Ever since Harry had come home for the summer holidays, Uncle Vernon had been treating him like a bomb that might go off at any moment, because Harry Potter wasn't a normal boy.
自从哈利放暑假回家,弗农姨父一直把他当一颗定时炸弹看待,因为哈利不是一个正常的孩子。
As a matter of fact, he was as not normal as it is possible to be.
实际上,他相当不正常。
Harry Potter was a wizard — a wizard fresh from his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
哈利·波特是一个巫师——刚在霍格沃茨魔法学校上完一年级。
And if the Dursleys were unhappy to have him back for the holidays, it was nothing to how Harry felt.
如果德思礼对他回家过暑假感到不快,那么他们的不快和哈利的感觉相比根本不值一提。
He missed Hogwarts so much it was like having a constant stomachache.
他真想念霍格沃茨,想得五脏六腑都发痛。
He missed the castle, with its secret passageways and ghosts, his classes though perhaps not Snape, the Potions master, the mail arriving by owl, eating banquets in the Great Hall, sleeping in his four-poster bed in the tower dormitory,
visiting the gamekeeper, Hagrid, in his cabin next to the Forbidden Forest in the grounds, and, especially, Quidditch, the most popular sport in the wizarding world (six tall goal posts, four flying balls, and fourteen players on broomsticks).
All Harry's spellbooks, his wand, robes, cauldron, and top-of-the-line Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick had been locked in a cupboard under the stairs by Uncle Vernon the instant Harry had come home.
What did the Dursleys care if Harry lost his place on the House Quidditch team because he hadn't practiced all summer?
哈利会不会因为一个暑假没练习而被学院魁地奇球队开除,德思礼一家才不管呢。
What was it to the Dursleys if Harry went back to school without any of his homework done?
哈利的家庭作业一点都没做,回学校时无法交差,这跟他们有什么关系?
The Dursleys were what wizards called Muggles (not a drop of magical blood in their veins), and as far as they were concerned, having a wizard in the family was a matter of deepest shame.