Chapter 13: Grand Magical Theft Auto

Neville spent much of the summer following his first year at Hogwarts in deep reflection. After battling with Quirrell/Voldemort down in those depths below the third-floor trapdoor and saving the Sorcerer's Stone, no longer did he feel unworthy of, or more accurately, detached from his legacy as the Boy Who Lived.

Indeed, he seemed to understand why he had survived all those years ago the night his parents had been murdered. When it came down to it, what he really felt was lucky.

Despite what others had told him in the aftermath, up through and including Dumbledore, Neville didn't feel powerful in having evaded the Dark Lord not once, but twice now. Courageous, he had been called, though he wouldn't exactly agree, and not just because he felt it only appropriate to share the credit with others, especially Ron and Hermione.

Maybe…. maybe when more time had been removed from the incident, he would be able to see himself more clearly. Meanwhile, it was back to Orkney Islands to spend some quality time with Gran. He tried not to dwell over how his grandmother seemed to be puzzling him, as much as he was puzzling himself. Dumbledore had clearly told her of her grandson's heroics; Neville wondered if she would have otherwise believed him of them. In any case, Augusta Longbottom seemed to be pondering her only grandchild in a new light.

Even with…. some kind of shift in his relationship with his only living relative, however, Neville found it hard to be away from Hogwarts and his friends for months on end. He grew only more depressed when not a single letter arrived from either Ron or Hermione.

When he finally received a piece of communication, it wasn't the message he had been expecting, nor had he expected it delivered by such a messenger.

The house elf who suddenly showed up in his bedroom at Longbottom Manor out of the blue was apparently named Dobby. He claimed to work for another prominent pureblood family, though he didn't specify as to which. The missive Dobby imparted upset and confused Neville greatly: he was being asked by a little creature he had never before met to not return to the school he loved and where all his friends would be for the coming term. The only reason Dobby gave was that Neville would be in great danger should he attempt to re-enroll at Hogwarts.

Had he not already faced danger at the end of last term, a slightly less secure Neville might have at least opened himself up to the warnings. But Hogwarts was now as much as his home as was this mansion where he and his Gran had built a life, and Neville could feel a yearning to return to the castle.

For now, however, he decided to play along. He pretended to agree not to return to Hogwarts. But then, after Dobby had left, Neville approached his grandmother and begged her to let him go and stay with Ron in the last few weeks before the start of term. Maybe then at least, he would learn why his best mate had not written to him. Seeming pleased that Neville had managed to make and keep some friendships, Augusta was happy to help her grandson facilitate his bond with Ron, even as the old lady herself wished Neville would stay with her just a little bit longer. Nevertheless, she sent Neville off through their fireplace via Floo Powder, showing him how to work it.

Neville cast the powder into the hearth until green flames erupted about him, and he clearly shouted, "THE BURROW!" Then he was whisked away in the inferno.

The moment he stumbled out into a sparse living room, a blur of red hair tackled him so that he nearly bonked his head on the mantelpiece.

"About ruddy damn well time you showed signs of life, mate! Why haven't you been answering my letters?"

Neville blinked, frowning. "Letters? I haven't any letters from you! Or Hermione!"

Ron leaned back from their hug, deeply perplexed. "Has the post completely collapsed in service out your way, then? I know your gran lives on a blooming island, but that is just ridiculous!"

Neville didn't have a guess any better than Ron's, but as he thought back to his strange encounter recently, he began to wonder if having zero communication from the outside wizarding world had something to do with Dobby.

"I've asked you to stay like twelve times!" Ron chortled, slinging a friendly arm around Neville's shoulders. "Mum will be pleased you've finally stopped by, at any rate! She's been anxious to meet you, and Hermione!"

The boys passed from the living room to the kitchen, emerging in the midst of a heated discussion. When Mrs. Weasley, a plump, sweet-faced woman, rounded on them, her expression lifted into one of warmth. "Neville! How wonderful to meet you at last, dear!"

The tender grin was gone in the next second as she took in her youngest son. "You, however, young man, are not off the hook, even to greet friends! You could have died! You could have been seen!"

"But we didn't! And we weren't, Mum!" Fred and George, the twins, were trying to shout, sounding nonchalant about whatever escapade they had pulled.

Dropped en media res into what seemed like a tense family argument, Neville held in a sigh and eyed Ron pointedly. "What did you do?"

"Oi!" Ron frowned, hurt. "I thought it was Neville who landed in my sitting room, not Hermione! Between her and Mum, I get enough nagging!"

"Ron:" Neville leveled warningly. "I haven't heard a damn word from anyone affiliated with school all summer, so whatever you and those two identical yahoos did, just have out with it!"

"Why, my boys! Whatever is it that you apparently did?" An aging gentleman in a traveling cloak suddenly bustled into the kitchen, pausing to kiss Mrs. Weasley on the cheek.

"Morning, Dad," the Weasley boys chorused.

Not letting them try and hide their antics, Mrs. Weasley ratted her sons out to their father. "Your sons flew that enchanted car of yours to Surrey and back last night! They only came in this morning!"

"Did you really?" Mr. Weasley's eyes gleamed. "How did it go?"

A chorus of sentences went up, only to be quickly abandoned by Mrs. Weasley whacking her husband admonishingly on the arm with a wooden spoon. "Arthur!"

Arthur cleared his throat. "I mean…. that was very wrong, boys! Very wrong indeed!" The twins exchanged smirks.

"OK, that does it: why sneak off with your brothers for a midnight joyride?" Neville rounded on Ron impatiently.

In answer, Ron merely held out a letter and envelope. Turning it over in his hands, Neville noticed chicken-scratch lettering slightly smudged with what looked like tear splotches. A quick scan of the contents revealed it to be a plaintive cry for help from Harry Potter.

"Read it," Ron tapped the parchment sadly. "He says those bloody Muggle relatives of his have put bars on his window!"

"Well, after your display last night, you'd best hope I don't put bars on your window, Ronald Weasley!" Mrs. Weasley threatened.

"They're starving him, Mum! We had to do something!"

Neville tutted. "Poor lad." He lifted his head to Ron sadly. "You tried to spring him out, didn't you?"

Ron nodded glumly. "Try being the operative word. We were nearly at Harry's neighborhood in Surrey when the car started acting funny. We had to abort if we wanted any hope of making it back to the Burrow safely."

Neville racked his brain. "If they won't even let him out of his room, how is he supposed to come back to school with us?"

Ron shrugged. Neville thought some more. Suddenly, an idea struck him. "Anybody have quill and parchment?" Percy dutifully went to find some. Once the materials were in his hands, Neville sat down at the Weasleys' kitchen table and began to pen a letter. He wrote very carefully, trying to make any discussion of himself and his current whereabouts convincing before sealing the missive up and passing it off to Eroll. Dobby may not want him to return to school….

"…. But that doesn't mean the house elf can't make himself useful and help someone return who deserves to," Neville finished the thought aloud.

"Huh? What you on about, mate?" Ron pressed, but his mother interrupted him.

"Come now, Neville. Time for a spot of breakfast." She pushed eggs and toast in front of him. "Now, tuck in! That's it…."

All at once, there was a clattering down the stairs, and a little redheaded girl in pigtails and bathrobe emerged on the landing. "Mummy! Mummy, have you seen my jumper?"

"Yes, dear; it was on the cat!"

In this exact same moment, the girl's eyes focused in on who was dining at the family breakfast table.

"Hello," Neville smiled at her brightly.

The girl inexplicably turned as red as her hair before turning and fleeing from the room. Neville frowned, conspicuous. "What did I do?"

Ron scowled. "Ginny. She's been talking about you all summer – it's getting annoying, really…." He absently accepted a stuffed envelope marked with the Hogwarts seal as they got passed around the table. Surprisingly, Neville received one too.

"Dumbledore must know you're here, Young Master Longbottom," Percy mused.

"Doesn't miss a trick, that man!" Arthur opined.

Scanning their supply letters, the twins were already shaking their heads. "This lot won't come cheap, Mum! The spellbooks are very expensive…."

"We'll manage," Molly assured. "Well, there's only one place we're going to get all this: Diagon Alley."

It was a joy for Neville to shop for his supplies for the new term with the Weasleys. Molly, the matriarch, made it all the more exciting because Ginny, the youngest child and only daughter, was to be starting her first year at the school this term.

With one trip of Floo Powder already under his belt, Neville and his best friend's family traveled by fireplace into Diagon Alley without incident, where they bumped into Hermione… as well as a few other people, these latter others drawn to Neville on account of his fame. A well-renowned author named Gilderoy Lockhart insisted on having his picture taken with Neville for the front page of the local paper, and Mr. Weasley nearly got into a fight with Draco Malfoy's own dad.

"Bloody git. Like father, like son," Ron groused.

"Yes, Malfoy certainly doesn't fall far from the tree, now does he?" Hermione concurred.

The morning of September 1st, Molly grudgingly allowed Arthur to pile everyone, including Neville, into the family car to drive to Kings' Cross Station. But she remained firm in how her husband was not at any point to fly it.

Even with a year of magic under his belt, Neville wondered: could a car be really made to fly? Was that the function that had failed and caused the Weasley brothers to abandon a jailbreak for little Harry?

Little did Neville realize how soon he would come to find out.

"10:58! Come on, come on! Percy, twins, you lot charge ahead first!" Arthur barked, and three of his four sons rushed the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10. Molly dithered after them, Ginny tucked into her side, her husband close behind. "After you, dear!"

Neville and Ron glanced to each, bringing up the rear. "Let's go!" They charged the barrier, Neville waiting now with less trepidation than he had this time a year ago, waiting to pass through the membrane seamlessly.

It might have been better if he had crashed into the barrier first year, for at least there may have therefore been an explanation that made more sense. Yet it still jolted Neville when his trolley crashed headlong into bricks that were suddenly all too solid, with enough force that he completely flipped over his handlebars and only just avoided Ron crashing in behind him. A peeved Muggle conductor approached them, and they had to bluff out an explanation about losing control of their luggage racks.

"Why can't we get through?" Neville hissed to Ron.

"I don't know! …. The gateway's sealed itself for some reason!"

A BONG pierced the air as the clock began to strike the top of the hour. "The train leaves at exactly 11:00! We've missed it!" Neville spluttered in disbelief.

Ron now appeared truly scared. "Neville…. if we can't get through…. maybe Mum and Dad can't get back!"

Neville gnashed his teeth, trying to remain calm. "So we go and wait by the car, see if they turn up…."

He watched as a light bulb slowly went off in Ron's head. "The car…!"

As the robin's-egg-blue Ford Anglia took to the skies outside Kings' Cross, Neville shifted uncomfortably in the shotgun seat. "Ron? Are you sure you know how to drive – er, fly this thing? Especially with Muggles around?"

"Sure!" Ron blanched a little, reaching for a button on the dash. In an instant, the entire structure of the car seemed to disappear around them, turning invisible. Piloting the automobile up into the clouds just for good measure, Ron would every now and again dip them below the heights of the sky so he and Neville could follow the landscape below.

With a bird's-eye view, they were able to track the Hogwarts Express rumbling along its railway line easily enough. Things only got hairy when Ron steered too close to the locomotive and they nearly got run down by the engine.

It was night by the time Ron and Neville saw the lights of the castle in the near distance. They may have ultimately not beaten the train here, but as long as they could land in one piece -

Both boys had only just begun to smile easily when the Ford Anglia's engine spluttered, and the car began to rock into a steep dive, bulleting for the grounds.

Unable to assert control over the steering wheel by hand, an increasingly desperate Ron had to resort to magic. "Stop, stop, stop, stop, STOP!" He whacked the wheel so hard, sparks flew from his wand, which abruptly snapped into near splinters.

Neville's eyes bulged. "Watch out for that tree!" he yelped, lunging for control of the yoke, but too late:

CRUNCH.

The Anglia's front grille connected sickeningly with the large trunk, and it was only by luck that a particularly large branch caught the car's weight as its loft finally gave out.

Ron, however, couldn't be concerned with his father's car at the moment. He was gazing at his wand, literally hanging by a thread, near tears. "My wand! …. Look at my wand!"

"Be ruddy thankful it's not your neck!" Neville grunted.

A sudden SLAM lurched them and the car forward jarringly.

"What's happening?" Ron just about squeaked.

"I don't know…..!"

Neville had barely voiced the thought when he saw what, by the light of a full moon, looked like a giant tree branch swinging directly at them! More branches were now bashing into the car's exterior from all sides. The tree they had collided with now seemed to be attacking them!

"DRIVE!" Neville roared. When a petrified Ron was too slow to engage, Neville recklessly launched the car into reverse. It might no longer be able to fly, but damnit, he hoped its wheels could still move…..!

The car backed itself clean off the large branch on which it rested and went into free-fall for a heart-stopping second or two before landing back on earth. Neville wrestled with the yoke one-handedly as he maneuvered the car backwards, trying to out-run – well, out-drive – the murderous….. tree. The giant plant actually seemed to strain itself nearly up to its breaking point before it couldn't keep the car in reach.

Neville sagged back into the passenger's seat, breathing hard. He barely had time to get his bearings before the world was suddenly spinning again and he was landing hard on his back in the grass. Lifting his head, he watched as the flying car now ejected their luggage out the back of the trunk after apparently self-ejecting its drivers. Car doors slammed shut independently and then, as if it had a mind of its own, Ron's father's car turned back bumper and drove off in the direction of the Forbidden Forest.

Ron looked resigned to a quick but no less painful death. "Dad's gonna kill me," he moaned.

The two boys did their best to at least sneak themselves up to the Gryffindor Common Room before anyone noticed they were missing at the Start-of-Term Feast. But with no Invisibility Cloak borrowed from Harry to keep them further concealed, Filch caught them rather easily.

Detained before Severus Snape, both Neville and Ron were sure the spiteful Potions master was going to expel them on the spot – especially seeing as how their daring-do with the car had already not only splashed itself on the cover of every wizarding newspaper, but several Muggle ones as well. Minerva McGonagall, their Head of House, didn't seem as though she was going to grant them a reprieve.

It came as a relief when, at Ron's asking straight out if she was going to expel them, McGonagall replied, "Not today, Mr. Weasley. But I must impress upon both of you the seriousness of what you have done. I will be writing to both your families tonight, and you will both receive detention."

It was better than they could have hoped for. Honestly, the worst they got came from, predictably, a frantic Hermione, waiting up for them like some fretting wife anxious for her husband to return home.

"There you two are! Where have you been? The most ridiculous rumors – someone said something about you two hijacking a flying car….!"

"We didn't hijack it," Ron drolled, annoyed. "We simply…. borrowed it."

"Well, for once, that 'something borrowed' didn't belong to me!" Harry Potter appeared through the portrait hole with a cracking joke, also smiling with relief as Neville gave his friend and classmate a hug.

Hermione just sent Harry an amused smile. "Let this be a lesson to you, Harry: the only time it's appropriate to have 'something borrowed' is if it's being used for someone's wedding…"

"What the bloody hell are you blathering on about, woman?!" Ron bawled. "Please, Hermione, we're tired! Can you just tell us what the password is?"

Hermione sighed in a very put-upon fashion before turning back to the Fat Lady. "Wattlebird."

The Fat Lady glared down her painted nose at Neville and Ron but nevertheless granted entrance, and the three friends, plus Harry, staggered into the Common Room and to bed.