OoP SPOILER/FF: Opening Lines of OoP

[Cindy C.]

No: HPFGUIDX 59989

Hi, all,

Apparently, the _Guardian_is having a contest to see who can write 
the most accurate or most inventive opening few paragraphs for OoP, 
300 words or less.  You know, you take the opening lines about the 
flower bed and write what you think JKR will write.  Or write 
something amusing.  Here's the link, with a few examples:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/potter/page/0,13381,974608,00.html

Now, these examples are well and good and all.  Yes, yes, yes.  But I 
think the folks on this list can do just as well.  Or better.  And 
since the _Guardian_ isn't offering anything in the way of prizes, we 
might was well steal their idea and make our own fun.  Besides, this 
gives an opportunity to flesh out some of the predictions about the 
opening lines when Bloomsbury first released them.

OK.  The opening lines from OoP are:

"The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a 
drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Privet Drive... 
The only person left outside was a teenage boy who was lying flat on 
his back in a flowerbed outside number four."

<sharpens pencil>

<thinks>

I'll go with:

***********************

"Harry grimaced at the stabbing pain radiating from his hip and 
hauled himself to his feet.  Nothing broken, he decided after a 
moment.  Inside, he could hear the television blaring, his cousin 
Dudley no doubt lolling before it, his piggy eyes inches from the 
flickering screen.

Dudley.  Dudley was the reason Harry had been on the roof.  Dudley 
and his top-of-the-line new satellite dish, the "Tellie for Tubbies 
Version 1.0." It would receive 200 different stations, the salesman 
had explained hurriedly, each blasting 24 hours of programming into 
your home each and every day -- "all of it educational, ma'am, all of 
it educational!"  "Educational" meant that most of the shows were in 
foreign languages Dudley couldn't understand, but the Dursleys didn't 
know that yet.  

"It was Harry's job to make the thing work.  Without using magic.

"Harry, you see, was a wizard . . . "

***********************

Cindy -- keeping her day job and hoping OoP is *much* better