With a crack of displaced air, Dobby appeared with Harry in Harry's room at the Dursleys' house.
Harry knelt on the floor, gulping down air. Just now, it had felt as though someone had stuffed him into a rubber tube, squeezing every part of him back into his body...
Douglas had instructed Dobby to return immediately after dropping Harry off. Otherwise, seeing this would certainly have triggered his old habit, and he would have started punishing himself nonstop.
Just then, Harry's bedroom door suddenly opened. Vernon Dursley switched on the light and, seeing the state Harry was in, said mockingly:
"You little brat, I thought that maternal cousin of yours would treat you so kindly. Turns out he tortures you too... Looks like I was right. You're all a bunch of lunatics..."
Harry caught his breath and stared at Vernon without a word, then began straightening his bed...
At this point, Vernon said viciously, but quietly:
"Since you don't need the door to get home, I'll lock it. I don't want you showing up around the house over the next few days. I told Marge we'd already sent you back to St. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys... So you..."
Harry cut in:
"I promise not to make a sound or let her realize I'm home... But you have to sign my permission form, or else..."
Vernon said with a mocking expression:
"Or else what? If you dare cause trouble, I'll complain to that professor cousin of yours. Don't forget, we're relatives too.
"I imagine that however abnormal he is, he'll have his own way of disciplining disobedient little brats...
"Speaking of which, why don't you ask your professor cousin to sign it... Ha-ha."
With a mocking look, Vernon locked the bedroom door from outside.
He had thought it