Apparently Lockhart was actually in Ravenclaw. I agree with reviewers, not sure how... I will fix it for future chapters, just ignore the last chapter where it says Hufflepuff.

Those from the past with an older self. Everybody else.

Parselmouth

Sign language

Sadly neither Harry Potter, nor any of his friends and companions belong to me. I really wish it were different, but it is not and likely never will be.


"I think I'm going to go put lunch on, no reading until after, we are taking a break." She decided, and swept the book up before putting it on a high shelf. "Dudley, dear, would you like to come help me?" She asked pleasantly, and he hesitated before following her, ignoring the sputters of his parents, who didn't want their darling boy to be alone with these Freaks.

Harry laughed and whispered something in Hermione's ear before he left, too, leaving everyone else to sit around and talk until Molly either called them, or brought the food out, although she was probably going to call if she wanted this to be a break from reading.

"Where did Harry go?" Sirius asked Hermione after a few minutes conversation with Mad-eye.

"Our room. He just needed a few minutes alone." She smiled reassuringly while Ron hid his own grin. Harry was working on something for everybody, and he didn't want them knowing about it until after it was done.

Sirius frowned, but didn't say anything else, instead turning to talk to Remus and his younger godson.

By the time Molly called that lunch was ready, the readers were scattered.

"Hmm, good as always." Harry grinned at her and sat down.

She rolled her eyes fondly, patting his cheek as she walked past, carrying more plates full of food while a few more bowls floated behind her. The conversation was light, and not one word about the books was said. Of course, this might have had something to do with Molly glaring at anybody that dared try to bring it up. She wanted to have a meal without the reading coming into it, even the conversations during the last three days they took a break somehow revolved around those books, and plans that were being made for after they got out of here.

And, of course, just like every other meal, the Dursley adults and Albus were stuck at their own table, drinking water while everyone else had juice or wine.

No matter what Sirius tried, he could not get Harry to tell him what the seventeen year old was working on.

After lunch, a few almost ran back to the reading room, wanting to know what happened next, while everyone else followed slowly.

"Everybody here? Alright, lets see..." Filius restarted the charm on the book and sat back, letting it continue where it left off.

Chapter five: The Whomping Willow)

"Oh, that can't be good." Sirius muttered, grimacing. That tree was a menace, and he was surprised it was still around, considering the one it was planted for was no longer there. It was a danger to the students.

"It wasn't." Harry muttered. "Ron, I think this is the chapter we went to Hogwarts." He shifted in his seat.

"Oh, boy." He muttered. Well, they'd already been punished for this, so... He was probably going to have to remind his mother of that fact multiple times, though.

(The end of the... Harry's liking.)

"Doesn't it always?" The Twins asked wistfully. They hated it when summer ended and they had to go back to school. Everyone else agreed with them, while the older adults rolled their eyes fondly.

"It all ends sometime." Bill said sagely.

(He was looking... happiest of his life.)

"Which is kind of sad if you think about it." Hermione muttered. That one month at a friends house was the happiest he could remember being...?

The Dursley's were glared at some more while Arabella sighed. She'd tried, she truly did, but there was only so much she could do and still ensure Petunia would let her look after the boy again.

"Thank you, Arthur, Molly." Sirius said, grateful that the Weasley parents were there for his pup.

"It was nothing, we loved having him over." Molly waved him off with a smile.

(It was difficult not to feel jealous of Ron)

Ron blinked and his jaw dropped in shock. "You were jealous of me?" He asked. He couldn't believe that he had anything for Harry to be jealous over, not when he had vaults full of gold, and probably dozens of properties all over the world. Granted, Harry didn't know about all of that until just recently, but still. He did know about his trust vault, and it was filled with more money then Ron had ever seen.

Harry snorted. "Well, yeah. You have everything." He shrugged.

Ron scoffed. "Everything?" He asked. "We're poor, we barely have any money to keep up the house, how is that having everything?" Molly and Arthur shifted uncomfortably, while Arthur stopped her from saying anything, knowing that Ron needed to hear this from Harry.

"You have a loving family." Harry said simply. "I would gladly trade all the gold in the world if I could have what you have." He turned back to the book, not wanting to discuss it further.

Hermione glared lightly at Ron and attached herself to Harry's side, giving him the hug she knew he would forever deny wanting, while Sirius wrapped an arm around his shoulders from the other side. Not for the first time, he mentally kicked himself for leaving his godson to go after the rat.

Ron stared, shocked. He'd... never even thought of it that way before. All these years he'd been jealous of the attention Harry got, of the money and fame (granted he'd been getting better about it), when all this time...

(when he thought... on Privet Drive.)

Harry and his younger self both winced.

After the pudding fiasco, Harry couldn't imagine that it would be good. Harry was just glad he managed to mostly stay out of their way that summer, and then Marge showing up distracted them further, not that her visit went well in the end...

(On their last... treacle pudding.)

"Good thing we've just finished eating." Hermione muttered to Remus, who laughed.

The Weasley boys would probably be drooling over just that brief description, or the memory of that meal, if they hadn't.

(Fred and George... Filibuster fireworks;)

"That was quite nice." Molly admitted. Although it scared her half to death at first when they set them off in the house... their wooden house, even if they did have fire-proofing wards.

"We got the kind that won't burn everything they touch." Fred informed the room when Sirius voiced that very concern.

"They make those now?" Sirius asked, excited to hear what might have changed since he was locked up.

(they filled the... chocolate and bed.)

Draco frowned at hearing about the nice family scene that painted. His family hadn't sat down and simply spent time together like that for... a long time. Even before the Dark Lord returned.

Severus could certainly see what Harry had to be jealous about, he knew he would be if he were Harry's age again.

(It took a long... great deal to do.)

"It should have been done the day before." Molly huffed. She said it every year, did it happen?

No.

"I don't miss that." Bill muttered. It was always madness on the mornings of September first, especially once his younger siblings started school, too.

Charlie hummed in agreement while Percy nodded, eyes slightly wider.

(Mrs. Weasley dashed... to the car.)

"Magic." Minerva deadpanned, wondering why he hadn't just levitated the trunks outside.

Arthur shrugged. "It's a habit to not use magic for everything while at home." He answered. Mostly to teach their children some independence from magic, so that if there were ever a situation where they for some reason couldn't use it, they weren't completely helpless. Although he wished he had in this case, his foot ached for days after this, he was sure he'd mildly twisted his ankle, but he hadn't wanted to use their limited supply of potions on something so small, so he didn't mention it.

(Harry couldn't see... small Ford Anglia.)

"The only way is if magic is used. That kind of car is far too small for even a quarter of that to fit." Sirius immediately said. He remembered that car, he'd considered getting one while he and Marlene planned their wedding. It would only seat four, and there wasn't enough space in the back for even one standard-sized Hogwarts trunk.

Molly blinked at him then slowly turned to glare at Arthur, who sighed after giving Sirius a dark look.

(He had reckoned... Weasley had added.)

"Just what special features would those be?" Molly demanded to know. She could already guess that some of them would be expansion charms, but... what else was in that car that she didn't know about?

"Er... nothing much, dear." Arthur tried to smile winningly, only to wince when she turned her glare on him.

("Not a word to... whispered to Harry)

Molly scowled and crossed her arms in front of her chest, glaring at her husband, who winced.

Their children were looking everywhere but at them, trying to keep from laughing.

Everybody else made no attempts to hide their grins or grimaces at Arthur's current misfortune.

(as he opened... for, don't they?")

"While that is true, it's not really the case here..." Harry muttered to Hermione who hid her smile. She was pleased that he seemed to have shaken off the funk he'd fallen into after Ron's comments earlier about Harry being jealous of him.

"I don't think there are cars that can fit that many. A van, sure, but..." Hermione shrugged.

(She and Ginny... outside, would you?")

"Oh, the wonders of magic." Hermione said dryly, rolling her eyes and still hiding her grin. She'd thought the same thing multiple times when she visited Diagon Alley. You would never think that those shops would be so large on the inside from looking at the outside, but they were. (Although they could stand to be a little bigger...)

(Mr. Weasley started... they were back.)

Charlie rolled his eyes. "Ok, who forgot what?" He asked, exasperated. Fred, George, and Ginny all grinned sheepishly.

"This is why I try to get everyone to pack the night before." Molly muttered, rolling her eyes. Did they ever listen? No. If they had packed the night before, they could have spent the morning making sure nothing was forgotten instead of scrambling to pack.

"I was packed." Percy muttered sourly. He'd actually helped everyone else pack and carry their things out to the car, especially after his dad almost tripped over that chicken. Well, mostly he kept the chickens away, but still.

(George had... Filibuster fireworks.)

"And if I'd known what it was you forgot, I never would have agreed to turn around for it." Molly informed her sons sternly, glaring.

"Aw, mom!" He whined.

"Why go back at all, why not promise to mail everything they forgot? This..." Bill shook his head, bewildered. Weren't they already running late?

"I didn't even think of it, and Errol wouldn't have been up to it, anyway." Not with the forgotten items being a broom and a box of fireworks.

(Five minutes after... her diary.)

Ginny paled while the Trio scowled. "We should have left that." Ron muttered darkly.

"It would have just been mailed to her." Harry grumbled. Everyone who had not been informed about what exactly happened that year was confused. What was wrong with the diary?

"I would not have gone back for those things at that point. You'd already gone back once for something, and you were already running late." Draco claimed. Everyone else nodded in agreement. "It's no wonder you're always late to the train." It was a matter of much amusement to the Slytherin's, watching the Weasley clan rushing up to the train, just barely making it.

(By the time she... were running high.)

"How close did you cut it?" Minerva asked, curious.

"It was fifteen till when we reached the station." Molly informed the room. And of course by the time they got the car unloaded and actually got into the station, it was cutting it even closer.

"Cutting it rather close, there." Minerva muttered, eyeing Ron and Harry. It was starting to make more sense now, why they hadn't thought things through more. Desperation often made people stupid.

(Mr. Weasley glanced... any the wiser-")

"You should have let him fly." Bill deadpanned, having heard the story of what happened at the train station from Ron.

"The Invisibility Booster didn't work, anyway." Ron grumbled.

("I said no, Arthur, not in broad daylight-")

"If there is an invisibility booster, nobody would see." Charlie pointed out. A few notice-me-not charms after they landed, and before the car was made visible again, none of the Muggles would ever know.

"She just didn't want him to fly the car." Sirius whispered to Remus, who smirked.

Molly was a bit of a kill-joy, wasn't she?

(They reached... quarter to eleven.)

"I don't think we've ever been that late before." Charlie looked at Bill in question.

"No... we usually arrive at least twenty minutes before, maybe a half hour. That's still cutting it close, but..." Bill shrugged.

"It seems like we get a little bit later every year." Molly sighed. You would think that they would be better at getting packed and getting to school by now, after having gone through it so many times with so many different children, two of whom had already graduated at this point in the books.

(Mr. Weasley dashed... noticed you vanishing.)

"It helps that there are Muggle repellent and Notice-Me-Not wards around the area." Bill chimed in. He'd been the one tasked with checking those wards a few times back when he was still in 'training'.

"Really?" Harry and Hermione both asked at once.

"Well... makes sense, otherwise the Muggles would have noticed something a long time ago. I just hope they can keep up with advances in technology." Hermione mused.

Bill blinked at the last comment, but made a note to investigate that later. "Yes, Gringotts is paid to keep them maintained." He shrugged. It was good training in that sort of thing, at least.

("Percy first," said... through the barrier.)

"And then you will have to load all the trunks onto the train, and jump on before it leaves."

"We had to catch it while it was moving." Fred confirmed. Ginny, especially, had had to chase it a little bit, Percy ended up summoning her to him to get her on board, their mother just hadn't wanted to let her go.

(Percy strode briskly... Ron said to Harry.)

"Cutting it very close." Sirius muttered, blinking. Well, at least they would be on their way to Hogwarts, now.

"Wasn't our fault." Ron grumbled, glaring at the three who demanded they go back for the things they'd forgotten, and at his parents for not insisting on sending those things by owl instead of turning around and going back.

Molly groaned softly. "I should have sent Ginny through with you and stayed with the boys." She muttered. Maybe then they wouldn't have gotten that ridiculous idea to fly the car...

(Harry made sure... face the barrier.)

"Does anybody else get the feeling that this book is building up to something going wrong?" Sirius asked suddenly, frowning.

"No, why?" Neville asked. He knew some of what happened, but he didn't know how they missed the train or ended up flying the car.

"Just... the way it's describing this moment in such detail... it kind of feels like something is about to happen." His frown deepened. Harry cleared his throat and shifted, looking pointedly at the book.

(He felt perfectly... a run and-

CRASH.)

Everybody jumped at the sound, mimicked perfectly by the book. They'd been so tense after Sirius made his observation, and that had been quite sudden.

"What was that, did you two run into each other?" Sirius demanded, concerned.

"Not each other, no." Harry sighed and muttered about obsessed house-elves. As much as he loved Dobby, that elf needed a hobby that didn't involve him.

(Both trolleys... bounced backward;)

There was quiet shock for a few moments. "That's not supposed to happen..." Charlie started slowly.

"The barrier really closed itself?" Minerva muttered quietly to herself. She'd gone personally to check it after her two lions explained themselves, but it had been fully functioning and wide open with no signs of being tampered with that she could see, so she'd assumed they were making something up to get out of trouble.

"The barrier never closes..." Luna frowned. Except for emergencies, the barrier never closed.

"You two are going to miss the train, aren't you?" Remus asked, resigned.

"Not a problem, send Hedwig with a note, or make their way to the Leaky Cauldron. They could even catch the Knight Bus, I'm sure Ron knows how to summon it even if he's probably never needed to before." Sirius reasoned, trying to stay calm. It had been a while since his last Calming Draught.

Ron and Harry blinked, looking at each other in surprise as Sirius listed out their options. They officially felt stupid.

(Ron's trunk fell... shrieking indignantly;)

Luna cooed at the poor owl, who puffed up her feathers while Charlie sucked in a breath. "Was she alright?" He asked, concerned. Harry smiled at his concern and reached over to bury his fingers in Hedwig's soft feathers.

"She was fine, just startled I think. Remember her cage is enlarged on the inside a little? She had enough room that she was jolted around a bit, but she didn't catch her feathers on the bars or bang her wings against anything." He explained.

(people all around... you're doing?")

"He's not even going to ask if you two are alright?" Molly gasped, outraged.

"He probably just thought we were messing around." Harry shrugged. It probably happened all the time.

("Lost control of... as he got up.)

Poppy looked at him sharply, making him sigh.

"They just ached for a bit, it was fine." He waved her off. It was just from slamming into the handle of the trolley when it stopped and he didn't. It was fine, it didn't ache for very long.

(Ron ran to pick... surrounding crowd.)

"Hey!" Harry protested, he hadn't heard those comments when it actually happened, he'd been focused on the clock. "Excuse me?" How dare they imply that he didn't take good care of Hedwig, or that he would ever hurt her?! Hedwig barked her own indignation at the thought of being in her cage while it went flying like that, and the thought of her wizard ever being accused of something like that.

"Relax, Harry, they don't know you, or her. All they see is what's right in front of them." Hermione reasoned, making Harry

("Why can't we... Harry hissed to Ron.)

"Good question." Severus muttered, narrowing his eyes. He hadn't believed the boys when they told this story to himself, Minerva, and Albus, but... now that he knew they were telling the truth, how did the barrier close?

"Somebody is trying to keep one of the boys away from Hogwarts." Bill muttered.

"Dobby!" Fred suddenly perked up.

"Dobby?" Draco questioned, a look of disbelief on his face, one that was mimicked by most of the room. "Why would he close up the barrier?"

"For the same reason he got Harry in trouble with his relatives." Ron piped up, his chess-oriented mind running through the possibilities. "To keep him away from Hogwarts, where apparently it's safer."

("I dunno-"

Ron looked... watching them.)

"You should probably leave, you're attracting too much attention." Moody advised.

"I thought there were charms or whatever to keep people from paying attention to that spot." Dudley said, confused.

"There are. But even with those it's best not to do anything that could draw attention. A crash like that one would have overridden all those wards, too much attention would have been drawn." Bill explained.

("We're going to... two seconds... one second...)

"It's gone." Sirius muttered, slightly surprised. He couldn't think of any time when a student had missed the train. Sure, there was always the occasional student who missed the first few days of school because they were sick and their parents wanted to keep them home until they were better, but to miss the train...?

"Has that ever happened before?" Remus wondered out loud.

"No." Minerva shook her head.

("It's gone," said... through to us?)

Minerva made a noise. "If they can't get back through the barrier the normal way, then they can apparate somewhere nearby to retrieve the car." She shook her head. They weren't exactly stuck.

"I didn't think of that." Ron muttered. Harry had suggested waiting for them by the car, it was his idea to fly it.

"The barrier was open again when we went back to the car." The Weasley parents informed the room. Harry and Ron blinked, then looked at each other.

That sneaky little elf...

(Have you got any... about six years.")

"They gave you pocket money at all?" Neville asked, voicing everybody's surprise.

Harry shrugged. "We were in front of one of Vernon's business associate's." He explained. Vernon hadn't been able to get away with giving Dudley money and not Harry, not without the other man wondering. They tried to portray themselves as a normal family who took in their poor orphaned nephew after all, and normal families gave their children pocket money. All their children.

"You should exchange Galleons at the bank, keep some of both currencies on hand at all times." Sirius advised. Even his parents did that, as much as they hated everything Muggle and refused to step foot in the Muggle world, they knew the value of having money on hand for emergencies. They hadn't been pleased when he used his own allowance of Muggle money to buy those magazines and other Muggle items, of course.

(Ron pressed his ear to the cold barrier.)

"What did you expect that to do?" Bill asked, curious.

Ron shrugged. "It's just a doorway, isn't it? I figured I might be able to hear through it." He reasoned. Unfortunately, this doorway was solid stone and steel with enchantments on it that nobody could figure out no matter how many times it was studied. The person who designed the entrance to the platform was a genius in his field, after all.

("Can't hear a... back to us.")

"We only took a few minutes to speak with a few people, we were back by five after." Arthur informed his son dryly, Ron just turned red.

They'd only taken five minutes to decide what to do and get back in the car before flying off.

(They looked... gleaming. "The car!")

"Why do I not have a good feeling about this?" Charlie asked nobody in particular. Unlike Bill, he hadn't heard this story, although he did wonder what happened to the car, because he hadn't seen it when he came home for the World Cup.

"This isn't going to end well, is it?" Dudley asked.

"No it didn't." Harry muttered.

("What about it?"

"We can fly the car to Hogwarts!")

"Absolutely not!" Sirius and Remus yelped. Did Ron even know how to fly it? (Otherwise, this could be an amazing adventure).

("But I thought-"

"We're stuck, right?)

"Not really. You have plenty of options that do not include endangering the Statute of Secrecy and your own lives." Minerva snapped, rolling her eyes.

Ron turned red and muttered something about not thinking about any of that.

(And we've got... Restriction of Thingy-")

"The Reasonable Restriction of Underage Magic." Hermione rolled her eyes. She didn't bother quoting which section it actually was, though.

Harry grumbled something about reasonable restrictions, but nobody could quite catch what he said.

"You know that?" Bill asked, surprised. Ron never paid any attention to things like that.

"Sure. Mom goes on about it often enough to the Twins." Ron shrugged.

("But your Mum... said Ron impatiently.)

"You expected us to just apparate home and leave the car behind?" Arthur asked his son, sarcastic.

"Did you not even think of how terrified we would be when we came outside to find the magically enhanced car missing?" Molly demanded, shooting a dark look at Arthur when she said 'magically enhanced'. "Especially when as far as we knew, you two boys were safely on the train? We thought it had been stolen by Muggles!" She exclaimed. Being informed later on that her son had driven the car to Hogwarts along with Harry... she'd never been so relieved and angry before.

("They know how... reappear at home!)

"No, I didn't know." Harry muttered dryly, glancing at Ron in amusement.

Ron blinked. "I forgot. Again." He shrugged. He was always forgetting that Harry was Muggle-raised. It was just... stuff like Apparation was common knowledge to him, so he assumed it was common knowledge everywhere else.

(They only bother... to Apparate yet...")

"And there are too many of you to safely Side-Apparate everyone." Arthur muttered. He'd Side-Apparated with Bill and Charlie when the boys were younger, before their younger siblings were old enough to want to go along, too. After that, it just wasn't safe anymore. He couldn't make that many trips back and forth, especially with carrying another person along, he could have Splinched himself or worse. One of his boys.

So, even though it was more expensive to have to buy Floo powder all the time, they made do.

(Harry's feeling... to excitement.)

"Of course it did." Severus grumbled a bit. This was part of why he hated working with children and teenagers! They didn't think, they just got caught up in the moment with no care for possible consequences.

"You know full well you and Lily wouldn't have hesitated to this if given the chance." Minerva informed him quietly, smirking. The two of them got up to just as much mischief, if not more, then the Marauder's ever did. The only difference was that Severus and Lily were sneakier about it, while the Marauders eventually earned such a reputation that they were always the first suspects, much like the Weasley Twins.

Severus turned red, but otherwise didn't dignify that with a response. He wasn't about to admit to it, after all.

("Can you fly it?"

"No, problem,")

"Why is that 'no problem'?" Molly demanded, shifting her dark look from her husband to her son.

"Er... Fred and George taught me how?" He questioned, shrinking back in his seat, happily throwing his older brothers to the she-wolf.

"Fred! George!" She yelled, glaring at them.

"Now, Molly. This was years ago, we don't even have the car anymore." Arthur sighed, tugging on her arm. He may cringe when she turned her ire on him, because he kind of deserved it for not telling her something like that, but she didn't need to be yelling at their sons for something that had happened years ago now.

(said Ron, wheeling... the Hogwarts Express-")

"Yeah, that might be important for getting to the right place." Fred said, nodding very seriously.

"Absolutely essential." George nodded beside him, equally serious. North was a very general direction, after all. Especially when Scotland in general was to the Northwest of London.

"Hopefully they find it quickly..." Charlie muttered. He was surprised that there wasn't any more outrage coming from his mother, but decided that his father's rebuke earlier must have done the trick... for now.

"That's a horrible plan, the train is probably outside of London by now, you have no idea how fast it's going, or even which direction it's starting out in!" Molly started ranting, throwing Charlie's brief theory out the window. For all they knew, it left the city going west and curved around to go north! "It could be anywhere right now!"

"Mom, we found it easily enough." Ron sighed, not wanting to hear this.

"Foolish Gryffindor's." Severus and Moody muttered at the same time.

(And they marched... of the window:)

"A Notice-Me-Not and Muggle repelling feature, maybe, would have been good as well..." Arthur mumbled, wondering why he'd never thought of that before. Then again, they lived outside of town, far away from any Muggles that might see them taking off and landing.

"Absolutely not!" Molly proclaimed, knowing exactly what was going through his head right now. There was no way she was allowing him to get another car, not after everything that happened with the old one.

(Traffic was rumbling... and so did they.)

"You know, if I wasn't so experienced with being invisible, that would have seriously freaked me out." Harry commented idly as he got his drawing book back out.

"Being invisible?" Neville asked, then remembered suddenly. "Oh, yeah. Nevermind." He waved his question off.

"It is something you get used to surprisingly quickly." Sirius muttered.

(Harry could feel... of parked cars.)

"Creepy." Luna deadpanned.

"Yeah... I might worry about that." Neville muttered.

("Let's go," said... glittering, below them.)

"That felt weird." Harry said. He was used to flying, he loved flying. But when he flew, he could usually see the thing he was flying on. When he flew on his broom, he was in charge, he could see everything around him.

"Yeah, if I didn't feel the steering wheel under my hand, I don't think I could have managed that." Ron shuddered. "The Thestrals were almost as bad."

"At least with them, you could see your body." Ginny pointed out, rolling her eyes.

"When did you ride Thestrals?" Molly demanded.

"Er..." Ron and Ginny suddenly realized they'd never told their mother how they got to the Ministry to save Sirius. "It'll be at the end of fifth year." Ron finally answered after glancing at his sister. A few sat up as they realized what he was talking about, there was only one major event at the end of Harry's fifth year after all.

(Then there was... Ron reappeared.)

"Um... that's not supposed to happen." Neville muttered, although this explained how they were seen when the car had an Invisibility Booster on it.

"Get into the clouds!" Percy instructed.

"But then how are they supposed to follow the train?" Molly fretted. She didn't want them getting lost!

"Relax, mom, we found it alright." Ron reassured her.

("Uh-oh," said Ron... "It's faulty-")

"Good thing you didn't try to fly in after all..." Bill mumbled. It would have been difficult to land without being seen in the middle of London.

"I could have cast a Notice-Me-Not over the car before we went in for landing." Arthur pointed out after his shocked silence at the Booster failing. Now that he thought about it though, it had been a while since he'd been able to go over the car and make sure all his enchantments and the car's mechanics were working correctly. There were just so many raids... And no, he wasn't the one that ordered them, he just brought in the information that led to them, and then participated.

(Both of them... dull and foggy.)

Harry looked up and started absently drawing the scene from that day.

"Oh, I hope nobody was looking up right then." Remus muttered. He didn't notice Ron or Harry shifting in their seats, uncomfortable.

"Well... actually, if any Muggles were looking up, they might have mistaken it for an oddly shaped small airplane." Hermione said after a short moment of thought. She glanced at Moody. "So, really... that car wasn't any danger to the Statute of Secrecy at all." She shrugged helplessly.

"If it wasn't anything odd, then why did so many Muggles call their police about it?" Minerva pointed, confused. What was an airplane? The rest of the wizards, except Draco and his younger self, were just as confused. Arthur had never heard of them, either, his area of interest was more in the everyday items that Muggles used.

"If they kept dipping below the clouds and then going back up, the Muggles who saw might have thought there was an engine malfunction, and that the 'plane' might crash. Or they might not have seen what exactly it was, just that it was going up and down in a manner that usually means trouble in some way." Hermione explained. "This is another case where wizards need to know more about Muggles, so that they can blend in easier without compromising anything. If Arthur knew anything about Muggle technology, he could have put a glamor feature over the car to disguise it as an actual plane." She threw up her hands in exasperation. She'd actually just thought off all this.

"I never even thought of that." Harry muttered.

("Now what?" said... from all sides.)

"Good question. How are you supposed to know where to go?" Molly fretted. The compass in the car would only help so much.

"Dip below the clouds..."

"...quickly, find the train, and use the compass." The Twins said, shrugging. They almost wished they'd missed the train too, but also knew they wouldn't have been stupid enough to risk something like this.

("We need to see... at the ground.)

Everybody leaned forward, anxious to hear whether or not they found it.

"Relax, you all know we had to have made it." Harry reminded everybody.

"True... but how did you make it?" Sirius asked.

"And how long did it take?" Remus questioned. Ron and Harry just rolled their eyes.

("I can see it!"... ahead- there!")

There was a sigh of relief, making Ron and Harry roll their eyes again.

"How are you going to follow the train, and still stay out of sight?" Moody asked, frowning. Unless he was mistaken, those boys were very lucky that day.

"We spent most of the time above the clouds." Ron shrugged. And that was miserable after the fun and everything had worn off.

(The Hogwarts Express... a scarlet snake.)

"Oo, foreshadowing." Hermione muttered, glancing at the boys.

They both made a face, even Ron who had no idea what that was, while Harry had a vague idea.

"It does seem to be leading on to something." Harry muttered in agreement.

("Due north," said... so - hold on-")

"Be careful, the train can travel quite far, maybe even in another direction in that half hour. It doesn't travel in a straight line." Minerva warned. She glanced at Albus, who was sitting there, looking thoughtful. He hadn't spoken very much yet during this book. In fact, there were several people who hadn't spoken much during this reading in general.

"Yeah... we noticed." Ron made a face.

"What happened?" She asked, suspicious while Molly looked worried again.

Harry shrugged. "We almost lost the train a few times, we dipped down to look for it and it was almost out of sight heading West." He scowled. They'd managed to catch up every time, but those had not been fun moments.

(And they shot up... blaze of sunlight.)

"That was pretty cool." Ron muttered. You couldn't fly that high on a broom, it was too cold at that height. Well, not without extensive warming and heating charms on your clothing and maybe on the broom itself. The car, though, had a heater. The sun shining right on them had also helped.

Harry grinned and made a note to draw that later on, too. He wished he had thought to draw all this out earlier, he was sure to miss some details... wait. He could get a Pensieve from the room and use it to review his memory of this! He grinned when a Pensieve showed up on the table in front of him, and quickly put it to the side, ignoring the looks from everybody else.

(It was a different... blinding white sun.)

"That sounds amazing." The Twins muttered, envious. Before the trip to get Harry, they'd only taken the car out for short flights, and only ever at night so their mother didn't catch them at it. Not that it was any less amazing at that height at night, but... Nothing they could do about it, now, they supposed. The car was lost, they had no idea what happened to it after Ron crashed it.

"It was." Harry grinned and made a mental note to give them a copy of the drawing.

"Just don't look straight at the sun, you'll hurt your eyes." Bill advised, grimacing. The sun could get bright in the desert, there was nothing to block it out and very little cloud cover. So yes, he was speaking from experience.

"We didn't need to look straight at it. It was bright enough otherwise." Ron grimaced. Harry had had to take off his glasses, the lenses were making it worse. The fact they were traveling Northwest for most of the trip was not helpful.

("All we've got... airplanes," said Ron.)

"How does Ron know what airplanes are, and Arthur doesn't?" Hermione muttered to herself, confused.

"You explained what they were to him, remember?" Harry asked her, laughing.

She blinked and turned red. "Oh, yeah."

"Besides, how did he know what a hang-glider was at the beginning of first year?" Harry pointed out.

"One of our Muggle neighbors had one." Fred informed them.

(They looked at... a fabulous dream.)

"All good dreams must end sometime." Minerva said knowingly. Knowing teenage boys as she did, the fun and excitement probably wore off quickly, and boredom would have set in.

There were only so many times one could try to guess shapes in the clouds, after all. What else did they really have to do up there?

(This, thought Harry... bright sunlight,)

"Headache, eyestrain, probably sunburn." Poppy muttered, wondering why she hadn't seen the boys that night. She would think they would at least want a Headache Draught.

Minerva blinked at her. "They did look slightly red, but I didn't see any sign of sunburn that night, or at breakfast the next day." She assured the Healer, who merely gave her a dark look and went back to guessing what else those boys should have come to her for.

(with a fat pack... glove compartment,)

"Possibly slight dehydration." She muttered again. Toffee tended to make people thirsty, they sucked out some of the moisture. Also, they did not make for a satisfactory meal.

(and the prospect... of Hogwarts castle.)

"That's something that I'm going to guess didn't happen." Remus deadpanned, keeping a careful eye on Sirius, waiting for something in this adventure to go seriously wrong.

"Nope." Both Ron and Harry confirmed, shuddering.

(They made regular... tiny toy churches.)

"It was certainly interesting." Ron shook his head, still amazed at how small everything looked from that high up.

And Muggles had ways of regularly traveling that high without roasting or freezing? While still being comfortable? Granted, if he and Harry had planned a little better, they wouldn't have been in that situation in the first place, or they could have had actual food and water, but still.

(Several uneventful... was wearing off.)

"Took longer then expected." Minerva muttered to Filius, who stifled a laugh, along with Remus and the rest of the teachers who overheard.

"I'm sure part of it is the lack of real food or anything to drink." He whispered back. She nodded in agreement.

(The toffees had... his sweaty nose.)

"The sun made everything really hot." Harry complained, wincing. At one point, he'd touched a piece of metal in the car, and was nearly burned, it was so hot.

"I would imagine." Poppy muttered, eyeing the boys carefully. Why were those two not in her Hospital Wing that night? She would really love to know.

(He had stopped... and three-quarters?)

"Again, I'm going to guess Dobby had something to do with it." Bill said, repeating Fred's current running theory, that he was fairly certain was correct.

"If it makes anybody feel any better, I made him promise to stop trying to save my life." Harry offered after a moment.

"Somehow, that doesn't, actually." Sirius said slowly. "What did he do to make you force a promise like that?" He asked, suspicious. Harry just made a face.

"It should be in the rest of the book." He muttered. Dobby was very lucky he was as good a flyer as he was, or he really would have killed him.

("Can't be much further, can it?")

"It doesn't seem all that long on the train." Ron shrugged.

"Yes, well. On the train you have your friends to speak with, games to play, and food to snack on. In the car, especially when you are the one driving, I expect there wasn't much for you to do." Pomona said, unsympathetic to their hardship. Personally, she felt that the suffering they were going through right now was more then enough punishment, even though she knew Molly Weasley had visited her son the next day after classes.

(croaked Ron, hours... canopy of clouds.)

"The cloud cover is blocking the sunlight, where it's not blocked above the cloud line." Bill muttered, just because. He was growing concerned. The car had never been driven or flown this far, for this long with no breaks in between. Even when they took it to Surrey and back, the trip wasn't half as long as this, and they claimed to have landed in order to buy the rope.

He was worried the car might not last much longer, and could only hope the boys made it to Hogwarts before it gave out.

(on put his foot... engine began to whine.)

"U-oh." Nearly everybody muttered at once.

"That's not good."

"You still have a ways to go, don't you?" It wasn't dark enough for them to be almost there yet.

"Yup." Ron confirmed grimly.

(Harry and Ron... this far before...")

"No it hasn't." The rest of the Weasley's muttered at once.

Arthur leaned forward, wondering if he was finally going to find out what happened to his car.

(And they both... louder and louder)

"I don't think that's something you want to be ignoring." Hermione frowned.

"What else were they going to do?" Neville asked her, shrugging. "It's not like they can just land and fix the problem. One, they wouldn't know how. Two, they would lose the train that way."

"And three, the car might not start back up again, leaving them stranded wherever they landed." Sirius added.

She frowned, thinking that it was pure luck that let her best friends arrive safely, excluding the bit about the Whomping Willow, of course.

(as the sky became... sweater back on,)

"It started getting cold when the sun went down." Harry shrugged. And the heater wasn't able to keep up, either. Especially when the car itself started 'protesting'.

"I would imagine." Remus gave a small smile, remembering how cold Harry had been the night they retrieved him from the Dursley's after the Dementor attack, and that had been during one of the hottest summers on record.

(trying to ignore... though in protest.)

"Oh, dear." Arthur muttered. He suddenly wondered how much sentience his experimenting and enchanting had given that car.

("Not far," said... dashboard nervously.)

"I really didn't want to crash, especially when we didn't even know for sure where we were, or how far we actually had to go." Ron remarked with a grimace.

"We don't want you crashing, either." His siblings chimed in, in unison. They looked at each other, blinking in surprise.

"Creepy." Sirius muttered.

Harry rolled his eyes. "You weren't the only one who was nervous." He informed Ron. He'd actually been rather terrified of that same thing. At least on a broom, he was in control. He wasn't the one driving the car.

(When they flew... and Hedwig jump.)

"She was sleeping." Harry explained briefly, looking up and giving the owl a slightly apologetic smile for waking her up, even though this wasn't the same owl. She hooted regally, anyway.

("Straight ahead!"... of Hogwarts castle.)

The crowd broke out into cheers. They made it! They just had to land, now. Hopefully, if they crashed it would be in the Lake, between the mer-people and the Squid, they would be fine.

Although, hopefully they didn't crash at all.

Harry grinned and turned to a fresh page, quickly and lightly writing what he was going to draw on that page later on, once he got a few moments. He'd had to go back and finish the drawings he'd started during the first book while they were on break, so he figured he probably wasn't going to even get to this one until they took their next break, or he was going to at least finish it.

(But the car... losing speed.)

"Find somewhere to land. Right now. You're close enough to the school to make your way there..." Sirius instructed.

"We were over the lake." Ron informed him quietly. Everyone groaned.

They were close enough now, and Hogwarts was in sight, if they could only land...

("Come on," Ron... under the hood.)

"It's overheating." Sirius muttered, starting to grab at his godsons and crush them into his side in worry.

Remus eyed him, but didn't do anything. Yet.

(Harry found himself... a mile below.)

"A fall from that height..."

"Stay in the car, try to slow down." The Twins muttered. At the time they'd thought it was the coolest thing ever, but knowing they'd literally crashed... it wasn't so cool anymore. No, now they were worried sick for their younger brothers, and wondered how they'd gotten out of this uninjured.

(Ron's knuckles were... on," Ron muttered.)

Everyone in the room were repeating the same thing like a mantra.

Not too much further...

(They were over... his foot down.)

"Yeah, on the brake so we could start to land." He deadpanned. The car had chosen a bad time to die.

"The car didn't like that, did it?" Remus asked, groaning. "Cub... I don't think my old heart can take learning about your school years." He sighed, muttering to himself. He wouldn't change it, though.

(There was a... died completely.)

"Uh-oh."

"It just got worse."

"Please land in the lake..."

"Technically not even at Hogwarts yet and already in trouble..." Severus groused, sighing. It was a wonder he'd survived considering the boy seemed determined to make him break his Vow.

("Uh-oh," said... solid castle wall.)

"Can you still steer that thing?" Remus yelped, while Sirius almost crushed Harry.

"Yes, luckily." Ron assured the room that no, they did not crash into the very solid stone wall. They were only a little reassured.

("Noooooo!" Ron... wall by inches)

Everyone sighed in relief that they didn't pancake, but they weren't on the ground yet, so the tension in the room was still thick.

(as the car turned... and the windshield,)

"Oh, that's going to help." Charlie rolled his eyes sarcastically, although he was just as worried about the rest of them.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Ron muttered, turning red.

(but they were... FOR THAT TREE!")

Sirius and Remus both had a sinking feeling all of a sudden.

"The chapter title..." Sirius said hoarsely.

"Oh, no." Remus murmured, horrified. He'd wondered what kind of experience Harry had with that tree, going off a few comments made during the cub's third year, but he never would have imagined...

"Miss it... miss it... please miss the tree..." Sirius started mumbling like a mantra, holding Harry tightly. Remus wordlessly took the Calming Draught offered to him.

(Harry bellowed... but too late-

CRUNCH.)

Everybody who had ever seen anybody get close to the Whomping Willow, or heard the stories about that tree, winced.

"Oh, this is not good."

"Get that car moving, or get out and run." Was muttered.

"What's wrong? The tree stopped them and they're alright?" Hermione asked, confused about why the older readers were so worried about that tree.

"That may be, but they hit the one tree that they really shouldn't have." Pomona explained, confusing the girl even further. After all, it was just a tree. What could it possibly do to them?

(With an earsplitting... shrieking in terror;)

"Oh, that poor owl." Fred muttered.

"Wondered why she was giving you the cold shoulder, mate." George grimaced sympathetically. You could always tell that Harry had done something to make Hedwig angry with him by the way she ignored him afterward, or didn't come hang out with him in the Common Room or Maze.

"Yeah... she was not happy with me for everything that happened that day." Harry grimaced and went back to his drawing, now drawing the Whomping Willow with a car stuck in it's branches. He was going to show the branches waving around menacingly, at least that was what it was supposed to be. He'd go back later and draw the others he'd made notes to start.

(a golfball-size... the windshield;)

Poppy frowned, wondering why she hadn't been informed the boys were injured, or why she hadn't seen them in her Hospital Wing. "Why did neither of you come to see me?" She demanded.

"Uh. Apologies, Poppy. I was unaware either of them had been injured beyond minor scrapes. I told them to eat and report straight to their beds." Minerva admitted her guilt gracefully, feeling bad that she hadn't even considered that they may have been injured by the Willow. She should have, though, that tree had a reputation for causing significant damage to students. One had almost lost an eye once...

(and to his right... despairing groan.)

"What? Did you hurt yourself?" Poppy demanded to know, again wishing they'd come to see her that night.

"No... I don't think that's what was wrong." Ron muttered morosely. Well, at least Ollivander couldn't complain too much about the condition Charlie's old wand was in anymore... now he was going to have something else to complain about with it.

("Are you okay?"... at my wand-")

Molly and Arthur sucked in a shocked breath while Ollivander's head whipped up, eyes wide with shock. "You broke it at the beginning of the year?" Molly screeched. What else could be wrong with it right now?

Minerva and Filius were shocked. How had they not noticed that? Why hadn't they taken him to get it replaced?

"Foolish boy!" Ollivander snapped. "Do you have any idea the damage using that could have caused? The fact you didn't kill yourself is a miracle, it was bad enough you were using it in the disgraceful condition it was in before! But to continue using it with that kind of damage..." He continued muttering to himself darkly. When he'd asked the boy when he came in before his third year, what happened to his old wand, the boy had made it sound like it broke closer to the end of the year.

"Tell me you didn't keep using it!" Bill exclaimed.

Ron turned bright red at their reactions. "Er... yeah..." He mumbled.

After Ollivander's lectures over the time they'd been here on wand safety and proper handling, and the dangers of not keeping your wand well-maintained and in proper working order, everybody knew just how lucky Ron was that year. Those who witnessed the Slug Incident on the Quidditch pitch were suddenly amazed that he'd gotten off so mildly that day. It could have honestly gone so much worse then it did.

(It had snapped... a few splinters.)

"Oh, my..." Minerva murmured, shocked.

Everyone else was shocked at the amount of damage the already-falling-apart wand had suffered.

(Harry opened... up at the school,)

"That's not going to be fixed." Ollivander shook his head, not at all happy he didn't see that young man for over a year after his wand was snapped.

(but he never even... blow hit the roof.)

The younger selves jumped in shock because the book was making the sounds as Ron and Harry heard them at the time.

"What's hitting you?" Hermione asked in a small voice. Nobody answered, knowing that it would be explained shortly.

("What's happen-?"... python smash into it.)

Hermione and Harry's jaws dropped, while Ron gulped and both Dudley's looked equal parts amazed and horrified. The wizards, on the other hand, went to school with that thing on the grounds, so they were expecting this.

"The tree is attacking?" Hermione whispered, terrified. The more she learned, the more worried she was. While she was itching to learn more about magic, she was also growing concerned with her own safety while doing it. She was going to need to have a long talk with Pomona after this. Magic seemed wonderful, but would it be worth it to go there? A tree was attacking people! A tree!

"Oh, yes. A lot of magical plants have a degree of sentience that you won't find in muggle plants. Most of it's just a defense mechanism, though. Just like the muggle version of a Venus Fly-trap, or a rose with thorns." Neville explained cheerfully. He loved Herbology, it was so fascinating!

The older Trio glanced at each other, thinking that he had not helped her just then. "That's great, Nev, but I'd really prefer if I wasn't nearby when they were set off next time." Harry gave him a small grin and went back to his drawing.

"Talk later, get away from tree, now!" Sirius muttered, and grudgingly took the Calming Draught that Remus handed him.

(The tree they... a hail of blows)

"Did you reinforce that glass with strengthening charms or to be unbreakable?" Sirius almost begged Arthur, but the Calming Draughts were just kicking in.

"Yes. All the windows were charmed Unbreakable." Arthur assured the room.

There was a small sense of relief, at least they couldn't be hurt by flying glass. The rest of the car was solid steel, and would be difficult to bend or break, so they were actually relatively safe for now.

However...

(from knuckle-like... to be caving in.)

That didn't mean they could stay there forever.

Everyone held their breath, waiting to see how they got out of this one.

(Except for the Dursley's, of course. They were waiting to see how injured their Freak nephew would be.)

"Get out of there..." Hermione's face was covered with her hands, while Bill had dragged Ron to sit between himself and Charlie, who draped an arm around his younger brother's shoulders.

("Run for it!")

Everyone turned to stare at Ron, incredulous. "Where are you planning on going?" Percy asked, blinking in shock. Even if they could get out of the car without the tree just slamming the door shut again, they were never going to get out of reach alive! As much as they hated to admit it, inside the car was the safest place for them to be right now. The car itself at least provided a barrier between them and the tree.

Ron turned red. "I wasn't thinking that far." He mumbled. He'd just been thinking about getting away from the tree that was trying to kill them.

(Ron shouted, throwing... engine had restarted.)

"You're welcome." Severus said dryly as the room went up in cheers. He'd been the one to restart the car, after all, by shooting a stream of pure magic at it to replenish it's diminished 'fuel'. It had been a long-shot, an act of desperation that he hadn't even known would work, but thankfully it did.

"Why did it even stall in the first place?" Fred asked, apprehensive.

"It probably ran out of fuel, along with the overheating." Sirius answered thoughtfully. "It runs off a mix of Muggle gasoline and magic, right?" He asked Arthur, who nodded.

"It's been running for a long time, and I would imagine that you get better fuel mileage out of it then a normal car because of the magic, but it still has to run out sometime, especially depending on when you last filled the tank. It's magic was probably exhausted, too, never having been driven that far before, plus the fact it was flying the entire time. Either that, or the magic constantly flowing was too much for the Muggle machinery." Sirius reasoned out.

"Forget that, they're still in range of the tree!" Remus exclaimed, staring at Sirius, incredulous that was debating something like this while his book-cub was at the mercy of the Whomping Willow. How strong was that Calming Draught?

("Reverse!" Harry yelled... sped out of reach.)

Nearly everyone winced, especially Pomona as she remembered all the doctoring she'd needed to do. The ground around it had been torn up, the root system almost exposed, and several branches were broken or had large amounts of bark missing along with gashes in them from where they hit the car or the glass windows.

"I do hope you two apologized to Professor Sprout, she must have had to work hard to put it back together again." Molly looked at them sternly, causing both boys to look at her incredulously.

"That thing nearly killed us!" Ron yelped, staring at his mother. "It's not like we chose to crash into it!"

"What's a tree like that doing on a school property, anyway?" Hermione cut in, horrified but also fascinated.

"It was planted years ago to aid a student project." Minerva lied smoothly, although she had a feeling it would come out later on, and it wasn't like everybody here didn't know that Remus was a werewolf, those who didn't know had been informed during the first book. Technically she didn't even lie, either. It was planted to aid a student. "Although... we really should have put fencing or wards around it after he graduated." She informed Albus, who nodded thoughtfully.

("That," panted Ron... seat tip sideways:)

Everyone blinked, surprised.

"Did the car just..." Fred started, but stopped.

"Yup, I think it did, Forge." George muttered, blinking.

(Next thing he knew... a backward look.)

Nearly everybody winced. Yeah, Hedwig wasn't going to be carrying letters for Harry anytime soon.

Not that he really had anybody to write to...

(Then, dented, scratched... blazing angrily.)

There was a stunned silence.

"Arthur, just what did you do to that car?" Sirius asked carefully, amazed and hoping that his bike wouldn't be like that when he got it back.

"Yes, Arthur, I would like to know, too." Molly informed her husband, dangerously. Just what had he done to give that car any degree of sentience?!

"Ah... well, not much really. Just a few enchantments here and there." Arthur explained, uncomfortable.

"Er, dad? 'A few enchantments' do not give a machine sentience." Bill cut in, scratching the back of his head. He should know, he dealt with enough Ancient Egyptian machinery that turned sentient after so many years exposure to magic and the enchantments on them warping with age. That, however, should not happen in such a short amount of time unless his father had done something he really shouldn't have been doing.

Arthur shifted. Truthfully, he wasn't quite sure what he did to do that with the car.

Bill breathed out slowly. "Ok, later on, we are going to get a Pensieve, and you are going to show me the memories of you working on that car. I need to know what happened, and if it's a danger to anything or anyone." Some of those machines could be nasty to deal with.

Arthur nodded, sheepish.

("Come back!" Ron... "Dad'll kill me!")

"I think dad is the least of your worries." Bill informed his youngest brother dryly, all of them eying their mother warily, as she looked ready to spit fire. Luckily for her son, however, this was years ago and she had already yelled at him and punished him for it. No... her anger was directed at the professors this time.

She hadn't known how they lost the car, or how their arrival at Hogwarts had gone, after all.

"And why did I not know my son had an encounter with one of the most violent plant species in the world?" She asked the teachers dangerously.

Pomona and Filius immediately looked to Minerva, not wishing to face the mothers wrath themselves, while Minerva and Severus glanced at each other before Severus quite happily passed the buck. He was a Slytherin with well-honed self-preservation instincts, after all.

"I didn't even think about it... he came out of it alright, with barely a scratch!" She defended herself, Molly did not stop glaring.

Sirius sighed. It seemed to be a recurring theme with parents or guardians not being informed something had happened to their children. That... was a problem.

(But the car... from its exhaust.)

Sirius couldn't help it, he collapsed laughing. If it was slightly hysterical sounding, nobody called him on it. "It sure told you!" He sighed with a relieved chuckle when he was done laughing.

Concerned, Severus summoned the vial he'd given Remus and sniffed it. Yeah, it was a Calming Draught, a regular one. Not the extra strength ones. Hm... well, Black's emotions were shot since his time in Azkaban, maybe that affected how his system could handle Calming Draughts or other emotion-manipulating potions? Either that or they were close to overdosing him. But he didn't think so...

Then again, Black wouldn't have been given potions of any kind for the past ten years that he'd been in prison. His system wasn't used to them. He mentally kicked himself for not thinking about that.

("Can you believe... one that hits back.")

"That is horrible luck." Neville agreed, shuddering.

"That's usually how it goes with us, though." Ron sighed.

(He glanced over... branches threateningly.)

"And don't come back!" Dudley called in a strange, old-man-sounding voice. "What?" He asked when the wizards gave him a strange look. "If the thing could talk, that would be what it was saying right there." He pointed out. How many movies had he seen where somebody chased some thief or something, and yelled at them not to come back while waving a bat or something in the air?

"You watch too many movies." Harry snorted. He'd heard enough of those scenes from his cupboard or from the kitchen while he made Dudley snacks. Dudley just shrugged.

("Come on," said... they had pictured.)

"There was a lot less terror and banging when we imagined it while we were still flying." Harry nodded his agreement, enthusiastically.

"Much less terror. More smooth landing."

"You guys." Hermione huffed, rolling her eyes. They grinned at her, unrepentant.

(Stiff, cold, and bruised,)

Poppy scowled and glared between the two boys, not sure who to blame for their absence in the Hospital Wing.

Harry, she knew, would have been keen to avoid her territory, he certainly made enough escape attempts when he was in her territory. Ron wasn't as bad, but he'd made an escape attempt or two.

(they seized the... at the Great Hall.)

"If you are trying to sneak in without being seen, standing in front of a very large window where hundreds of students can see you is not the best way." Sirius deadpanned. He was starting to calm down from the Willow.

"I wanted to see if Ginny had been Sorted yet!" Ron defended himself.

"Then you should have just gone inside and tried to sneak in unnoticed. You did have an Invisibility Cloak." Remus informed them, rolling his eyes.

"No giving them ideas!" Minerva said sharply, glaring at the two Marauder's. "They get enough ideas on their own as it is." She grumbled.

Ron sighed. "We were truly stupid that day." He signed to Harry, who nodded in agreement, to Severus' amusement.

(Innumerable candles... sparkled with stars.)

Dudley glanced up at the ceiling, which still looked like the Hogwarts ceiling (or so he was told). He still found it amazing.

Hermione couldn't wait to see it for herself, she wasn't sure if the ceiling here should really count, because it wasn't really Hogwarts. She couldn't wait to get there!

(Through the forest... than any other)

"That is not true!" Severus and Moody both grumbled.

"That depends on your perspective. Dark wizards do not just come from Slytherin. That's like saying all Gryffindor's are the epitome of good and light." Draco snorted, glancing meaningfully at Sirius and Remus, who grimaced. Pettigrew came to mind...

Harry winced at his comment, knowing how naïve it was.

"Besides, treat a group of people horribly for long enough, and eventually that's how they will behave. Why should they try to be any different?"* Draco continued with a scowl. He saw it all the time with the first years. They were (somewhat) innocent when they first came in. It didn't take long before they were jaded and bitter towards the rest of the school like the older years were, no matter how much the older years tried to shield them from the remarks and cruel 'jokes'. The blatant favoritism from the Headmaster... no. It didn't take long at all.

(but he had ended... in seven years.)

"That wasn't our win, it was stolen." Harry grumbled. If Dumbledore were going to do that, he should have done it sooner then right there, especially after already announcing that Slytherin won.

That was just dirty.

(A very small... hat on his head.)

"Colin?" Ron asked, trying to remember just who it was they saw.

"Yeah... I think it was. He and his brother were both the smallest of their years." Harry shrugged and didn't mention that he was smaller then some of those in the year below them. The Twins shut their mouths slowly when he glared at them.

Maybe short jokes could wait until later.

(Harry's eyes wandered... of aquamarine.)

There were some scoffs, grimaces, and exclamations over his choice of robes, while Hermione scowled around the room.

She was sure that he would be a great professor, she wasn't sure why everybody hated him so much. She conveniently forgot that everybody who hated him so much had already had him as a professor and knew how worthless he'd been as a teacher, or they knew him in school.

"He claims to be a fighter, and then goes and dresses like that? What, is he expecting reporters to be with him in Hogwarts?" Sirius muttered. He'd never quite gotten over being blamed for Lockhart's latest screw-up when they were still in school.

(And there at the... table... Where's Snape?")

"Probably wondering where you were." Bill retorted.

"Indeed, Mr. Weasley." Severus glowered at the two boys who didn't think before rushing off in a flying car.

(Professor Severus... least favorite student.)

"Understatement." Neville deadpanned, everyone else who was ever in a classroom with Snape and Harry nodded in agreement.

"I think hate would be a better word to describe your interactions..." Ron mumbled.

Severus scowled and sighed. A few days ago, he would have agreed with them, so he couldn't even argue the point. All those thoughts he'd had of Harry Potter had been thrown back in his face during their time in this room, as he started seeing and reading about the real Harry Potter, the one he'd never let himself see before.

(Cruel, sarcastic, and... Snape taught Potions.)

Severus narrowed his eyes at this description, but couldn't say anything against it. In their eyes, he supposed that he probably did come across as cruel sometimes.

Draco, on the other hand, glared at them for the comments towards his godfather.

("Maybe he's ill!" said Ron hopefully.)

"Ronald!" Molly burst out, not happy with him wishing ill on anybody like that, and certainly not one of his professors!

"What? He was a git!" Ron defended himself.

"He is still your professor." She glared while he sulked.

("Maybe he's left,"... Arts job again!")

"It was tempting." Severus admitted. If that pompous peacock had tried one more time to try and tell him how to brew a potion...

"I think all of us were tempted." Minerva muttered. The amount of times that idiot had tried to tell her the correct way to Transfigure a simple teacup! Honestly!

"If he'd tried to touch my greenhouses one more time..." Pomona muttered darkly. She'd returned to her greenhouses from lunch one day to find Gilderoy Lockhart inside, half the plants in the room hacked half to pieces. He'd claimed they just needed a bit of pruning, she must have been a bit behind, but no matter! He'd have them taken care of in a jiff! Needless to say, she had not been pleased, especially since those were plants that didn't need pruning. He'd effectively killed half a greenhouse full of rare and expensive plants. Several of them were her NEWT students personal projects towards getting an apprenticeship after Hogwarts.

Albus blinked at his teachers, shocked. Just what had Gilderoy done to get this kind of response from sweet, cheerful Pomona? Even Filius looked irate at the thought of his former Raven!

("Or he might... everyone hates him-")

"He'd going to be right behind you, isn't he?" Bill asked, sighing and sinking down in his seat with a groan.

Ron and Harry were bright red. "He might have been..."

"Er- just out of curiosity, but how much did you hear?" Harry asked Severus hesitantly.

"All of it." He informed the boy coldly, not showing his amusement at the look on his face.

("Or maybe," said... the school train.")

"And yet, he didn't listen when I tried to explain that very thing to him." Harry muttered.

"They never do." Ron sighed.

"Who jumped the highest?" Neville asked, grinning.

"He did." Ron and Harry both said at the same time, pointing at each other. They turned and glared at the other. "You know it was you!"

"Ok, ok, boys. You both jumped in surprise, how's that?" Sirius asked, laughing. The rest of the room was laughing just as hard.

(Harry spun around... very deep trouble.)

The Weasley boys (except Percy) all shuddered at that look. It was a look they'd received many, many times in their school career, even Bill and Charlie, and they were well behaved (especially compared to their younger twin brothers.

"Oh, that doesn't bode well." Remus muttered with a grimace. Minerva had a similar look on her face right before the Marauder's were given their worst punishments.

("Follow me," said... into the dungeons.)

"Oh, not even to the Headmaster's office." Fred flinched. Snape only took trouble students down there when he was in a really bad mood.

"Walking them right past the feast is just cruel." George muttered. Especially after they went the entire day with nothing to eat except toffee.

"Do you ever feel like you're walking to your death?" Neville asked, watching Ron and Harry.

"Occasionally." Ron and Harry both said. Especially when Snape was involved.

("In!" he said... Snape's office, shivering.)

"It was cold in there." Harry complained. Even colder then the dungeons usually were.

"I had ingredients in there for an experiment that need to be kept at a lower temperature." Severus shrugged, and shot a small glare at Minerva. When he had the fire out, she was always starting it, every time she had to spend more then a few seconds in there, without even bothering to ask if he had the fire out for a reason! He had not been happy to return to his office after the Feast to find the fire still going, he was lucky that those ingredients hadn't been adversely affected by the short time the room was heated up.

"Sorry." She said after a moment, remembering the rant he'd delivered that night about respecting other people's personal space, and to not go starting fires wherever she felt like it. She always forgot, though, no matter how many times he asked her to stop.

(The shadowy walls... of at the moment.)

"Those are expensive or rare potion ingredients." Severus shrugged. They had to be carefully stored, and he didn't like storing them in the store cupboards, not even his private one, because he didn't want to risk somebody breaking in and messing with them. Some students always got in there, especially since he usually left the wards on the room down when he was in the classroom, because it was right there and he didn't feel like taking the wards down every time he needed to get something because a student ran out and there wasn't enough in the student cupboard.

It happened occasionally.

And it was a more controlled environment then the store cupboards were, so he could keep them cooler like they were supposed to be, without having to risk their potency by using magic on them.

(The fireplace was dark and empty.)

"Well that sounds cheerful." Remus muttered with a grimace.

"Of course, look at who's office it is." Sirius shot back while Severus scowled.

(Snape closed the... sidekick Weasley.)

"Sidekick?" Ron muttered in protest. He'd been too terrified at the time to really notice.

"I don't have sidekicks." Harry scowled. That made it sound like he didn't have real friends.

(Wanted to arrive... did we, boys?")

"Not really... we were hoping for a smooth landing and sneaking in." Harry deadpanned.

"I was expecting a smooth arrival and a grand entrance." Ron shrugged, not even trying to hide it. Well, the arrival may not have been smooth, but it had certainly been an entrance.

("No, sir, it... said Snape coldly.)

"You know, it would be nice if the adults would actually let me defend myself, instead of talking over me all the time as if they already know everything that happened when they weren't there." Harry said irritably. It wasn't just this time with Snape, either. McGonagall did it, Fudge did it during that farce of a trial, the Dursleys' weren't interested in hearing what he had to say for himself so he never bothered...

Neville snorted. "Why should they? They're the adults, they know best." He said, sarcastically bitter while the professor's shifted uncomfortably. They were trying to think of if they ever did that, when and to who.

("What have you done with the car?")

"You didn't see it head into the Forest?" Charlie asked, surprised. If he was the one to restart it, then surely he'd seen everything that happened afterwards?

"No... I was at the top of the Astronomy Tower watching for them. I was making my way to ground level when the car took off, I arrived right when they reached the Great Hall windows." Severus explained.

"You restarted the car from all the way up there?" Neville asked, surprised and shocked. Spell casting from that distance was... well, spells actually weakened with distance, aim was dodgy with greater distances as well. For whatever he did to have still been strong enough to restart the car when it reached them... Severus just nodded.

(Ron gulped. This... to read minds.)

"I could... but I don't." Severus deadpanned. "Why would I want to go through the minds of teenagers?" His tone let it be known how disgusting a prospect he found that to be. He didn't want to know what went on in the mind of a teenager. He really, really didn't. That wasn't even including the laws surrounding it, or the penalties should he get caught (as unlikely as that would be). He chose to ignore, for now, the 'read minds' part. The mind was not a book, it could not just be opened up and read. He was sure he would be arguing that fact plenty later on, no need to beat that subject too much.

"Not even when you suspect somebody to be up to something?" Neville asked, suspicious.

"Why should I? I can get the truth out of them without Legilimizing them." Severus raised an eyebrow.

Minerva stifled her laugh, knowing how true that was.

(But a moment later... the Post Office tower...)

"They must have been close enough to where you took off, you weren't high enough yet." Hermione reasoned quietly. Otherwise, the Muggles shouldn't have thought too much of it, airplanes existed, after all.

"And it made the paper..." Sirius groaned. There was no way he was going to get out of that one, not if the entire country had seen it by now.

(at noon in Norfolk... Muggles in all.)

Hermione frowned, the Muggles would have most likely have reported it as a plane in distress, so how... unless they also commented on it's odd shape, like that of a car...? The wizards would have jumped all over that description without a second thought.

"Six or seven isn't too bad, considering you were in the air for hours." Sirius commented, shrugging.

"Yeah, but most of those hours were over open fields and Moore's, not urban areas." Remus reminded him. But, yeah... six or seven wasn't much considering how many Muggles there were between London and Scotland.

(I believe your... his own son...")

"Don't enjoy this too much." Minerva glared at him, rolling her eyes.

"Boy could use a little terror, maybe he'll think next time." Severus drawled. Even he knew where the line was to 'too far', and he wasn't anywhere near it that night.

Ron just glared. He'd gotten enough terror that night, thank you very much, without Snape adding to it.

(Harry felt as though... thought of that...)

"Clearly." Both Minerva and Severus muttered.

Teenage boys, honestly.

Worse, Severus thought. Gryffindor teenage boys.

("I noticed, in... Snape went on.)

"It attacked us!" Ron claimed.

"After you crashed into it with the car." Hermione deadpanned.

"Not like we had much choice on where we crashed." Harry pointed out. "We barely avoided the wall as it was." They'd avoided the wall, managed to stay in the air over the greenhouses, and then the tree was right there. They hadn't had time to try and avoid it.

"Er, just how valuable is that tree?" Ginny asked, curious.

"Oh, very. The Whomping Willow is a rare, almost extinct species from China." Pomona shrugged. She'd never been able to get Albus to tell her how he acquired one for the school, either. Because of it's endangered status, the Magical Chinese government carefully regulated who was in possession of one, especially with their other status as 'dangerous to human life'.

Harry and Ron flinched, having not known that bit before.

("That tree did... Ron blurted out.)

"That tree almost killed us." Harry muttered in dark agreement with what Ron had tried to say.

"And the damage was easily fixed..." Pomona added, even if she'd been angry at the time that all that damage had been caused in the first place. Still, she was happier that the boys had survived unharmed.

("Silence!" snapped... not rest with me.)

Everybody winced. "Ouch."

"Harsh."

"Isn't that going a little overboard?"

"They broke the law, almost shattered the Statute of Secrecy. Personally, I think I was being lenient." Severus drawled, rolling his eyes.

"I still say that that aspect was made a bigger deal then it really was." Hermione muttered.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. I would rather not take the risk." Severus narrowed his eyes at her. She just sighed and shrugged.

"Good thing neither of them are in Slytherin." Neville muttered. They would have been gone that same night.

(I shall go and... will wait here.")

"I would say 'run for it', but I don't think that would do you any good." Sirius said thoughtfully.

Remus sighed and smacked him upside the head, rolling his eyes. "Of course it wouldn't do any good. That would just get them into even more trouble." Why did he have to be the voice of reason for their group? Why?

(Harry and Ron... behind Snape's desk.)

Faces were made and there were some noises of disgust, but nobody interrupted the book. They wanted to know what McGonagall had to say about this whole thing.

(If Snape had gone... extremely strict.)

"Understatement." Most Gryffindor's muttered.

She may be a very hands off Head of House, but she was strict otherwise.

(Ten minutes later... this angry before.)

"Let's go with the latter." Sirius muttered. The only time he could remember seeing her truly angry was after he'd told Severus how to get past the Willow. Now, he hadn't intended for the Slytherin to actually go down there to find a werewolf, especially knowing it was the Full Moon.

"They'd never had reason to see her angry like this before." Remus agreed while Minerva rolled her eyes.

(She raised her... both flinched,)

"I wouldn't cast on a student." She frowned, she'd missed that part at the time.

"Maybe not, but the look on your face..." Harry shrugged and went back to his drawings.

(but she merely... suddenly erupted.)

Severus shot her a dirty look. He hadn't initially protested because he thought it would just be for a few minutes, and the boys had looked cold. It was finding out that the fire had been left to burn after she left, and then finding the plate with the remains of the boys supper and realizing that they'd been left in his office, unsupervised, when he kept rare and expensive ingredients in there. Mostly, though, it was the fire. If his ingredients had been ruined...

She grimaced in apology.

("Sit," she said... glinting ominously.)

Sirius, Remus, and the Twins winced. "Oh, she's mad."

"She's gone mono-syllable..."

"You two might want to start thinking about running." Fred and George mock whispered to their younger brothers, ignoring the twitching lips of their Head of House.

"I wanted to, but I knew it wasn't happening." Harry commented.

(Ron launched into... them through.)

"Always a good place to start." Minerva muttered dryly.

"Did you check it out later on?" Remus asked, frowning.

"Yes, but the barrier was open, there was no sign that it had been tampered with or closed." She shrugged helplessly.

("-so we had no... on the train.")

"There were countless other options you had." Severus drawled with a sneer.

"We've already established that they had other options." Pomona reminded the room, not wanting to hear about it all over again.

"They were young, and desperate. Let's not continue to go over this." Filius agreed.

("Why didn't you... coldly to Harry.)

"Would an owl have even arrived in time?" Hermione asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion. It was a long distance, after all.

"Hmm... perhaps that wouldn't have been the best way, after all." Minerva murmured. That would have been a long time for the boys to wait for Hogwarts to get the letter and then send somebody to get them, even if the Apparation would have been instant. They would have been stuck in Muggle London for however long it took, of course that wasn't taking into account that the Weasley parents would have come back for the car before that.

(Harry gaped at... to have done.)

"Maybe now that it's over and done with." Sirius snorted. "In the heat of the moment, when you are desperate and panicking? Not so much." He assured Harry, glancing around at the crowd in the room, silently reminding them of the same thing.

He wasn't going to scold them for not thinking, he knew what it was like to be desperate for something, it clouded your thoughts and judgement, making it hard to think rationally.

They were twelve year olds, he'd seen adults make worse decisions then they did in even less dire circumstances. Not that missing the train was really a dire circumstance, but... to a twelve year old mind when they were supposed to be on the train? Yeah.

There was a reason why Auror's were extensively trained to not panic, and to keep their heads. There was a reason why they had classes just for that.

("I- I didn't think-"... McGonagall, "is obvious.")

"He's also twelve and was desperate." Sirius reminded the room, rolling his eyes.

"They still should have waited for the adults." Molly finally chimed in, looking at her son sternly before turning narrowed eyes on Sirius.

"Oh, come on. You would have waited for the adults to show up if you were in their shoes?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. "You would have been thinking clearly enough for that?" Granted, Ron had also wanted an adventure, but at the heart of the matter, they were twelve year olds who panicked.

(There was a... ever, opened it.)

Severus got a few dirty looks at his obvious pleasure, but he ignored them.

So he enjoyed watching the Potter brat be put it in his place? He'd thought the brat to be just like his bully of a father, and he'd watched as the brat was rewarded for shattering every rule put into place for his and the other students own safety.

(There stood the... Professor Dumbledore.)

"Oh, this is either very good, or very bad." Remus muttered, frowning.

"Oh, please. Like Dumbledore would ever punish his precious Boy-Who-Lived." Draco sneered. That had always been a point of contention within Slytherin, that Harry Potter could get away with so much while they were usually punished harshly for some of the same things. And, yes, he knew now that Harry hated that title and the fame, but that didn't change the fact that it served as a 'get-out-of-trouble' card more often then not.

Harry huffed, knowing Draco had a point. He'd gotten away with a lot over the years.

(Harry's whole body... Whomping Willow.)

"Now that's a little extreme." Sirius protested. He didn't want his pup anywhere near that tree again!

"Let's not go near the tree again." Remus agreed, even though he knew they'd ended up going through the tunnel at the end of third year.

(There was a... you did this.")

Nearly everybody who got into enough trouble for the Headmaster to get involved cringed at hearing the book perfectly mimic the tone used at the time.

"He's very good at that." Sirius muttered with a wince. He was very good at guilting students into behaving.

(It would have... had shouted.)

"I know how to deal with yelling." Harry mumbled in a hiss.

Sirius glanced at him, concerned. He already knew that Vernon was at the very least mentally and emotionally abusive, and Harry had hinted at some physical, so he supposed that Harry had never experienced that kind of quiet disappointment.

(Harry hated the... to his knees.)

"Ah, the affect of a disappointed authority figure." Sirius sighed, brushing off his earlier concern.

Remus snorted. "You would know. How many times did you get that from Uncle Charlus or Aunt Dorea?" He asked, rolling his eyes. He highly doubted that Sirius' parents could have the same thing said of them.

Sirius grinned mischievously but didn't say anything.

(He told Dumbledore... outside the station.)

Minerva and Severus both snorted. "Did you really think we would buy that?" Minerva asked, amused.

"Er..." Harry and Ron glanced at each other. "I hoped." Harry finally shrugged. Severus roller his eyes.

"Please, Mr. Potter. We are not stupid." He sneered.

(He knew Dumbledore... sort of voice.)

"What for?" The room burst out, everybody was confused.

"I thought we were being expelled. You didn't see her, she was angry." Ron emphasized as if everybody else had missed that part earlier. "That, and he was showing us a clipping of us being seen by the Muggles!" He'd heard of kids getting expelled for less offenses then breaking the Statute of Secrecy!

"I thought we might be expelled, too." Harry chimed in, not looking up from his drawing.

"Oh, I don't think you were in any danger." Sirius said, eyeing the professors. If Dumbledore hadn't expelled him after the incident with Snape and Moony, he highly doubted that the professor would punish Harry Potter, his 'Golden Boy'.

("What are you... you?" said Ron.)

"Like they would ever expel the Boy-Who-Lived." Draco rolled his eyes, finally speaking up.

"Summer before fifth year." Harry said dryly.

"That was the Fudge, that wasn't the school." Draco waved off. Harry considered it, then shrugged.

(Harry looked quickly... your families tonight.)

Harry glanced at the Dursleys, who sneered. Was that what that letter had been for?

"We didn't even open it." Petunia sneered. Why should she want to read anything about that Freak and his school? She could care less what any of it said. All she needed to know was if they were required to pick him up that year, and what date, and she wouldn't even care about that much if it weren't for what the neighbors might say if they didn't.

"I would have preferred somebody coming to tell me in person." Molly informed the professor's severely, she'd been worried out of her mind trying to figure out what happened to the car, and then to get a letter like that? Oh, yes. She would have preferred a visit.

(I must also warn... to expel you.")

"Good thing I think their chances of finding another flying car is low." Sirius said, amused.

"There's always your bike." Harry smirked. Sadly, that was with Arthur right now for repairs.

(Snape looked as... been canceled.)

"It might as well have been." Severus grumbled. At that moment, he'd just been in shocked disbelief.

"Don't be so dramatic." Minerva rolled her eyes. She hadn't been paying much attention to Severus at the time, but she could imagine what he looked like.

(He cleared his... of Underage Wizardry,)

"Wait... when did either of them use magic?" Dudley asked, thinking back. He'd been reading up on wizarding law during their breaks when he wasn't with his younger self dealing with his attitude and bad habits.

"I thought they had." Severus tilted his head in a pseudo shrug.

"Isn't enchanting a car a little... much? For a couple of twelve year olds?" Remus asked, amused.

Severus pursed his lips and tried to ignore Minerva, who was trying not to laugh. "Perhaps... but who knows with the Potter boy?" He asked. The boy was constantly doing things that were thought to be impossible to accomplish. Case in point, this room they were all in.

(caused serious... punishments, Severus,")

"Thank goodness." Nearly everybody muttered. If it were up to Severus, he would have been back on the train home that very second. With Minerva, they at least stood a chance of staying.

"I'm not sure which I would prefer..." Remus muttered. To be expelled, or face McGonagall's punishment... which would be less painful?

Harry and Ron made a face. Everybody else might say that their punishment was light, he felt that dealing with Lockhart all night was more then enough punishment.

(said Dumbledore calmly... want to sample-")

"Oh, he's not going to like this." Sirius muttered, narrowing his eyes at Severus and wondering just how miserable the man made Harry's first few weeks of Potions class.

"He didn't." Harry muttered, shuddering at the memories.

(Snape shot a... Harry and Ron)

"How bad was it in class?" Remus asked, having heard the rumors.

"Bad." Harry muttered.

Severus shrugged, not letting himself feel too bad about it. Although, knowing that it was out of desperation made it a little more understandable.

(as he allowed himself... you're bleeding.")

Poppy threw her hands up, exasperated, and glared at Minerva, who shrank down in her seat sheepishly.

"Apologies, Poppy, I am unsure of why I did not push." She apologized with a grimace. Poppy narrowed her eyes and turned back to the book, not noticing Minerva's wince. She was in the Healer's bad graces, and would probably stay there for a bit.

("Not much," said... with his sleeve.)

"Unbelievable. If there was a head wound, he should have come to me straight away! Even just a cut, I needed to make sure there wasn't a concussion, or something else!" Poppy snapped, glaring at the three professors who had been present in that office. All three should have known better to have not brought them straight to her.

Minerva winced again. "I am sorry Poppy, Ronald. I really don't know what I was thinking." She frowned, unhappy with the lack of care she was showing at this point. She hadn't even thought of it at the time, dismissing their injuries like this... well, it was no wonder Harry never came to her for anything.

("Professor, I wanted... being Sorted-")

"Too late." Nearly everybody said at once. The Sorting had already started when the boys first looked in the Great Hall, and then continued while Snape took them to his office, and then it took ten minutes for him to return with Minerva.

He probably had to wait for the Sorting to end.

("The Sorting Ceremony... in Gryffindor.")

"Of course, where else would she be?" Fred asked like it was matter-of-fact.

"Hat considered Ravenclaw." She shrugged.

"Really?" George asked, surprised. She nodded. She did like to read once in a while, and she was smart, so why not? "Huh." He muttered, and didn't say anything else.

("Oh, good," said... said sharply,)

"Wait, I don't remember losing points." Neville cut in, confused. Because that was the only thing he could think of that she was about to do.

Her lips twitched. "I didn't take points, Neville." She assured, and he sighed in relief that he hadn't missed something so obvious.

"Something this big, I would have thought..." Sirius trailed off, confused.

"As I was reminded, the term hadn't started yet when it happened." Minerva glanced at Harry, who grinned innocently. Now everybody was curious.

(but Harry cut in... watching her anxiously.)

Severus' eyebrows shot up. "Very Slytherin of you, Mr. Potter." He drawled.

Harry shrugged. "I have my moments." He smirked while Ron and Hermione rolled their eyes.

"Yeah, and it usually leaves us scrambling to figure out what is going on." Hermione deadpanned. She hated it when he got Slytherin on them, because they couldn't keep up with him.

"That's why Gryffindor..."

"... wasn't in the negatives..."

"... the first day back." The Twins chimed in, nodding as if they'd just figured out the answers to life.

(Professor McGonagall... less thin, anyway.)

"That means she approves." Bill noted. On the other hand, maybe losing some points right off the bat would have been good, it would make them think more next time.

But then, the rest of Gryffindor might have lynched them.

("I will not take... get a detention.")

"Wait... that's it?" Percy asked. He hadn't heard all the details of their punishment before this, nor had he paid too much attention to it. He'd had a new girlfriend, he was starting NEWT subjects, he was waiting for replies to his applications... no. He hadn't paid his siblings much of any attention that year, and certainly not at the beginning of it. He noticed his mother was also frowning at Minerva.

"One detention?" Draco deadpanned. He'd thought they would have been in detention for the rest of the year! He wasn't surprised nobody had heard about their punishments, they had better things to worry about concerning the Trio then their detention record.

"I've gotten a month's worth of detentions for less!" Charlie cried in disbelief.

"You were out of bounds in the Forbidden Forest..." Minerva started to defend herself.

"And they were flying a car. Unsupervised, when- had you even flown that before then?" Charlie broke off to ask his brother.

"Er- once." He said, shrugging.

"When he'd only flown it once before. They were spotted by at least seven Muggles, and who knows how many saw them and just didn't call it in, thinking they were a plane. They could have crashed anywhere, and nobody would have known. So don't try and say that being in the Forbidden Forest was more dangerous then what they did." Charlie finished, glaring and not at all pleased that she tried to justify herself like that.

She was silent for a few moments while everybody else stared at her. "This is that whole mess with the points in first year all over again." Neville whispered to Luna, who nodded in agreement.

"Hmm... I agree. Professors are far too inconsistent with giving out punishments, giving or taking points. That's not how a child learns." Remus cut in to the conversation, having overheard Neville. Children, especially ones away from home for long periods like Hogwarts students were, needed structure, and they needed that structure to be firm, and consistent. Especially with punishments and rewards, otherwise how were they going to learn how to behave?

Minerva was silent, before she finally reached for her parchment and quill. "I will... look into it more." She finally said. She would like to say these were isolated incidents, or that it was just because it was Harry and she couldn't help but cut him a break, but she couldn't really say that could she? Not with her reaction in his first year to him being caught at the base of the Astronomy Tower. She wondered how many other incidents she was guilty of?

(It was better than... that was nothing.)

Ron shuddered and briefly entertained the idea of what that would be like, not to be terrified of the teachers writing home. Just the thought alone was terrifying to him, especially on the off chance that his mother might come to deal with it herself, like she had after the car.

"In that regard..."

"... you're lucky, mate." The Twins informed Harry, shuddering.

Harry clearly disagreed, but said nothing. Having to worry about that meant he had somebody outside of that school to care about him.

(Harry knew perfectly... squashed him flat.)

"Such a missed opportunity." Vernon growled, the Freak tree didn't even injure him properly!

"Indeed." Vernon frowned. They ignored the looks of disgust on the wizards faces. Who cared what the Freaks thought.

(Professor McGonagall... return to the feast.")

"You just left them in my office? Alone? Unsupervised? Two twelve year old Gryffindors in the Head Slytherin's office." Severus deadpanned. She couldn't have sent them straight up to their Common Room to eat?

She blinked. "Yes...? Oh. Apologies." She sighed. "It appears that I wasn't thinking at all that night." She shook her head.

(When the door had... five or six times)

"Excuse me?" Molly demanded, glaring at her sons.

"What?" They asked innocently.

"Molly, years ago." Arthur reminded his wife.

(and no Muggle... through the barrier?")

"I still say it was Dobby." Bill shrugged, while Fred nodded in agreement.

"It really wouldn't surprise me, but unless Harry actually tells us right now, we won't know for sure." Sirius said, wanting to finish the rest of this chapter and move on to the next.

Harry just grinned, although he wondered how Sirius would take to Dobby after everything with the Bludger.

(Harry shrugged... now on, though,")

"That didn't last long." Hermione muttered.

"People were being petrified." Harry deadpanned. 'And the adults did nothing about it' went unsaid.

"What?" Sirius demanded, concerned.

The Trio glanced at each other. "It'll come up." Ron finally said shortly.

(he said, taking a... to the feast...")

"Nah, she probably didn't want to draw too much attention to you, either that or she saw it as a reward." Sirius shrugged, knowing Minnie quite well at this point.

"Going to the Feast with all their friends and the good food would have been too much of a reward." She shook her head. She only gave them dinner at all because she wasn't about to deny a child food, no matter how badly they messed up.

("She didn't want us showing off,")

"That too." Remus added. "No." He suddenly said to Sirius, eyeing him.

"Aw, come on! I didn't say anything!" Sirius whined.

"You were thinking it." Remus narrowed his eyes. They were not building Arthur a new car while they were here, and they were certainly not teaching the younger kids how to fly it. Sirius pouted, and resolved to do it anyway, he was sure he could get Remus' attention elsewhere when needed. He had much practice in that, after all.

(said Ron sagely... by flying car.")

"While that is the case, I just didn't want to deal with the ruckus the rest of Gryffindor would have caused." Minerva rolled her eyes, well aware of her House's tendency to party or celebrate things like this. She'd had to visit her common room that night to get people to calm down and go to bed, they'd still been up discussing it, loudly, long after the boys had gone to bed.

Sirius and Remus chuckled while the twins shrugged unrepentantly. "That sounds about right."

(When they had... kept refilling itself))

Hermione frowned, and barely resisted mentioning Gamp's Law.

Harry saw the look on her face, though. "Probably a House-elf." He informed her with a raised eyebrow.

Minerva nodded. "I asked for it to be prepared before going with Severus to his office." She shrugged. Some food items could be transfigured or replenished magically, but sometimes it was just best to have the food already prepared somewhere.

(they rose and left... as they approached.)

"I knew I forgot something." Minerva muttered, blinking in surprise.

"Yeah, that would have been helpful to know." Harry deadpanned, eyeing her.

"Sorry, Mr. Potter." She apologized, sighing. She really dropped the ball that evening. She didn't even send them to the Hospital Wing after making the comment that he was bleeding! She just took his word that it wasn't bad and left it at that, what was she thinking?

("Er -" said Harry.

They... prefect yet,)

"Even though you were just speaking with the Gryffindor Head."

"Oh, stop. She's already acknowledged that she forgot." Filius sighed, a little annoyed with how they kept bringing stuff up over and over again.

(but help came... toward them.)

"What were you doing out?" Percy asked, confused. He could have sworn all the students were in the Common Room except for Ron and Harry.

"Looking for these two." Hermione pointed at the two of them, they just blinked. "They weren't on the train, and then they weren't at the Feast." She'd had no idea where they could be, especially when she found Percy, the Twins, and Ginny. And the rumors that had been going around!

("There you are!... crashing a flying car!")

Eyebrows shot up. "That's fast even for Hogwarts. It all happened during the Feast, and the Feast couldn't have been over for what, ten minutes?" Bill questioned, looking at his younger brothers.

"I think a Hufflepuff overheard it from the teachers after McGonagall came back." Percy said after a moment's thought. It didn't take long to spread throughout the Great Hall after that, though.

"A few other kids got the Evening Prophet, too."

"They would have seen the article about it." The Twins chimed in. They had just tried not to say anything, not wanting their father to get in anymore trouble then he was probably already in.

"Still. That is very impressive even for Hogwarts." Charlie agreed with his older brother.

"Well, we haven't been expelled," Harry assured her.)

"Of course we weren't." Ron muttered.

"Yeah, I'm the Boy-Who-Lived, didn't you hear?" Harry asked sarcastically. She just rolled their eyes.

("You're not telling... Professor McGonagall.)

"You are neither their mother or professor." Pomona told both both severely.

"Yes, ma'am." They muttered, although Harry and Ron both knew that Hermione had gotten better over the years through all their adventures.

("Skip the lecture,"...

"It's wattlebird,'")

Hermione looked at the two suspiciously, especially when they exchanged smirks.

"Ah, nice way of derailing her upcoming rant and of giving yourselves and escape at the same time." Sirius muttered, catching the smirk just like she did.

Harry shrugged. "There's only one way to escape, and that is by either getting her started on a new subject, or by asking another question." He explained. He and Ron had worked it out ages ago.

(said Hermione impatiently... storm of clapping.)

"So... I guess that Gryffindor is pleased." Draco deadpanned.

"Oh, yeah."

"It was a nice little party." Fred and George confirmed cheerfully.

"After the Feast you just had?" Pomona asked with a raised eyebrow while Minerva sighed.

As long as the parties were clean, she didn't try to stop them much, and she always made sure Nick was patrolling the area near the Tower and in the Maze for anybody that snuck out for some... alone time. And aside from the occasional bottle of Firewhiskey snuck in, the students were good about keeping it clean, and even then the Firewhiskey was only opened after the younger students had been chased off to bed.

(It looked as though... squashy armchairs,)

Minerva sighed and shook her head, grateful that she'd remembered the strengthening charms on all the furniture that year.

Gryffindor could occasionally get rowdy after all, and it wouldn't do to constantly be repairing furniture, the material just couldn't handle it. Which was why everything in the Burrow looked so shabby.

(waiting for them... Lee Jordan.)

"Not brilliant!" Molly snapped, glaring at the Twins and completely blaming them as a 'bad influence' on poor Lee.

Minerva, on the other hand, knew better. Lee wasn't nearly as bad as the Twins, but he was no innocent angel even before he started hanging out with the Twins outside their dorm.

("Inspired! What... that one for years-")

Fred and George winced, having at the time agreed with their best friend. Now... not so much.

Not after listening to their little brothers barely escape that thing. If it weren't for Snape, they probably wouldn't have escaped at all.

"Actually, I think they forgot it pretty quickly." Harry mused, glancing around.

"Yeah, we had other things to worry ourselves with that year." Neville nodded in agreement. He hadn't heard much about the car from other students after that Halloween.

("Good for you,"... never spoken to;)

"I never did figure out his name..." Harry muttered before shrugging it off. It wasn't important, he was probably never going to see the other boy again, no matter how small the British community was.

"I think that was Marcus." Ron shrugged. He didn't remember the guy's last name, though.

Harry looked at him, surprised, but Ron flushed red in embarrassment and refused to say anything else on the matter. The number of times he walked in on Marcus and his girlfriend when he was in the Maze was... well, he'd rather forget it ever happened.

(someone was patting... won a marathon;)

"A marathon?" Neville asked, confused.

"You don't know what a marathon is?" Hermione asked, surprised. Then again, she supposed she really shouldn't be, the biggest (and almost only) sport wizards had was Quidditch, other then that, they didn't do hardly any sort of exercise.

"It's a race. On foot, you run twenty-six miles. I don't know what the record is, but I know it takes at least a couple of hours." Harry shrugged.

"It doesn't have to be running, though. It can also be on a bike, or swimming. There are also events where those three are combined, called a triathlon. You swim a distance, then you bike, then you run for the finish line." Hermione finished the explanation.

"Muggles are crazy." Ron finally muttered, horrified at the thought of doing so much work.

"They train for it, they are incredibly fit." Harry was glad Wood wasn't here, or he might add this to their training routine for the younger years.

"Exercise is good for you, Ronald." Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly, wizards are so lazy. Unless it's for Quidditch, you hardly ever move." She complained. She'd taken to running in the summers just to keep herself fit, even though they had all those stairs to climb, it worked different muscles after all. She knew magic was the only thing that kept a lot of wizards from becoming as large as Vernon Dursley, and she didn't want to be that way. It was just too cold for too much of the year to get in good workouts at Hogwarts, and the cold stone of the workout rooms just... well, her class schedule didn't help, either.

(Fred and George... in the car, eh?")

"Because you were already through the barrier and on the train?" Ron questioned with a shrug.

"It wasn't exactly planned." Harry reminded the room.

(Ron was scarlet... look happy at all.)

"Three guesses who." Charlie muttered to Bill, glancing at Percy with a grin.

"Don't need three." Bill whispered back.

(Percy was visible... telling them off.)

"Ah, is that why you..."

"... beat such a hasty retreat?" The Twins asked, they'd wondered where all the fake yawning came from. Percy scowled at his brothers.

"Understandable." Neville muttered, thinking of how Percy could be when it came to rule following and such.

(Harry nudged Ron... and the dormitories.)

"Which is not easy." Harry proclaimed.

"Yeah, when that lot wants to congratulate you, they don't let go." Ron agreed, eyes wide. Thankfully the Quidditch after-parties were easier to escape from, mostly because the entire house was celebrating the victory, and not one person's accomplishments.

"Then maybe you two shouldn't be doing things the House wants to throw a party for." Hermione deadpanned.

"'Mione! You know trouble finds me, I don't go looking for it!" Harry whined.

"Most of the time." Ron muttered.

"Hey!"

"What?" Ron asked innocently, and grinned at Harry's narrow-eyed look.

"Just keep in mind who is usually with me at those times." Harry hissed. Ron's grin just widened while he shrugged.

("Night," Harry... just like Percy's.)

Hermione looked just as ill as she usually did every time she was compared to Percy Weasley since fifth year. Before Percy abandoned his family, she would have been pleased with the comparison, after...

Well, let's just say it was a wake-up call, especially after being in the room with Molly when she burst into tears every time a care-package or letter was returned unopened.

(They managed to... of their beds.)

"Home at last." Harry grinned slightly, while Sirius smiled just as brightly.

Although, he was a little more sad that Harry would consider a school dorm to be home.

(Ron grinned guiltily... anything, but...")

"No, you shouldn't have." Hermione sniffed, although she also knew that there wasn't much she could do about it, not when it was these two they were talking about.

They just grinned. Yeah, as if she believed that anymore.

(The dormitory door... said Neville, awestruck.)

Neville silently disagreed with his younger self.

Crashing into and almost being killed by the Willow was not amazing.

(Harry couldn't help it. He grinned, too.)

Hermione huffed. "Boys." She muttered.

Molly laughed, having raised six boys, she knew what Hermione was talking about.

"Please tell me the next chapter isn't going to involve near-death experiences." Sirius groaned. He felt like he'd aged more in the last few days just from reading about his godson then he did in the eleven years he was in Azkaban!

"Don't know, depends on what they chose to write about next." Harry muttered, eyeing the book warily.

Chapter six: Gilderoy Lockhart


I know that Ron apologizes a lot when he finally gets over himself after one of his jealous fits, but I don't think he ever really understood just how good he had it. He always looked at Harry and thought Harry had it all, while Harry thought that Ron had it all.

I looked it up, the Willow is native to China. Seeds probably hitched a ride to Europe in some unsuspecting merchants cargo, and spread from there, the site I found said that there are Willow trees all along ancient trade routes between Asia and Europe. They are beautiful trees, though.

Before anybody makes a comment about them being British, so they would use the metric system instead of miles, I'm American. I don't know metric.

*I cannibalized this quote from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The movie, not the books. It worked here, so yeah.