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She has enjoyed her favourite antidote: a Lego set. This time, she has decided to build the Weasley family's Ford Anglia and she has invited Claire Fontaine to join in on the build.
Some vehicles are remembered because they are fast. Others because they are beautiful, luxurious or revolutionary. And then there is a small pale-blue Ford Anglia that once flew across the British countryside carrying two young wizards towards Hogwarts.
In the world of Harry Potter, magic usually comes from wands, spells, potions and enchanted objects. Yet one of the most memorable magical objects in the entire saga began its existence as something completely ordinary: a family car.
The Ford Anglia belonging to Arthur Weasley becomes one of the great symbols of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It is funny, unreliable, illegal, surprisingly brave and, eventually, wonderfully independent.
In other words, it is a perfect Weasley car.
The existence of the flying Ford Anglia tells us something important about Arthur Weasley long before the car begins its greatest adventure. Arthur works at the Ministry of Magic and is fascinated by Muggle technology. Unlike many witches and wizards, who either ignore the non-magical world or look down upon it, Arthur approaches it with genuine curiosity and affection.
The car represents that fascination. He has secretly modified a Ford Anglia 105E, enchanting it so that it can fly. He has also given it an Invisibility Booster and magically expanded its interior and luggage space.
There is something wonderfully characteristic about Arthur's choice. He does not enchant a prestigious sports car or an expensive limousine. He chooses a modest British family car.
The real Ford Anglia 105E was introduced by the Ford Motor Company in 1959 and became a familiar sight on British roads during the 1960s. Its distinctive rear window, sloping backwards, made the model immediately recognisable. It belonged to everyday Britain. And perhaps that is exactly why it belongs so naturally in the world created by J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter constantly places extraordinary things inside apparently ordinary British life.
Behind a brick wall there can be Diagon Alley. Beyond an ordinary railway platform there can be Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. And inside a small Ford Anglia there can be a flying machine.
The car first becomes important when Harry is effectively imprisoned at 4 Privet Drive by the Dursleys. Ron Weasley, accompanied by Fred and George, decides that waiting for adults to solve the problem is clearly not an option.
So they borrow -or, more accurately, steal- the enchanted Ford Anglia and fly to Surrey. The image is unforgettable: a pale-blue car floating outside Harry Potter's bedroom window while the Dursleys sleep inside the house. But beneath the comedy lies something more important. The car becomes Harry's vehicle of escape.
Harry's life with the Dursleys is defined by confinement. His bedroom has been locked, bars have been placed across his window and his connection with the magical world has been deliberately cut off.
Then Ron appears in a flying car. It is difficult to imagine a more literal representation of friendship arriving to set somebody free. The Anglia carries Harry away from Privet Drive and towards the Burrow, one of the first places where he experiences something resembling a loving family home. For Harry, therefore, the car does not simply transport him geographically.
It takes him from isolation to belonging.
Its most famous journey comes shortly afterwards. When Harry and Ron cannot pass through the barrier leading to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, they make one of those decisions that seem perfectly reasonable only when you are twelve years old.
They take the car. Their flight to Hogwarts is one of the defining sequences of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. They follow the Hogwarts Express northwards, flying above roads, fields and railway tracks. For a while, the adventure feels exhilarating.
Then reality intervenes. The Invisibility Booster begins to fail. The car struggles. The boys are seen by Muggles. And when they finally reach Hogwarts, their spectacular arrival ends not with a heroic landing but with a crash into the Whomping Willow.
It is pure Harry Potter: wonder, humour, danger and disaster compressed into a single journey. The episode also reveals something essential about Harry and Ron's friendship. They are loyal to each other, courageous and resourceful -but they are also children capable of making spectacularly bad decisions together.
Magic does not prevent them from making mistakes. Sometimes it simply makes those mistakes much bigger. After crashing into the Whomping Willow, something extraordinary happens. The Ford Anglia throws Harry, Ron and their luggage out, ejects them from its interior and drives away into the Forbidden Forest. From that moment onwards, it seems to cease being merely an enchanted object.
It becomes almost alive. Months later, when Harry and Ron are in terrible danger in the Forbidden Forest, surrounded by Aragog's enormous family of Acromantulas, the Anglia suddenly returns. No wizard is driving it. Nobody has summoned it. It simply appears. The battered little car charges through the spiders, rescues the boys and carries them back towards safety before disappearing once again among the trees. It is one of the strangest acts of heroism in the series. A machine enchanted by Arthur Weasley has apparently developed enough independence to survive alone in the forest -and enough loyalty to return when Harry and Ron desperately need it. The car that they once used to rescue Harry eventually comes back to rescue them.
The Ford Anglia also represents something fundamental about the aesthetic of the Harry Potter universe. This is not a world where magic replaces ordinary life. Magic transforms ordinary life. Trains still exist, but one of them leaves from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Schools still have homework, teachers, exams and sports competitions, but the staircases move and the portraits talk. Families still own old cars. Some of those cars simply happen to fly. That mixture between the mundane and the impossible is one of the reasons why the wizarding world feels so tangible. The Ford Anglia is funny precisely because we recognise what it is supposed to be. A modest family car has no business flying through the clouds beside a steam train. And yet, somehow, it feels completely natural.
The Ford Anglia has relatively little time in the enormous Harry Potter story, but its presence is unforgettable. Perhaps that is because it represents several of the ideas at the heart of the saga. It represents Arthur Weasley's curiosity and tolerance towards a world different from his own. It represents Ron's loyalty to Harry. It represents childhood rebellion and the wonderful conviction that rules can occasionally be ignored when a friend needs help. Above all, it represents escape. The first time Harry travels in the Anglia, it carries him away from a house where he is unwanted. The last time we see it play an important role, it carries Harry and Ron away from creatures that are about to kill them. Between those two journeys, something curious has happened.
The machine has become a character. Perhaps that is the real magic of the flying Ford Anglia. Arthur Weasley enchanted a car so that it could fly. But somewhere along the road -or somewhere above it -the little blue Ford seems to have learned something that no spell could easily explain: how to be free.
And perhaps even how to be a friend.
More information: National Motor Museum
Look, the forest has turned it wild.
Ron Weasley
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