The August sunshine beat down upon the village high street, which was bustling with shoppers keen to get last minute supplies for their offspring to go to Hogwarts, avoiding the scrum in Diagon Alley.

Amongst the busy street came a purring and a popping of an exhaust, parting the crowd slowly as it progressed. The car was a bright, brilliant metallic red, with gleaming chrome. It was unmissable. Behind the wheel was a wild-haired wizard, curly locks blowing in the wind, held back by a set of goggles perched atop his brow. The top of the vehicle was folded back, the breeze only adding to the wild look as he drove through the village.

"Morning!" Monty called out, a grin visible beneath his bushy beard. It was almost noon, after all. Different people stopped and stared, and some mothers hurried their children on, remembering the news stories of that wild man and his flying cars, even if today there were all four wheels on the ground. Zeta and Eta had gone school shopping the previous weekend with their older sister, and were more than prepared.

As he passed by, the back of the car was clearly emblazoned with the name Blue Silver and where to owl if interested in acquiring a vehicle. Never pass up a marketing opportunity!

Eventually Monty pulled up outside the Three Broomsticks pub, which in the bright sunshine, had drinkers outside the front as well as inside, and all the windows open, so the putter of his engine turned heads as he drew up. It was almost lunchtime, so business was good. He leapt out, drew his wand to set the caterwauling charm, and strode to the front door, eyes intently scanning the crowd for one lady in particular. Daresay, if he wasn't married to the patient, beautiful Catherine, who managed the Muggle world and accountancy with raising three daughters and her bonkers husband, he would have been tempted.

"Strangely!" Pepper exclaimed on seeing her, arms out wide despite the busy pub. "They said I'd find you here. Rosemerta." He gave a cheeky little bow and wink to the proprietor the other side of the bar.
"Got something outside to show yer," Monty explained fervently reaching out for her hand, "Will you come see?"

Branwen had laid some strong far-reaching roots with the people of Hogsmeade over summer.  They'd worked as a team to bolster some sage hedges around the already well ivy'd walls of Hogwarts.  Branwen's home was in Ottery St. Catchpole, but she'd never been the sort to pine much for her own bed.  She'd spent most of the summer here in the pub.

"Pepper, you menace!" Branwen crowed in greeting to the flamboyant old man who'd just appeared as if he'd Apparated.  She got up to take his hand and offer a friendly round of diatribe.

"I wouldn't go outside with you if the Broomsticks were ablaze." 

"Branwen!" Madam Rosemerta clutched at her collar in scandal.

"Sorry, love. Wouldn't dream of it."

But back to Pepper.  Even as she berated him, she was moving to follow.  Pepper was a truly authentic sort and while she fully expected him to be brought up on criminal charges any day now, each time they engaged she found him to be more and more harmless. That's not to say that he wasn't a danger to himself, others, and the world around him, of course.

"Well, what have you done, Pepper?"

Despite her words she came with and followed him through the crowds inside the warm pub.
"Well, what have you done, Pepper?"

They emerged from the relative dark of the pub into the bright sunshine of Hogsmeade where the car gleamed, all chrome and beautiful red paint. A few figures milled around it, admiring it and peering into the interior at the dials and knobs.

"I haven't done anything, Madam, it is what you will do." He chuckled, turning back to look at her, an arm out to gesture to the car removing the charm he had placed moments before stepping into the pub. The passenger door came open and he beckoned her towards it.

"Won't you come take a ride?"

She had an inkling of what he might show her. A tender portrait of her nude (as he might imagine it) or perhaps in a daring hat - or both - was one possibility. And the other likely...

"No! No no no no!" she immediately burst into laughter upon coming into the street and seeing the garish contraption rumbling on the cobbles.  It shone with muggle-ness, intimidating in its mechanical mystery.  The noise it made assured her - like a growl - assured her it meant to pounce on anyone who came close!

She took her hand free form his and cuffed him on the arm as she veered left to walk more towards the back of the car, taking a wide berth.  "I would never! Look at it! Look at me! Pepper, will you ever cease in vexing me with this abominable relic?"

Branwen made no attempt to hide her delight that he had come nor conceal her joy that he did continue to badger her.  He was a very interesting chap and the adventure was thrilling.  She'd sat in his car before - if it was the 'real' one, she didn't know.  But it was obvious he intended to fly this one.

She stood up and wrinkled her nose.

"Dare I?"

Someone from the crowd shouted an encouragement.

The engine roared into life and sat puttering quite happily on the Hogsmeade cobbles. As she cuffed him, he chuckled merrily and pulled at his beard, a great grin on his face.

"I would never! Look at it! Look at me! Pepper, will you ever cease in vexing me with this abominable relic?"

"Ooh now, don't offend her." He replied and stroked the car carefully, sure not to catch his wedding band on the paint.

"Dare I?" The onlookers were keen to encourage her.

"All four wheels on the ground." Monty assured her, though with the face he adopted nobody would believe him, not even the most gullible of little children. There was a particular mischief in those eyes.

He held open the passenger door again and stooped to invite her in before heading round to the right side for the driver's door, hopping over the door - showing off.

The engine purred appreciatively before them as he applied his foot gently to the accelerator and dug into the driver's door pocket.

Monty extended a pair of matching goggles to Branwen, still grinning, and once relieved of them, reached for the gear stick, casting a look around them to the audience.

"Ahh you look just the part!" He exclaimed, "I should paint you - Branwen Strangely, face of Blue Silver!" Sales would increase with such a name in support of his campaign.

"Tally-ho!" He exclaimed slotting the gear stick into place and releasing the handbrake, carrying them forwards with a great roar of the engine. He lifted his hand between them to wave to the drinkers outside the Three Broomsticks as they pulled away.

"Let's get out of the crowds," he told Branwen, raising his voice a bit over the sound of the proud engine. "Then we'll have a bit of fun." He waggled his eyebrows and tooted the horn, greeting a few familiar faces as they drove along, wind already catching their hair.

It was all moving so quickly! Before she could think better of it, she'd slid into the front passenger seat and was donning a pair of goggles! She was laughing the entire time.  The whole vehicle was gently vibrating, but not in the way trains did.  This was much more rapid and much more immediate! She knew that there were a serious of explosions occurring behind the dashboard in front of her and she pulled her feet closer to herself.

"You may not paint me!" she ordered, but there was little time to discuss his merits as an artist because they were setting off. Lifting off?

"Whaaaa!"  The car jumped forward and she could feel it rumbling over the uneven Hogsmeade cobblestone street. She reached for something to hold onto.  One hand found the door, the other Monty Pepper's upper arm.  She gripped both tightly. 

He honked the horn.

"It makes so much noise!"

They prowled through the narrow streets of Hogsmeade and in a short time there was simply no more of the tiny Wizarding village left and they were rumbling down a narrow country lane. Low stone walls hemmed them in on both sides.  They hit a puddle and specs of mud dotted Branwen's goggles.  As the moments passed, Branwen's death grip on both door and Pepper loosened.

"Pepper, I've overestimated your lunacy.  This is ... extraordinary?"

Branwen's hand found his left arm and he shot her a grin. Despite her grip she was wearing a similar grin, so he was sure she was fine with it all.

Out of the village and into the narrow lanes beyond they went, the engine popping and purring as he increased their speed on smoother roads, rounding bends and climbing the inclines around the village, dodging puddles and potholes.

"Pepper, I've overestimated your lunacy. This is extraordinary?" Branwen's grip loosened on his arm.

"You reckon?" He asked somewhat rhetorically, his grey curls wild behind the goggles, waving in the wind. "This is nothing!" They rounded a bend passing a standing stone on a junction. He glanced into the mirrors, changed down a gear and flipped one switch, then another, and a third.

He looked to Branwen with an enormous grin.
"This is extraordinary!" He told her with gusto, and gunned the engine, roaring forwards up a slope, climbing rapidly, hands gripping the wheel until….

up...   up… up …

They kept climbing, the rumble of the wheels below them disappeared from beneath their backsides and the engine took a different note. Stone walls, fields, and trees began to descend away beneath them. Though the cool air rushed above them, inside the car the temperature remained just as it had been below.

Monty leaned over and stuck his head out of the window just to be doubly sure the invisibility charms were working. Wouldn't do to get Branwen in trouble on her first flight.

Up and up they went until they were well clear of the trees and birds circled them and the altitude levelled out, the nose of the car evening out and the engine note dropping to a happy purr.

"Alrigh'?" He asked Branwen, smoothing his beard. "Ain't she gorgeous?" He patted the dashboard of the faithful car.

"And take a look at the castle, it's it a sight? Makes you jealous of the birds." He turned the wheel gently, bringing Hogwarts into view through the windscreen, the castle a few miles away in the distance by now but easily recognisable.

As the pitch of Pepper's automobile went upwards so did Branwen's cry of surprise and wonder. "Aaaaaaaaaaaah!" she wailed with vim and delight.  She was braced stiff-armed in her seat, pressed back into the chair firmly. The ground plummeted away and trees became tiny below them.  The ancient patchwork of the rural landscape became like a quilt. "OOOOoohooooo!" she warbled.

They leveled out and Monty pointed out Hogwarts castle shining on its steep rocks, it's teetering towers upon towers and hipped roofs and random buttresses.

"It's wonderful!" she shouted and then realized she needn't raise her voice.  The ride was surprisingly quiet and just pleasently breezy.  She was still happy for the goggles, but, "my dear Pepper, you've charmed your vehicle well! We're invisible, aren't we?"

They'd have to be! Flying cars were strictly forbidden.  They were just too conspicuous and until muggles figured it out, wizard folk would have to wait.  But Branwen didn't feel conspicuous aloft and tiny over the countryside. 

The car rolled in a gentle lift with an air current like a ship on the sea and Branwen reacted by bracing herself again.

"How ever did you accomplish this!"

"We are," he assured her, "look out the window, you'll be a head in the middle of the air!" He grinned widely and gestured to her window, keen to share the experience with Branwen.

"How ever did you accomplish this!" She asked as they flew smoothly towards Hogwarts.

"About twenty years of acquired knowledge, gained last December." He explained, unable to hide his bright smile as they flew. "She's from America, but we built her for Britain, otherwise you'd be sat in the driver's seat. I applied the charms after she arrived."

He tapped his nose to insinuate Branwen should keep that to herself, after all, as well as being a flying car currently rushing through the sky, he had broken a few more laws in charming a 'muggle' item. He trusted that despite Strangely's dramatic exclamations she had a little discretion at the important time. Otherwise how had he survived quite so long at the careers fair back in April?

"Layers of them on the engine, the bodywork, the controls. It takes a number of hours, but I'm slower than the team I employ in America. It's not a long way from charming portraits, as it happens, but you don't need to talk to cars…" He swung the steering, the car yawing as it approached the school, taking a trip around the boundary. Branwen's greenhouses shone in the August sunlight below them on her side.

"You got your stomach back?" He asked, "Can get a bit of turbulence towards the mountains, just warning you- Merlin!" Someone's owl was flying right at them. Monty pitched the car downwards and the barn owl shot over the top of the car out of harm's way, though the driver laughed at the near-miss.

"Well not then, but perhaps in a moment!" He clapped Branwen on upper right arm with his left hand. "Look out at your beautiful glasshouses!"

Branwen had asked and Monty had answered in detail.  She wanted to pay attention because her curiosity was genuine. It was just  a very different experience than flying a broom (which she hadn't done at this altitude in years) and every tiny tree and little house and her greenhouses! They were all so much more fascinating than a list of charms on motor parts.

"You speak in riddles, Pepper. Oh! Oh! Look at them!" she chirruped in agreement at how the thirteen little buildings reflected the sun.   She laughed until it turned into a long sigh as she sat back comfortably in the seat, at long last.

"Oooh, Pepper, I could get used to this.  This is not good.  Not good! I mean, surely I understand now why do you do this, but, Pepper, why do you do this? You're bound to cause yourself a great deal of trouble!"

"Oh!" Another bird.

The pigeon clipped the wingmirror on Branwen's side, and Monty leaned over to check it's flight in the rear view mirror as it somersaulted, flapped and righted itself in midair with a squark. He had been trying to avoid it, but the pigeon had swooped just at the last minute. A fraction later and it would have smacked straight into Branwen's window.

"Why not!" He asked, sitting back properly again and checking the path ahead for more birds. "In America they are a completely valid form of transport, it's only over here that Zephyr and her predecessors have said no to them. Look at what could be achieved, whole families transported safely through the air. No more children splinched with side-along apparition, no restrictions of the floo network in how much luggage you take, no frozen toes and great risks on a broom at altitude. Travel in comfort together instead, and blend in with the Muggles - well once I bring out a few more modest models for the British market for the Muggleborns amongst us." The car bobbed a little over a thermal.

"Ornithologist's dream, I mean, there's not many ways to arrive invisibly so close to a sight like that." He nodded forwards and slowed the engine so they could take in the soaring form of a golden eagle.

"I could stay all day up here, you know. Couldn't you?"

Branwen had felt like she couldn't take her eyes off the ground for fear it'd come rushing up at them without proper supervision. But she was feeling more and more comfortable and so chanced a glance at her chauffeur.   His head was in the clouds and Branwen, in this moment of excelsior, was inclined to join him!

She'd always thought of America as a wild place with cars piling up on both land and in the sky, children behind and beneath the wheels, everyone wearing large white cowboy hats and giving each other thumbs-ups.[1] It certainly did not seem as idyllic and halcyon as old Mr. Pepper seemed to think.  But then, he'd been there. Perhaps that wild coif and wild demeanor hid a wisdom.

"Birds are lovely," she half-heartedly agreed with a shrug.  The old earth-witch had other, more below, things on her mind.  She leaned again to look out her window.

"Oh there - Pepper, take us around about that way. The algae bloom in the lake..."

1.	Branwen also held many complimentary stereotypes of the USA gathered from imported WWN programs.  She'd heard especially wonderful things about the state of Iowa.

Pepper realised that despite the spectacle of the eagle, Strangely was more preoccupied with matters of the earth. Fair enough, she was a talented herbologist, as what he had been told.

"Alright, here we go," he turned the wheel and changed up a gear as he amended their course. Didn't dare get too close to the Hogwarts boundary, chances were with the dementors plaguing the skies still that there were wards right over it that might conflict with the levitation charms.

"Algae rather than eagles, eh, Strangely? Each to their own, that angle do you?" He yawed the car a little so the lake reared up on the left hand side of it, so Branwen could see clearly without poking out her head and peering down. On the right side of the car, he glanced back at the eagle in his wing-mirror a moment, rather glad they'd not nearly run into it.

"What's occurrin' ?"

Branwen's heart jumped into her neck again when her request was made quickly good by Pepper's deft maneuvering. She was surprised how quickly the car turned and tilted, although she shouldn't have been.  They'd just been level and steady so far that a deep turn for the sake of her view had a merry effect on her inner ear.

"Alright, then!" she exclaimed as she took a new grip on the dashboard.  Breath returning to normal, her entire view was filled with lake and a good portion of it with a rich algae.

"It looks purple to you, doesn't it? Violet? Indigo at least."  Branwen had heard from Felinus that the merfolk in the lake had some complaints about some run-off from the castle.  Algae was a delicate and powerful little bit of green stuff and well - it was, in this part of the countryside - supposed to be green. And here it was being distinctly not.

She waved a hand at it, forcing herself to turn away.  "Well, that's just great. Can't even go for a ride in an illegal flying car without making it about the work. I truly need a hobby."

"It looks purple to you, doesn't it? Violet? Indigo at least." Branwen asked him. Monty leaned over to take a better look at the lake. It didn't look healthy to have such a bruise upon the lake water. Branwen looked a little concerned for it, so he presumed that it was certainly not meant to be like that.
"It doesn't look healthy, no," the bushy-haired wizard agreed, and lifted a hand from the wheel to stroke his beard.

"… I truly need a hobby."
"Can take a teacher out of the classroom…" Octavius chuckled, "I don't mind, if it takes your mind off the airsickness. New perspective from up here too, I bet." He shrugged at Branwen, content to just share the air journey rather than worry too much on what preoccupied her. They were new friends of sorts, despite knowing each other as acquaintances in family circles. He enjoyed finding out what made Strangely tick.

"Did you want a go?" He asked, gesturing to the steering wheel.