Chapter 1: The Boy Who Lived - part 1

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Learning English with one of the most popular series in the world, Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling.

Chapter 1: The Boy Who Lived

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.

The last part of the sentence we have a phrasal verb.

"they just didn't hold with such nonsense." - This expression means that they don't have any patience with nonsense things.

Phrasal verb: hold with
hold with something = to approve with something
(Generally used in negative sentences or in questions)
Synonym Approve
"She doesn't hold with the use of the force"

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.

Amount (of something) - (used especially with uncountable nouns) a quantity of something
Beefy - (of a person or their body) big or fat
Crane - to strain and stretch (the neck for example) so as to see something better
Craning over garden fences - To look over a fence you might have to stretch your neck.

finer - of high quality, very good of its kind.

Hardly any - it means almost zero

The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn’t think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters.

Bear - (used with can/could in negative sentences and questions) to be able to accept and deal with something unpleasant

You couldn't bear it - it means that you can't handle it, support it, survive it.

... Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn’t have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband ...

Good-for-nothing - this is an insult, very negative thing to say about someone, so good-for-nothing husband means that her husband had no value, no use.

...When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.
None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.

Flutter - (something) when a bird or an insect flutters its wings, the wings move lightly and quickly up and down
Dull - not bright, with a lot of clouds
Gossip -  informal talk or stories about other people’s private lives, that may be unkind or not true
Hum - to sing a tune with your lips closed
Tawny - brownish-yellow in colour
Wrestle - to fight somebody by holding them and trying to throw or force them to the ground, sometimes as a sport