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[ chamber of secrets ]
MAYA HAD PRACTICALLY RUN UP TO THE GATE. "Ron, Harry," she breathed, unable to stop smiling as the two stared right back. "How did you both━? How are you here?"
She finally took note of the car lights and squinted to try and see who was in the driver's seat, but they suddenly turned off and Fred and George's head peaked out from the car windows.
"All right, Maya?" George asked.
"What's been going on?" Ron asked. "Why haven't you been answering our letters? I've asked you to stay about twelve times, and then Dad came home and said you'd 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," Ron explained. "You know we're not supposed to do spells outside school━"
"Can you tell them at Hogwarts that Madam's put bars all around this stupid place and have locked me and Priya up and won't let me come back, and obviously I can't magic myself out, because the Ministry'll think that's the second spell I've done in three days, so━"
"Stop gibbering," Harry said, waving his hand. "We've come to take you home with us."
"But neither of you can magic me out either━"
"We don't need to," Ron, jerking his head toward the front seat and grinning, said. "You forget who I've got with me."
"Tie that around the bars," Fred said, throwing the end of a rope to Maya.
"If Madam wakes up, I'm dead," Maya said as she tied the rope tightly around a bar and Fred revved up the car.
"Don't worry," Fred said, "and stand back."
Maya moved back her boots getting even more dirty and splashing the mud onto her white nightgown. The car revved louder and louder and suddenly, with a crunching noise, the gates burst open as Fred drove into the darkness. Maya looked back and saw that the light in the window of Madam's room hadn't turned on.
Fred reversed into only the front of the huge gates surrounding the orphanage.
