“Arthur! Arthur, it’s been half an hour since I told you dinner was ready!”
Arthur Weasley sighed as he slid out from underneath the car, oily and covered in grease. His wife stood framed in the doorway, looking annoyed.
“Why are you always playing with that thing? You’d think it would have stopped being interesting by now,” she said.
“But, Mollywobbles, I’m taking it apart to see what it looks like on the inside! It’s fascinating, really! This is called a carburettor!” He held up a contraption of steel. “It says right there in that book,” he pointed at a large book lying open on a stool behind him, “but I have no idea what it does yet. I don’t really understand that muggle technical speak…”
Molly gave an exasperated sigh, but smiled bemusedly all the same. “Scourgify!” she said, pointing her wand at him. The oil and grease disappeared.
In the kitchen of the Burrow, little Bill, Charlie and Percy were waiting patiently for their father to come in to dinner. When the door opened, Charlie leaped out of his chair and ran to hug his father. Arthur laughed.
“Sit down, son!” he said. “Let your mother serve the food.” He gave Molly’s swelling belly a little caress and then sat down in his chair.
“How’s the car going, daddy?” asked a six-year-old Bill eagerly. “Have you got it to work yet?”
Molly set a pot heavily down on the table and looked sternly at her husband. “Arthur!” she said, scowling. “You said you were just “”
“I’m not going to use the car, no!” said Arthur quickly. “No, no, Bill, you’ve misunderstood. I’m just going to find out how it works!”
“Oh,” said Bill, looking slightly disappointed. Molly, however, looked far happier. When she served the stew she was humming cheerfully.
That evening, when the boys were asleep, and Molly had gone to bed, Arthur snuck out into the garden shed. He stroked the hood of the car fondly. She was a beauty. She was not big or shiny or suave. It was no fancy American car. It was simply small and turquoise. But he loved it very much, his little Ford Anglia. It had been a bargain. He had bought it off a scrap heap, for a sum which equalled no more than two Galleons. Nothing at all. And she was so pretty.
He opened the door and sat down inside. It was a good thing that Molly did not know of his plans for the car. He was not going to use it, of course. He had written the law which enabled him to do what he was planning to do. The law that said that bewitching a Muggle artefact was alright so long as you did not plan to use it. But it would not hurt to use it just once…
He had installed the switches inside that would control his changes. There must be switches, as Arthur was very fond of those. He was more or less done. The only thing left was the actual spells. He had brewed a potion to substitute Muggle petrol, with some minor differences, and poured it into the gas tank earlier that day.
He raised his wand and said the words.
Then he turned the key.
The car made a nice purring sound as he turned it on. He had read all about Muggle driving, so he stepped on the gas and promptly ran the car into the wall behind him. He shut down the car for a moment, afraid that Molly had heard the noise. But he could hear no shouts of angry footsteps, so he turned the key again and drove forward this time, out of the big door in the shed. He pressed the button labelled “fly”.
The car lifted off the ground as he accelerated, and with a strange churn in his belly, Arthur felt himself lift, and then he was flying!
He flicked the switch labelled “Invisible” and the car disappeared around him. Now he was flying high above the Burrow. Up above Ottery St. Catchpole he flew, above the rooftops, all the way over Stoatshead Hill. The view was beautiful. He heard the sound of the engine, felt the wheel in his hands. He had never felt so alive before. He accelerated again, and drove the car straight upwards in a spiral. He popped through a cloud, and suddenly he could see nothing but white below him. It was like a Winter Wonderland, and when he looked up, he saw a million stars and a bright, blue moon.
He sighed contently and leaned back in his seat, having taken his hands off the wheel. He listened to the engine and watched the stars, feeling that life could hardly get better.
He landed the car some way away from the house, turning off the invisibility, and drove it back to the Burrow. He rolled it into the shed and pulled out the key. When he stepped out, a light shone in his face. He looked up.
There stood Molly, looking stern. The light came from her wand.
“Where have you been?” she asked, her lips so thin they were almost non-existent. Arthur gave a nervous cough.
“I just went for a little ride,” he mumbled.
“Whatever happened to not using the car?” Molly exploded. “I wake up in the middle of the night, you’re not there, the car isn’t here… What am I to think?”
“But Molly “”
“Don’t you ‘but Molly’ me! You could have gotten hurt! This Muggle machine could have crashed! You could have died! What would I have done with three children and another on the way? How would we survive?”
“But Mollywobbles, it went fine!” said Arthur. “I just drove it for a bit. It can be a good thing if we need to go somewhere with the boys when they’re too young for Floo powder. Percy is far too little for that still, and now with another baby…”
Molly fell silent. She looked extremely thoughtful.
“Alright,” she said in the end. “Alright, we can keep the contraption. Now come to bed at once!” She marched out of the shed. Arthur closed the car door and petted it fondly. When he was certain that Molly could not see him, he placed a small kiss on the hood.
“Good night, Ford Anglia,” he whispered. Then he went back in the house.