As Fred and George speculated, it was about ninety minutes until we reached Surrey. Fortunately for us, by now it was deep in the night and incredibly foggy, meaning we would be hard to see. It was also fortunate that halfway through our journey, Ron discovered a button that would make us all but invisible, so the chances of Muggles spotting anything were incredibly low.

Finding Privet Drive turned out to be a problem, however. We couldn't read any signs from how high we were forced to fly, so we had to rely on my memory to get us to the proper house. There was a close call of us almost floating up to the wrong house—but I managed to realize that we were one street off, and we were able to correct our mistake before too late.

Two hours after we set off from the Burrow, we were at Harry's relatives' house. We noticed that there were bars latched around a specific window—figuring that was Harry's room, we pulled up outside. Once we were settled, Ron looked in—and ecstatically whispered, "We got it! Harry's in there!"

He then proceeded to knock on the window, trying to wake him up. It only took a minute or so before our friend seemed to recognize what he was seeing. His mouth agape, he opened the window so we could talk between the bars.

"Ron! Belle! Guys, how are you—what the…"

"All right, Harry?" greeted George, an evil grin on his face.

"Good now that you lot are here. Are you guys… doing magic outside of Hogwarts?"

"Oh, this doesn't count," Ron declared dismissively. "We're only borrowing this. It's Dad's, we didn't enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles you live with—"

"That wasn't me, but it'll take too long to explain now—look, can you tell them at Hogwarts that the Dursleys have locked me up and won't let me come back, and obviously I can't magic myself out because the Ministry will think that's the second spell I've done in three days, so—"

Admittedly growing nervous with how much time we were spending parked in midair outside Harry's uncle's house, I whispered, "Harry, stop fretting. We've come to take you back to the Burrow with us!"

"But the bars—you can't magic me out."

"We don't need to. You forget who I've got with me," chuckled Ron.

From the front seat, Fred and George held up a length of rope that they had stowed away in the car, wiggling their eyebrows rakishly.

"Tie that around the bars," Fred instructed, handing one of the lengths of rope to Harry.

"If the Dursleys wake up, I'm dead," Harry groaned, but he did as Fred said.

"Don't worry… and stand back."

Harry did as he was instructed; and then Fred stepped on the gas. The car revved noisily for a second and jerked forward, pulling the bars off immediately after. I was rather surprised there wasn't more noise as a result.

Luckily for us, the Dursleys weren't super light sleepers. We heard no sound of life from the remainder of the house—and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

"Get in!" Ron exclaimed.

"But all my Hogwarts stuff—my wand, my broomstick…"

"Where is it?"

"Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and I can't get out of this room."

George clapped his hands together in his typical excited fashion and declared, "No problem. Out of the way, Harry."

The Weasley twins clambered into the Dursley's house and started picking at the lock with a hairpin, musing, "A lot of wizards think it's a waste of time, knowing this sort of Muggle trick. But we feel they're skills worth learning, even if they are a bit slow."

And with that, the door popped open. Fred and George dashed off to get Harry's belongings, and I hopped into his bedroom to help Harry pass his things to Ron in the car.

"So!" I exclaimed, looking around. "It's not bad, actually."

Harry laughed, but then muttered, "Try spending two weeks locked in here."

I passed Ron a stack of loose parchment and bit my lip. "I'm sorry that Robbie and I couldn't get you out of here a week ago, we were really worried about you, you know… I feel really bad that I botched up our little rescue mission, if I'd just stayed silent maybe—"

"Belle, stop."

The ferocity behind Harry's voice made me blink and whirl to face him. His green eyes were bright as he added, "Don't blame yourself for that. I was really glad to just know that you were… out there, if that makes sense. I hadn't gotten any of your letters, for a while I thought that you had forgotten about me."

"I sent you a letter every other day," I replied, a slight smile on my face. "It's a shame they got lost."

"Intercepted, actually. I'll tell you about it later…"

Admittedly curious, I continued to pass Harry's belongings through the window and into the car. Fred and George soon came back with his trunk and broomstick, and we got everything packed into the car somehow. Harry himself was about to get into the car—but then a loud screech from behind him—

"I've forgotten Hedwig!"

"THAT RUDDY OWL!"

Harry dashed back into his room towards Hedwig's cage. The light turned on from behind the closed door. I grabbed the owl's cage as it was passed to me and held it on my lap, leaving Fred and George to haul Harry himself into the car.

The door slammed open, revealing Dursley the great pudge himself. He stood frozen for the tiniest of seconds before roaring in anger and running to the window. Somehow he grabbed hold of Harry's ankle, and we were forced to grab Harry's arms and pull as hard as we could to get him inside.

"Petunia! He's getting away! HE'S GETTING AWAY!"

Yet we prevailed, and Harry got yanked into the car. He slammed the door shut behind him, and Ron yelled, "Put your foot down, Fred!"

Fred wasted no time in doing so—and we were off.

"See you next summer!" Harry called back, which set the rest of us to cackling. He then took the hairpin from George and after a lot of careful consideration, managed to unlock Hedwig's cage so she could soar beside us.

"So what's the story, Harry?" asked Ron. "What's been happening?"

Harry proceeded to tell us all about a house-elf who had visited him by name of Dobby, of the warning said house-elf gave him about not returning to Hogwarts this year, and of the floating pudding during the Dursleys' most important business transaction.

When he was finished, Fred and George muttered, "Definitely dodgy. So he wouldn't even tell you who's supposed to be plotting all this stuff?"

"I don't think he could," my friend answered, his eyebrows furrowed. He was clearly troubled about the house-elf's manner, and I couldn't say I blamed him. House-elves were not a particularly common commodity ever since You-Know-Who had been destroyed… "I told you, every time he got close to letting something slip, he started banging his head against the wall."

"Well no matter what, I'm glad we came to get you," I sighed, throwing an arm around Harry's shoulder.

"Same," he laughed. "So—the rest of you. How have your summers been?"

The rest of the car ride was spent with us discussing what we had done all summer long. My tale was fairly uneventful, seeing as Robbie and I were perfectly content to be relaxing with one another and not doing much of anything at all—but the Weasley twins had great stories of testing out new pranks on Percy and their Mum and Dad. It was incredibly amusing to hear of everything they were manufacturing.

At last, the Burrow was in view; Fred hit the ground with a triumphant, "Touchdown!" We'd managed to land right beside the garage, and he navigated it back inside with no difficulty.

Now that we were safe back at home, we all exited the car and stretched a good amount. As soon as I felt like my limbs weren't going to crumple in on themselves, I attacked Harry with a large hug.

"Now we'll go upstairs really quietly," Fred whispered, "and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast. Then, Ron, you come bounding downstairs going, 'Mum, look who turned up in the night!' and she'll be all pleased to see Harry and no one need ever know we flew the car."

"Right," Ron sighed, running a hand through his flaming hair. "Come on, Harry, I sleep at the—uh-oh…"

We all turned around to see Mrs. Weasley marching in our direction, hands on her hips.

"Uh-oh indeed," I murmured, squirming a little anxiously. While Mrs. Weasley wasn't my mother, I was taking refuge under her roof for a while…

When at last she reached us, hands still on her hips, she exclaimed, "So. Have you any idea how worried I've been?"

Ron offered her a weak smile. "Sorry Mum, but we had to—"

"Beds empty! No note! Car gone—could have crashed—out of my mind with worry, did you care? You wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy—"

"Prefect Percy," muttered Fred.

"You could do with taking a leaf out of Percy's book! You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job—"

Mrs. Weasley suddenly stopped herself and took a deep breath before turning towards me and Harry. Considerably calmer, she declared, "I may not be your mother, Belle, but I've been worried about you, too. Can't say I'm too surprised you went with my sons, considering how much Ron has told me about you… and Harry dear, I'm very pleased to see you. Come in and have some breakfast."

I exchanged a quick look with Harry; we both seemed to feel very lucky that we also hadn't been extraordinarily yelled at. I supposed being a guest at her house paid off for me this time.

We all walked into the kitchen, where despite her rage, Mrs. Weasley already had breakfast prepared for us and her sons. She grumpily gave everyone plates of eggs and bread and butter, but she soon softened up again as she talked to Harry.

"I don't blame you at all, dear. Arthur and I have been worried about you, too. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron by Friday. But really, flying an illegal car halfway across the country… anyone could have seen you."

"It was cloudy, Mum!" protested Fred.

"You keep your mouth closed while you're eating!"

"They were starving him, Mum!" added George.

"And you!" snapped their mother, but she made sure to add another fried egg to Harry's plate after hearing that last.

The rest of breakfast was quiet, seeing as we were quite preoccupied with our eggs, ham, and bread. Mrs. Weasley was an amazing cook, something I'd figured out the short twenty-four hours or so I'd been with them. It reminded me of my own mother: she had loved to cook, too.

Once we were finished, Ron and the twins were tasked with ridding the garden of gnomes. Harry and I quickly volunteered to help, despite Mrs. Weasley insisting that we could go to bed if we wanted. Just before I could walk out the door after them, however, she called after me, "I'd suggest writing to your brother about Harry's arrival, Belle, dear! I know he'd wish to be updated."

After nodding and waving in thanks, I followed her sons plus one outside.

The de-gnoming was an event; we soon made a game over who could throw our gnomes the furthest. Harry was the title-holder at around fifty feet, past an old stump that we used as a landmark.

"See, they're not too bright," George chuckled as he scooped up a large number of them at once. "The moment they know the de-gnoming's going on they storm up to have a look. You'd think by now they'd have learned to stay put."

We all laughed as the little pests began dizzily walking away from the garden.

"They'll be back," Ron sighed, shaking his head. "They love it here, Dad's too soft with them; he thinks they're funny…"

As soon as his father was mentioned, Arthur Weasley arrived back at the Burrow and walked inside the house. The rest of us followed, ready to rest.

"What a night," he grumbled to himself. He didn't seem to recognize that we were there yet. "Nine raids—nine! And old Mundungus Fletcher tried to put a hex on me when I had my back turned…"

The Weasleys began questioning their father about his night at work—they were soon interrupted by Mrs. Weasley, who was attempting to tell her husband about what we had done the previous night.

During this time, I turned to Harry and stated, "I don't know about you, but all that flying and de-gnoming took it right out of me. I think I'm going to go write my brother a letter saying we got you and hit the hay."

"Sounds good. You up for some Quidditch later? We've got to start practicing for your tryouts this year."

At the mention of Quidditch, I felt my face light up. I had all but forgotten that this was the year I'd be able to join the Gryffindor team—and that if I made the team, Harry and I would be able to play the sport together.

"Absolutely," I heard myself answer, although my mind was still whirling through scenarios in which we could dominate the other Houses. "As soon as I'm up, I'm willing. I really, really want to be as good as I can be."

Harry grinned and nodded, and thus I was off. As I ascended the stairs, I couldn't help but laugh to myself upon hearing Mrs. Weasley start interrogating Mr. Weasley about the enchanted car.

When I reached Ginny's room, I found her sitting in her bed, her ears red. I raised my eyebrow in confusion—noting my expression, she softly asked, "Is that… did I hear Harry Potter downstairs?"

Once again keeping my laughter to myself, I replied, "You sure did."

The remainder of her face turned red, and she picked up the nearest book and pretended to read it, never mind the fact that it was upside-down.

I took a sheet of paper and a quill out of my trunk. For a moment, I wondered if I should simply say that Harry had made it to the Burrow… but then I figured that despite being my legal guardian, Robbie would get a kick out of the fact that Mr. Weasley had enchanted a car to fly…

So I decided to tell him everything—and made absolutely sure to include the part where Mr. Dursley almost fell out of Harry's window.

Figuring that this would satisfy my brother's curiosity, I whistled for Blumiere. My little elf-owl hooted happily and extended his leg so I could easily tie the parchment to him. I didn't even have time to tell him where to go—he hooted once again and flew off in the general direction of home.

By this point I felt incredibly tired; being up for thirty hours straight would do that to a person. I only barely managed to make it to bed before my eyes closed for a nice long nap.


Hi everyone, sorry I've been trash at updating. I've been obsessed with my Attack on Titan story lol, it's not much of an excuse, but it's the truth. I hope you're all taking care of yourselves. Thanks for reading this far, if you've done so! Have a great one :)