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(Old woman Sims), of number four, Privet Drive, was proud to say that she was perfectly normal, thank you very much. She was the last person you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because she just didn't hold with such nonsense.
(Old woman Sims) was the secretary at the office that held a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. She was a large imposing woman with steely gray hair and dark brown eyes.
(Old womanSims) had everything she wanted, but she also had a secret, and her greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. She didn't think she could bear it if anyone found out about her daughter. Lily may be her daughter, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, (Old woman Sims) pretended she didn't have a daughter, because her daughter and her good-for-nothing husband were as unnormal as it was possible to be. (Old woman Sims) shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if her daughter arrived in the street. (Old woman Sims) knew that her daughter had a small son, but she had never even seen him.
When (Old woman Sims) woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. (Old woman Sims) hummed as she picked out her most boring skirt for work.
She did not notice a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.
At half past eight, (Old woman Sims) picked up her briefcase, stepped out the door, got into her car and backed out of number four's drive.
It was on the corner of the street that she noticed the first sign of something peculiar -- a cat reading a map. For a second, (Old woman Sims) didn't realize what she had seen -- then she jerked her head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could she have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. (Old woman Sims) blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As (Old woman Sims) drove around the corner and up the road, she watched the cat in her mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive -- no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs. (Old woman Sims) gave herself a little shake and put the cat out of her mind. As she drove toward town she thought of nothing except a large order of drills she was hoping to get that day.
But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of her mind by something else. As she sat in the usual morning traffic jam, she couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. (Old woman Sims) couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes -- the getups you saw on young people! She supposed this was some stupid new fashion. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and her eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. (Old woman Sims) was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than she was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck (Old woman Sims) that this was probably some silly stunt -- these people were obviously collecting for something. . . yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later (Old woman Sims) arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, her mind back on drills.
(Old woman Sims) always sat with her back to the window by her desk at the front door. If she hadn't, she might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. She didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime. (Old woman Sims) however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. She glared at five different people. She made several important telephone calls and glared a bit more. She was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when she thought she'd stretch her legs and walk across the road to buy herself a bun from the bakery.
She'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until she passed a group of them next to the baker's. She eyed them angrily as she passed. She didn't know why, but they made her uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and she couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on her way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that she caught a few words of what they were saying.
"The Sims , that's right, that's what I heard--"
"-- yes, their son, Jonnathan--"
(Old woman Sims) stopped dead. Fear flooded her. He looked back at the whisperers as if she wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.
She dashed back across the road, hurried back to her desk, then stopped abruptly, sat down and stroked her chin, thinking. . . no, she was being stupid. Sims wasn't such an unusual name. She was sure there were lots of people called sims who had a son called Jon. Come to think of it, she wasn't even sure her grandson was called Jon. She'd never even met the boy. It might have been Josh. Or Jim. but all the same, those people in cloaks. . .
She found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when she left the building at five o'clock, she was still so worried that she walked straight into someone just outside the door.
"Sorry," he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before (Old woman Sims) realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear madam, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!"
And the old man hugged (Old woman Sims) around the middle and walked off.
(Old woman Sims) stood rooted to the spot. She had been hugged by a complete stranger. She also thought she had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. She was rattled. She hurried to her car and set off for home, hoping she was imagining things, which she had never hoped before, because she didn't approve of imagination.
As she pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing she saw -- and it didn't improve her mood -- was the tabby cat she'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on her garden wall. She was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.
"Shoo!" said (Old woman Sims) loudly.
The cat didn't move. It just gave her a stern look. Was this normal cat behavior? (Old woman Sims) wondered. Trying to pull herself together, she let herself into the house and tried to act normally. After diner she went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:
"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern. " The newscaster allowed himself a grin. "Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?"
"Well, Ted," said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early -- it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight. "
(Old woman Sims) sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Sims. . .
She refused to waste another thought on the subject as she went upstairs to bed. Except… one more thing. (Old woman Sims) crept to her bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.
Was she imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Sims? If it did. . . if it got out that she was related to a pair of -- well, she didn't think she could bear it.
She got into bed but lay awake, turning it all over in her mind. Her last, comforting thought before she fell asleep was that even if the Sims were involved, there was no reason for them to come near her and her quiet life. Her son knew very well what she thought about him and his kind. . . she couldn't see how she could get mixed up in anything that might be going on -- she yawned and turned over -- it couldn't affect her. . .
How very wrong she was.
(Old woman Sims) might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.
A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.
Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and despite the silver of his hair he looked quite young. He was wearing long robes, a emerald cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His green-gold eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Jonah Magnus.
Jonah Magnus didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known. "
He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again -- the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.
"Fancy seeing you here, Professor Robbinson. "
He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing oval glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, a forest green one. Her gray and white hair was drawn into a loose bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.
"How did you know it was me?" she asked.
"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly. "
"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor Robbinson.
"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here. "
Professor Robbinsonsniffed angrily.
"Oh yes, I'm celebrating, all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no -- even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news. " She jerked her head back at Miss Sims' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls. . . shooting stars. . . Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent -- I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense. "
"You can't blame them," said Magnus cheerily. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years. "
"I know that," said Professor Robbinson irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors. "
She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Magnus here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Magnus?"
"It certainly seems so," said Magnus. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"
"A what?"
"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of. "
"No, thank you," said Professor Robbinson coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone--"
"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense -- for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: <,_}]]=+[{