THE BURROW
“You should talk,” said Harry, staring at the floating car.
“Oh, this doesn’t count,” said 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 that 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,” said Ron. “We’ve come to take you home
with us.”
“But you can’t magic me out either —”
“We don’t need to,” said Ron, jerking his head toward the front
seat and grinning. “You forget who I’ve got with me.”
“Tie that around the bars,” said Fred, throwing the end of a rope
to Harry.
“If the Dursleys wake up, I’m dead,” said Harry as he tied the
rope tightly around a bar and Fred revved up the car.
“Don’t worry,” said Fred, “and stand back.”
Harry moved back into the shadows next to Hedwig, who
seemed to have realized how important this was and kept still and
silent. The car revved louder and louder and suddenly, with a
crunching noise, the bars were pulled cle an out of the window as
Fred drove straight up in the air. Harry ran back to the window to
see the bars dangling a few feet above the ground. Panting, Ron
hoisted them up into the car. Harry listened anxiously, but there
was no sound from the Dursleys’ bedroom.
When the bars were safely in the back seat with Ron, Fred re-
versed as close as possible to Harry’s window.
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