"Well, here's proof that the ban on reading books for elves is adequate ," the Smarty chuckled as Harry pulled away from the wheezing and drooling Dobby – the house-elf's mind wasn't the strongest to begin with, and the warp-sorcerer's brutal psychic penetration into it had almost broken it.
And Harry was inclined to agree with his Tzeentchian advisor. Because the savage mess that the boy had managed to fish out of Dobby's big-eared head was simply flooded with all sorts of second-hand bookish crap, the basis of which was books about him - Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen Hero of the Wizarding World! Seasoned with a bit of Hogwarts school textbooks and cheap pulp nonsense, both Muggle and wizarding - which brought in even more chaos!
Not the blessed and wonderful Chaos that Harry Potter experienced two years ago. But chaos with a small letter, that is, the miserable disorder that reigns in the heads of too weak and insignificant people, incapable of accepting the warp without consequences for themselves!
Besides, the mind of a xenos - that's how the four voices in his head called all non-humans - was very different from the mind of a human. And therefore, where the largely skeptical and cynical creature Homo Sapiens "filters the bazaar" and does not believe every written word - the mind of a naive elf will perceive everything at face value.
"And this girl is workable ," Ruffnut snorted, watching Quinky flutter around the tied up Dobby. "In any Chaos army there are always skilled people who turn proud and confident loyalists into obedient slaves. And this is without resorting to vile sorcery and vile tricks, mind you!" he snorted with superiority. "And this girl has potential. She can be good for something more than trench fodder or bedding for soldiers."
"Since when do the servants of the Hateful Scarlet talk about "bed-mates"? Or even about sex? Nonsense, that's for sure!" - despite the content, this phrase of the Sweet Tooth was accompanied by a certain... admiration?
"A good warrior takes into account all aspects of War ," the spawn of Khorne "smiled" in Harry's mind with all his dog's mouth, clearly enjoying the topic raised. And it was definitely not sex. "And where a fucking loyalist would see a war crime, and a bastard Slaaneshi would see space for his inappropriate fantasies, I see one of the elements of SUPPLY!" - he emphasized the last word. "The armies of Chaos, even those especially blessed by the Blood God, are made up not only of Dark Ascended Astartes, but also of simple insignificant mortals! And they need... motivation. Meat must go to battle, to hopeless assaults, knowing that the survivors will have cities full of women and children ahead, whom they can eat and rape at their pleasure! We call these victims simply," the Khornate suddenly burst out laughing. "Fodder!"
"It was stupid to even suggest anything interesting ," Sweet Tooth said disappointedly. "But this elf is really no slouch ," he chuckled. "She caught a spy, pre-treated her... Train her to be a... ahem, a forager ," he snorted, "and she'll be indispensable!"
"No one is irreplaceable ," Smarty commented with a grin. "But we'll think about her punishment, reward, and education later. Now we need to decide what to do with Malfoy?"
Harry frowned. Really, what?
Dobby's memory fragments, mental bookmarks and traps - the consequences of the Oath to his master - all this turned the house-elf into a practically useless waste. But not if a Tzeentch daemon took up the matter!
And so they did catch the main milestones, albeit in the form of scattered visions.
...The man - a long-haired blond with an arrogant face - Lucius Malfoy. Associations: pain, fear, hatred!...
...The object is a thin black notebook with an illegible inscription - "evil thing"! Associations: horror, evil, death...
...Master Lucius... Wants to remove something from the house... Searches... Weasley!... Harry Potter in Hogwarts! We can't allow it...
"An evil thing, yes?" the Tzeentchite drawled thoughtfully, once again running before his eyes the fragments of the visions that they had fished out of the elf's ruined mind. "Is it just me that thinks that Lucius Malfoy himself does not realize the extent of the 'evilness' of this thing?"
"House-elves are much more sensitive to magic than people ," Sweet Tooth suddenly said, who had been watching with curiosity as Harry thoughtfully pulled the long ear of the half-conscious Dobby. "And they can probably sense the shadows of the future - especially if it's something bad. So this wretched one could well have sensed something and rushed to "save" his idol." The demon laughed.
"The logical calculations from a Slaaneshi are something ," the Smart Guy chuckled at this. "But something needs to be done. Very soon, the "evil thing" will end up in the school - and we have practically no idea what it is! Apart from the fact that it is an old black diary."
Harry felt the familiar stirring coming from the scar again, and then a feeling pierced him... as if he had already seen this diary from Dobby's memories! Moreover, he had held it in his hands!
The boy jerked his head and tried to listen to his feelings for a while, hoping to catch echoes of the scar's inhabitant's thoughts again. But in vain! It was unlikely that he could have done this on his own - and therefore...
He grinned. He would still have to have a serious talk with Smarty - he would definitely be able to help in establishing the truth. Well, or he would confuse everything even more - it depends on luck.
In general, Potter found out through experience and rare hints from the same Smart Guy that if you address one of the spirit advisors individually, the others will not hear their conversations. This was at the very beginning, while the four demons were still too weak, and Harry was inexperienced, they all had to use exclusively the "common channel", but now…
Now young Potter preferred to raise certain topics only with some of his inner voices separately.
"Quinky," he finally turned to his personal slave. "This one," he nodded towards Dobby, who was swaying and shaking his head as if in a fit, "is to be taken to the old barn at the back of Mr. Princeton's house. To the far closet. Tie him up and watch him so he doesn't escape."
Mr. Princeton, an unsociable old man, had until recently lived on the other side of Little Whinging. But he had died last spring, and his relatives were in no hurry to claim the property, for reasons unknown. And so Harry, without a twinge of conscience, had chosen Princeton's plot for his own needs: a secret warehouse of stolen goods, a stash of ritual paraphernalia, potions, and questionable ingredients. Fortunately, the plot was located on the very outskirts, at the beginning of vast meadows and fields interspersed with groves.
Well, and in the long term, it was a place for rituals. The latter, however, was questionable: the house was in limbo, new owners could appear at any moment, so it was not worth leaving any obvious traces there yet.
The scar, to Harry's surprise, moved again, giving the boy a clear and sensible idea. Namely, to buy the house and use it without regard for the intended owners.
But that was a matter of perspective. Right now, Harry wanted to sort out current affairs.
By the way…
"Quinky," said the boy, twitching with a sudden impulse. "And bring me those… 'unnecessary' things from the Dursleys' hiding place," he grinned.
Celestina hooted contentedly, tearing at the insides of the rat carcass lying before her. It might have seemed to Harry, but he could see strange serrations on the bird's beak, like teeth. But he chose to ignore it - there were more important things to do.
For example, the correspondence with friends that was finally restored: it was worth neutralizing the harmful brownie who stole letters - and they poured out in a stream.
At first, Harry almost rushed towards the Princeton precinct, in a blind quest to slowly dismember Dobby - this time guided by all his spirit advisors at once!
Because the news he had missed and was now forced to catch up on was at the very least curious. And at the most, impressive! After all, as it turned out, Malfoy and Weasley had troubles. And they came from a completely different direction than everyone expected!
More precisely, the expected troubles also happened: both Ron and Malfoy had a tense conversation with their fathers - they both did not really like their sons' social circle. And if the younger Weasley in his letters verbosely and indignantly (that is, with a bunch of blots) described the dispute with his father on this topic, then Draco reservedly promised to tell the details during a personal meeting.
But Harry had expected these problems: he had already noticed on the train to Hogwarts that Lucius Malfoy and Arthur Weasley did not like each other. To put it mildly. Now this conflict began to acquire details.
The first reason for the hostility was, of course, the fundamental dispute of wizards in the last hundred to hundred and fifty years. That is, about the attitude towards Muggles! Which resulted in several armed confrontations during the twentieth century in Europe alone. The last local conflict was precisely that very Rebellion of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, in which the Malfoys and Weasleys fought on opposite sides of the barricades.
Considering that Lucius Malfoy, despite losing the Dark Lord, eventually managed to simply buy his way out of a post-war trial, Weasley's anger towards him is understandable. Indignation that one of the hated Death Eaters managed to easily escape justice, and banal envy of Lucius's wealth and influence, so huge that he only had to bribe a few Wizengamot officials to let go of what was essentially a war criminal!
Lucius Malfoy hated and despised the "blood traitor" Weasley for exactly the opposite. For the defeat, for the shameful trial of some paupers - and over whom?! Over him, the majestic and noble Malfoy! Which, moreover, continued with equally humiliating interrogations and searches in the following years - and this despite the fact that he had a wife, a small child at home, and, after all, business!
In general, it was the same mutual dissatisfaction with the war, as Sweet Tooth called it and which Ruffnut mentioned earlier. Many participants in this confrontation, on both sides, were dissatisfied with its results. Among them were Arthur Weasley and Lucius Malfoy, who continued to do nasty things to each other with enviable consistency to this day.
"Fools! Weaklings! Worthless!!" Ruffnut roared in Harry's head. "These bastards should have fought to the end! To the last man, woman, and child!"
"The Dark Lord is dead," Harry shrugged distantly.
"So, we had to storm the estate of Mordred's Lucius Malfoy, because Voldemort's protection was no longer there! Finish him off, tear him to pieces! And before that - lay out his pale wife and fuck her with the entire storm troop! Smash the head of his newborn son against the corner - and then shove his brains down his father's throat! So that this worthless thing would see what a weakling he was, since he hid behind the back of his fucking Lord!" - the demon of Khorne was filled with insane anger.
Harry shuddered and choked - the pictures Ruffnut painted in his mind were too vivid. But he did not stop the Khornate - after all, he was voicing what he felt through the warp. Something that hovered in the barely perceptible miasma of unformed thoughts and subconscious impulses in the Immaterium, unable to be embodied in reality - and therefore poured out into a latent hatred between two families, the heads of which saw in each other the quintessence of their troubles and the embodiment of the enemy ideology.
So the discontent that their children suddenly found a common language with each other was quite expected. True, to the displeasure of the same Ruffnut, Ron and Draco's fathers turned out to be quite civilized people - and therefore no particularly radical punishments followed for the boys. Weasley generally wrote that his father conducted the conversation with him very carefully, if not to say hesitantly. As if he was trying to find out whether "little Ronniekins" had fallen into bad company, whether he had been forced.
At first glance, it sounded funny. But, on the other hand, it was expected: the father of the family
Weasley simply couldn't believe that his son was friends with Draco Malfoy - the son of that very Malfoy!
What Lucius was thinking was still unknown. But it was unlikely that his reaction would have been much different from that of Weasley.
So, these were the "expected" problems of Ron and Draco. As for the "unexpected" ones, they came... drum roll... from the McLaggen family! Who, unexpectedly for everyone, filed a lawsuit against the Weasley and Malfoy families!
But this moment was described in much more detail and circumstantial manner in Draco's letters. And it turned out that this claim was more likely to hit not the two of them, but Dumbledore, as the headmaster of the school! After all, it was within its walls that a "gangster den was organized, where money was extracted from students by fraud" and in the corridors of which "juvenile delinquents attack defenseless schoolchildren"!
Harry, his eyes wide with amazement, read the gibberish that the younger Malfoy was retelling from his father, who, in turn, had read it in an official notice from the Ministry of Magic.
Looking at the date of the letter, the boy experienced a second fit of burning anger towards Dobby: it was dated three weeks earlier, meaning that all the interesting events had either already happened or were about to happen. Still, Mordred's house-elf got off easy - he needed to figure out later how to make him regret his "attempt to save" Harry Potter more than once or twice!
With difficulty suppressing the rage that rose in his soul, he returned to the rest of the letters. And only at midnight was he distracted by the mocking snort of Sweetie in his head:
"By the way. Happy Birthday, Harry!" he sang.
- Oh. That's true, - the boy answered, rubbing his eyes tiredly. He had read almost all the letters from Ron and Draco, starting to read Hermione's messages. - And I still need to write the answers... - he drawled.
"We'd better hurry with that ," nodded the Smarty. "Otherwise the Weasley twins will really show up at Yew Flat in a flying car, as Ronald claims... That's just in time!" he suddenly perked up. "It would be nice to dig into that mechanism. I wonder what was used to enchant the machine?"
"But in your world there were no problems with bewitching technology and even upgrading it with the help of witchcraft?" Harry said with interest, shaking off his sleepiness a little.
Indeed, the spirit-advisers often showed him visions of terrible mechanisms, warped by Chaos, given new properties and even - sometimes - something like their own evil will. Only those machines had come into contact with the warp and were subjected to deliberate sorcery. Here...
"We need to look at the subject ," drawled the Smart Guy. "What kind of magic is this, what kind of car is this, what's with its Machine Spirit..."
"The Spirit of the Machine?" Harry asked curiously.
"Yes ," the Tzeentchite confirmed. "Here, in a world closed to the warp, there are not many Machine Spirits - but they are there, that's for sure! Even if they are weak ," he clarified. "And in the enchanted machine, the Gods themselves ordered one of them to reside."
The boy nodded, taking the information into consideration. It would indeed be interesting to delve into the insides of the Weasley car. Who knew what he might find?
Harry sighed wearily and looked at the remaining letters. Then he drew some energy from the warp to drive away sleep and wake himself up. Before, he had done this almost unconsciously, through the voices in his head. But now that the Undivided had accepted Potter as one of its own, he could do it himself.
The boy's green eyes blazed ominously in the darkness, after which he began to sort through the newly found letters with redoubled zeal, while simultaneously choosing the words to answer all his friends...
South Helens. An unmarked high-rise on the outskirts.
Megan stood naked on the balcony and smoked. Minute after minute, cigarette after cigarette, not caring if anyone saw her. Firstly, there was another apartment building on that side of the building. And secondly, it was now four in the morning – dawn was just breaking.
However, the black clouds that had filled the sky since yesterday showed no sign of dispersing, and so the dawn was "flaring up" very, very slowly. Add to this the dense development, and it becomes clear that in the resulting darkness, hardly anyone would be able to see the naked breasts of the policewoman, who was leaning against the edge of the balcony and distantly enjoying the light breeze blowing on her naked skin, heated by a night of unrestrained sex.
Yeah, sex...
Megan closed her eyes tiredly and threw her head back, letting out a stream of smoke. She hadn't felt so good – truly, honestly, so good – for a long time! As if some annoying rod, an aching splinter, had been removed from her. As if after sitting in an uncomfortable position for a long time she could finally stretch out her legs with pleasure. As if…
She could come up with comparisons endlessly. But as soon as her thoughts tried to jump off this lazy sorting of synonyms for her current state to something more practical, her brain categorically refused to work. For the first time in a very, very long time, she did not want to run anywhere, do anything, decide or figure anything out. And she did not want to think either.
For the first time in her life, she was satisfied . Completely, to the bottom, from the top of her head to the tips of her fingers - everything was filled with this state of contentment ! A state that washed away accumulated fatigue and stress: both physical and psychological.
Taking a final drag with undisguised pleasure, Megan snapped her fingers and sent the cigarette flying off the balcony, stretching like a contented cat as she returned to the room. To where her lover was curled up and sleeping soundly under a thin blanket on the sagging fold-out sofa.
Rubbing the bridge of her nose, the policewoman thought that pleasure was pleasure, but she still needed to somehow concentrate and collect her thoughts. The understanding was pounding in her head that what had happened was abnormal! It couldn't be that she went to the dump on her day off to visit the local weirdos from a strange sect - and then woke up in a small apartment on the outskirts of town in the arms of a prostitute hired by no one knows who. With whom she then tumbled like crazy all night!
Although, ten years without a hint of any relationship or even just casual sex would be enough to screw anyone up. And yet, there were still a lot of questions…
Gradually, the state of relaxed, thoughtless bliss began to give way to the habits of a police officer. Sitting on the edge of the unfolded sofa, trying not to wake her sleeping lover, Megan thought.
What was the last thing she remembered before waking up with this... Helen, I think?
Of course, she could have imagined it or even dreamed it - but she clearly remembered the boy. Exactly, a boy who looked about fourteen years old*, with jet-black hair down to his shoulders, amazingly green eyes, snow-white skin and an angelically beautiful face.
She frowned and shook her head.
"I guess I really imagined it," the policewoman thought, trying to make out her clothes in the darkness of the apartment. "Sexual frustration really does play tricks on a person – I'm already starting to imagine black-haired angels with the devilish gaze of emerald eyes. Okay, sleeping with a woman is still okay," Megan glanced sideways at Helen, who was snoring next to her. "But fantasizing about cute little boys is beyond the pale..."
Here the shaved girl under the blanket began to stir and moaned dully:
- Baby, go to bed. It's so early - where did you jump up to?
Megan was about to say something, but at the last moment she changed her mind. She remembered that she had a legal weekend, which for once she could devote to herself and only herself.
"To hell with it all!" the woman said decisively to herself, ducked under her lover's side and closed her eyes. Whatever all this meant, she would think about it tomorrow. That is, today - but definitely after she had had some sleep.
"Honestly, baby, you're just fire," Helen said with a snort and a cheeky voice, slowly getting dressed. "I haven't had such a hot night in a long time - and believe me, I know what I'm talking about!"
Megan didn't answer, lying on the couch and smoking another cigarette - this time she didn't even go out onto the balcony. Her gaze was fixed on something she hadn't noticed before in the darkness.
She got tattoos!
"Where did this come from?" she suddenly said sullenly, lifting one of her breasts.
- Ha-ha! - the prostitute stuck out her tongue and chuckled. - Well, I don't know, my friend. Maybe it's heredity from my mom and dad. Maybe it's from God and Mother Nature. Or maybe I just drank a lot of milk as a child - my mother told me that this can also make my boobs grow like that...
"That's not what I mean," the woman answered sullenly. "But this!" and, poking her finger at the symbol tattooed right around the nipple, she ran her palm along a path of other, smaller symbols that went straight down to her crotch. Where, slightly under her pubic hair, there was the same sign as on her boobs.
- Hey, friend, - Helen looked at her in surprise - she was sitting with a cracked mirror in her hands and trying to renew her makeup. - How should I know where and why you got your tattoos? Besides, they've clearly been on you for a long time. Look, - she nodded at Megan's pubis, licking her lips, - even hair has managed to grow on them.
The woman blinked several times, staring blankly at her own crotch. She had already asked Helen what day it was, which meant that she had passed out in Reverend Andy's "temple" yesterday. How could she...
"And Andy..." She latched onto the first name that came to mind. "Did Andy say anything about, uh... this?" She looked up at the prostitute, desperately hoping to understand what had happened. And was still happening. "I got it right - you're that creepy saint's girlfriend, right?"
- Yeah, something like that, - Helen responded indifferently. - Only after he became a "saint", as you say, I'm not his "girlfriend" anymore, - she snorted. - He went completely nuts with his pilgrimage - he covers himself in shit and doesn't wash, like a fucking holy hermit. And he has no money, - she grimaced. - It's a shame, of course, - she sighed suddenly. - He and Martin were the only normal guys in our area. I even gave Andy a couple of times for free - he was cute... he was, - Helen clarified.
"Wait a minute," Megan pinched the bridge of her nose. "What do you mean, no money? And how did he hire you then? Why is also a question, but without money…"
- So it wasn't him who hired me, - the girl was surprised. - He only said that in his apartment a man in my... "help" needed, - she grinned. - And your nephew gave me the money!
- Nephew? - Megan stopped understanding anything again.
"Well, yeah," Helen shrugged, continuing to try to fix her makeup. "The kid is so cute. About fourteen, hair just like Snow White's, black. His face is a real angel! And his green eyes are just amazing! If he were a little older, I'd lick him all over…"
Megan wasn't listening anymore. Her head was surprisingly empty. Only one thought was beating in her head:
"It wasn't my imagination!... It wasn't my imagination!!... It wasn't my imagination!!! "...
Potter again.
Someone will remember the saying that visiting is nice, but home is better. And then he will get punched in the face by Harry James Potter! Because in his case this saying worked exactly the opposite.
After he finally wrote to his friends and described (without much detail, however) the reason for his silence - the Weasley twins finally gave up their crazy idea to fly in their father's car to rescue Potter. But, having correctly understood a couple of hints that Harry left in a letter to Ron, he was still invited to the Burrow - the Weasley family home!
He arranged to meet near the Little Whinging railway station, away from the Dursleys' house, so that the inhabitants of their respectable area would not see anything out of the ordinary. For example, extravagantly dressed girls in nightgowns and rubber boots!
No, back then, a year ago at King's Cross station, Weasley had been cast a Muggle-repelling charm, he knew that. But you never know! According to Ron's stories, his father Arthur - and it was he who was supposed to meet Harry by car - was an enthusiastic and sometimes absent-minded person. So who knows: he might start to loudly marvel at some Muggle reality in the middle of Privet Drive, in front of the neighbors - while forgetting to cast a disguise. Harry shuddered at such a picture!
Although…
He chuckled and shook his head. Someday he would do something like that - he really wanted to see the look on his aunt's face when the neighbors saw her in the company of crazy people ! But not today.
Arthur was very glad to meet Harry! He didn't even need to say it - and he repeated it five times - it was all clear anyway. Only a person who is really very pleased to meet someone can smile so widely and sincerely, shake their hand so long.
Harry and Ron came to meet Arthur together - as the main inviting party. They patted each other on the shoulders, said hello and sat down in the back of the car - and the car started moving.
"A Ford Anglia ," Smart Guy informed everyone. "Its most famous model is the 105E. It was produced in the 60s, so Weasley was clearly buying a used car."
"For a used car, it's in pretty good condition ," Slastyona chuckled.
"Why are we going anywhere at all?" Dobryak began whining again, just like he had several hours before. "We took off, rushed off in an unknown direction – what's all the fuss about? Wouldn't it have been better to wait out the summer quietly, finish our current affairs..."
"Yeah, dragging myself to that dump again, listening to the mutterings of that sad saint and his dirty hangers-on ," snorted Sweet Tooth. "And here - adventures, games, entertainment! Forward - the wind in your face-o!" he sang a phrase from some song that Harry didn't know.
"Your pathetic attempts at intrigue make me laugh, rotten thing ," Smart Guy chuckled arrogantly. "To hint so crudely that you just want to hang out with Nergal's cultists is ridiculous!"
"We finally got our asses off the bed and started doing something!" Ruffnut growled approvingly. "So those two brats are right - shut your mouth, rotten, before I shut it for you!"
The good man snorted resentfully, but nevertheless stopped whining. Which greatly pleased both Harry and the other spirits.
The whole way Arthur Weasley asked about literally everything around him, joyfully pointing his finger in different directions. He would be surprised by a construction crane, a fuel tanker, or delighted by a police siren - when he found out what "police" was and why they had sirens, for some reason he burst out laughing!
They also chatted with Ron on the way - mostly about how they were spending their summer, Quidditch and... well, chess, of course! However, another topic was the McLaggens and their ridiculous lawsuit.
"Oh, don't worry, Harry," said Mr. Weasley, suddenly losing all his humor. "We've settled the matter... in a certain way."
For some reason, Arthur's tone was very dissatisfied. Although, it would seem, one should be glad that Mordred's McLaggens, not the richest, but still an influential family of wizards, did not drag the Weasleys through the courts and did not force them to pay fines - for the red-haired family's budget, which was not particularly thick anyway - this would have been catastrophic!
However, Harry suspected that the reason for the elder Weasley's discontent was Lucius Malfoy. Surely the blond lord had not only personally solved all the problems with the McLaggens, using his authority and banal bribery, but had also trampled on Arthur's pride and self-esteem. Who, for obvious reasons, could not afford Malfoy's methods.
But these were purely Arthur Weasley's own problems - it was enough for Harry that his friends would no longer be accused of anything and that there was no need to worry about them.
His thoughts shifted from his two male friends to the fourth member of their small circle of friends, Hermione.
Granger, fulfilling Harry's request, did not use any warp magic practices on her own. Well, at least that's what she wrote. Moreover, she seriously took up catching up on the Muggle sciences she had missed during the year at Hogwarts, putting everything magical aside. Well, most of it, to be more precise...
Hermione wrote that the development of the mind, allowing her to do several things at once, analyze the present and partially predict the future, is going great for her! So her parents, who were already incredibly proud of their clever daughter, were now completely stunned, admitting that "this magic is also useful." Because their twelve-year-old daughter mastered not only the entire first-grade curriculum of secondary school in one month, but also took on the second!
Harry smiled broadly, reading the joyful and proud lines from his friend's letters, and was sincerely happy for the girl. And on the other hand, he was simultaneously calculating how much this all benefited him.
Meanwhile, the blue Ford drove out of Little Whinging, on the opposite side of the highway that led to South Helens. At some point, a strange veil descended on the car...
"Invisibility?" Smarty exclaimed, somehow even happily. "Amazing! Although, ordinary disillusionment charms built into some artifact..."
Harry didn't listen to the Tzeentchite's muttering any further. Because as soon as they became invisible, the machine took off!
- Wow! - the boy exclaimed admiringly. - You are full of surprises, Mr. Weasley!
"Um..." the man looked slightly embarrassed. "Well, nothing special, really. Just... can I ask?" he turned slightly to the boys. "Could you please... not tell Molly about this? Or," he swallowed, "anyone."
Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise, and Ron chuckled knowingly. Potter made a mental note to ask his friend about this later.
And after only twenty minutes of flight, they dived down onto a country road, not far from a road sign with the name of the village: Ottery St Catchpole.
"We left by the northern road and landed on the south coast of England ," Sweet Tooth muttered thoughtfully. "Arthur is clearly covering his tracks."
"Something's wrong with his machine," Harry concluded. "I think there was something in the books we read about enchanting Muggle machines and the Statute of Secrecy, but I can't remember what it was."
"Enchanting Muggle mechanisms is illegal, except in certain cases. Three to five years in Azkaban ," commented Smarty. "So you can understand this Weasley: a decent gentleman and respectable father of a family certainly doesn't want to end up in the slammer!"
"A risky hobby ," Slastyona chuckled. "This 'respectable father of the family' looks more like an adrenaline-addicted adventurer!"
Harry chuckled but said nothing.
Meanwhile, the "adrenaline-addicted adventurer" turned onto a side road leading…
To the house. Or to a jumble of houses, walls, roofs and rafters - that was more like a reliable description of a strange structure.
"Welcome to the Burrow!" Arthur Weasley announced solemnly.
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