Harry Potter 02 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry’s T-shirt was sticking to the back of his seat and his glasses kept sliding down to the end of his sweaty nose. He had stopped noticing the fantastic cloud shapes now, and was thinking longingly of the train miles below, where you could buy ice-cold pumpkin juice from a trolley pushed by a plump witch. Why hadn’t they been able to get onto platform nine and three-quarters?
    ‘Can’t be much further, can it?’ croaked Ron, hours later still, as the sun started to sink into their floor of cloud, staining it a deep pink. ‘Ready for another check on the train?’
    It was still right below them, winding its way past a snow-capped mountain. It was much darker beneath the canopy of clouds.
    Ron put his foot on the accelerator and drove them upwards again, but as he did so, the engine began to whine.
    Harry and Ron exchanged nervous glances.
    ‘It’s probably just tired,’ said Ron. ‘It’s never been this far before …’
    And they both pretended not to notice the whining growing louder and louder as the sky became steadily darker. Stars were blossoming in the blackness. Harry pulled his jumper back on, trying to ignore the way the windscreen wipers were now waving feebly, as though in protest.
    ‘Not far,’ said Ron, more to the car than to Harry, ‘not far now,’ and he patted the dashboard nervously.
    When they flew back beneath the clouds a little while later, they had to squint through the darkness for a landmark they knew.
    ‘There!’ Harry shouted, making Ron and Hedwig jump. ‘Straight ahead!’
    Silhouetted on the dark horizon, high on the cliff over the lake, stood the many turrets and towers of Hogwarts castle.
    But the car had begun to shudder and was losing speed.
    ‘Come on,’ Ron said cajolingly, giving the steering wheel a little shake, ‘nearly there, come on –’
    The engine groaned. Narrow jets of steam were issuing from under the bonnet. Harry found himself gripping the edges of his seat very hard as they flew towards the lake.
    The car gave a nasty wobble. Glancing out of his window, Harry saw the smooth, black, glassy surface of the water, a mile below. Ron’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. The car wobbled again.
    ‘Come on, ’ Ron muttered.
    They were over the lake … the castle was right ahead … Ron put his foot down.
    There was a loud clunk, a splutter, and the engine died completely.
    ‘Uh oh,’ said Ron, into the silence.
    The nose of the car dropped. They were falling, gathering speed, heading straight for the solid castle wall.
    ‘Noooooo!’ Ron yelled, swinging the steering wheel around; they missed the dark stone wall by inches as the car turned in a great arc, soaring over the dark greenhouses, then the vegetable patch and then out over the black lawns, losing height all the time.
    Ron let go of the steering wheel completely and pulled his wand out of his back pocket.
    ‘STOP! STOP!’ he yelled, whacking the dashboard and the windscreen, but they were still plummeting, the ground flying up towards them …
    ‘MIND THAT TREE!’ Harry bellowed, lunging for the steering wheel, but too late –
    CRUNCH.
    With an ear-splitting bang of metal on wood, they hit the thick tree trunk and dropped to the ground with a heavy jolt. Steam was billowing from under the crumpled bonnet; Hedwig was shrieking in terror, a golf-ball-sized lump was throbbing on Harry’s head where he had hit the windscreen, and to his right, Ron let out a low, despairing groan.
    ‘Are you OK?’ Harry said urgently.
    ‘My wand,’ said Ron, in a shaky voice. ‘Look at my wand.’
    It had snapped, almost in two; the tip was dangling limply, held on by a few splinters.
    Harry opened his mouth to say he was sure they’d be able to mend it up at the school, but he never even got started. At that very moment, something hit his side of the car with the force of a charging bull, sending him lurching sideways into Ron, just as an equally heavy blow hit the roof.
    ‘What’s happen–?’
    Ron gasped, staring through the windscreen, and Harry looked around just in time to see a branch as thick as a python smash into it. The tree they had hit was attacking them. Its trunk was bent almost double, and its gnarled boughs were pummelling every inch of the car it could reach.
    ‘Aaargh!’ said Ron, as another twisted limb punched a large dent into his door; the windscreen was now trembling under a hail of blows from knuckle-like twigs and a branch as thick as a battering ram was