Ron-Weasly book 2. part 3

"This is too much!" I exclaimed. "Let's get out of here!"

I put my whole body against the door, but a powerful uppercut threw me into Harry's lap.

Another huge branch hit the ceiling of the car with a deafening roar. The damn tree. How long will the enchantment on the car last?

"We're lost." I was ready to cry. The car suddenly began to vibrate, and the engine turned on by itself. Well, thank God.

"Reverse gear!" Harry shouted, and the car jerked back. Damn, did her father make her a controlling personality like a golem? What the fuck? And the willow tree kept trying to reach the offenders with snake branches.: We could hear its roots cracking. The brawler almost tore herself out of the ground, wanting revenge.

"We were on the verge of death." I said, barely catching my breath. "Well done, Ford!"

Ford, however, seemed to have run out of patience. With an indignant clang, both doors flew open, the seats threw us to the sides, and we fell flat to the ground. A loud knock from behind announced that the car had emptied our suitcases out of the trunk. Hedwig's cage flew overhead. The door opened, and Hedwig broke free. Making long, angry screams, the bird flew smoothly towards the school. And the scratched Ford, emitting steam, rumbled into the darkness, expressing the strongest indignation with the red lights of the taillights.

"Come back!" I shouted after him. "Come back! My mother will kill me!" My father will be more forgiving. But Mom can even take up the rod.

But the Ford, with a final snort of exhaust, disappeared into the darkness.

"We were really unlucky," I said dejectedly, and bent down to pick up the rat Skabers.

"Wow! Of all the trees here, crash into the one that fights back!" And I turned back, glancing at the old weeping willow-it was still waving its branches vindictively. But I still have to write home about a runaway car and a broken wand. The parents will be furious. Especially Mom. She generally gets turned on quickly, just like her sister.

"Yeah, bad luck," said Harry unhappily. "Let's go straight to school."

I put on my jacket. And he went with Harry to the entrance to the castle. The return was not at all as victorious as it seemed. Exhausted, stiff, and bruised, we grabbed our suitcases by the handles and trudged up the hill to the huge oak doors of the school. It's good that our suitcases are enchanted, and weight relief makes them much lighter at Hogwarts than in the ordinary world.

"The grand opening is probably already underway," I said, dropping my suitcase at the front stairs. He quietly approached the brightly lit window and looked inside.

"Come here, Harry," I called. "The distribution has already started!"

Harry came over and we watched the ceremony taking place in the Great Hall. I kept looking for my little sister. Will she get into Gryffindor or will she go to her friend Luna in Ravenclaw?

A multitude of burning candles hovered over four long set tables, making the golden dishes and goblets sparkle and shimmer with all the colors of the rainbow. And above the candles all over the ceiling-its magical property was that it mirrored the state of the sky-the familiar constellations burned brightly.

Through the forest of black pointed hats, I could make out a long line of terrified freshmen entering the hall one by one. Ginny was one of them. I recognized her immediately by the bright red hair that distinguished our whole family. Like Ginny and Bill, I was the owner of fiery red hair, like all the Pruits. And the rest went to take after Dad. Professor McGonagall, a bespectacled witch with a tight knot of hair at the back of her head, was putting the famous Hat on a stool, distributing the newcomers to the faculties.

At the beginning of each school year, this ancient Hat, dirty and full of patches, whispered to the new students who would study in which of the four houses (Gryffindor, Halfpuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin). I remembered well how exactly one year ago I put on this Hat and waited with bated breath for the decision of my fate. And of course he got into Gryffindor. Last year, Harry and I helped our house win an inter-house competition. Slytherin was left behind for the first time in seven years. Although Malfoy told me before he left that we were crooks. They say we were awarded unfairly. To which I told him that our dean had taken away 150 points from our faculty, which was also unfair.

A little boy with mouse-colored hair came up to the stool with a Hat. Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, was overseeing the distribution from his seat at the faculty banquet table. His white beard was silvery, and the lenses of his half-glasses glittered from the wavering flames of hundreds of candles. Gilderoy Lockhart was sitting a few seats away from him, wearing an aquamarine raincoat. And the very end of the table was decorated with the mighty figure of the hairy forester Hagrid.

"Look," Harry whispered to me. "There's an empty seat at the teacher's desk. There is no Snape. I wonder where he is."

Professor Severus Snape was his least favorite teacher. And Harry wasn't one of his favorites, either. The tough, sarcastic Snape taught potions at school; the professor was revered only by students of his own Slytherin department. Whom he always protected in conflicts with other teachers.

"Maybe he's sick," I suggested hopefully.

"Or maybe he's completely gone? Because he didn't get the defense against the dark arts teaching position again?"

"Or maybe he was kicked out?" I said enthusiastically. "Everyone can't stand him...."

"Or maybe," said an icy voice from behind, "he's standing right now waiting for you two to tell him why you didn't take the train back to school."

I turned around. Severus Snape himself stood two steps away, his black robes billowing in the wind. He was very thin, with a yellowish-gray face and a hooked nose; Her black hair, oiled with a special compound, fell over her shoulders. When I saw his smile, I realized that Harry and I were in big trouble.

"Follow me!" ordered the formidable professor.

Not daring to look at each other, we followed him up the steps and entered a huge hall, where the slightest sound echoed loudly.

The hall was illuminated by the flames of torches. Delicious smells wafted in from the Great Hall, but Snape led us away from the warmth and light and down a narrow stone staircase leading to the dungeons.

"Come in." He opened the door on the first landing.

Shivering from the cold, we found ourselves in Severus Snape's office. The empty, cold fireplace did not promise a pleasant conversation. In the semi-darkness, I could make out shelves along the walls lined with large glass jars, in which floated a hideous-looking incomprehensible thing that did not arouse the slightest curiosity in me, at least for now. Snape slammed the door shut and looked at his prisoners.

"So the train," he began in a low voice, "is not good enough for the famous Harry Potter and his faithful backup singer Ron Weasley. You want to show up to school with a bang, huh?"

"No, sir, it's the barrier at King's Cross Station...."

Harry began to defend himself.

"Shut up! So what did you do with this car?"

I sighed heavily. The professor opened today's issue of the Evening Prophet newspaper, and I understood what was going on.

"Muggles saw you," he hissed, pointing at the headline. "Muggles were amazed by a Ford Anglia flying in the sky," he began to read aloud. "Two Londoners claim to have seen an old Ford fly over the post office tower... at noon in Norfolk, Mrs. Hetty Bayliss was hanging laundry in the yard..." And there are six or seven such messages. If I'm not mistaken, your father works in the department of "Illegal use of Muggle inventions?" He turned to me, grinning maliciously. "No, just think... his own son..."

I wanted to swear dirty. What if they find out that my father enchanted this car? What will happen then? I wish I'd thought of that before!

"Looking around the park," Snape continued, "I discovered that significant damage had been done to the priceless Rattlesnake Willow, the rarest specimen of the subspecies of weeping willows."

"This Rattling Willow of yours has done much more damage to us!" I blurted out.

"Shut up!" Snape barked again. "To my great regret, you are not in my faculty, and I cannot expel you. But I'm going to go get those who have these lucky powers right now. In the meantime, you will wait here."

We turned pale and stared at each other in despair. I didn't feel hungry anymore. If Snape went after Professor McGonagall, the head of the Gryffindor faculty, don't expect any relief. She is, of course, a more fair person than Snape, but she is also very strict.

Ten minutes later, Snape returned, and, of course, accompanied by Professor McGonagall. I've seen her angry once, but either I've forgotten how thin her lips can be when she's angry, or she's never been so angry in front of my eyes. When she entered the office, she immediately waved her magic wand, we recoiled in fear, but she only lit a fire in the fireplace, which immediately hummed encouragingly.

"Sit down," she suggested.

We both sat down on chairs closer to the fire.

"Now tell me!" McGonagall demanded, her glasses glinting angrily.

And I began to describe our misadventures, starting with the barrier that refused to let us onto the magic platform.

"...we just had no other way out, Professor, we couldn't get on our train in any way."

"Why didn't you send a letter with an owl? You had an owl, didn't you?" The Professor looked at Harry sternly.

Harry lowered his head. Damn, I'm so used to the Arrow barely dragging. She would have been flying for a couple of days.

"I... I didn't think..."

"It's very clear."

There was a knock on the door, and Snape, beaming with happiness, unlocked it. The headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, entered the office.

I cringed into a ball. Dumbledore looked extremely serious. He looked at us with his hooked nose hanging down.

After a long silence, Dumbledore finally said:

"Please explain why you did that."

It would have been better if he had shouted at us, such disappointment sounded in his voice.

Harry described everything in detail, omitting one thing — that the enchanted car belongs to my father. According to his story, it turned out that we were lucky: there was a flying car in the station parking lot. Dumbledore didn't seem to believe him, even though he didn't ask anything. Finally, Harry finished the sad story — the headmaster continued to stare silently through his glasses at the pitiful defendants. Oh, we were unlucky. We've only been at Hogwarts for a year and we're getting kicked out. I hope Dad will put us in a simpler school to finish our studies.

"We'll go pack our things," I said very quietly.

"What are you talking about, Roland Weasley?" Professor McGonagall asked sternly.

"You want to expel us from school, don't you?"

Harry cast a quick glance at Dumbledore.

"Not today, Mr. Weasley," the headmaster replied. "But I'm giving you both one last warning. You have committed a very serious offense. I will write to your families today. And if this happens again, I will have to expel you."

The glee drained from Snape's face, as if he had heard that the Christmas holidays had been canceled. Clearing his throat, he turned to the director:

"Professor Dumbledore, these youngsters have violated the Law restricting Underage magic, caused serious damage to an old, very valuable willow tree... this act of vandalism..."

"It's up to Professor McGonagall to decide on their punishment," Dumbledore spoke calmly. "They study at her faculty, she is responsible for them. So I went to the banquet, Minerva," He turned to the learned lady. "We need to make some announcements. Come on, Severus. What a delicious cake awaits us!"

After giving Harry and me the look of a venomous snake, Snape followed the headmaster out of the office. We were left alone with Professor McGonagall, who looked at us with a stern but fair eye.

"You'd better go to the infirmary right now, Weasley, you've got a cut on your forehead that's bleeding."

"Not very much. Besides, everything grows on me quickly." I hurriedly wiped the scratch above my eye with my sleeve. "I would like to see, Professor, how my sister will be distributed."

"The distribution ceremony has already ended. Your sister got into Gryffindor too."

"Great!"

"And as for Gryffindor..." McGonagall began.

"Professor," Harry interrupted her, "when we got into that car, the semester at school hadn't started yet. So... I guess... they won't deduct points from Gryffindor?" Harry asked with concern.

Professor McGonagall looked at him intently, and it seemed to me that a smile touched her lips. Anyway, they weren't so thin anymore.

"No, I won't deduct any points from the faculty. But you will not be able to avoid punishment, you will do socially useful work after school."

A letter to parents. The Ford is gone. The wand is broken. The father is awaiting trial at work. Nightmare.

Professor McGonagall waved her wand over Snape's desk. And out of nowhere, a plate full of sandwiches and two silver cups of pumpkin juice appeared on it.

"Eat," she said, "and go to your bedroom. And I still have to go back to the banquet."

When the door slammed behind her, I whistled loudly and long.

"And I already decided — goodbye to school! We're going to finish our studies at the Welsh School as some kind of weaklings." I exclaimed and greedily grabbed a sandwich.

"And me too, are you sure they would have taken us there?" Harry followed my example.

"Half of the Weasley clan went to school there. We often have weak magicians. Dad's two older brothers graduated from that school. We attacked the sandwiches with hunger. Damn, I caught my mom's when Ford was throwing them away. I'll give it to Percy. He likes beef.

"Well, how unlucky we are!" I said, munching on a chicken sandwich. "Fred and George flew this Ford about five or six times, and not a single Muggle noticed. I swallowed and took another big bite. "But still, why couldn't we get to the platform through this barrier?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders.

"Now you have to weigh your every step." Harry said, happily sipping pumpkin juice from a silver goblet with ice floes floating in it. "It's a pity that we weren't allowed to attend the banquet.... It's my favorite treacle tart.

"She just decided to hide us from everyone," I suggested. "So that no one would say on a night like this: but still, it's cool to fly to school in a Ford!"

After eating to the brim — the plate was a self-made one — we left the office and went the familiar way to Gryffindor Tower. Everything was quiet in the castle, and the party was over. We walked past mumbling portraits, clanking knights' armor, climbed a narrow stone staircase, and finally reached a passage where there was a secret entrance to Gryffindor Tower, masked by a large portrait of a very plump lady in a pink silk dress.