at the addresses. There is a broken seal on one of the letters. The three look up at Harry nervously. Much later, an owl flies by and drops off another three letters. Inside, Vernon rips the letters up. In their cupboard, Harry and Emma are playing with small, plastic army men, bored out of their minds, when they hear a whirring.)

Vernon: No more mail through this letterbox.

(They look at their uncle as if he had turned into a gummy bear as they close the door. Four owls are shown on the roof of the car. The camera pans across to show Petunia kissing Vernon on the cheek.)

Petunia: Have a lovely day at work, dear.

(She stops and looks across at the owls. Vernon follows her stare, seeing them as well.)

Vernon: Shoo! Go on!

(Petunia notices something else and pats Vernon's arm, pointing to twelve more letters laying on the ground.)

(Much later, Vernon is shown throwing letters into the fireplace. Harry and Emma come round the corner. Vernon grins evilly before tossing some more in.)

Everyone, with the exception of Umbrigde and Fudge, shakes with anger seeing how Harry being kept from the fact that Hogwarts was writing to him.

(The scene fades to the next day, Vernon looking a bit dishevelled and Emma serving cookies.)

Vernon: Fine day, Sunday. In my opinion, the best day of the week. Do you know why that is, Dudley?

(Dudley shrugs and doesn't answer, eating a cookie.)

Emma:(Sounding bored) Because there's no post on Sunday?

Vernon: Right you are, Emma. No post on Sunday. Ha! No blasted letters today. No, sir. Not one single bloody letter, not one. (Emma sees the shadow of an owl outside the window. She motions Harry over. They see around a million owls perched around four Privet Drive.) No, sir, not one blasted, miserable-

(As Vernon was talking, a letter shoots out of the fireplace and zips across his face, cutting him off. There is a loud rumbling sound and then millions of letters come shooting out of the fireplace. Vernon, Petunia and Dudley shriek in horror as Emma and Harry watch in awe.)

Dudley: AARGHH! Make it stop! Please make it stop. (He jumps onto Petunia's lap as she and Vernon continue screaming.)

Vernon: Go away, aarghh!

Dudley: What is it? Tell me what's happening!

(Harry jumps up and down, trying to catch a letter, while Emma shakes her head in exasperation at him.)

Emma: (Being the logical one.) You're supposed to do it like this. (She picks up a letter off the ground.) See? Much easier.

(Harry looks dumbfounded, not believing he hadn't thought of that.)

The Hall falls into derisive laughter at Emma's logic. 

"You sure inherited your brains from your mother, kiddo," James says.

(Emma and Harry make a break for the cupboard, but Vernon drags them away by their hair.)

The adults and three of four houses, yell, "Get your mitts off her!"

"Let go of my friends!"

Emma: Get off me!

Harry: Let go of her!

(The wood plank nailed in front of the letterbox finally flies off, more letters streaming into the house.)

Vernon: That's it! We're going away! Far away! Where they can't find us!

Dudley: Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?

(Petunia watches her husband with a grim look on her face, knowing Dudley is right.)

Fred, George, James I and James II laugh. "Hasn't he been mad this whole time?"