When Harry is ten years old, he sees someone in the paper waving at him. It's an old man, with wrinkly eyes and the kindest smile he's seen. The newspaper isn't one he's seen before in the house. Uncle Vernon only likes The Times, Aunt Petunia reads fashion and gossip magazines, and Harry still hasn't figured out if Dudley can read or if he's just pretending. Harry knows all about the Queen's sexual escapades, knows all about Tony Blair's plastic surgery to the nose, and even tries to dabble in the stock market.

The moving picture is, however, the most interesting thing he's seen in a paper. He wonders if Aunt Petunia knows there is something so weird and strange inside her house (her own house), but if she doesn't, he isn't going to be the one to tell her. Harry sits closer to the coffee table and whispers hello to the picture. The old man waves at him enthusiastically, glad to have finally caught Harry's attention.

Harry – who's gripping the purple satin pillow tight; his knuckles are white – feels a little flustered and a little confused.

"Hello?" he tries, tentatively. The old man grins at him, nodding; Harry feels his face twist into a huge smile as he leans over the table where Uncle Vernon likes to put his feet. He analyses the crookedness of his nose, the long beard and the half-moon glasses, and he's shifting the page to see if there are more pictures, when Aunt Petunia takes two steps back away from the stove to peek inside the living room.

Aunt Petunia squints at Harry, and then squints at the picture, coming closer, and Harry can already see himself locked inside in the closet under the stairs, being handed those disgraceful, horrid oatmeal blob Aunt Petunia likes to give him, playing with the spiders who don't bite … She drops the plate she's wiping when she sees the old man squinting back at her, and it breaks on the floor.

"Vernon! VERNON!"

Harry just … sighs.