J. K. Rowling‘I suppose so,’ said Mrs Dursley stiffly.
‘What’s his name again? Howard, isn’t it?’
‘Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. ‘Yes, I quite agree.’
He didn’t say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it was waiting for something.
Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did ... if it got out that they were related to a pair of – well, he didn’t think he could bear it.
The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind ... He couldn’t see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on. He yawned and turned over. It couldn’t affect them ...
How very wrong he was.
Mr Dursley 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 in the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.