PROLOGUE:

Dedalus: "You know how to drive, I take it?"

Uncle Vernon: "Know how to - ? Of course I ruddy well know how to drive!"

Dedalus:"Very clever of you, sir, very clever, I personally would be utterly bamboozled with all those buttons and knobs."

As I said those words, I must say a little memory came rather forcefully back to me - one of that time I drove myself to a little park five minutes away...

"Dedalus, my son," my father cleared his throat. I sat, tense and rigid, on my favorite seat in my bedroom - the purple balloon sofa. My father was leaning on the window sill, very serious.

"You have told me many a time that you want to become an Auror..."

I held my breath.

" - And I bear you no ill will in your dream to become one. However, you know me. If you are going to be an Auror, you had better be a first rate one."

I grinned to myself.

"An Auror, as you so often tell me yourself, Deds, should always be inconspicuous. He has to mix with everyone else. If he were in Algeria, he would talk Algerian - without an accent. If he were in Alaska, he would converse in the language of the Innuits - this, too, without an accent. However, every civilized place you go, son, you must needs drive a car as Muggle means of transport."

Again, my breath was bated, and I was getting a headache from doing so.

"So, to be particularly inconspicuous, Deds, I've assigned you a professional driving tutor, and he will teach you how to drive. Don't worry," he added, as he saw my face going red (he thought it was going red because I was worried - not because I was suffocating - which was the true reason), "This man is a wizard, as well, and a truly excellent one. You won't have any trouble talking to him in magical matters." He grinned at me, and then ruffled my hair.

"Er... Dad?"

"Yes, Deds?"

"Er... who is this person?"

"He's Jackson Smythe, son - and an excellent man as I have said before."

"Oh... okay, then."

The next week, (the day was Saturday), stuffed in an overcoat, striped blue and white shirt, a tie, pants, and Dexters, I waited for this 'excellent' Jackson Smythe to appear on the sidewalk. As it was, he didn't just simply 'appear' with the usual Apparating pop.

He roared into view in a delicious silver sports car from Volkeswagon. Alright, I am no Muggle sports car fan, but this was just fabulous. You cannot deny the beauty of this mechanical being - the way it purred sleepily to your tiniest pat on the accelerator, the way it just rolled forwards at your slightest command... it was truly sublime.

However, I could not drive this car yet, until I'd proven myself able to drive the following list of cars that Mr. Jackson gave me. It was quite formiddable, as you will see:

Cars to be driven by Dedalus Diggle:

1. Chevrolet Classic, first ever model

2. Mitsubishi Gallant, first model

3. Nissan Pickup, third model

4. Toyota Corolla, second model

5. Honda Civic, first model

6. Mitsubishi Pajero, first model

7. Datsun Pickup

8. Caterpillar Construction Truck, third model

9. Mercedes car, second model

There were little pictures of the car next to its name. I must say, I was rather disgusted. And I was supposed to drive a car that was called only 'Mercedes'? As in, before Mercedes and Benz joined together? Merlin, that was awful! "After that, son, you drive a Ferrari! If you pass that test, you can have my silver Volkeswagon. Deal?"

Nine cars, I groaned to myself, I have to kill myself, day in, day out, over nine cars, to get only one for my own.

I felt like cursing this excellent Mr. Jackson, but I decided that even if it was just one car, it was in 'excellent' condition, and it was very expensive. Sighing, I shook hands with him, trying in vain to rip one of his fingernails off innocently. In fact, he smiled at me in a rather alarmed and puzzled way as we stood apart again. I grinned to myself.

"Alright, sonny, you see, here's the clutch, the steering wheel, the horn, the gearbox, the seats, the accelarator, the breaks, and so on. But you'll have read that in the book I gave you, eh?" he grinned at me, all his teeth shining oh-so-ever gloriously (in his opinion!).

"Uh, sir, you never gave me any book," I replied, hardly concealing my annoyance.

"Well, then, my boy, here it is! Memorize it in three seconds, and then we'll see how you score! Alright, open the first page - that's it... now one... two... three... you should've gotten it memorized by now!"

And he snatched it away from my limp hands. Was this person a lunatic? How was I supposed to memorize some three hundred pages in three seconds?

"Alright, now, Deds, get into the driver's seat and drive us off to... hmm... something easy the first time... let's say... Davin's Park, then! Yes, we're driving around our Wizarding village first, son."

I felt like screaming aloud! How could I express my horror at this extremely-NOT-excellent man? Was he some sort of dope? A dud? Some clone of the real Mr. Jackson Smythe - and this clone had gone mental? But I had no choice. I got out of the car, went around it, and sat in the driver's seat, dreading every second that passed with the disgusting idiot's face grinning at me like some sort of happy hyena.

Sweat glistened down my brow as I remembered something my Muggleborn friend told me, once - "... Well, then, Mum told me to go get eggs from the store that was eight miles away, so I decided to cut on the time and get the car out. I got the garage, sat in the driver's seat, put on the seat belt, and started up the engine - you gotta turn the keys to start up the engine, by the way..."

Laura was pretty good at driving a car, according to herself, so she must know what she was doing. I looked around for my seat belt (Mr. Not-Excellent Disgust was still staring at me with a placid smile on his face), found it on my right shoulder, and tried to stuff it into the seat-belt thingy where I insert the seat belt end. I succeeded, and Mr. Not-Excellent Disgust just grinned even wider and emitted a sound like a pig snorting out of joy. So I suppose he was some sort of cross between an animal and a human. Disgusting, disgusting. Repressing a shudder, I turned the keys, and the old engine of the 1800s practically jumped back into awakening. That's right, jumped. The car literally flew into the air for a few seconds, then landed with an alarming collage of noises.

"Ah, good, you remembered the first four steps. Now, tell me what they are, son," he continued to grin.

"Er... you get in the car first...?" I replied off the top of my head, as I tried to remember what Laura had said next.

"Splendifico!" he yelled.

"Right," I muttered from under the seat (I was looking for the accelerator and everything), not really realizing what he said, "Then you... uh... close the door."

"Excellent!"

"And after that," I rose up again, rather pleased with myself with my excellent and splendid answers, "You put on your seat belt!"

"Magnificent!" he roared, thundering his hand down on my back. It was supposed to be a pat, I suppose, but he was rather hard about it.

"The fourth step - turn the key," I finished. The engine roared to life as I stamped on the accelerator, and we were off into the streets, leaving clouds of dust and choking people behind us. I was exhilarated. "So this is what driving is!" I yelled to my tutor, who was now looking like he'd just seen an abomination who was half tiny slug, half huge dragon.

"This is the life!" I went on, pounding the steering wheel. It creaked mournfully. I paid no heed. "Yes, sir, this is the life for me!" I cried, not noticing that now chunks of vomit were also flying behind our car (yes, indeed, sir, I was going so fast that my tutor was vomiting out the car window).

"Woohoo!" I yelled in delight - right before a big wall came into my sight.

I tried to swerve away the car by madly rotating the steering wheel. All it did, however, was creak mournfully and screw off. "What - the - hell - did - you - do - to - that - damned - steering - wheel?" my tutor shrieked.

Diplomatically, I took out my wand, Stunned my tutor so that he would not worry me or himself, and turned back to the situation at hand. It seemed the only thing left was the accelerator. If I did the accelerator, I would be so fast that I would break a hole in the wall, be unharmed myself, and carry on my way without a steering wheel.

I decided to carry this plan of action out, but the accelerator, too, broke off. I was left only with the clutch, the brakes, and thirty yards between the car and the solid brick wall, so I decided to change into fourth gear. I accordingly did so, only to find that this time, the clutch, too broke off. My wand had flown through the window after I had Stunned my tutor, so it was useless. Therefore, I decided to just stop the car.

So I pressed the brakes. How they screeched! They screeched and screeched and made such a hullabaloo that my tutor began to stir from his magical enchantment! This does not do, I thought desperately to myself. Hence, I decided to look at all the assortment of buttons and knobs in front of me. This did not alleviate the situation, because they all utterly bamboozled me. And when I become utterly bamboozled, it is rather hard for me to think properly.

The brakes, meanwhile, were still screeching with all their might and main and engine power, so I decided to press a button at random, hoping it would muffle the sound slightly. Alas, to my great displeasure, it decided to turn into a radio, and sing something along the likes of,

"'Cause we're all a bunch of animals who never payed attention in school!"

It was a rock song, I suppose, and all it did was add to the din. This was highly unnecessary, so I tried to put it off. However, I pressed the wrong button and the windscreen-wipers turned on, groaning slowly and sadly - and, unfortunately - loudly.

"SHUT UP!" I yelled, and the next thing I knew, the car shot straight through the brick wall, bucked about uncomfortably, and decided to plunge into a dirty little pond nearby. I hung desperately to the roof of the car, my legs flailing about helplessly (the seat belts had torn, pathetic useless car that it was). My tutor at once, sat bolt upright, screamed, opened the door, and ran out. I know not how he managed to stay alive, jumping out of a car running at such speed - but he did. Later, I found out that my father considered him excellent because he was a stuntsman in the Muggle movies. At the moment, however, I was oblivious to this piece of information, my father, my tutor, the car, or anything else but for my life.

"HELP!" I yelled.

The car engine coughed, stopped, bowled over (yes, it actually flipped), and then went on again. "You're doing this to agitate me, stupid car," I muttered under my breath.

The car stopped again, the roof flung open (remember that I was clinging onto it), and threw me across the wall, across the streets, across Puffle's Puffin Street, and straight through the window of a whitewashed house and landed on the floor of - my room.

"Well, hello, son! How did your lesson go?" my father bounced into my room (thank Merlin I had left my windows open before I left), in a jolly tone of voice.

"Er... it went fine... but Mr. Not-Exc - I mean Mr. Jackson said that I... uh... can't drive very much under him, because starting from tomorrow he'll be very busy. He did say that I was brilliant though," I lied, smiling.

"That's great, son! But just so you know, my little man, I don't think I want you to drive, okay? It's dangerous - I just saw on the Muggle TV that somebody crashed right into a brick wall and plunged the car into some weird sort of pond. Poor fellow. He was a wizard, I suppose - you never have crazy accidents like that with Muggles!"

"Yes, Dad, I suppose... hey, which street was the brick wall in?"

"I dunno... North Haven's I think - near the Golden-Brown bakery," my father scratched his head.

"Oh...! I see... isn't very good to go around driving in the Muggle village, is it?"

"Not at all! That's why I wanted you to just drive around the wizarding places!"

"Hmm... yeah, okay. Well, I'm really tired and I want a bath, so if you'll excuse me, Dad," I said, turning to the bathroom adjoined with my room, "I'll get going."

"Oh sure - hey!" he yelled suddenly, as I locked the bathroom door. "Why do you have such a huge rip in your pants?"

"Er... because I crashed into a brick wall...?" I muttered to myself, grinning.

Utterly bamboozled indeed, I smiled to myself, as Vernon Dursely, Petunia Dursely, Dudley Dursely, Hestia and I, all piled into the car and roared off.

"Say, sir, what company is this car from?" I asked, curious.

"Volkeswagon," the large man grunted.

I could have fainted.