Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (8 page)

      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.

      “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?”

      Harry gave a hollow laughed. “The Dursleys haven’t given me pocket money for about six years.”

      Ron pressed his ear to the cold barrier.

      “Can’t hear a thing,” he said tensely, “What’re we going to do? I don’t know how long it’ll take Mum and Dad to get back to us.”

      They looked around. People were still watching them, mainly because of Hedwig’s continuing screeches.

      “I think we’d better go and wait by the car,” said Harry. “We’re attracting too much atten —”

      “Harry!” said Ron, his eyes gleaming. “The car!”

      “What about it?”

      “We can fly the car to Hogwarts!”

      “But I thought —”

      “We’re stuck, right? And we’ve got to get to school, haven’t we? And even underage wizards are allowed to use magic if it’s a real emergency, section nineteen or something of the Restriction of Thingy —”

      “But your Mum and Dad…” said Harry, pushing against the barrier again in the vain hope that it would give way. “How will they get home?”

      “They don’t need the car!” said Ron impatiently. “They know how to Apparate! You know, just vanish and reappear at home! They only bother with Floo powder and the car because we’re all underage and we’re not allowed to Apparate yet.…”

      Harry’s feeling of panic turned suddenly to excitement.

      “Can you fly it?”

      “No, problem,” said Ron, wheeling his trolley around to face the exit. “C’mon, let’s go. If we hurry we’ll be able to follow the Hogwarts Express —”

      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, 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 accelerator; 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 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 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 had nothing to drink. He and Ron had pulled off their sweaters, but Harry’s T-shirt was sticking to the back of his seat and his glasses kept sliding down to the end of his sweaty nose. He had stopped noticing the fantastic cloud shapes now and was thinking longingly of the train miles below, where you could buy ice-cold pumpkin juice from a trolley pushed by a plump witch. Why hadn’t they been able to get onto platform nine and three-quarters?

      “Can’t be much further, can it?” croaked Ron, hours later still, as the sun started to sink into their floor of cloud, staining it a deep pink. “Ready for another check on the train?”

      It was still right below them, winding its way past a snowcapped mountain. It was much darker beneath the canopy of clouds.

      Ron put his foot on the accelerator and drove them upward again, but as he did so, the engine began to whine.

      Harry and Ron exchanged nervous glances.

      “It’s probably just tired,” said Ron. “It’s never been this far before.…”

      And they both pretended not to notice the whining growing louder and louder as the sky became steadily darker. Stars were blossoming in the blackness. Harry pulled his sweater back on, trying to ignore the way the windshield wipers were now waving feebly, as though in protest.

      “Not far,” said Ron, more to the car than to Harry, “not far now,” and he patted the dashboard nervously.

      When they flew back beneath the clouds a little while later, they had to squint through the darkness for a landmark they knew.

      “There!” Harry shouted, making Ron and Hedwig jump. “Straight ahead!”

      Silhouetted on the dark horizon, high on the cliff over the lake, stood the many turrets and towers of Hogwarts castle.

      But the car had begun to shudder and was losing speed.

      “Come on,” Ron said cajolingly, giving the steering wheel a little shake, “nearly there, come on —”

      The engine groaned. Narrow jets of steam were issuing from under the hood. Harry found himself gripping the edges of his seat very hard as they flew toward the lake.

      The car gave a nasty wobble. Glancing out of his window, Harry saw the smooth, black, glassy surface of the water, a mile below. Ron’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. The car wobbled again.

      “Come on,” Ron muttered.

      They were over the lake — the castle was right ahead — Ron put his foot down.

      There was a loud clunk, a splutter, and the engine died completely.

      “Uh-oh,” said Ron, into the silence.

      The nose of the car dropped. They were falling, gathering speed, heading straight for the solid castle wall.

     
“Noooooo!” Ron yelled, swinging the steering wheel around; they missed the dark stone wall by inches as the car turned in a great arc, soaring over the dark greenhouses, then the vegetable patch, and then out over the black lawns, losing altitude all the time.

      Ron let go of the steering wheel completely and pulled his wand out of his back pocket —

      “STOP! STOP!” he yelled, whacking the dashboard and the windshield, but they were still plummeting, the ground flying up toward them —

      “WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE!” Harry bellowed, lunging for the steering wheel, but too late —

      CRUNCH.

      With an earsplitting bang of metal on wood, they hit the thick tree trunk and dropped to the ground with a heavy jolt. Steam was billowing from under the crumpled hood; Hedwig was shrieking in terror; a golfball-size lump was throbbing on Harry’s head where he had hit the windshield; and to his right, Ron let out a low, despairing groan.

      “Are you okay?” Harry said urgently.

      “My wand,” said Ron, in a shaky voice. “Look at my wand —”

      It had snapped, almost in two; the tip was dangling limply, held on by a few splinters.

      Harry opened his mouth to say he was sure they’d be able to mend it up at the school, but he never even got started. At that very moment, something hit his side of the car with the force of a charging bull, sending him lurching sideways into Ron, just as an equally heavy blow hit the roof.

      “What’s happen —?”

      Ron gasped, staring through the windshield, and Harry looked around just in time to see a branch as thick as a python smash into it. The tree they had hit was attacking them. Its trunk was bent almost double, and its gnarled boughs were pummeling every inch of the car it could reach.

      “Aaargh!” said Ron as another twisted limb punched a large dent into his door; the windshield was now trembling under a hail of blows from knuckle-like twigs and a branch as thick as a battering ram was pounding furiously on the roof, which seemed to be caving in.

      “Run for it!” Ron shouted, throwing his full weight against his door, but next second he had been knocked backward into Harry’s lap by a vicious uppercut from another branch.

      “We’re done for!” he moaned as the ceiling sagged, but suddenly the floor of the car was vibrating — the engine had restarted.

      “Reverse!” Harry yelled, and the car shot backward; the tree was still trying to hit them; they could hear its roots creaking as it almost ripped itself up, lashing out at them as they sped out of reach.

      “That,” panted Ron, “was close. Well done, car —”

      The car, however, had reached the end of its tether. With two sharp clunks, the doors flew open and Harry felt his seat tip sideways: Next thing he knew he was sprawled on the damp ground. Loud thuds told him that the car was ejecting their luggage from the trunk; Hedwig’s cage flew through the air and burst open; she rose out of it with an angry screech and sped off toward the castle without a backward look. Then, dented, scratched, and steaming, the car rumbled off into the darkness, its rear lights blazing angrily.

      “Come back!” Ron yelled after it, brandishing his broken wand. “Dad’ll kill me!”

      But the car disappeared from view with one last snort from its exhaust.

      “Can you believe our luck?” said Ron miserably, bending down to pick up Scabbers. “Of all the trees we could’ve hit, we had to get one that hits back.”

      He glanced over his shoulder at the ancient tree, which was still flailing its branches threateningly.

      “Come on,” said Harry wearily, “we’d better get up to the school.…”

      It wasn’t at all the triumphant arrival they had pictured. Stiff, cold, and bruised, they seized the ends of their trunks and began dragging them up the grassy slope, toward the great oak front doors.

      “I think the feast’s already started,” said Ron, dropping his trunk at the foot of the front steps and crossing quietly to look through a brightly lit window. “Hey — Harry — come and look — it’s the Sorting!”

      Harry hurried over and, together, he and Ron peered in at the Great Hall.

      Innumerable candles were hovering in midair over four long, crowded tables, making the golden plates and goblets sparkle. Overhead, the bewitched ceiling, which always mirrored the sky outside, sparkled with stars.

      Through the forest of pointed black Hogwarts hats, Harry saw a long line of scared-looking first years filing into the Hall. Ginny was among them, easily visible because of her vivid Weasley hair. Meanwhile, Professor McGonagall, a bespectacled witch with her hair in a tight bun, was placing the famous Hogwarts Sorting Hat on a stool before the newcomers.

      Every year, this aged old hat, patched, frayed, and dirty, sorted new students into the four Hogwarts houses (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin). Harry well remembered putting it on, exactly one year ago, and waiting, petrified, for its decision as it muttered aloud in his ear. For a few horrible seconds he had feared that the hat was going to put him in Slytherin, the house that had turned out more Dark witches and wizards than any other but he had ended up in Gryffindor, along with Ron, Hermione, and the rest of the Weasleys. Last term, Harry and Ron had helped Gryffindor win the House Championship, beating Slytherin for the first time in seven years.