8) The cat-flaprattled and Aunt Petunia’s hand appeared, pushing a bowl of canned soup into the room. Harry, whose insides were aching with hunger, jumped off his bed andseized it. The soup was stone-cold, but he drank half of it in one gulp. Thenhe crossed the room to Hedwig’s cage and tipped the soggy vegetables at thebottom of the bowl into her empty food tray. She ruffled her feathers and gavehim a look of deep disgust.

“It’s no good turning your beakup at it — that’s all we’ve got,”said Harry grimly.

He put the empty bowl back on the floor next to the cat-flap and lay back downon the bed, somehow even hungrier than he had been before the soup.

Supposing he was still alive in another four weeks, what would happen if he didn’t turn up at Hogwarts? Would someone be sent to see why he hadn’t come back? Would they be able to make the Dursleys let him go?

The room was growing dark. Exhausted, stomach rumbling,mind spinning over thesame unanswerable questions, Harry fell into an uneasy sleep.

He dreamed that he was on showin a zoo, with a card reading underage wizard attached to his cage. People goggled through the bars at him as he lay, starving and weak, on a bed of straw. He saw Dobby’s face in the crowd and shouted out, asking for help, but Dobby called, “Harry Potter is safe there, sir!” and vanished.Then the Dursleys appeared and Dudley rattled the bars of the cage, laughing at him.

“Stop it,” Harry muttered as the rattling pounded in his sore head. “Leave me alone . . . cut it out . . . I’m trying to sleep. . . .”

He opened his eyes. Moonlight was shiningthrough the bars on the window. And someone was goggling through the bars athim: a freckle-faced, red-haired, long-nosed someone.

Ron Weasley was outside Harry’s window.

①这里的时态用得相当的准确，小说通篇都是采用过去式；而在这里为了表现一系列的动作，采用了过去式（Aunt Petunia’s hand appeared）和过去进行时（jumped off his bed）；除了句子的顺序，我们也可以通过Then来链接上下文动作的顺序。

②这一部分简直是脑洞打开，Harry在屋子里被困得太久了，他居然会想象他就像动物园里被参观的动物一样，任由着别人的讥笑和参观；这些细节的内容不容易通过电影进行展现，也不好展现，原著中就会有比较明确的描写。