HARRI POTTER AND THE UNENDING TOME
Chapter 1Harri Potter spent a relatively uneventful summer with his relatives, the Dustlys, and when the time came for him to go and visit his friends, they did not interfere with his leaving. This was due, in very large part, to the house guest they had acquired for the summer, one Severe Snipe. Aunt Petulant might have been more than moderately bothered by the growing collection of pickled monsters crowding against the jams and jellies in her pantry, and Uncle Vermouth might have wished to express his opinion of the situation in his characteristic explosive manner, but at the least gesture of complaint Snipe's eyebrow would raise and his wand hand would flicker, and all objections would be hastily retracted. Deadly Dustly, Harri's cousin, made absolutely no comment about the situation -- not after his first rude assessment. He still stood in the passageway between the living room and the kitchen; a massive, silent, solid granite presence, his middle finger upraised in his last act of defiance. Snipe was rather amused by that finger, and used it as a hook for his traveling cape. The elder Dustlys were assurred that their son would return to normal behavior once Harri was safely ensconced in his next habitation -- provided there were no more incidents.
Quite naturally, there were not.
As for Harri: Snipe treated him with the same distant disdain that one might use for a pet of the household who had just piddled on ones shoes. He did not threaten Harri, but neither did he encourage any sort of conversation or interaction. It was as if he hoped that Harri would steal away, and leave Snipe to torture his hosts in a more active way. That left Harri in the rather embarrassing position of having to stay close to the family he detested and protect them from something that they most likely deserved.
And what would he do when he received the summons to visit his friends, or return to school?
So it was with great relief that he discovered, on the day that he was to escape the Dustlys, that Snipe had already packed his bags and was waiting by the front door. Harri took one last look at his stone-faced aunt and uncle, and his altgether stoney cousin, and asked, "Are you sure that he'll be all right?"
"I doubt he will ever be all right," Snape hissed between his clenched teeth. "But within half an hour, he will be as he has ever been. Come now, Potter. You are keeping your betters waiting."
With that he swept out the door, Harri trailing his billowing cape. At the curbside he stopped, looked both ways, then drew from beneath his cape a long black umbrella with an old-fashioned silver handle.
Harri looked up at the hot, cloudless sky. "Do you really think you need that?"
"It belonged to my grandmother," Snipe snapped as he opened it. The smell of mothballs swirled out as Snipe clutched Harri's shoulder in a Roc-like grip, then muttered resentfully, "I believe it is time for a change in the weather."
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Helen E. Davis