something wrong with the pup --"
At that moment, the wineglass Aunt Marge was holding exploded in her
hand. Shards of glass flew in every direction and Aunt Marge sputtered
and blinked, her great ruddy face dripping.
"Marge!" squealed Aunt Petunia. "Marge, are you all right?"
"Not to worry," grunted Aunt Marge, mopping her face with her napkin.
"Must have squeezed it too hard. Did the same thing at Colonel Fubster's
the other day. No need to fuss, Petunia, I have a very firm grip..."
But Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were both looking at Harry
suspiciously, so he decided he'd better skip dessert and escape from the
table as soon as he could.
Outside in the hall, he leaned against the wall, breathing deeply It had
been a long time since he'd lost control and made something explode. He
couldn't afford to let it happen again. The Hogsmeade form wasn't the
only thing at stake -- if he carried on like that, he'd be in trouble
with the Ministry of Magic.
Harry was still an underage wizard, and he was forbidden by wizard law
to do magic outside school. His record wasn't exactly clean either. Only
last summer he'd gotten an official warning that had stated quite
clearly that if the Ministry got wind of any more magic in Privet Drive,
Harry would face expulsion from Hogwarts.
He heard the Dursleys leaving the table and hurried upstairs out of the
way.
Harry got through the next three days by forcing himself to think about
his Handbook of Do-It-Yourself Broomcare whenever Aunt Marge started on
him. This worked quite well, though it seemed to give him a glazed look,
because Aunt Marge started voicing the opinion that he was mentally
subnormal.
At last, at long last, the final evening of Marge's stay arrived. Aunt
Petunia cooked a fancy dinner and Uncle Vernon uncorked several bottles
of wine. They got all the way through the soup and the salmon without a
single mention of Harry's faults; during the lemon meringue pie, Uncle
Vernon bored them A with a long talk about Grunnings, his drill-making
company; then Aunt Petunia made coffee and Uncle Vernon brought out a
bottle of brandy.
"Can I tempt you, Marge?"
Aunt Marge had already had quite a lot of wine. Her huge face was very
red.
