Chapter 9: The folly of youth

The plan was as follows: to mark the end of the holiday, my friends and I would take rooms at the Leaky Cauldron the day before we were due to return to Hogwarts. We would dine, with a few bottles of dryadic wine naturally, and then slip quietly through Diagon Alley, into Knockturn Alley and thence to Moor Alley.

We arrived in dribs and drabs, some dropped off by their parents, others on the Knight Bus. I cajoled Uncle Vernon to drive me down. As soon as the pub's elf had taken charge of my baggage I settled down to some pre-dinner drinks with those who had arrived before me. It was the usual crowd: McLaggen, Wood, Davies, Flint, Malfoy and a few others. Ron was there too, although I'm damned if I know why McLaggen invited him. Probably thought I would have wanted him there. To be honest I did not care much one way or the other but Ron did tend to drink less than me and I could usually count on him to drag my carcass home at the end of the night. It's always good to have someone you can rely on to hold your head over the bowl.

Dinner was excellent, as was the wine. We enjoyed it so much in fact that we sallied forth from the pub two parts drunk already. We weaved our way along Diagon Alley, serenading passersby with that charming old hymn The Unicorn has an Enormous Horn. I was not so tight however that I had neglected to bring protection, by which I mean my father's old invisibility cloak (wizards don't have to worry about the other sort; magic potions and all that). McLaggen had warned us that the Ministry sometimes raided Moor Alley and I was damn sure that I didn't want my face splashed all over the front page of the Prophet being hauled out of a fleshpot.

Our singing grew more subdued as we swung down Knockturn Alley. There were fewer lamps here, creating patches of deep shadow where nameless things stirred at our passing. Hostile eyes glittered at us from doorways and behind grubby window panes. We put our heads down and walked on, as fast as we dared.

"There it is," said McLaggen, pointing to a narrow archway between two shop fronts. Inside the arch was a wall of smooth stone. Above it hung a carved wooden head, resembling a black man with a red lantern balanced on top of his turban.

"Password?" the head asked, looking down his nose at us.

"Basileia," replied McLaggen.

"Pass, friend," the head said with a knowing leer. The wall within the archway dissolved. McLaggen led us through, into Moor Alley itself.

The dominant colour was red; red lanterns above doors, red drapes at the windows and red dresses on the tarts parading up and down the balconies. We all gaped in wonderment, like the proverbial children in a sweet-shop. It was shorter and narrower than either Diagon or Knockturn Alley but there appeared to be more buildings on this one short stretch than in the other two combined. Bars, brothels, dance halls and pornographers were crammed together so tightly they seemed to be collapsing into one another. There was even a bookshop, selling titles that you would certainly never find in Flourish and Blotts: Erotic Enchantments for Every Evening; Hung like a Horntail; Selwyn the Spanking Sorcerer; Witches, Wands & Whips. You get the idea.

We started by trawling a few of the bars. Moor Alley tended to attract drinkers who were too shady for the Leaky Cauldron but not Dark enough to spend much time in the dives of Knockturn Alley. Here was where you found goblins, crammed twenty to a table and jabbering away like a bunch of parrots; nut-brown treasure seekers recently returned from distant lands; dragon hunters in their thick inflammable cloaks; dwarfs come up from the Cornish mines to blow their whole pay packet on a night on the town. Nobody gave a damn who you were or where you had come from. So long as you were willing to stand your round and not spill anyone else's pint, you were welcome.

It was in one of these bars that we lost Flint. He had downed a few more than the rest of us, and having more balls than wits to start with, he had challenged a dwarf miner to an arm wrestle. Ten seconds later someone had conjured up a sling for him and one of our party was helping down the street in the direction of St. Mungo's. The rest of just laughed, finished our drinks and stumbled out of the bar. It was time for the fun to really begin.

We were young, drunk and randier than a warren full of rabbits. We were spoilt for choice with regards to brothels, bordellos and bath houses, but McLaggen had other ideas.

"You don't want to be wasting your gold in there," he said, grabbing the back of my robes as I headed towards a busty whore who was beckoning to me from a nearby doorway.

"Leave off! I saw her first," I snarled.

"Look, you wanted me to show you the best night life in London, didn't you?" he said, "Then there's only one place for chaps like us, Potter: the Polyamour."

I bowed to his superior knowledge of London knocking shops and followed as he led our little party along the street. The Polyamour was a rather grand building, by the standards of Moor Alley: four stories high, the black timber framing painted a luminous pink. Two bouncers with more than a hint of troll about them loomed beside the entrance like grotesque doorposts.

"Evening gents," said McLaggen, sauntering past.

"Evenin' Mister McLaggen," they rumbled. The Kenmare Kestrels were clearly not the only thing that McLaggen had a season ticket for

Inside was a tastefully decorated parlour, with lots of red silk and velvet in the decoration. A large, old-fashioned bookcase dominated one wall. Several tarts were lounging around on sofas. They were pretty and shapely enough but I could not see why McLaggen had recommended this place above all others.

"Good evenin', gen'lemen." A large woman, both in height and girth, swept out of a backroom and towards us. She was wearing a high throated dress in blood red and enough powder to choke a manticore.

"Madame Putain," said McLaggen, taking her hand and pressing it to his lips.

"Cormac," she said, chucking him fondly under the chin, "These all wiv you?"

"My friends, madame."

"Only the best for our Cormac's little pals," she said with a grin that revealed her many missing and rotten teeth.

"So what'll your pleasure be, sir?" she asked, turning to me and drawing her wand, "We offer the most extensive range of services of any 'ouse in Europe."

"What sort of services?" I asked.

"Well we 'ave the standard 'Y'uman Female' and 'Y'uman Male'," she said, counting them off on her fingers, "Then, for a slight increase in cost, we 'ave our specialist range, including 'Non-y'uman', 'Animal', 'Mineral', 'Vegetable'…"

"Human will be fine!" I said, loudly, "Female, please."

"Certainly, sir," said Madame Putain. She waved her wand and a large, thick volume like a church Bible floated off the bookcase and into my hands.

"When you 'ave made your selection speak to one of the girls and they'll 'ave it brought through," she said. She moved on to quiz Malfoy about his preferences, leaving me to look through the book.

It was essentially a catalogue, containing pictures of every sort of woman imaginable. And I do mean every sort of woman: every colour, every shape, every size. There were thin ones, curvy ones, leggy ones, busty ones, blonde ones, dark ones, ginger ones, short ones, tall ones, older ones, younger ones. Any and every combination of tastes seemed to be catered for. You could come here every night for a year, choose a different girl every time, and you still wouldn't get through a third of the book.

It took me nearly twenty minutes to make my selection. It was rather distracting to have all those girls beckoning to me and miming suggestively as I tried to turn the page. In the end I settled on a sultry little Asian piece with a pretty, oval face and an arse to die for.

"Err… miss?" I waved to one of the tarts waiting on the sofa, "I'd like this one please."

"Very good, sir. That's a very popular choice, sir," the girl said, taking the book from me. She clicked her fingers and a slimy little house elf appeared with a loud 'crack'.

"A Number 78, Slobber," she said.

"Yes, mistress," the elf said. He bowed, disappeared, then reappeared a second later holding a little glass phial on a silver tray.

"Thank you, Slobber," said the girl, taking the phial. It contained a thick, golden liquid that I did not recognise. The elf bowed and disappeared once again.

"This way, sir," the girl said to me, gesturing to a small door next to the bookcase. I followed, looking round to see where my Asian filly would appear from.

Beyond the door was an old wooden staircase, tastefully decorated in dark red, that wound up to the top of the building. As we climbed I could see corridors branching off from each landing; more corridors than the building I had seen from the outside could possibly hold.

"Here we are, sir," said the girl, pausing on the third floor, "Would you like any refreshments? Celestial Champagne? Butterbeer? Firewhisky?"

"Err… firewhisky will be fine," I said, wondering at the impossible dimensions of the building and, more importantly, where my chosen girl had got to.

"Certainly, sir," said the girl, "I'll just go and fetch it for you. Your room is number eleven." She gestured down the corridor.

"Yes… yes, fine," I said.

The girl slipped through an unmarked door at the near end of the corridor, leaving me to make my own way to my room. I was so distracted by the strangeness of this place that I forgot which room was mine. I stopped outside room seven. That sounded vaguely right.

I opened the door and got a fine view of a man's arse going up and down like a fiddler's elbow. The owner of the arse was mounted on a young woman and going at her for all he was worth. The tart, who did not appear to be particularly enjoying the experience, spotted me over the man's shoulder and squealed in surprise. The man turned to look at me, which put him off his stroke. His face was flushed with his recent efforts but he was clearly very handsome, even with his wavy golden hair plastered across his forehead.

"I say!" he cried, "Do you mind? This is a private bedroom!"

I mumbled my apologies and stumbled backwards, closing the door behind me.

"Sir?"

It was the girl who had led me up the stairs, now carrying a bottle of vintage firewhisky and a pair of glasses. She took my arm and directed me to room eleven. It was very comfortable and tasteful; a screen for changing behind, a large round bed with red silks sheets and an en-suite bathroom.

"If you'd just wait here, sir," said the girl, placing the firewhisky on the bedside cabinet. She took the little phial the elf had given her and stepped behind the screen. I stood in the middle of the room, utterly baffled.

A moment passed and then the Asian beauty I had seen in the photograph appeared from the behind the screen, wearing a negligee that looked like it would vanish with the first gust of wind. Hell, a mild breeze would have done it.

"B-but… where's the other girl?" I stammered as she moved towards me, sultry as a tigress.

"Right here," she purred, slipping her arms around my neck, "Surely you've heard of Polyjuice Potion?"

I hadn't but I was pretty sure I liked it.

I won't go into the details of what happened next. Suffice it to say that she put me into positions that were as unnatural as they were stimulating. If I woke the next morning with a stinking headache, I was pleasurably sore elsewhere.

When I did finally wake it took all of two seconds for the golden afterglow of a night well spent to fade. First came the hangover, with all the tenderness and subtly of a frying pan to the jaw. Second came the realisation that I was still in the Polyamour, not my room at the Leaky Cauldron. Those arsewipes I called my friends had abandoned me in the fleshpot! But the third and most dreadful realisation was that sunlight was peering in between the heavy curtains. Not the soft, tentative light of early morning. This was the strong, confident sunshine of the afternoon; the very afternoon that I was supposed to be boarding the Hogwarts Express.

One glance at my bedside clock confirmed it. I was late; very late. I leapt out of bed and recovered my clothes from the various places they had been thrown the night before. The tart was gone, so I rushed out into the corridor, one leg in my trousers, hoping to find someone who might be able to help. Instead, I found Ron.

"Ron!" I said.

"Not so loud," he groaned, clutching at his head, "My head…"

"Never mind your bloody head! We're late. We're late for the Express!"

"Merlin's saggy scrotum…" Ron moaned.

We descended the stairs three at a time and burst into the parlour at a mad rush. It was deserted except for the house elf Slobber, who was dusting the bookcase.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" he asked, leering at us.

I was about to brush him aside and head for the door when I realised that there was no door, except the one we had just come through. The exit had vanished.

"What…? Where's the door?" I said.

"You gentlemen haven't paid yet," said Slobber, "No gold; no way out. That's the deal."

"Yeah, yeah: how much?" I said, impatient to be off.

"Fifty galleons."

"What!" I spluttered, "But that's all I've got on me!"

"No gold; no way out," said Slobber, grinning malevolently.

I stamped and I raged at the elf, calling him every name I could think of but he just smiled and returned to his dusting.

"Come on," Ron pleaded, "We've got no choice, Harry." Easy for him to say; he was always skint. I was paying for him too.

"Fine," I growled, throwing my purse at the elf's feet, "You little money-grubbing bastard."

"Much obliged, gents," said the elf, retrieving the purses and gesturing to the front door, which had quietly reappeared.

Moor Alley by day was dead and deserted. Nowhere was open, not even the bookshop.

"What are we going to do?" Ron whimpered, "We can't miss the train…"

"Let's get back to the Leaky Cauldron," I said, trying to think clearly despite my incessant headache, "We'll get our trunks and then maybe… I don't know, catch the Knight Bus to the station?"

"But we need money to pay the fare," said Ron.

"Bugger. You're right," I said. We were, as the saying goes in the magical world, Moor Alley bankrupt. Looking back we should probably have headed to Gringotts and tried to get an emergency withdrawal but then that's the benefit of hindsight. You always know what you should have done.

Being visibly hung over, and not wanting to be spotted leaving Moor Alley, we returned to the Leaky Cauldron under the invisibility cloak. We collected our trunks as quickly as we could and headed out into Muggle London. I had come up with some vague notion about jinxing the ticket barriers on the Underground and taking the Tube to King's Cross, so we started down the street, looking for the nearest station. I can only explain what happened next by saying that we were still both partly drunk.

We passed a turquoise Ford Anglia parked outside the Cauldron. Ron paused:

"Why don't we drive to Hogwarts?"

"Don't be thick," I said, "Neither of us know how to drive." This was not strictly true; joyriding had been a hobby of mine back when I was at Smeltings. I had just never taken formal driving lessons.

"Hang on," I said, "We needn't drive all the way to Hogwarts. Here, help me with my trunk…"

We opened my trunk and I produced a wire coat hanger.

"What's that for?" asked Ron.

"Never you mind," I said, "You just keep an eye out for the owner coming back."

While Ron kept watch I put the invisibility cloak back on and got to work turning the hanger into a makeshift lock pick. True, I did have a magic wand in my pocket but knowing my general ability with spells I was just as likely to blow the car up as I was to unlock it. No, when it comes to car theft I am a traditionalist through and through.

A few minutes careful work and I had us in. Removing the cloak, I opened the door as casually as if I was the rightful owner. While Ron was loading our trunks into the boot I took the driver's seat and worked on hotwiring the ignition.

"I thought you said you couldn't drive?" Ron said as he climbed into the front passenger's seat.

"We only need to get as far as King's Cross," I said, "And who's going to notice another bad driver in London, for Christ's sake?"

The engine spluttered into life. I reached across, put the car into what I believed to be first gear and put my foot on the accelerator.

The car shot straight up, twenty feet into the air. Ron and I both screamed. I turned the steering wheel but that only made us turn lazily towards a nearby building. I fumbled with the gear stick but we just climbed higher. In desperation I began to pound the buttons on the dashboard.

Suddenly, everything around me vanished: the car, Ron, even my own hands on the steering wheel.

"Ron?" I asked, tentatively, "You still there?"

"Yeah. You?"

"I think so."

"Right."

"Good."

There was a pause.

"Harry," said Ron's disembodied voice, "I don't think this is a Muggle's car."

I gave this some consideration.

"No," I said at length, "I don't think it is."

Feeling very gently with my invisible hands, I found the invisible gearstick and the invisible wheel. Now I had recovered from the initial shock I found that the Ford Anglia was quite simple to fly. Whoever had modified it had added 'Ascend' and 'Descend' to the gearstick. Steering remained largely the same, although turning took longer on account of the wind resistance. I would have liked to experiment more with it but we had a train to catch, so I ascended above the rooftops and carefully piloted us towards King's Cross Station.

As we approached we could just see a thin sliver of scarlet heading away from the station and into the north. We had missed the Hogwarts Express. I swore, at length.

"What do we do now?" asked Ron. I could picture the moping, hangdog expression that he was wearing on his invisible face.

"Well… we've got a flying car," I said, "It shouldn't be too difficult to follow the train to Hogwarts."

"What about the owner?" said Ron. He had clearly been spending rather too much time around Neville Longbottom.

"We'll get it back to him," I said, waving my invisible hand in the direction of some vague future, "Let's just worry about getting back to college first, ok?"

"Ok…" said Ron. He did not sound convinced but, as ever, he was willing to follow me into all manner of skulduggery.

We tailed the Hogwarts Express for a while, making sure that we knew which line it was taking. We then ascended so that we were flying above the cloud layer. Very carefully, I ran my hand along the dashboard and found the invisibility button. I pushed it and Ron, the car and my arms reappeared.

"Now all we have to do is keep popping down to check on the train," I said, pushing my seat back so that I could stretch my legs, "We should be there in time for the Start of Term Feast…"

It was a pleasant, if rather monotonous journey, flying sedately through that fairy tale world of cotton candy clouds. Later on I gave Ron a turn at the wheel while I took a nap on the backseat, which conveniently stretched itself out for me to the size of a single bed.

Night drew in and the temperature in the car dropped rapidly. We tried to get the heater going but it seemed to be broken. The engine had also started to make some very unsettling grinding and choking noises.

"I don't think it was built for long journeys," said Ron nervously as the car shuddered around us.

"Let's pop down and see how far off we are," I said, putting us into descend. Dropping beneath the clouds we found ourselves flying over mountains covered in tall pine forests and dotted with shining lochs. The Hogwarts Express was winding its way through the peaks, visible now only as a silver trail of smoke. Ahead, on the shores of a huge lake, gleamed a tiny speck of yellow light: Hogwarts Castle.

"How long till we get there, do you think?" said Ron. I shrugged.

"Half an hour? Maybe more?" I said.

The minutes crept past and Hogwarts seemed no closer. The Ford Anglia's rattling and complaining was growing louder. We kept dropping by the nose and I was forced to put us into ascend just to keep going forwards. The car was shaking so badly it made my glasses jump up and down on my nose.

We had just cleared the final range of mountains when the wing mirrors fell off. The car gave a great hacking cough and then fell silent.

"Oh shit!" I moaned as we began to dive towards the gleaming white surface of the Great Lake.