He was a skinny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who had the pinched, slightly unhealthy look of someone who has grown a lot in a short space of time. His jeans were torn and dirty, his T-shirt baggy and faded, and the soles of his trainers were peeling away from the uppers. Harry Potters appearance did not endear him to the neighbours, who were the sort of people who thought scruffiness ought to be punishable by law.
I
have visited lairs, burrows and nests across five continents, observed
the curious habits of magical beasts in a hundred countries, witnessed
their powers, gained their trust and, on occasion, beaten them off with
my travelling kettle.
