CHAPTER TWO
“I know they don’t,” said Harry. “It was only a dream.”
But he wished he hadn’t said anything. If there was one thing the
Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talk-
ing about anything acting in a way it shouldn’t, no matter if it was
in a dream or even a cartoon — they seemed to think he might get
dangerous ideas.
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with fam-
ilies. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice
creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the
van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him
away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn’t bad, either,
Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its
head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn’t
blond.
Harry had the best morning he’d had in a long time. He was
careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley
and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by
lunchtime, wouldn’t fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting
him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a
tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn’t have enough ice
cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry
was allowed to finish the first.
Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too
good to last.
After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark
in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all
sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of
wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous
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