Polaris sits down on the sofa at The Burrow. He pulls out a book called " A Guide To Advanced Occlumency" and begins to read it. Thirty minutes later, he hears three pairs of footsteps coming down the stairs. Looking up, he sees Ron and the twins. "Ready?" Polaris asks in a whisper "Yeah, come on." Fred replies, waving him over.
What they are about to do is not only illegal, but also dangerous because they are going to use Mr. Weasley's flying car to rescue Harry from his horrible family.
The four boys open the garage and get inside the car. Fred is driving, George is in the passenger seat, and Ron and Polaris are in the back seat. Once they are all strapped in, Fred takes the car into the air. "Where is Harry's house again?" Fred asks. "Number Four, Privet Drive." Ron replies, looking out the window. "Gotcha, let's go."
Time skip because I'm lazy
The car pulls up to a window with bars on it. Looking in, they see Harry staring back at them. "Ron!" breathes Harry, creeping to the window and pushing it up so they can talk through the bars. "Ron, how did you - What the -?"
Harry's mouth falls open as the full impact of what he is seeing hits him. Ron is leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car, which is parked in midair. Grinning at Harry from the front seats are Fred and George, Ron's elder twin brothers, and beside Ron is Polaris.
"Looks like you've been having one hell of summer," says Polaris, smirking.
"All right, Harry?" asks George.
"What's been going on?" says Ron. "Why haven't you been answering our letters? I've asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you'd got an official warning for using magic in front of Muggles -"
"It wasn't me - and how did he know?"
"He works for the Ministry," replies Ron. "You know we're not supposed to do spells outside school -"
"You should talk," says Harry, staring at the floating car.
"Oh, this doesn't count," says Ron. "We're only borrowing this. It's Dad's, we didn't enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles you live with -"
"I told you, I didn't - but it'll take too long to explain now - look, can you tell them at Hogwarts the Dursleys have locked me up and won't let me come back, and obviously I can't magic myself out, because the Ministry'll think that's the second spell I've done in three days, so -"
"Stop gibbering," says Ron. "We've come to take you home with us."
"We're breaking you out," says Polaris.
"But you can't magic me out either -"
"We don't need to," says Ron, jerking his head towards the front seat and behind him, grinning. "You forgot who I've got with me."
"Tie that around the bars," says Fred, throwing the end of a rope to Harry.
"If the Dursleys wake up, I'm dead," says Harry as he ties the rope tightly around a bar and Fred revs up the car.
"If I can escape the Malfoys, you can escape from the Dursleys." Says Polaris
"Stand back" says Fred. Harry moves back into the shadows next to Hedwig, who seems to have realized how important this is and keeps still and silent. The car revs louder and louder and suddenly, with a crunching noise, the bars are pulled clean out of the windows as Fred drives straight up in the air. Harry runs back to the window to see the bars dangling a few feet above the ground. Panting, Ron hoists them up into the car. Harry listens anxiously, but there is no sound from the Dursleys' bedroom.
When the bars are safely in the back seat with Ron and Polaris, Fred reverses as close as possible to Harry's window.
"Get in," Ron says.
"But all my Hogwarts stuff - my wand - my broomstick -"
"Where is it?"
"Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and I can't get out of this room -"
"No problem," says George from the front passenger seat. "Out of the way, Harry."
George and Polaris climb catlike through the window into Harry's room. You have to hand it to them, they really do think outside of the box thinks Harry, as George takes an ordinary hairpin from his pocket and starts to pick the lock.
"A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick," says Polaris, "but we feel they're skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow."
There is a small click and the door swings open.
"So - we'll get your trunk - you grab anything you need from your room and hand it out to Ron," whispers George.
"Watch out for the bottom stair - it creaks," Harry whispers back as the two disappear into the darkness.
Harry dashes around the room, collecting his things and passing them out of the window to Ron. Then he goes to help George while Polaris heaves his trunk up the stairs. Harry hears Uncle Vernon cough.
At last, they reach the landing, he carries the trunk through Harry's room to the open window. Fred gives the drivers seat to Polaris and climbs into the back to pull with Ron, while Harry and George push from the bedroom side. Inch by inch, the trunk slides through the window.
Uncle Vernon coughs again.
"A bit more," pants Fred, who is pulling from inside the car. "One good push -"
Harry and George throw their shoulders against the trunk and it slides out of the window into the back seat of the car.
"Okay, let's go," George whispers.
But as Harry climbs onto the windowsill there is a sudden loud screech from behind him, followed immediately by the thunder of Uncle Vernon's voice.
"THAT RUDDY OWL!"
"Shit. Get Hedwig!" Polaris orders. Harry tears back across the room as the landing light clicks on - he snatches up Hedwig's cage, dashes to the window, and passes it out to Ron. He is scrambling back onto the chest of drawers when Uncle Vernon hammers on the unlocked door - and it crashes open.
For a split second, Uncle Vernon stands in the frame in the doorway; then he lets out a bellow like an angry bull and dives at Harry, grabbing him by the ankle.
Ron, Fred, and George seize Harry's arms and pull as hard as they can.
"Petunia!" roars Uncle Vernon. "He's getting away! HE'S GETTING AWAY!"
But they all give a giant tug and Harry's leg slides out of Uncle Vernon's grasp - Harry is in the car - he slams the door shut -
"Put your foot down, Pol!" yells Ron, and the car shoots suddenly towards the moon.
Harry can't believe it - he is free. He rolls down the window, the night air whipping his hair, and looks back at the shrinking rooftops of Privet Drive. Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley are all hanging, dumbstruck, out of Harry's window.
"See you next summer!" Harry yells.
They all roar with laughter and Harry settles back in his seat, grinning from ear to ear.
"Let Hedwig out," he tells Ron. "She can fly behind us. She hasn't had a chance to stretch her wings for ages."
George hands the hairpin to Ron and, a moment later, Hedwig soars joyfully out of the window to glide alongside them like a ghost.
"So - what's the story, Harry?" says Ron impatiently. "What's been happening?"
Harry tells them all about Dobby, the warning he'd given Harry and the fiasco of the violet pudding. There is a long, shocked silence when he finishes.
"Very fishy," says Fred finally.
"Definitely dodgy," George agrees. "So he wouldn't even tell you who's supposed to be plotting all this stuff?"
"I don't think he could," says Harry. "I told you, every time he got close to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the wall."
He sees Fred and George look at each other.
"What, you think he was lying to me?" says Harry.
"Well," says Fred, "put it this way - house-elves have got powerful magic of their own, but they can't usually use it without their master's permission. I reckon old Dobby was sent to stop you coming back to Hogwarts. Someone's idea of a joke. Can you think of anyone at school with a grudge against you?"
"Yes," says Harry and Ron together, instantly.
"Draco Malfoy," Harry explains. "He hates me."
"Draco Malfoy?" says George, turning around. "Not Lucius Malfoy's son and Pol's cousin?"
"Must be, it's not a very common name, is it?" says Harry. "Why?"
"I've heard Dad talking about him," says George. "He was a big supporter of You-Know-Who."
"And when You-Know-Who disappeared," says Fred, looking at Harry, "Lucius Malfoy came back saying he'd never meant any of it. Load of dung - Dad reckons he was right in You-Know-Who's inner circle."
He got that right. Thinks Polaris, not saying a word.
Harry has heard these rumors about Malfoy's family before, and they don't surprise him at all. Malfoy makes Dudley Dursley look like a kind, thoughtful, and sensitive boy.
"I don't know whether the Malfoys own a house-elf...." Says Harry.
"Well, whoever owns him will be an old wizarding family, and they'll be rich," says Fred.
"Yeah, Mum's always wishing we had a house-elf to do the ironing," says George. "But all we've got is a lousy old ghoul in the attic and gnomes all over the garden. House-elves come with big old manors and castles and places like that; you wouldn't catch one in our house...."
Harry is silent. Judging by the fact that Draco Malfoy usually has the best of everything, his family is rolling in wizard gold; he can just see Malfoy strutting around a large manor house. Sending the family servant to stop Harry from going back to Hogwarts also sounds exactly like the sort of thing Malfoy would do. Is he stupid to take Dobby seriously?
"I'm glad we came to get you, anyway," says Ron. "I was getting really worried when you didn't answer any of my letters. I had invited you and Hermione over to stay for the holidays."
"I thought it was Errol's fault you didn't get your letter at first -"
"Who's Errol?"
"Our owl. He's ancient. It wouldn't be the first time he'd collapsed on a delivery. So then I tried to borrow Hermes -"
"Who?"
"The owl Mum and Dad bought Percy when he was made prefect," says Fred.
"But Percy wouldn't lend him to me," says Ron. "Said he needed him."
"Percy's been acting very oddly this summer," says George, frowning. "And he has been sending a lot of letters and spending a load of time shut up in his room.... I mean, there's only so many times you can polish a prefect badge.... You're driving too far west, Pol," he adds, pointing at a compass on the dashboard. Polaris turns the steering wheel.
"So, does your dad know you've got the car?" says Harry, guessing the answer.
"Er, no," says Ron, "he had to work tonight. Hopefully we'll be able to get it back in the garage without Mum noticing we flew it."
"What does your dad do at the Ministry of Magic, anyway?"
"He works in the most boring department," says Ron. "The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office."
"The what?"
"It's all to do with bewitching things that are Muggle-made, you know, in case they end up back in a Muggle shop or house. Like, last year, some old witch died and her tea set was sold to an antiques shop. This Muggle woman bought it, took it home, and tried to serve her friends tea in it. It was a nightmare - Dad was working overtime for weeks."
"What happened?"
"The teapot went berserk and squirted boiling tea all over the place and one man ended up in the hospital with the sugar tongs clamped to his nose. Dad was going frantic - it's only him and an old warlock called Perkins in the office - and they had to do Memory Charms and all sorts of stuff to cover it up -"
"But your dad - this car -"
Fred laughs. "Yeah, Dad's crazy about everything to do with Muggles; our shed's full of Muggle stuff. He takes it apart, puts spells on it, and puts it back together again. If he raided our house he'd have to put himself under arrest. It drives Mum mad."
"That's the main road," says George, peering down through the windshield. "We'll be there in ten minutes.... Just as well, it's getting light...."
A faint pinkish glow is visible along the horizon to the east.
Polaris brings the car lower, and Harry sees a dark patchwork of fields and clumps of trees.
"We're a little way outside the village," says George. "Ottery St. Catchpole."
Lower and lower goes the flying car. The edge of a brilliant red sun is now gleaming through the trees.
"Touchdown!" says Fred as, with a slight bump, they hit the ground. They land next to a tumbledown garage in a small yard, and Harry looks out for the first time at Ron's house.
It looks as though it has once been a large stone pigpen, but extra rooms have been added here and there until it is several stories high and so crooked it looks as though it is held up by magic (which, Harry reminds himself, it probably is). Four or five chimneys are perched on top of the red roof. A lopsided sign sticks in the ground near the entrance reading, THE BURROW. Around the front door lies a jumble of rubber boots and a very rusty cauldron. Several fat brown chickens are pecking their way around the yard.
"It's not much,"
"It's wonderful," says Harry happily, thinking of Privet Drive.
"It is a lot more colourful here than the Malfoy's place." says Polaris.
They get out of the car.
"Now, we'll go upstairs really quietly," says Fred, "and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast. Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'll be all pleased to see Harry and no one will ever know we flew the car."
"Right," says Ron. "Come on, Harry, the guest room and where I sleep are at the top -"
Ron goes a nasty greenish color, his eyes fixed on the house. The other four wheel around.
Mrs. Weasley is marching across the yard, scattering chickens, and for a short, plump, kind-faced woman, it is remarkable how much she looks like a saber-toothed tiger.
"Ah," says Fred.
"Oh, dear," says George.
Mrs. Weasley comes to a halt in front of them, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next. She is wearing a flowered apron with a wand sticking out of the pocket.
"So," she says.
"'Morning, Mum," says George, in what he clearly thinks is a jaunty, winning voice.
"Have you any idea how worried I've been?" says Mrs. Weasley in a deadly whisper.
"Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to -"
All three of Mrs. Weasley's sons are taller than she is, but they cower as her rage breaks over them.
"Beds empty! No note! Car gone - could have crashed - out of my mind with worry - did you care? Never, as long as I've lived - you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy -"
"Prefect Percy," mutters Fred.
"YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY'S BOOK!" yells Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred's chest. "You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job -"
It seems to go on for hours. Mrs. Weasley has shouted herself hoarse before she turns on Harry and Polaris, who back away.
"I'm very pleased to see you, Harry dear. And Polaris, next time you get bored at night, don't do anything illegal." she says. "Come in and have some breakfast."
She turns and walks back into the house and Harry, after nervously glancing at Ron, who nods encouragingly, follows her.
The kitchen is small and rather cramped. There are scrubbed wooden tables and chairs in the middle, and Harry sits down on the edge of his seat, looking around. He has never been in a wizard house before.
The clock on the wall opposite him has only one hand and no numbers at all. Written around the edge are things like, Time to make tea, Time to feed the chickens, and You're late. Books are stacked three deep on the mantelpiece, books with titles like Charm Your Own Cheese, Enchantment in Baking, and One Minute Feasts - It's Magic! And unless Harry's ears are deceiving him, the old radio next to the sink has just announced that coming up is "Witching Hour, with the popular singing sorceress, Celestina Warbeck."
Mrs. Weasley is clattering around, cooking breakfast a little haphazardly, throwing dirty looks at her sons as she throws sausages into the frying pan. Every now and then she mutters things like "don't know what you were thinking of," and "never would have believed it."
"I don't blame you, dear," she assures Harry, tipping eight or nine sausages onto his plate. "Arthur and I have been worried about you, too. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron by Friday. But really" (she is now adding three fried eggs to his plate), "flying an illegal car halfway across the country - anyone could have seen you -"
She flicks her wand casually at the dishes in the sink, which begin to clean themselves, clinking gently in the background.
"It was cloudy, Mum!" says Fred.
"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!" Mrs. Weasley snaps.
"They were starving him, Mum!" says George.
"And you!" says Mrs. Weasley, but it is with a slightly softened expression that she starts cutting Harry bread and buttering it for him.
At that moment there is a diversion in the form of a small, red-headed figure in a long nightdress, who appears in the kitchen, gives a small squeal, and runs out again.
"Ginny," says Ron in an undertone to Harry. "My sister. She's been talking about you all summer."
Polaris chuckles, "I'm pretty sure she has a crush on you, Harry."
"Yeah, she'll be wanting your autograph, Harry," Fred says with a grin, but he catches his mother's eye and bends his face over his plate without another word. Nothing more is said until all of the plates are clean, which takes a surprisingly short amount of time.
"Blimey, I'm tired," yawns Fred, setting down his knife and fork. "I think I'll go to bed and -"
"You will not," snaps Mrs. Weasley. "It's your own fault you've been up all night. You're going to de-gnome the garden for me; they're getting completely out of hand again -"
"Oh, Mum -"
"And you two," she says, glaring at Ron and George. "You can go up to bed, dear," she adds to Harry. "You didn't ask them to fly that wretched car -"
But Harry, who feels wide awake, says quickly, "I'll help Ron. I've never seen a de-gnoming -"
"That's very sweet of you, dear, but it's dull work," says Mrs. Weasley. "Now, let's see what Lockhart's got to say on the subject -"
And she pulls a heavy book from the stack on the mantelpiece. George groans.
"Mum, we know how to de-gnome a garden -"
Harry looks at the cover of Mrs. Weasley's book. Written across it in fancy gold letters are the words Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests. There is a big photograph on the front of a very good-looking wizard with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes. As always in the wizarding world, the photograph is moving; the wizard, who Harry supposes is Gilderoy Lockhart, keeps winking cheekily up at them all. Mrs. Weasley beams down at him.
"Oh, he is marvelous," she says. "He knows his household pests, all right, it's a wonderful book...."
"Mum fancies him," says Fred, in a very audible whisper.
"Don't be ridiculous, Fred," says Mrs. Weasley, her cheeks rather pink. "All right, if you think you know better than Lockhart, you can go and get on with it, and woe betide you if there's a single gnome in that garden when I come out to inspect it."
Yawning and grumbling, the Weasleys slouch outside with Harry and Polaris behind them. The garden is large, and in Harry's eyes, exactly what a garden should be. The Dursleys wouldn't like it - there are plenty of weeds, and the grass needs cutting - but there are gnarled trees all around the walls, plants Harry has never seen spilling from every flower bed, and a big green pond full of frogs.
"Muggles love garden gnomes, too, you know," Harry tells Ron as they cross the lawn.
"Yeah, I've seen those things they think are gnomes," says Ron, bent over with his head in a peony bush, "like fat little Santa Clauses with fishing rods...."
There is a violent scuffling noise, the peony bush shudders and Ron straightens up. "This is a gnome," he says grimly.
"Geroff me! Geroff me!" squeals the gnome.
It is certainly nothing like Santa Claus. It is small and leathery looking, with a large, knobbly, bald head exactly like a potato. Ron holds it at arm's length as it kicks out at him with its horny little feet; he grasps it around the ankles and turns it upside down.
"This is what you have to do," he says. He raises the gnome above his head ("Gerroff me!") and starts to swing it in great circles like a lasso. Seeing the shocked look on Harry's face, Ron adds, "It doesn't hurt them - you've just gotta make them really dizzy so they can't find their way back to the gnomeholes."
He lets go of the gnome's ankles: It flies twenty feet into the air and lands with a thud in the field over the hedge.
Meanwhile
Polaris walks into the woods by The Burrow. He doesn't want to be overheard. "Dobby." he says. There is a small snapping noise and Dobby the house elf appears before Polaris "Yes, master?" Dobby says, in a slightly shaky voice "a little bird told me that you've been trying to stop Harry Potter from going to Hogwarts." Says Polaris. Dobby shivers "D-Dobby had to do it! Dobby had to save Harry Potter from the evils that will be unleashed!" Polaris shakes his head disapprovingly. "Dobby, I won't tell Lucius, but I order you to stop bothering Harry. If anything happens, I'll deal with it. Do you understand?" Dobby looks at Polaris with his tearful eyes "Yes, master." He says, disapperating away.
Back to Harry
The crowd of gnomes in the field start walking away in a straggling line, their little shoulders hunched.
"They'll be back," says Ron as they watch the gnomes disappear into the hedge on the other side of the field. "They love it here.... Dad's too soft with them; he thinks they're funny...."
Just then, the front door slams.
"He's back!" says George. "Dad's home!"
They hurry through the garden and back into the house.
Mr. Weasley is slumped in a kitchen chair with his glasses off and his eyes closed. He is a thin man, going bald, but the little hair he has is as red as any of his children's. He is wearing long green robes, which are dusty and travel-worn.
"What a night," he mumbles, groping for the teapot as they all sit down around him. "Nine raids. Nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned...."
Mr. Weasley takes a long gulp of tea and sighs.
"Find anything, Dad?" says Fred eagerly.
"All I got were a few shrinking door keys and a biting kettle," yawns Mr. Weasley. "There was some pretty nasty stuff that wasn't in my department, though. Mortlake was taken away for questioning about some extremely odd ferrets, but that's the Committee on Experimental Charms, thank goodness...."
"Why would anyone bother making door keys shrink?" says George.
"To be assholes." Says Polaris, walking in the room.
"Exactly. Sell them a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it.... Of course, it's very hard to convict anyone because no Muggle would admit their keys keep shrinking - they'll insist they just keep losing it. Bless them, they'll go to any lengths to ignore magic, even if it's staring them in the face.... But the things our lot have taken to enchanting, you wouldn't believe -"
"LIKE CARS, FOR INSTANCE?"
Mrs. Weasley has appeared, holding a long poker like a sword. Mr. Weasley's eyes jerk open. He stares guiltily at his wife.
"C-cars, Molly, dear?"
"Yes, Arthur, cars," says Mrs. Weasley, her eyes flashing. "Imagine a wizard buying a rusty old car and telling his wife all he wanted to do with it was take it apart and see how it worked, while really he was enchanting it to make it fly."
Mr. Weasley blinks.
"Well, dear, I think you'll find that he would be quite within the law to do that, even if - er - he maybe would have done better to, um, tell his wife the truth.... There's a loophole in the law, you'll find.... As long as he wasn't intending to fly the car, the fact that the car could fly wouldn't -"
"Arthur Weasley, you made sure there was a loophole when you wrote that law!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. "Just so you could carry on tinkering with all that Muggle rubbish in your shed! And for your information, Harry arrived this morning in the car you weren't intending to fly!"
"Harry?" says Mr. Weasley blankly. "Harry who?"
He looks around, sees Harry, and jumps.
"Good lord, is it Harry Potter? Very pleased to meet you, Ron's told us so much about -"
"Your sons flew that car to Surrey and back last night!" shouts Mrs. Weasley. "What have you got to say about that, eh?"
"Did you really?" says Mr. Weasley eagerly. "Did it go all right? I - I mean," he falters as sparks fly from Mrs. Weasley's eyes, "that - that was very wrong, boys - very wrong indeed...."
"Let's leave them to it," Ron mutters to Harry as Mrs. Weasley swells like a bullfrog. "Come on, I'll show you my bedroom."
They slip out of the kitchen and down a narrow passageway to an uneven staircase, which winds its way, zigzagging up through the house. On the third landing, a door stands ajar. Harry catches sight of a pair of brown eyes staring at him before it closes with a snap.
"Ginny," says Ron. "You don't know how weird it is for her to be this shy. She never shuts up normally -"
They climb two more flights until they reach a door with peeling paint and a small plaque on it, saying RONALD'S ROOM.
Harry steps in, his head almost touching the sloping ceiling. It is like walking into a furnace: Nearly everything in Ron's room seems to be a violent shade of orange: the bedspread, the walls, even the ceiling. Then Harry realizes that Ron has covered nearly every inch of the shabby wallpaper with posters of the same seven witches and wizards, all wearing bright orange robes, carrying broomsticks, and waving energetically.
"Your Quidditch team?" says Harry.
The Chudley Cannons," says Ron, pointing at the orange bedspread, which is emblazoned with two giant black C's and a speeding cannonball. "Ninth in the league."
Ron's school spellbooks are stacked untidily in a corner, next to a pile of comics that all seem to feature The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle. Ron's wand is lying on top of a fish tank full of frog spawn on the windowsill, next to his fat gray rat, 'Scabbers', who is snoozing in a patch of sun.
Harry steps over a pack of Self-Shuffling playing cards on the floor and looks out of the tiny window. In the field far below he can see a gang of gnomes sneaking one by one back through the Weasleys' hedge. Then he turns to look at Ron. Who is watching him almost nervously, as though waiting for his opinion.
"It's a bit small," says Ron quickly. "Not like that room you had with the Muggles. And I'm right underneath the ghoul in the attic; he's always banging on the pipes and groaning...."
But Harry, grinning widely, says, "This is the best house I've ever been in."
Ron's ears go pink.