WARNING: MAY CONTAIN MINOR SPOILERS

"It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo…" What, no Privet Drive? Where's Harry?? Have I got the right book? It's not the most gripping start to one of the most eagerly awaited books in the history of children's (sorry, crossover) fiction but let's persevere.

Ah, but this is the collison of muggle and magical worlds we were promised. The muggle prime minister gets a visit from Cornelius Fudge and discovers that all the problems he's been dealing with in the past week (transport disasters, murders, unseasonal weather. Unseasonal weather?) are the result of the return of Lord Voldemort and the chaos in the wizarding world. Bet Tony Blair wishes he had that excuse. We are introduced to the new minister of magic – Rufus Scrimgeour – who seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to Michael Heseltine: "RS looked rather like an old lion. There were streaks of grey in his mane of tawny hair and his bushy eyebrows; he had keen yellowish eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and a certain rangy, loping grace…"

Now we're in a very nasty place with very nasty people. Chapter two brings us Narcissa Malfoy (boooo), Bellatrix Lestrange (hisssss) and Severus Snape (ssssssss). Slimy Snape professes his loyalty to the Dark Lord (old Volders) and explains why he hasn't yet killed Potter. The wicked sisters believe him. Is he faking? Who knows. Finally he makes an Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa to watch over and protect her son Draco (Potter's sworn enemy at Hogwarts) as he performs some as yet unnamed deed for Volders. Wormtail makes an appearance as Snape's servant.

So, two chapters in and no sign yet of Our Hero. JK is pushing her luck a bit here.

Phew! "Harry Potter was snoring loudly". He's still alive in chapter three then. We get a description of his bedroom (it's a tip. Good. He's a normal 16-year-old in some respects then.) Dumbledore pays a visit to Privet Drive to collect Harry from the Dursley's, who are as cartoonish as ever – and tell the boy wizard that he has inherited Sirius Black's old house, the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix (keeping up at the back? Staying awake?). It comes with the house elf Kreacher (a sub-Gollum type creature) who gets booted off to Hogwarts (hopefully not to appear again for a few chapters).

Moving swiftly on and chapter four introduces a new character, Horace Slughorn, who has something of the Uncle Monty from Withnail and I about him. A former Hogwarts teacher, he's pretending to be an armchair when we first meet him and is camper than Graham Norton and Julian Clary sharing a tent. He is persuaded to once again teach at Hogwarts.

At last, with chapter five we're back in familiar territory. We're at The Burrow, home of the Weasley's. And there's some light relief courtesy of Harry and Ron's typical 16-year-old hormonal reaction (good, good) to the willowy Fleur Delacour – fiancee of their brother Bill - and her cod French accent ("'Arry, eet 'as been too long!"). The owls arrive with the chums OWL (ordinary wizarding level) results.

What is most striking about the start of this book is that there is absolutely no allowance made for readers who have not read the previous books. If they exist, they'd be lost. Even with knowledge of the rest of the series, there something of a memory scramble going on and the Snape section is baffling. It is – as always – a relief when the Weasley's turn up. Still, at least Harry's not such a grump as in the last book. Yet.