For QLFC S6R

Prompt: Write a time travel story using the method of time travel used in Back to the Future

Optional prompts: [object] Dice, [colour] Antique White, [object] nail polish

"Ron?" Harry calls out, frowning when he receives no response.

"Over here," comes Ron's extremely muffled voice from the back of the house. Harry rounds the corner, still shivering in his thin cardigan, to see Ron wheeling out from under a car.

It's a very specific car, in fact. Harry smiles fondly at the sight of a rusted and scratched Ford Anglia as all the memories of the day come rushing back to him, both the good and the bad.

"Is this—" Harry starts.

"It's not the one we drove in second year," Ron says, standing up and rolling his shoulders. His face is greasy and dirty but his eyes are shining in pride.

Harry walks closer to examine the car, placing a hand on the hood of the car in awe. "It looks exactly like the one you drove in second year! How did you find one that was exactly the same colour, model and everything?"

Ron smiles guiltily. "Well," he starts. "I did use a bit of magic. But not a lot! Just to change the colour. I actually had to look around a bit to find the exact model."

Harry squints at it. "There's a scratch here," he mentions.

Ron just waves it off. "I'll cover it up with nail polish later, it's fine."

"Does it fly?" Harry asks.

"Yep!" Ron says. "It's going to be a present for my dad, since his birthday is coming soon. I've always felt bad about what happened to his first one." He tosses his keys from hand to hand and grins at Harry. "Wanna take this thing out for a spin?"

"Let's do it," Harry beams.

The two of them climb into the car and after a couple of false starts, Ron finally gets the car engine on.

"I hope I remember how to drive this thing," Ron mutters under his breath.

"That's very encouraging," Harry says dryly. "How did you pass your drivers test again?"

"Hey," Ron complains, but doesn't argue back. "If I could do it as a thirteen year old, I'm sure I can do it now."

Harry grips the handle of the car as it wobbles and shakes, hums and whirs. The two antique white dice attached to the rearview mirror shake and clank together before, with a giant lurch, the car lifts into the air.

But something is wrong. The car hits something in the sky and without a warning, begins going insanely fast. Harry exchanges a quick look with Ron, whose eyes have gone very wide.

"What else did you enchant this car with?" Harry yells over the sound of the whirring engine and rushing wind.

"Nothing!" Ron yells back. "I don't know what's wrong with this thing!"

The car drifts to a stop and floats in the air. The two of them are high in the clouds now and it's perfectly silent. "Well, that could've gone better," Ron said, letting out a shaky smile.

Then, the car starts to drop.

...

Ron stumbles out of the driver's door as well, looking a little green. "What just happened?"

After the car's wild descent, Ron had managed to wrestle control of the car and bumpily drag it to the road of the suburbs. They had, somehow, travelled completely away from the little Hogsmeade area that Ron and Hermione lived in and managed to land in a Muggle area.

Harry winced a little at the tongue lashing he was sure to get in the future for the mess they'd inadvertently created. But then he looked around and the unsettling feeling that he'd had since the beginning made itself known in full force.

"This is… Little Whinging?" Harry says, getting out of the car and onto the sidewalk. Why would the car take them here out of all places? Not only that, the place was… different. It felt a lot less developed that he remembered it being.

"Maybe we can say hi to Dursley while we're here. You guys are on speaking terms now right?" Ron suggests.

Harry nods. That had been the weirdest part of everything, post-war. "I'll say hi to him and his family and then we can contact the Ministry to see if they can do something about the Muggles who saw us."

"Sounds like a plan," Ron says. "I don't want to intrude, so I'll stay here and contact Hermione and the Ministry first. You go on ahead."

Harry nods one more, tucking his wand into the sleeve of his arm just in case. Something is wrong and he can't seem to put his hands on it. Striding purposefully up to house number 4, he knocks three times on the door.

The door opens.

"Potter?" comes an incredulous voice. Harry is halfway through nodding before he realized that the person in front of him is a stranger. Or—not quite. Harry is staring at person he had only seen through mirrors, photos, and other people's memories.

He's staring directly at sixteen year-old Lily Evans.

"Uh," he says. Then he does the only thing he can think of. Harry jumps sideways into the bushes by the stairs and casts a charm to avoid notice. He hears the sound of footsteps bypassing his location and another muffled, "Potter!" in the distance before everything fades away.

Harry lets out a breath in relief and wrangles his way back out of the bushes, only to find himself face-to-face with Lily.

Hands on her hips, she looms menacingly over him. "What do you have to say for yourself Potter? Why are you here? How did you even find out where I lived?"

"I'm not—uh, I'm not James," he tries.

"That's ridiculous, Potter! That's the most ridiculous lie I've ever heard you tell, and that's saying something," she says accusingly.

"I'm really not," he says, desperate. He searches around for an escape route, but Lily's blocked off all routes of escape.

"Sominium!" Ron yells in the distance.

Moments, later, Harry sees his mom hit the ground, asleep. He looks up to see Ron waving victoriously.

Harry speed walks over to Ron and grabs him. "Let's go back to the car, hurry. I think we're in the past."

Ron grimaces. "Yeah, I realized after I argued with a secretary for ten minutes about who the Minister of Magic is. We have to get out of here."

The two of them buckle in and drive to a more isolated area, where no one is around to see a car fly into the sky.

"I feel like we hit a—a portal or something. If we look around, maybe we could see a distortion," Harry says.

"I'll focus on driving then. Keep your eyes peeled," Ron instructs.

Harry stares all around, squinting his eyes against the brightness in the sky. Then, a couple of kilometers away from where number 4 Privet Drive is, Harry spots an area near the clouds where the air seems to be shimmering.

"There!" he shouts, pointing it out.

Ron angles the car and heads straight for portal. Just as Harry expected, the car feels like it hits something solid and they're rushed forwards in the car, straight back into the future, hopefully. The scenery whizzes past at a dizzyingly rate and then they emerge out right back where they started.

Ron lands the car and the two of them tumble out of it without further ado.

"I think you should just scrap this car," Harry suggests, lying on the grass.

"You know what?" Ron says from the other side, "I think you're right."