To change the future

COS-4

"Ron!" breathed Harry, waking Jason up and the two began creeping to the window and pushing it up so they could talk through the bars. "Ron, how did you—What the—?"

Harry's mouth fell open as the full impact of what he was seeing hit him. Ron was leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car, which was parked in midair. Grinning at Harry from the front seats were Fred and George, Ron's elder twin brothers.

"All right, Harry?" asked George.

"First a flying Motorcycle and now a flying car, we need to step up our game." Clint says

"What's been going on?" said Ron. "Why haven't you guys been answering my letters? I've asked you two to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you'd both got an official warning for using magic in front of Muggles—"

"It wasn't me—and how did he know?"

"He works for the Ministry," said Ron. "You know we're not supposed to do spells outside school—"

"You should talk," said Harry, staring at the floating car.

"Oh, this doesn't count," said Ron. "We're only borrowing this. It's Dad's, we didn't enchant it. But doing magic in front of those Muggles you live with—"

Molly gave Arthur a dirty look at the reminder of the car

"Isn't that the same car from the beginning of the school year?" Flitwick asks Jason who nods in confirmation

"I told you, we didn't—but it'll take too long to explain now—look, can you tell them at Hogwarts that the Dursleys have locked us up and won't let us come back, and obviously we can't magic ourselvesself out, because the Ministry'll think that's the second spell we've done in three days, so—"

"Stop gibbering," said Ron. "We've come to take you two home with us."

Applause rang out throughout the room as Ron blushed

"But you can't magic us out either—"

"We don't need to," said Ron, jerking his head toward the front seat and grinning. "You forget who I've got with me."

"Tie that around the bars," said Fred, throwing the end of a rope to Jason.

"If the Dursleys wake up, we're dead," said Harry as he tied the rope tightly around a bar and Fred revved up the car.

"Don't worry," said Fred, "and stand back."

Harry and Jason moved back into the shadows next to Hedwig, Apopsis and Shadow, who seemed to have realized how important this was and kept still and silent. The car revved louder and louder and suddenly, with a crunching noise, the bars were pulled clean out of the window as Fred drove straight up in the air. Harry and Jason ran back to the window to see the bars dangling a few feet above the ground. Panting, Ron hoisted them up into the car. Harry listened anxiously, but there was no sound from the Dursleys' bedroom.

"That didn't wake them up yet the owls somehow did." Jason grumbles

When the bars were safely in the back seat with Ron, Fred reversed as close as possible to Harry and Jason's window.

"Get in," Ron said.

"But all our Hogwarts stuff our wands—my broomstick—"

"Where is it?"

"Locked in the cupboard under the stairs, and I can't get out of this room—"

"No problem," said George from the front passenger seat. "Out of the way, you two."