4 Privet Drive

4 Privet Drive
Name	4 Privet Drive
Location	Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England
Owners	Vernon Dursley Petunia Dursley
Inhabitants	Vernon Dursley Petunia Dursley Dudley Dursley Harry Potter (1981-1997)
Book information
First appearance	Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Last appearance	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"[...] the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen."

— 4 Privet Drive

4 Privet Drive is the home of the Dursley family and Harry Potter in Little Whinging, Surrey.

Layout

The living room

For the first decade that Harry Potter lived there, the house didn't change. There is a neat front garden. The front door has a brass number four hung on it. In the living room, there are many photographs of Dudley but no sign that Harry lives there. The living room has a TV and an electric fireplace.

Harry's first bedroom was a small and dark cupboard under the stairs where there are spiders. The cupboard is down the hall from the kitchen. There are four bedrooms and two of them used to belong to Dudley. Dudley's second bedroom was a storage space for toys until Harry is given it to hide the fact he lived in the cupboard. The third bedroom belongs to Petunia and Vernon and a fourth is a guest room which Marge Dursley stays in.

The garden has a greenhouse. Dudley threw his pet tortoise through the roof once which broke the glas when he found out about Harry getting the second bedroom. The garden has flower beds with hydrangeas and begonias.

History

Arrival of Harry Potter

4 Privet Drive

Vernon and Petunia Dursley lived at 4 Privet Drive when their child, Dudley was aged one. The house was very normal until a wizard, Harry Potter was entrusted in the care of Vernon and Petunia after James and Lily Potter died. Petunia found Harry when she went to get milk which was delivered to 4 Privet Drive.

Lily had sacrificed her life for Harry and he was saved by an ancient protection spell. It was thought if he and Petunia lived together, the effect of Lily's protection would continue to the best of its ability because he and Petunia had the same blood. Powerful protective enchantments would be placed round the house. Petunia and Vernon took him in, but in fear of the wizarding world. He had to sleep in the Cupboard under the Stairs.

At the age of eleven, Harry was sent a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Petunia was worried when she realised they knew where Harry slept, and let him to go in the smallest bedroom instead, but letters continued to arrive at the home now addressed to "The Smallest Bedroom". Vernon tried to escape by taking the family away, but he failed to stop Harry receiving letters and he returned to Privet Drive.

Hogwarts years

Upon starting school at Hogwarts, Harry only spent every summer at Privet Drive, enabling him to keep calling it home (of a kind).

Harry's escape

Before he started his second year, Vernon was holding an important business dinner at the house when Dobby visited Harry. Harry refused to stay there and not return to Hogwarts, so Dobby ruined the dinner by dropping Petunia's cake in the living room with the Hover Charm. The Improper Use of Magic Office hdetected it and thought Harry had used under-age magic. They sent him a warning letter via owl. Vernon's dinner guest was afraid of owls and ran out of the house screaming. He and Petunia blamed Harry for what happened and put bars on his bedroom window to keep him locked up in the house. Fred, George and Ron saved him in their flying Ford Anglia.

Before his third year at Hogwarts, Vernon and Petunia bought a new TV to put in the kitchen for Dudley who was fed up of having walk from the living room to the fridge. Petunia hoped it would cheer him up. Vernon and Harry also had an argument because Harry had given his friend, Ron the phone number for the house. Ron had rung up and shouted down the phone at Vernon because he hadn't used one before and didn't understand that he could speal properly. Vernon was very angry at Harry for giving their number to a wizard.

Marjorie Dursley and her bulldog, Ripper also stayed at the house for seven days. She had nothing good to say about Harry or his parents and eventually, he snapped and accidentally inflated her using magic. Harry left Privet Drive without intending to ever go back. The Accidental Magic Reversal Squad had to go to Privet Drive and reverse it.

Before starting his fourth year at Hogwarts, the Dursleys received a letter from Molly Weasley to stay at The Burrow and attend the final of the 422nd Quidditch World Cup. When the Weasleys arrived to pick Harry up, they use the Floo Network unaware that the house was not connected and had an electric fire. They got trapped in the fireplace until Arthur Weasley blew a hole in the wall. He fixed it before leaving.

The next summer, it was very hot and a hosepipe ban prevented the Dursleys' tending to their garden or cleaning their dusty car. One evening, Harry spent time hiding behind a hydrangea in their garden near their living room window, listening to the TV hoping to hear anything related to the magic world. The house was being watched by the Order of the Phoenix to keep Harry safe. Arabella Figg often walked by the house. While he was supposed to be on guard duty, Mundungus Fletcher decided to Apparate away for a business deal, leaving Harry open to attack. Harry was eventually picked up from the house by the Advance Guard. Nymphadora Tonks found the Muggle house intriguing.

A year later, Dumbledore arrived to pick Harry up from Privet Drive. He berated the Dursley family for the way they neglected and bullied Harry, but asked that Harry spend a final summer with them next year.

During his final year at Privet Drive, Harry was about to turn seventeen which meant the protective charms keeping him safe (such as Lily's sacrifice) would end and it would no longer be a safe house for him. For their own safety, the Dursley family had to leave the house until the Second Wizarding War was over.

When the Order of the Phoenix picked the Dursley family up to take them to an unknown location, Vernon was worried it was part of Harry's plan to take the house, but Harry told him he actually had a house, causing Vernon to shut up. He, Petunia and Dudley soon left. Other members of the Order also picked Harry up later and took him The Burrow.

Rooms

The garden

The kitchen

The cupboard under the stairs

Trivia

• These photographs are found in the house throughout the Harry Potter book series:
  • Dudley when he was a baby wearing bobble hats
  • Dudley riding a bike
  • Dudley on the roundabout at the fair
  • Dudley and Vernon playing a computer game
  • Petunia hugging Dudley