seemed to think better of it. They hurried up the
street, the Grangers shaking with fright and Mrs. Weasley beside herself with
fury.
"A fine example to set for your children . . . brawling in public . . . what
Gilderoy Lockhart must've thought -"
"He was pleased," said Fred. "Didn't you hear him as we were leaving? He was
asking that bloke from the Daily Prophet if he'd be able to work the fight into
his report - said it was all publicity -"
But it was a subdued group that headed back to the fireside in the Leaky
Cauldron, where Harry, the Weasleys, and all their shopping would be
traveling back to the Burrow using Floo powder. They said good-bye to the
Grangers, who were leaving the pub for the Muggle street on the other side;
Mr. Weasley started to ask
63
them how bus stops worked, but stopped quickly at the look on Mrs.
Weasley's face.
Harry took off his glasses and put them safely in his pocket before
56
helping himself to Floo powder. It definitely wasn't his favorite way to
travel.
C H-H A P T E RR F I v E
THE WHOMPING
WILLOW
he end of the summer vacation came too quickly for Harry's liking.
He was looking forward to getting back to Hogwarts, but his month
at the Burrow had been the happiest of his life. It was difficult not to
feel jealous of Ron when he thought of the Dursleys and the sort of
welcome he could expect next time he turned up on Privet Drive.
On their last evening, Mrs. Weasley conjured up a sumptuous dinner
that included all of Harry's favorite things, ending with a
mouthwatering treacle pudding. Fred and George rounded off the
evening with a display of Filibuster fireworks; they fiIled the kitchen
with red and blue stars that bounced from ceiling to wall for at least
half an hour. Then it was time for a last mug of hot chocolate and
bed.
It took a long while to get started next morning. They were up at
dawn, but somehow they still seemed to have a great deal to do.
65
Mrs. Weasley dashed about in a bad mood looking for spare socks and
quills; people kept colliding on the stairs, half-dressed with bits of toast
in their hands; and Mr. Weasley nearly broke his neck, tripping over a
stray chicken as he crossed the yard carrying Ginny's trunk to the car.
Harry couldn't see how eight people, six large trunks, two owls, and a
rat were going to fit into one small Ford Anglia. He had reckoned, of
course, without the special features that Mr. Weasley had added.
"Not a word to Molly," he whispered to Harry as he opened the. trunk
and showed him how it had been magically expanded so that the
luggage fitted easily.
57
When at last they were all in the car, Mrs. Weasley glanced into the
back seat, where Harry, Ron, Fred, George, and Percy were all sitting
comfortably side by side, and said, "Muggles do know more than we
give them credit for, don't they?" She and Ginny got into the front seat,
which had been stretched so that it resembled a park bench. "I mean,
you'd never know it was this roomy from the outside, would you?"
Mr. Weasley started up the engine and they trundled out of the yard,
Harry turning back for a last look at the house. He barely had time to
wonder when he'd see it again when they were back George had
forgotten his box of Filibuster fireworks. Five minutes after that, they
skidded to a halt in the yard so that Fred could run in for his
broomstick. They had almost reached the highway when Ginny
shrieked that she'd left her diary. By the time she had clambered back
into the car, they were running very late, and tempers were running
high.
* 66
Mr. Weasley glanced at his watch and then at his wife.
"Molly, dear -"
"No, Arthur -"
"No one would see - this little button here is an Invisibility Booster I
installed - that'd get us up in the air - then we fly above the clouds.
We'd be there in ten minutes and no one would be any the wiser -"
"I said no, Arthur, not in broad daylight -"
They reached King's Cross at a quarter to eleven. Mr. Weasley
dashed across the road to get trolleys for their trunks and they all
hurried into the station.
Harry had caught the Hogwarts Express the previous year. The tricky
part was getting onto platform nine and three-quarters, which wasn't
visible to the Muggle eye. What you had to do was walk through the
solid barrier dividing platforms nine and ten. It didn't hurt, but it had to
be done carefully so that none of the Muggles noticed you vanishing.
"Percy first," said Mrs. Weasley, looking nervously at the clock
58
overhead, which showed they had only five minutes to disappear
casually through the barrier.
Percy strode briskly forward and vanished. Mr. Weasley went next;
Fred and George followed.
"I'll take Ginny and you two come right after us," Mrs. Weasley told
Harry and Ron, grabbing Ginny's hand and setting off. In the blink of
an eye they were gone.
"Let's go together, we've only got a minute," Ron said to Harry.
Harry made sure that Hedwig's cage was safely wedged on top of his
trunk and wheeled his trolley around to face the barrier. He felt
61
perfectly confident; this wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as using Floo
powder. Both of them bent low over the handles of their trolleys and
walked purposefully toward the barrier, gathering speed. A few feet
away from it, they broke into a run and
CRASH.
Both trolleys hit the barrier and bounced backward; Ron's trunk fell
off with a loud thump, Harry was knocked off his feet, and Hedwig's
cage bounced onto the shiny floor, and she rolled away, shrieking
indignantly; people all around them stared and a guard nearby yelled,
"What in blazes d'you think you're doing?"
"Lost control of the trolley," Harry gasped, clutching his ribs as he
got up. Ron ran to pick up Hedwig, who was causing such a scene
that there was a lot of muttering about cruelty to animals from the
surrounding crowd.
"Why can't we get through?" Harry hissed to Ron.
"I dunno -"
Ron looked wildly around. A dozen curious people were still
watching them.
59
"We're going to miss the train," Ron whispered. "I don't understand
why the gateway's sealed itself -"
Harry looked up at the giant clock with a sickening feeling in the pit
of his stomach. Ten seconds ... nine seconds ...
He wheeled his trolley forward cautiously until it was right against the
barrier and pushed with all his might. The metal remained solid.
Three seconds . . . two seconds ... one second ...
"It's gone," said Ron, sounding stunned. "The train's left. What if
Mum and Dad can't get back through to us? Have you got any
Muggle money?"
68
And they marched off through the crowd of curious Muggles, out of
the station and back onto the side road where the old Ford Anglia was
parked.
Ron unlocked the cavernous trunk with a series of taps from his wand.
They heaved their luggage back in, put Hedwig on the back seat, and
got into the front.
"Check that no one's watching," said Ron, starting the ignition with
another tap of his wand. Harry stuck his head out of the window:
Traffic was rumbling along the main road ahead, but their street was
empty.
"Okay," he said.
Ron pressed a tiny silver button on the dashboard. The car around
them vanished - and so did they. Harry could feel the seat vibrating
beneath him, hear the engine, feel his hands on his knees and his
glasses on his nose, but for all he could see, he had become a pair of
eyeballs, floating a few feet above the ground in a dingy street full of
parked cars.
"Let's go," said Ron's voice from his right.
And the ground and the dirty buildings on either side fell away,
60
dropping out of sight as the car rose; in seconds, the whole of London
lay, smoky and glittering, below them.
Then there was a popping noise and the car, Harry, and Ron
reappeared.
"Uh-oh," said Ron, jabbing at the Invisibility Booster. "It's faulty -"
Both of them pummeled it. The car vanished. Then it flickered back
again.
"Hold on!" Ron yelled, and he slammed his foot on the acceler
* 7 0
ator; they shot straight into the low, woolly clouds and everything
turned dull and foggy.
"Now what?" said Harry, blinking at the solid mass of cloud pressing
in on them from all sides.
"We need to see the train to know what direction to go in," said Ron.
"Dip back down again - quickly -"
They dropped back beneath the clouds and twisted around in their
seats, squinting at the ground.
"I can see it!" Harry yelled. "Right ahead - there!"
The Hogwarts Express was streaking along below them like a scarlet
snake.
"Due north," said Ron, checking the compass on the dashboard.
"Okay, we'll just have to check on it every half hour or so - hold on
And they shot up through the clouds. A minute later, they burst out
into a blaze of sunlight.
It was a different world. The wheels of the car skimmed the sea of
fluffy cloud, the sky a bright, endless blue under the blinding white sun.
61
"All we've got to worry about now are airplanes," said Ron.
They looked at each other and started to laugh; for a long time, they
couldn't stop.
It was as though they had been plunged into a fabulous dream. This,
thought Harry, was surely the only way to travel - past swirls and
turrets of snowy cloud, in a car full of hot, bright sunlight, with a fat
pack of toffees in the glove compartment, and the prospect of seeing
Fred's and George's jealous faces when they
* 71
landed smoothly and spectacularly on the sweeping lawn in front of
Hogwarts castle.
They made regular checks on the train as they flew farther and
farther north, each dip beneath the clouds showing them a different
view. London was soon far behind them, replaced by neat green
fields that gave way in turn to wide, purplish moors, a great city alive
with cars like multicolored ants, villages with tiny toy churches.
Several uneventful hours later, however, Harry had to admit that
some of the fun was wearing off. The toffees had made them
extremely thirsty and they ha