Dumbledore's Visit

In fact, Harry had not packed at all.

Being rescued after only two weeks at the Dursleys' was too wonderful to seem real.

So he could not shake his doubts. He kept feeling that something would go wrong—that his reply to Dumbledore had been sent somewhere else, that Dumbledore had been delayed and could not come for him, or that the letter had not been written by Dumbledore at all, but was a joke, a prank, or a trap.

If he happily packed his things only to be bitterly disappointed in the end, then have to take everything back out of his trunk one item at a time, Harry knew he would not be able to bear it.

The only thing he had done in preparation for the possible journey was lock his snowy white owl, Hedwig, firmly inside her cage.

The minute hand of the alarm clock reached twelve, and almost at the same moment, the streetlights outside abruptly went out.

The sudden darkness startled Harry awake as effectively as an alarm.

He hurriedly straightened his glasses, pulled his cheek away from the windowpane, pressed his nose against the glass instead, and squinted down at the pavement below.

A tall figure in a long cloak was coming up the garden path.

Harry sprang up as though struck by lightning, knocking over his chair.

He began grabbing everything within reach from the floor and throwing it haphazardly into his trunk.

He had just hurled a set of robes, two spellbooks, and a packet of crackers across the room when the doorbell rang.

Uncle Vernon's voice shouted from the sitting room downstairs. "Blast it, who's ringing the doorbell at this hour?"

Harry froze, holding a brass telescope in one hand and a pair of trainers in the other.

He had completely