Leaving Part 3
Harry grunted as he recovered from the beating.
Vernon had been in a particularly horrible mood today and decided to take it out on him.
He finally had enough.
He was beaten, bruised and felt completely alone, his only comfort was reading all the letters that had been sent to him.
In the middle of the night, he finally unlocked Hedwig's cage with wandless magic, small enough to be overlooked by the trace.
"He wrote,
'Dear Delphinus,
How have you been doing?
I'm sorry for not answering your letters, but my Uncle had Hedwig's cage locked and I wasn't allowed to.
But I'm tired of it.
Is your invitation to live with you for the rest of the summer still open?
I just want to get out of here, please.
Love,
Aelurus.'
He tied it to Hedwig, who seemed to have realised how important this was and was completely still and silent.
Hedwig soared out of the window, going farther and farther away, till she could no longer be seen
The room was growing dark. Exhausted, stomach rumbling, his head spinning and dizzy, Harry fell into an uneasy sleep.
He dreamed that he was on show in a zoo, with a card reading UNDERAGE WIZARD attached to his cage.
People goggled through the bars at him as he lay, starving and weak, on a bed of straw.
He saw Dobby's face in the crowd and shouted out, asking for help, but Dobby called, "Harry Potter is safe there, sir!" and vanished.
Then the Dursleys appeared and Dudley rattled the bars of the cage, laughing at him.
"Stop it," Harry muttered as the rattling pounded in his sore head. "Leave me alone... cut it out... I'm trying to sleep..."
He opened his eyes. Moonlight was shining through the bars on the window.
And someone was goggling through the bars at him: a freckle-faced, red-haired, long-nosed someone.
Ron Weasley was outside Harry's window.
"Ron." breathed Harry, 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.
Smiling lopsidedly at Harry from the driver's seat was Hermione, in the back seats were Crystalline and Ron.
Hedwig was soaring next to them, a triumphant gleam in her amber eyes.
"Hop on, brother, this seat is all yours", said Hermione, pointing to the other front seat.
"But my trunk, my wand are all locked up in the cupboard under the stairs."
"Leave that to us", Ron and Crystalline leapt into the room.
"Watch out for the bottom stair. It creaks", he mouthed to them.
He fetched his money pouch from the loose floorboard. It contained 2057 pounds.
He tossed it to Hermione, who caught it.
Ron and Crystalline were back, Ron was carrying his trunk while Crystalline was holding onto his wand.
"Here", she handed it to him while Ron pushed his trunk into the boot.
"We're leaving", said Hermione.
"To the Burrow", Harry asked.
"To the burrow", Ron confirmed.