THE WHOMPING WILLOW
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.
“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 sun-
light, with a fat pack of toffees in the glove compartment, and the
prospect of seeing Fred’s and George’s jealous faces when they
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