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The Flying Morris Mini


Lily woke up with the opening of the car doors. She looked up.

“Hullo love,” James said, leaning against the frame of the door beside her.

Remus was folding himself back in the passenger side.

Lily asked, confused, “Wait, where’s Sirius?”

“We’re going to get him, love,” James said. “Now shove over.”

“Wait, what?” Lily was still dazed from napping.

James bent down and gently shoved her across the bench seat so she was in the middle, shoulder-to-shoulder with Remus, whose narrow frame pressed to the passenger door, knees bumping the dash. James bent down, flipping onto his back on the floor beneath the wheel column and drew his wand and started poking about in the wires.

“What are you doing? If you break this car, my mum’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill me anyway for having taken it in the first place, but --”

“I’m modifying it, Evan,” James answered and he stuck the wand up into the gap, aiming it at the electricals and boxes inside, hoping he was doing it right… Sirius had been in charge of this with the motorbike, not James, and motorbikes were a fair deal less complicated to begin with. He murmured a few spells that Lily couldn’t hear…

Lily turned to Remus as James cursed, getting a shock from one of the wires. “What is he doing?” she demanded.

“Making it so your car will fly.”

“Fly?” Lily’s voice went quite high.

“Yes, fly.”

“Like… like up there - like in the sky? Like an aeroplane?”

“Yes.”

Lily stared at him, wide-eyed, unsure if she was terrified or excited.

“Alright. Let’s give it a go.” James jumped up and threw himself into the driver’s seat, pulling the door shut and turning the key in the ignition. The car spluttered to life like it always did and Lily scrambled for the seat buckles. “Alright. Alright let’s see. Um. How do I do this?”

“You don’t even know how to drive?!” Lily cried.

“Hullo! Wizard! Not a Muggle!” James shouted back.

“Get out!” She pushed him, reaching over him for the door handle. “Get out!”

“Evans! We have to catch up with Sirius and --”

“I AM AWARE! But we can’t catch him up if an idiot that can’t even drive the bloody car is behind the wheel, obviously, it has to be somebody that can drive, you great toerag, bleeding hell!” And because he wasn’t moving, she climbed over him, her legs straddling his lap for a moment and James’s eyes went quite wide and she shoved him over so that he was in the middle and she rolled into place behind the wheel. Jame had one leg on each side of the gear column in the center. “Merlin’s beard, I swear boys are absolute imbeciles!” she muttered and she reached for the shift stick, which James was now straddling - the gear sticking up between his knees and she grabbed the ball of it and shifted the car into first.

James stared down at the image of Lily Evans’s hand between his legs. He swallowed.

And the car started forward.

“Drive about the cul-de-sac here,” James said, waving his hand to indicate she loop about the little island at the end of the street, and when you’ve looped about we’ll speed up as fast as you can go.”

“Alright.” Lily’s hand gripped the wheel in terror as they drove around the little island in the center of the cul-de-sac and as they came about it, James nodded, and she shifted up into second… third… fourth… the car speeding up, her foot pressing on the gas pedal… they shot down the road, trees blurring…

Finally James waved his wand at the dashboard and said, “Pull on the wheel, Evans!”

She pulled and - and to her absolute shock, the car lifted, wobbly at first, and Remus let out a gasp and grappled for the seat buckle as James started hooting with excitement, waving his arms above his head as best he could with the low ceiling of the Morris Mini, and Lily’s knuckles were white with panic as she clutched onto the wheel, horrified, as the car wobbled and shook it’s way into the sky, just barely clearing the roof top of the house at the end of the lane. “Oh my gods!” Lily yelped as they hit a tree top, which was luckily quite plaiable and had no effect on the car’s progress into the sky, the stars coming closer and closer, the ground getting further and further, the clouds whispering past, and Lily was reminded of the aeroplane ride to Florida her family had taken the year before, and her stomach turned as her ears popped and she said, “What happens if somebody sees us!?”

James said, “Dunno! We’ll get in trouble, I reckon!”

“Are flying cars legal?”

“Not at all,” Remus answered.

Lily’s face flushed.

They climbed higher and higher into the sky. “Faster, Evans, we gotta go faster,” James pressed her. So she pressed her foot to the pedal, and the spedometer went up-up-up… “Faster, Evans!” he yelled.

“I’m going the speed limit, Potter!” she yelled back.

“The bloody speed limit?!” James rolled his eyes, “Ferfuckssake, why are you doing the speed limit for!”

“There is a reason there are speed limits! It’s for safety, so that you don’t end up in a crash and --”

“YOU’RE IN THE BLEEDING SKY, EVANS! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO CRASH INTO? A CLOUD?!”

Lily flushed even hotter than before.

But she pressed her foot all the way to the floor and the Morris Mini shot through the air, disappearing into the clouds, the ground below concealed by them, and the car shuddered, topping out at a little over a 150 kilometers an hour.

Remus pressed his face to the window, anxious, as the car headlamps flashed over and through clouds, the engine roaring, Lily whimpering with nervousness, and James leaning forward, peering about, eyes squinting.

It took some time and Remus started to worry that this wasn’t going to work - that they’d never find Sirius Black - that they’d end up driving all the way to bloody Iceland before they caught up with him, when -- “THERE!” he shouted, “THERE! Is that a headlamp?! LOOK THERE!”

James looked and Lily did, too, and the car swept in that direction and James shouted, “I think it is!”

Remus pressed his palms to the window, his heart escalating as Lily tried to make the car go faster, but it just wouldn’t. They were catching up - slowly, but catching up none the less, and Remus’s nerves shook and he bounced in the seat in anxiousness. “C’mon, c’mon, we’re so close. Fucking hell, Sirius, look back will you? Can’t he bloody hear us coming?”

James turned and without waiting for Evan’s approval, he slammed his palm over the horn button on the steering wheel.

The horn sounded, a pathetic little wooonnnk sound.

“Bloody hell, that’s the saddest honk I’ve ever heard,” James said.

“It’s a little car, what do you expect?” Lily demanded.

“Dunno, a proper horn would be ruddy brilliant!” James replied.

But the sad little horn was enough. Sirius had heard it and he turned about to see the car coming and he looked shocked a moment as he brought the motorbike about, turning through the clouds in a wide arch.

Remus grappled for the window crank and he unrolled it as quick as his arm could move, and Lily pressed the brake, slowing the car so that it hovered in the sky. Far below, the lights of London gleamed fuzzy through the clouds. Remus shouted, “SIRIUS!” out the window.

Sirius looped the motorbike back ‘til he was hovering, too, and he reached for the clip holding the helmet in place he yelled, “MOONY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

“COMING TO YOU, OF COURSE!” Remus shouted back. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

“WELL THAT’S WHAT I’M DOING TOO! WHY AREN’T YOU IN ICELAND?!”

“BECAUSE YOU NEEDED ME!”

Sirius stared at Remus, the wind whipping his long hair about like a tornado. He squinted through it, tears welling up his eyes. “REMUS I’M SORRY!” he shouted, “I’M SORRY I’VE BEEN SUCH AN IDIOT! I’VE DONE SO MANY HORRIBLE THINGS TO YOU - I’M SORRY!”

“I’M SORRY TOO! FOR NOT FORGIVING YOU PROPERLY BEFORE!”

Lily was crying.

“I LOVE YOU!” Sirius yelled.

“I LOVE YOU, TOO!” Remus yelled back.

Sirius’s hands shook against the handle bars. “IF I COULD REACH YOU, I’D BLOODY KISS YOU RIGHT NOW!” Sirius yelled.

Remus didn’t even think about it. He grabbed the frame of the door and started to pull himself out the window.

“WAIT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” James cried, grabbing onto the back of Remus’s cardigan.

“I’M KISSING MY BOYFRIEND!” Remus answered.

“Idiot! We’re hundreds of meters off the ground! What if you fall?”

“Then he’ll catch me.” And Remus pushed James off and flung himself across the short gap between the two vehicles, jumping onboard the motorbike.

Sirius caught Remus’s arm and tugged him on, Remus’s chest against Sirius’s back, legs clamped about the bike’s body, and Sirius twisted his torso back, both their hair caught up in the wind, Sirius’s surrounding them in a great stringy black curtain, as their mouths met and Remus put his hands up on Sirius’s face.

Lily was literally sobbing beside James in the car. “This is the most bloody romantic thing I’ve ever seen!” her voice pinched with emotion.

James glanced at her, then back to Remus and Sirius as they were still locked in that same kiss - it seemed they were making up for all of the lost kisses at once. James smiled, then turned back to Lily again. “Guess we’re best friends in law again.”

Lily nodded, tears streaming over her cheeks.

James reached into his pocket and handed her a handkerchief.

“Thanks James,” she whimpered.

“Of course, Evans,” he replied. “Tis what Best Friends in Law are for.”

Lily laughed.

Remus and Sirius finally drew apart and Sirius stared through his flickering hair at Remus. Both of them had tear all over their face. Remus’s nose was pink with the chill of the air in the high altitude. Sirius smiled, “BLOODY HELL,” he yelled over the wind, which whistled and whipped about them, “YOU’VE JUST JUMPED OUT OF A FLYING CAR TO SNOG ME, YOU WILD THING!”

Remus grinned. “YOU MUST BE RUBBING OFF ON ME, PADFOOT!”

Sirius laughed and kissed Remus again.

“Well,” James said, grinning, “This had a happy ending.”

And he’d no sooner got the words out than there was a CRACK in the back seat and the sound of a clearing throat.

Lily and James turned about.

There sat Gideon Prewett, in his full, grey wool Auror’s uniform… and he was not smiling.