Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series and all its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
Chapter One
The Flight from the Forest and the Call from King's Cross
Everything was so peaceful in the forest at night. Especially this night. Crickets chittered. An owl hooted to no-one in particular somewhere nearby. No other creature stirred in the late night. The forest was calm.
Then the Car roared through the clearing, kicking up dirt and leaves and twigs and whatever else it would kick up when it went very, very fast.
The Car had lived in the forest for several months now, but it felt as if it had always lived there. It spent its days swerving around trees, doing donuts in muddy clearings, chasing after and honking at whatever it pleased. It lived an idyllic life that it had never thought possible, not while it lived in the Old House of the family that owned it before.
That idyllic life had to be put on pause while it raced through the forest to carry the two boys and the girl to safety. The girl's name was Suzuki, or something like that. She was a Passenger, sitting in the back seat, looking out the back windscreen for whatever was chasing after them. One of the boys was the car's Old Owner, or one of them anyway. His name was Rod, or something like that. The other boy was the Old Owner's friend, a boy named Hemi, or something like that, who had a very big scratch in his paint and removable windscreens over his eyes. The Car didn't care for names. It just knew that it was the Car, and there were Owners or Drivers or Passengers who used the Car to get from place to place. Or they used to, anyway, ever since the Car came to the Forest.
Right now, the Old Owner Rod was a Passenger in the front, as was the girl Suzuki, though she was in the back, while the other boy Hemi was the Driver.
The boys and the girl had done a Very Stupid Thing and gone where they shouldn't have gone. Now, the Car had to take them away from its new home. The Car had dealt with the boys before, but not the girl. The boys had brought the Car up here because they too needed to come here—to the Very Big House, not the Forest. The Car never went to the Very Big House; it had no reason to go there. It resided in the Forest and would reside in the Forest until it couldn't run any more, which didn't seem to be very soon at all. It wanted to keep driving and not deal with the boys or the girl or their Very Stupid Thing. The Car would be very happy once all this was over and done with.
"How far away are they?" the boy named Hemi asked in a panicked voice, looking back to see what the girl named Suzuki might be seeing.
"I can't tell," the girl named Suzuki replied, turning back to the view in front of them.
"TREE!" cried the Old Owner Rod.
The boy name Hemi turned back to the steering wheel, just in time to jerk it hard to the right. The Car swerved right, avoiding the massive oak with which that nearly collided. It corrected itself as the Old Owner Rod looked back again. A shriek pierced the air, sending chills down their spines. The Car didn't care.
"I swear if Hagrid ever gets out of Azkaban, I'm gonna kill him," the Old Owner Rod said, half cowering in the car seat while looking out the back.
"Hagrid didn't do anything," said the girl named Suzuki.
"He sent us into that bloody place!" the Old Owner Rod yelled.
"No, Hagrid didn't," growled the girl named Suzuki. Pointing at the boy named Hemi, she said, "He did."
"Oh, so it's my fault we're in here?" cried the boy named Hemi.
"We didn't need to come out here," said the girl named Suzuki.
"This was the only way to find out who was behind all this," the boy named Hemi told her.
"You could have come out alone!"
"I didn't see you stopping yourselves from coming with!"
The old owner Rod cried, "TREE!"
Turning back to the front, the boy named Hemi turned hard to the left. The Car swerved again, avoiding the second tree. The Car righted itself again.
"Stop shouting 'TREE' every time there's a tree!" the boy named Hemi said, hitting the steering wheel with the heel of his palm on every word. "I know there are trees everywhere! We're in the bloody Forest!"
"I know! I want to get out of the bloody Forest!" shouted the Old Owner Rod.
"What the hell do you think I'm trying to do?" the boy named Hemi shouted back.
"TREE!" the girl named Suzuki cried.
The boy named Hemi turned the wheel very hard to the right. The Car swerved, avoiding that tree and vaulting over a berm. The Car soared through the air like it would on many nice nights like this. Only the Car didn't want to fly. So, it fell and landed on the ground, straining the Car's suspension on the impact. The Car skidded to a halt. And its engine stopped.
"What just happened?" the boy named Hemi asked, pumping on the accelerator pedal. Oh, good, the Car thought. A bit of rest. I could use that.
"Oh no!" said the Old Owner Rod.
"What?" the girl named Suzuki asked.
"It's flooded!" cried the Old Owner Rod.
"You told me it didn't run on petrol!" cried the boy named Hemi.
"It doesn't!" the Old Owner Rod shouted back. "The Magic in the car is a lot on its systems! Run it for too long or too hard, the machine part of it can't keep up with the magic powering it! The car will freeze up!"
"Great!" shouted the boy named Hemi in frustration. "Why didn't you think of that when you made it fly?"
"I didn't make it fly!" shouted the Old Owner Rod. "What makes you think I know what makes it work?"
"You spent nearly every day this summer with the bleeding thing and only now you know what's wrong!" shouted the Boy Named Hemi. "Get it working again!"
"I don't know how!" the Old Owner Rod shouted back.
"Stop shouting at each other!" cried the girl named Suzuki.
The boy named Hemi shouted back, "I'll stop shouting when we're away from—"
A shriek rent the air, followed by the thudding of several legs that grew into a thundering of many legs, along with more shrieks that sounded like the Very Stupid Thing was about to catch up to them.
The Car wondered what the boys and the girl were thinking. Probably something about wanting to be mothers and away from this Very Stupid Thing. Then, another thought occurred to the Car. What is a mother, anyway?
***HPG***
It felt like the mother of all bad days.
Jean Granger collapsed on the bottle green sofa that was such a coveted napping spot for the staff of the Intensive Care Unit at St. John's Hospital. The day had already been a long one, made longer by the loss of a patient to a complicated bypass surgery, then made even longer after she had had to give a sponge bath to an overly handsy seventy-year-old patient who had taking a liking to her, along with a few of the other nurses. A call to her husband, Laurence, helped things a bit, especially after he promised he'd come over and wallop the man into next week, and kick him to the curb if need be.
She lay on the sofa and wondered what her children, Hermione and Harry, were doing at this very moment. The two siblings were currently in their second year at Hogwarts, the most preeminent school for sorcery in all of Britain (though, for reasons of secrecy, the family had to tell everyone they were going to a boarding school outside of Aberdeen, courtesy of Harry's late birth parents). For some odd reason, the children hadn't tried to make contact with them since they left. Or, and this rumination worried her even more, someone or something was keeping them from writing home. That had got both her and Laurence very worried about their well-being. Despite all attempts to get in touch with them, nothing they sent got a reply of any sort. Even an attempt to send a message through a family friend, Molly Weasley, whose son Ron was great friends with both Harry and Hermione, went unanswered, though Molly received regular updates from her children—that is, all five that still attended Hogwarts.
It both perplexed and frightened her that she couldn't reach her children. She and Laurence debated constantly whether or not to make a trip up to Hogwarts to check on them. Their schedules, unfortunately, hindered the possibility of even leaving the outskirts of Greater London.
Jean's co-worker Heather came into the break room. Upon seeing Jean taking up the sofa, she remarked, "Just my luck. Sofa's already taken."
"You can join me if you like," Jean replied. "Plenty of room."
"I'll pass," said Heather, chuckling. Heather collapsed into the chair across from the sofa, letting out a sigh and rubbing her temples once she was in the chair. "Heard Mister Geoffries tried to feel you up."
"Did he try that with you?"
"Twice."
"Laurence told me he'd come down and kick his arse. If Mister Geoffries tries it again, I'll tell him to get in some more good licks on your behalf."
"Good man."
"That's why I married him."
"No, he tries it again, I'll give him a good right cross myself. How difficult is it to keep your hands to yourself?
"Harder than we think, apparently."
"Heard from your young ones yet?" Heather asked, mostly out of concern for her co-worker's well-being.
"Still no letters, from either of them," Jean replied. "It's the strangest thing, Heather. They always write us, every week, even if it's just really boring stuff."
"They haven't tried to phone you or anything else?"
"Nothing. For some reason, the school doesn't have a phone line. Or, at least, they don't use it unless it's an emergency."
"That is so bizarre."
"Tell me about it. But, it's how the school has operated for all its years."
"Give it a few more days, Jean. They're bound to miss you, if they don't already."
The hospital intercom chimed, and a voice announced, "Nurse Granger, phone call, urgent, line one-zero-three. Repeat, Nurse Granger, phone call, urgent, line one-zero-three."
Jean hauled herself up from the sofa and stretched before she crossed the room to the telephone. "Sofa's yours, Heather," she said.
"No, Jean, I couldn't," Heather replied.
"Yes, you could."
"Yes, I could." Heather launched herself out of the chair and flung herself onto the sofa, letting out a triumphant cry as she snuggled herself deeper into the sofa's welcoming plushness.
Jean picked up the phone. She dialed the extension and said as the connection took, "This is Nurse Granger."
"Mum?" she heard her son say on the other end of the phone.
"Harry?" Jean replied, in a great mix of confusion and relief. A flood of questions left her mouth at the sound of her son's voice. "Harry, are you all right?"
"Yeah, for the most part."
"Harry, what on earth is going on up there? What are you doing phoning me at work? You always send us letters every week, and we haven't got anything all year. What's going on?"
"Mum, promise me you won't get angry."
"Pardon?"
"Mum, please promise me—"
"I won't be angry, Harry. Just please tell me. What is going on?"
"Mum, I need you to come and get me at King's Cross."
"King's Cross? What on earth are you doing there? You're supposed to be up at the school."
"That's why I don't want you to get angry." A long pause followed, then she heard her son say, "Mum, they suspended me."
She was so flummoxed and shocked just hearing her son's voice that all she could say in response was, "Are you joking?"