BOOM.
They knocked again. Diddy's gyatt jerked awake. "Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly.
There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernaur came griddying into the room. He was holding a gyatty gun in his hands, now they knew what had been in the thicc, chungus package he had brought with them.
"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you, I'm a sigma alpha!" There was a pause. Then….
SMASH!
The mewing door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a skibidi crash, landed flat on the floor.
A giant of a man was mewing in the doorway. His gyatt was almost completely hidden by a shaggy, sigma mane of hair, but you could make out his eyes, mewing like skibidi black beetles under all the hair.
The giant squeezed his jiggly gyatt into the hut, stooping so that his gyatt just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, brushed his gelatinous gyatt against it , and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.
"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey..." He griddied over to the sofa where Diddy sat frozen as if he forgot how to mew or rizz.n"Mew up, yeh unsigma beta," mewed the stranger.
Diddy mewed and griddied to hide behind his mother, who was brainrotting, terrified, behind Uncle Vernaur.
"An' here's Harry!" said the giant. Harry looked up into the skibidi, wild, shadowy face and saw that his sigma alpha eyes were crinkled in a mew.
"Las' time I rizzed you up, you was only a baby," said the sigma giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mom's gyatt."
Uncle Vernaur made an unskibidi rasping noise. "I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"
"Ah, oil up, Dursley, yeh great unskibidi prune," said the giant; he griddied over the back of the sofa, jerked the gyatt out of Uncle Vernaur's gyatt cheeks, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room. Uncle Vernaur made another moan, like a baddie being rizzed up.
"Anyway -- Harry," said the sigma giant, turning his gyatt on the Dursleys, "a very skibidi birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here -- I mighta rubbed my gyatt on it at some point, but it'll taste like pure rizz and mew.
From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a squashed box shaped like a griddying alpha. Harry opened it with a trembling gyatt. Inside was a large, skibidi chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in sigma green icing.
Harry looked up at the sigma alpha giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his gyatt, and what he said instead was, "Who are you?"
The alpha giant mewed. "True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagriddy, Keeper of Gyatts and Grounds at Sigmawarts." He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole gyatt.
"What about some skibidi bri'ish tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his gyatt cheeks together. "I'd not say naur ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."
His eyes fell on the unskibidi empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he mewed. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he mewed back a skibidi second later, there was a mewing fire there. It filled the whole unskibidi damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd found his gyatt in an OnlyFans post.
The alpha giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged and mewed under his alpha aura, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a sigma kettle, an unskibidi package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped ceramic mogs, and a bottle of some sigma amber liquid that he took a mew from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the aura and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody mewed a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six thicc, skibidi, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Diddy mewed a little.
Uncle Vernaur said sigmaly, "Don't oil up anything he gives you, Diddy."
The giant mewed darkly.
"Yer great chungus beta of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry."
He passed the thicc sausages to Harry, who was so hungry and unskibidi he had never rizzed up anything so wonderful, but he still couldn't take his eyes off the sigma giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are." The alpha giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his gyatt with the back of his hand.
"Call me Hagriddy," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Gyatts at Sigmawarts - - yeh'll know all about Sigmawarts, o' course.
"Er -- no," said Harry. Hagriddy mewed unrizzfully. "Sorry," Harry said skibidily.
"Sorry ?" mewed Hagriddy, turning to mew at the Dursleys, who griddied back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer ligmas but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Sigmawarts, fer rizzin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents mewed it all?"
"All what?" asked Harry.
"ALL WHAT?" Hagriddy thundered, asserting dominance as the baddest, most alpha. "Now wait jus' one skibidi second!"
He had leapt off his gyatt. In his unskibidi anger he seemed to fill the whole beta hut. The Dursleys were mewing against the wall. It was all giving unskibidi Freddy Fazbear nostalgia.
"Do you mean ter tell me," he mewed aggressively at the Dursleys, "that this boy -- this sigma sigma boy! -- knows nothin' abou' -- about ANYTHING?"
Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to sigma school, after all, and his marks weren't beta.
"I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and I can twerk skibidily."
But Hagriddy simply waved his gyatt and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."
"What world?" Hagriddy looked as if he was about to brainrot.
"DURSLAY!" he rizzed loudly.
Uncle Vernaur, who had gone very pale, mewed something that sounded like
"Unskibidibeta."Hagriddy stared rizzfully at Harry.
"But yeh must know about yer mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're skibidi and famous. You're famous."
"What? My -- my mom and dad weren't skibidi and famous, were they?"
"Yeh don' know... yeh don' know... "Hagriddy ran his fingers through his gyatt hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered mew.
"Yeh don' know what yeh are ?" he mewed finally. Uncle Vernaur suddenly found his aura.
"Stop!" he mewed. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the sigma sigma boy anything!"
A braver, more alpha man than Vernaur Dursley would have griddied under the furious mew Hagriddy now gave him; when Hagriddy rizzed, his every syllable trembled with unskibidi rage.
"You never told him? Never told him what was in the ligma Alphadore left fer him? I was there! I saw Alphadore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these unsigma years?"
"Kept what from me?" said Harry sigmaly.
"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernaur in unsigma panic.
Aunt Pogtunia gave a mew of horror.
"Ah, go boil yer gyatts, both of yeh," said Hagriddy. "Harry -- yer a rizzard."
There was silence inside the unsigma hut. Only the sea and the mewing wind could be heard.
"I'm a what ?" gasped Harry.
"A rizzard, o' course," said Hagriddy, sitting his gyatt back down on the sofa, which mewed and griddied even lower, "an' a skibidi good 'un, I'd say, once yeh've been oiled up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer ligma."
Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr. H. Brainrotter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. He pulled out the ligma and read:
SIGMAWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and RIZZARDRY
Headmaster: ALBUS ALPHADORE (Order of Merlin, First Skibidi Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mogwomp, International Confed. of Rizz)
Dear Mr. Brainrotter, We are skibidi to inform you that you have been accepted at Sigmawarts School of Mewcraft and Rizzardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary sigma books and skibidi equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your sigma owl by naur later than July 31.
Yours sincerely, Mewnerva McGoofygall, Deputy Headmistress
Questions rizzed inside Harry's gyatt like skibidi fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few sigma minutes he mewed, "What does it mean, they await my sigma owl?"
"Skibidi Alphas, that reminds me," said Hagriddy, clapping a hand to his gyatt with enough force to knock over a sigma alpha boss, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled a sigma owl -- a real, alpha, rather ruffled-looking owl -- a long quill, and a skibidi roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could rizz upside down:
Dear Professor Alphadore,
Given Harry his ligma. Taking him to buy his things tomorrow. Weather's horrible and unskibidi.
Hope you're well, - Hagriddy
Hagriddy rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the sigma owl out into the skibidi storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal and skibidi as oiling up on the telephone. Harry realized his Talk Tuah podcast was on and closed the tab quickly.
"Where was I?" said Hagriddy, but at that moment, Uncle Vernaur, still ashen-faced but looking very angry and unskibidi, moved into the firelight.
"He's not going," he said Hagriddy grunted and mewed. "I'd like ter see a great Moggle like you stop him," he said.
"A what?" said Harry, rizzed up.
"A Moggle," said Hagriddy, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest unskibidiest Moggles I ever laid eyes on." "We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that unsigma rubbish," said Uncle Vernaur, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Rizzard indeed!"
"You knew ?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a -- a rizzard?"
"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Pogtunia unsigmaly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sus-ter being what she was? Oh, she got a ligma just like that and disappeared off to that -- that unskibidi school -- and came home every vacation with her beta pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was -- an unsigma beta freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a mewitch in the family!" She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went mewing on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this unskibidiness for years. "Then she met that Brainrotter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as unsigma and strange, just as -- as -- abnormal -- and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!" Harry had gone very beta and white.
As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown up? You told me they died in a rizzing failure!"
"RIZZING FAILURE!" roared Hagriddy, mewed up so angrily and sigmaly that the Dursleys griddied back to their corner. "How could a rizzing failure kill Lily an' James Brainrotter? It's an outrage! An unsigma scandal! Harry Brainrotter not knowin' his own story when every alpha in our world knows his name!" "But why? What happened?" Harry asked skibidily.
The unsigma anger faded from Hagriddy's face. He looked suddenly unsigma and anxious. "I never expected this," he mewed, in a low, unsigma voice. "I had naur idea, when Alphadore told me there might be unskibidi gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh -- but someone's gotta -- yeh can't go off ter Sigmawarts not knowin'." He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys' gyatts. "Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh -- mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great mewst'ry, parts of it..." He sat down, oiled up next to the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with - - with a person called -- but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows--"
"Who?" Harry asked.
"Well -- I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. naur one does." "Why not?" "Unskibidi beta, Harry, people are still scared and beta. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this rizzard who went... bad. As bad as you could go, like the Snow White movie. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..." Hagriddy gulped, but naur words came out.
"Could you write it down?" Harry suggested.
"Nah -- can't spell it. All right -- Voldelemonadeort." Hagriddy's jiggly gyatt shuddered. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this -- this rizzard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer Insta'ram followers. Got 'em, too -- some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his sigma power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark unskibidi days, Harry. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange rizzards or mewitches... beta things happened.
He was takin' over. 'Course, some oiled up to him -- an' he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Sigmawarts. Reckon Alphadore's the only one You-Know-Rizz was afraid of. Didn't dare try rizzin' up the school, not jus' then, anyway. "Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a mewitch an' rizzard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Sigmawarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Rizz never tried to get 'em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Alphadore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.
"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an' -- an'--"Hagriddy suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn. "Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad -- knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find -- anyway... "You-Know-Rizz killed 'em. An' then -- an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing -- he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was naur ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh -- took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even -- but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry. naur one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, naur one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' Rizzards of the age -- the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts -- an' you was only a baby, an' you lived."
Something very painful was going on in Harry's mind. As Hagriddy's story came to a close, he rizzed again the mewing flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before -- and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, beta, cruel laugh. Hagriddy was watching him unsigmaly. "Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Alphadore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot..." "Load of old gyatts," said Uncle Vernaur. Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there. Uncle Vernaur certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was mewing at Hagriddy and his gyatt was clenched.
"Now, you listen here, boy," he rizzed, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured -- and as for all this about your parents, well, they were betas, naur denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion -- asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these rizzarding types -- just what I expected, always knew they'd come to an unskibidi end--" But at that moment, Hagriddy leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink, gyatt umbrella from inside his coat.
Pointing this at Uncle Vernaur like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley - - I'm warning you -- one more word..." In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernaur's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent. "That's better," saidHagriddy, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor. Harry, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.
"But what happened to Vol-, sorry -- I mean, You-Know-Rizz?" "Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see... he was gettin' more an' more powerful --why'd he go? "Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was comin' back. "Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on -- I dunno what it was, naur one does -- but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."
Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A Rizzard? Him? How could he possibly be? He'd spent his life being clouted by Diddy, and bullied by Aunt Pogtunia and Uncle Vernaur; if he was really a Rizzard, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock him in his cupboard? If he'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Diddy had always been able to kick him around like a football?
"Hagrid," he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a Rizzard." To his surprise,Hagriddy chuckled. "Not a Rizzard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?" Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it... every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry... chased by Diddy's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach... dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back... and the very last time Diddy had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him? Harry looked back at Hagriddy, smiling, and saw that Hagriddy was positively beaming at him.
"See?" said Hagriddy. "Harry Brainrotter, not a rizzard -- you wait, you'll be right famous at Sigmawarts." But Uncle Vernaur wasn't going to give in without a fight. "Haven't I told you he's not going?" he hissed. "He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those ligmas and he needs all sorts of rubbish -- spell books and wands and--"
"If he wants ter go, a great Moggle like you won't stop him," growledHagriddy. "Stop Lily an' James Brainrotter's son goin' ter Sigmawarts! Yer mad. His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and rizzardry in the world. Seven years thereand he won't know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Sigmawarts ever had Albus Alphad--"
"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME BETA OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM UNSKIBIDI MAGIC TRICKS!" mewed Uncle Vernaur.
But he had finally gone too far. Hagriddy rizzed up his umbrella and whirled it over his gyatt, "NEVER -- " he mewed, " -- INSULT -- ALBUS -- ALPHADORE -- IN -- FRONT -- OF -- ME!" He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Diddy -- there was a flash of skibidi light, a sound like a firecracker, a sigma squeal, and the next second, Diddy was rizzing on the spot with his hands clasped over his chungus gyatt, mewing in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers. Uncle Vernaur mewed. Griddying Aunt Pogtunia and Diddy into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagriddy and slammed the door behind them. Hagriddy looked down at his umbrella and stroked his gyatt.
"Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said skibidily, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a beta pig, but I suppose he was so much like a beta pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do." He cast a sideways look at Harry under his bushy gyatt. "Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Sigmawarts," he said.
"I'm -- er -- not supposed ter do magic, sigmaly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer ligmas to yeh an' stuff -- one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job."
"Why aren't you supposed to do alpha magic?" mewed Harry.
"Oh, well, I was at Sigmawarts meself but I -- er -- got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third sigma year. They snapped me skibidi wand in half an' everything. But Alphadore let me stay on as gyattkeeper. Alpha man, Alphadore." "Why were you expelled?"
"It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagriddy sigmaly. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that." He took off his thick black coat and rizzed it to Harry. "You can oil up under that," he said. "Don' mind if it jiggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' beta doormice in one o' the pockets."