Disclaimer: I can't think of anything remotely amusing today, so I don't own Harry Potter and never ever will

Chapter 2: Home Sweet Home

Snape cruised down the highway at 45 miles per hour. There were (luckily) no policemen on duty (the patrol officers were too lazy), so for the past two hours, Snape had been ambling along, listening to the honks of many annoyed drivers, and humming to "Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love".

Ron was way too bored at this point, and fell asleep, with his mouth hanging open in a rather uncouth fashion.

Hermione was under Ginny and extremely sore around the side of her head, where the Whomping Willow had hit it. She tried to fall asleep, but with a fairly heavy fifteen year old on top of her, and a throbbing bruise on her head, she was finding it rather tricky.

Ginny was faring no better. Hermione was not a very comfortable pillow and Harry's chest was not a good footstool, so she grumbled to herself in her head. Her arm was bruised where the Whomping Willow had pounded it with the force of several hailstones in Saskatchewan (if you've been to Canada, you will get this) and she was not in a good mood. Checking Harry's watch, she realized, to her displeasure, that there were approximately five more hours to go on the road.

Harry was lying on the floor, gazing at the ceiling. One of Ginny's feet was on his chest and it was rather cramped on the floor, between the front and back seats.

Ah yes, dear Draco. Malfoy was cold and people were staring at his hair. Of course, he still did not know that it was baby pink, and no one had thought to enlighten him, so he remained confused.

Snape had begun to speed up to 70 mph.

Thoughts/dreams ran through each of their heads:

"Lavender, Lavender, Lavender."

"This stinks! Okay, think of sheep. One, two, three…"

"Four hours, fifty minutes…"

"This is worse than my cupboard at the Dursleys, and that says something."

"Put your eyes back in your heads and stop staring at me. It's really not that interesting."

80 mph…

"I love you…"

"One hundred thirty-five, one hundred thirty-six…"

"I give up."

"Ouch! Ginny, would you keep your foot off my mouth?"

"Go away little child. Haven't you ever seen a boy strapped to the roof before? Oh, you're pointing at my hair?"

Indeed, a small boy, about six years of age, pointed to Malfoy's head, saying, "Look! His hair!"

"Blond hair is not that amazing. Okay maybe mine is soooo much silkier and shinier than the rest of the world's but still… Stop looking at me twerp!"

90 mph…

"Mr. and Mrs. Brown, will you give us your blessing?"

"Two thousand, two thousand one."

"Hmm."

"What is under me?"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

CRASH

"Damn."

Ron was immediately awake. "What'd we kill?" he asked in a very confused, and only partially awake, voice.

Snape looked shaken. He said nothing, so Ron stuck his head outside the window.

"Bloody hell! We've hit a truck!"

It was not a bad hit. The fender was slightly dented, but the truck driver was very angry, turned around (as much as he could in his seat), and began to utilize some very colorful language "magna voce".

Hermione tried to restore calm. "It's okay, Professor. You didn't have to scream. It really wasn't that bad, and you can take it to a mechanic, once we get to Surrey."

Snape gave her a look. "I didn't scream."

"Then who… OH MY GOD!" She shoved Ginny aside, clambered over Harry, and opened the window. Sticking her head out, she cried, "Malfoy, MALFOY! Are you okay up there!"

Malfoy's feeble response came, "Yeah."

"Thank goodness!"

Harry spoke up. "Professor, I think you might want to slow down here, probably to 55 mph, or something SLOWER."

"Fine."

The rest of the journey passed uneventfully, save Malfoy coming untied and his head dangling over the window on Harry's side. As they pulled into Private Drive, Hermione screamed, for Malfoy's pink head (that was also turning red from a severe head rush) was hanging right behind her. Snape stopped the car, just a foot in front of #5's gate. Malfoy hit the window with a dull thud.

Instantly, all four teenagers piled out of the car. "Malfoy, don't scare me like that again!" screamed Hermione, pulling him (by the head) out of his extremely loosened bonds.

Malfoy frowned. "I am nearly concussed, almost ran into a truck, was very close to falling off this bloody roof, and you say DON'T SCARE ME!"

No one answered, but all walked up to the door, waiting to get inside, away from the frigid air.

Snape fumbled with the keys and spent quite a while trying to find the right key to the door. When he thought he'd tried all the keys on his ring and couldn't find the right one, he began cursing under his breath.

"I didn't know that Snape was capable of such verbiage," whispered Hermione to Harry, who was grinning, but not at Snape. Malfoy's hair (to his blissful unawareness) was still pink.

Finally, Snape found the right key (which actually was the first one that he had tried) and shoved the door open. The teenagers rushed in, eager to get out of the cold. At this point, Harry was looking nervous. Ginny turned to him.

"Harry, what's wrong?"

"I think I just saw Aunt Petunia, Gin! She's watching us already. The foul old giraffe" luckily he muttered the last sentence under his breath so Snape couldn't hear him and yell.

Indeed, the skinny, blonde woman was craning her neck, as Harry could see, from an upstairs window, looking surprised to see new neighbors, especially one with pastel pink hair. Luckily, she did not recognize Harry or Ron.

Yet.

Author's Notes: I'm just writing this whole thing at one time, and I'm planning to stagger the posting, so people will actually read it. The whole Saskatchewan thing: yeah, up there, hailstones can be as big as baseballs (and hurt twice as much, if they hit you).