Harry was itching to visit Hagrid, but he'd for some reason been absent from Hogwarts ever since the start of term, so he pottered down the corridor with no motivation to go anywhere besides the boys' dormitory in Gryffindor Tower. He turned a corner and met a mildly shocking sight.
There was a large, scarlet, modern-looking car in the middle of the corridor. It was so sleek and lavish that not even Uncle Vernon would have the vocabulary to insult it. Harry had seen wizards drive cars before, mainly those the Ministry had lent Mr. Weasley to transport him safely to platform nine and three quarters. But those cars were outdated and in less than half the condition this one was. What could it be doing inside of Hogwarts?
"Hello, Harry Potter Sir!" Harry started. The front window had begun to roll down, and a long nose poked out of the crack above the glass.
"Dobby!" Harry exclaimed. "Where did you get this car?"
"Would Harry Potter like Dobby to transport him to his desired location?"
"What?"
"Get in, Sir! Get in!" Harry made his way to the passenger door, opened it, and sat down in an unexpectedly warm leather seat. The interior smelled of celery, and when Dobby turned the car on, opera music blasted from the speakers making Harry jump.
He noticed Dobby was sporting an oversized, neon vest which hung down to expose his bare chest, a black pair child's corduroy shorts, and a green-and-black striped sock on his left foot contrasting against the plain pink one on his right. He also wore a black, cylinder-shaped hat that looked as though it belonged to a train conductor and had slits cut out on each side for his ears.
There was a small pouch in the car's cup holder with the words, "a galleon a ride!" scribbled onto it in blue ink. Harry reached for his bag which he'd placed by his feet and began rummaging for coins.
"Oh no need, Sir! No need!" shrieked Dobby eyeing the gold in Harry's hand. "Dobby is honored to drive Harry Potter where he is wanting to go!"
"But it looks like everyone else paid you," he remarked as he prodded the pouch, and the coins it held clinked together.
"Yes Sir, but Harry Potter has already given Dobby more than he could possibly ask for..."
"That's alright, Dobby." Harry dropped three galleons into the pouch and watched the elf's large tennis-ball-shaped eyes glisten with tears.
"So selfless... So generous..." — Dobby let out a wail — "How could D-D-Dobby ever repay Harry P-P-Potter?"
"You could take me to Gryffindor Tower."
"Oh yes, of course Sir! Of course!"
Dobby pressed a button on the dashboard, and the roof above them rose and contracted at the back of the car allowing Dobby's opera music to bounce freely off of the corridor walls. He turned the wheel, and the car began moving at an astoundingly low speed considering its modish appearance.
"Does this car go any faster!" Harry asked irritably over the music.
"Yes Sir," Dobby replied, but the car's speed didn't increase; if anything, it rolled slower. They couldn't have been moving any faster than five miles an hour which annoyed Harry very much. He noticed that Dobby's feet barely reached the end of his seat let alone the pedals, so he assumed the car must've been moving on its own the way many other inanimate objects in the wizarding world did.
Minutes passed in silence (except for the opera music which was beginning to stir Harry even more so than the obnoxiously slow rate they were moving at) until a large group of Hufflepuffs emerged from the direction of the Defense Against the Dark Arts tower. Harry felt heat rise in his cheeks, for the last thing he needed was to be spotted riding around the corridors in a convertible with a house-elf less than an hour after making the reckless attempt to ask out Pansy Parkison.
