pointed excitedly at it, “is the on/off and which is the tuner.”
Pressing the first button, while speaking ever so quietly in Arcanum, so quietly neither Box nor his mother or father had any idea that she was actually speaking, Harry watched the excited Muddle’s face as her wand switched on and the mixture of magic and electronics began working…
“What are you doing?” Box asked in a whisper.
“Performing,” she replied with a smile and a wink.”
“Performing? What do you mean?”
“Watch and learn,” she said, and with that she began waving her wand. It began playing a nice little tune.
“Holly, young Harry has cracked it, she’s got it working,” said Mr Privet, “I knew she would!”
“That’s nice, dear,” his wife replied, yawning, obviously not as interested in the ‘radio’ as her husband.
“What station is it on?” Mr Privet asked, leaning forward, hoping to see what Harry was doing with it.
“It’s not one you would know,” Harry replied, moving the wand that bit further away from him.
“Can I have a go, now?” he asked.
“Hmm, not just yet,” she replied. “There’s still one more thing that I want to show you…”
Leaning across the table, Mr Privet made a lunge for the wand, and grabbing it, snatching it right out of her hands, he said, “I don’t need to know anything else.” Waving it triumphantly, he nudged his wife, saying, “Look, look Holly, this newfangled radio is almost as good as that flying carpet I found.”
“That’s nice, dear,” she replied again, though ominously adding, “I do hope that you are able to turn it off, this time.”
The seeds of doubt having been sown, Mr Privet panicked, wondering how he might ever turn it off. Fumbling crazily with the small buttons, he began pressing them with wanton abandon.
“Stop. No,” Harry warned (thought not very loudly).
“Harry!” Box shrieked in alarm. “It’ll be a disaster; dad has no idea what he’s doing!”
“Then why did he take it?” she asked ever so calmly.
“You wanted him to take it – didn’t you?” he said, “You wanted him to mess up!”
Nodding, Harry replied, “He needed to learn a lesson…”
“A lesson, perhaps,” Box groaned. “But he might kill himself with in the process!”
Seeing his point, having no wish to see a repeat of Mr Privet’s earlier performance with her wand, Harry asked did he need a hand. A huge flame suddenly erupting, exploding from out of the end of the wand sent the poor man into a blind panic. Pointing it through the open window, he said, “Yes, Harry, I do need a hand. This radio has gone berserk again. Just look at it! All I wanted to do was turn it off! It’s crazy what atmospheric disturbances can do, it really is!”
Having regained control of her wand, Harry soon had the ‘atmospheric disturbances’ under control, ten offering Mr Privet another go, teasing him, she said, “Would you like another go? I am sure it will go right for you, this time.”
“No, no!” he replied, pushing it away. “I think I’ll stick with my old radiogram, in all the forty years that I have been using it, not one flame has ever shot out from it!”
“Well, I think it’s about time I was off,” said Harry, when she had finally managed to finish her cup of tea.
“You’re going?” Box asked, surprised to be hearing this.
“Yes, of course,” she replied. “You knew I only came here to lie low.”
“But that was before…now it’s all over…” his said, his voice petering off. Then ever so quietly, he asked, “Where will you go?”
Shrugging, she replied, “Don’t know – could be anywhere.”
“But…what about all the people...and animals from out the paintings that I made a promise to?”
“That’s your department,” she said. “You’ll think of a way to integrate them into this Muddle world of yours. In fact, I’m sure you’ll have a whale of a time, trying.”
“But…”
“No ifs or buts,” Harry warned. “It’s time I was off.” Bidding goodbye to his parents, she opened the door and made her way into the garden.
Unfolding her magical carpet on the neatly mown lawn, Harry sat cross-legged upon it. Delving a hand into her bag, she withdrew an object, an object that looked incredibly like a Philosopher’s Marble. “And anyhow,” she said, with a mischievous wink, “I do have this to experiment with…”
Where did you get THAT from?” Box asked, gawping at it in absolute surprise.
“I grabbed it, when Holdavort was trying to pull me into Hell. Ripped it out from his robes, I did. I reckon I deserve it, me being ‘The Keeper’, and all.” Then with a wave of her wand, she said, “Up, up and away.” Rising from the neatly cut lawn, the moth-eaten old carpet hovered a few inches above it.
“Is that it?” said Box. “You just fly off, disappearing over the horizon?”
“I suppose so…” she replied. “Unless…”
“Unless – what?”
“Unless…. you would like to come with me?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you berk, you!”
“But, but what about the people and animals from the paintings, that I promised to help?”
“We can always make a detour…”
“And mum and dad?”
Frowning, Harry said, “I draw the line at loopy parents!”
Looking in through the kitchen window, Box spied his parents, arm in arm, singing ‘Tiptoe through the Tulips,’ to their hearts content.
“Okay,” he agreed, “on condition that we come back, from time to time, to check that they are all right?”
“Okay, we’ll keep an eye on them,” Harry promised. “Now are you getting on or do I have to wait here all day?”
Stepping onto the moth-eaten old carpet, sitting cross-legged, grabbing hold of its timeworn, frayed edges, Box listened to his troublesome cousin, his wonderful cousin, as she said, “Up, up and away.” After rising vertically into the clear blue sky, the carpet circled the Privet household, and then speeding off at a tremendous rate of knots, it disappeared from sight over the horizon.
THE END?
Harry Rotter Page 41
