Aunt Petunia uttered a soft scream.

“His soul? They didn’t take—he’s still got his—”

She seized Dudley by the shoulders and shook him, as though testing to see whether she could hear his soul rattling around inside him.

“Of course they didn’t get his soul, you’d know if they had,” said Harry, exasperated.

“Fought ’em off, did you, son?” said Uncle Vernon loudly, with the appearance of a man struggling to bring the conversation back on to a plane he understood. “Gave ’em the old one-two, did you?”

“You can’t give a Dementor the old one-two,” said Harry through clenched teeth.

“Why’s he all right, then?” blustered Uncle Vernon. “Why isn’t he all empty, then?”

“Because I used the Patronus—”

WHOOSH. With a clattering, a whirring of wings and a soft fall of dust, a fourth owl came shooting out of the kitchen fireplace.

“FOR GOD’S SAKE!” roared Uncle Vernon, pulling great clumps of hair out of his moustache, something he hadn’t been driven to do in a long time. “I WILL NOT HAVE OWLS HERE, I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS, I TELL YOU!”

But Harry was already pulling a roll of parchment from the owl’s leg. He was so convinced that this letter had to be from Dumbledore, explaining everything—the Dementors, Mrs. Figg, what the Ministry was up to, how he, Dumbledore, intended to sort everything out—that for the first time in his life he was disappointed to see Sirius’s handwriting. Ignoring Uncle Vernon’s ongoing rant about owls, and narrowing his eyes against a second cloud of dust as the most recent owl look off back up the chimney, Harry read Sirius’s message.

...

Arthur has just told us what’s happened. Don’t leave the house again, whatever you do.

Harry found this such an inadequate response to everything that had happened tonight that he turned the piece of parchment over, looking for the rest of the letter, but there was nothing else.

And now his temper was rising again. Wasn’t anybody going to say “well done” for fighting off two Dementors single-handed? Both Mr. Weasley and Sirius were acting as though he’d misbehaved, and were saving their tellings-off until they could ascertain how much damage had been done.

“…a peck, I mean, pack of owls shooting in and out of my house. I won’t have it, boy, I won’t—”

“I can’t stop the owls coming,” Harry snapped, crushing Sirius’s letter in his fist.

“I want the truth about what happened tonight!” barked Uncle Vernon. “If it was Demenders who hurt Dudley, how come you’ve been expelled? You did you-know-what, you’ve admitted it!”

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Aunt Petunia nodded.	\|	Harry took a deep, steadying breath. His head was beginning to ache again. He wanted more than anything to get out of the kitchen, and away from the Dursleys.

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