Long-Distance Wizard Transportation

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

By the way, JEN, I'm glad to hear that the future baby is okay, 
and concerned about your strained muscle. I know that pregnant 
people aren't allowed to use any pain medicine, but are you allowed 
to put a hot compress on it?

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "pindsvinen" <pindsvinen at y...> wrote:

> My question is this: What would the best method of quick long-
> distance transportation, capable of bringing yourself (a 
> Witch/Wizard type individual) and perhaps another individual, be? 

> The premise involves a Hogwarts professor going to Heathrow or some 
> other British airport to pick up/greet Muggle family members, 
> imported from somewhere-else. I'm not entirely sure where. It will 
> end up with said professor bringing one of the family members back
> to Hogwarts.

QUIDDITCH THROUGH THE AGES, Chapter Nine, Development of the Racing 
Broomstick: "... Oakshaft 79 (so named because the first example was 
created in 1879) ... will always be remembered as the broom used in 
the first ever Atlantic broom crossing,  by Jocunda Sykes in 1935. 
(Before that time, wizards preferred to take ships rather than trust 
broomsticks over such distances. Apparation becomes increasingly 
unreliable over very long distances, and only highly skilled wizards 
are wise to attempt it across continents.)"

Comparing the distance of a London to New York or New York to Los 
Angeles trip with that of a London to Hogsmeade trip, I suppose that 
the most usual way that a wizard/witch would travel to Heathrow from 
Hogwarts is to walk to Hogsmeade and Apparate from there. (Walk or 
take one of the little boats or the carriages used to transport 
students.) 

The Muggle relatives can't Apparate, it appears that one human cannot 
carry another human while Apparating, and I don't know if a person 
*can* Apparate to a place heesh has never been before: I fantasize a 
guidebook giving detailed map co-ordinates and several photographs of 
what the destination looks like; I even named it the Apparatlas... 
(and a local-to-me joke would be if it were published by Tom Brothers 
and his daughter Joyce).

I think they would probably use the Floo network. (If Muggles can use 
Floo -- Muggles, such as the Dursleys, can SEE Floo, so I suppose 
they can use it.) It seems to be as fast as Portkeying, almost as 
fast as Apparating.

Wizard folk  probably ride passenger aeroplanes much oftener than 
Muggles would suspect (much faster than ships), so there would 
probably be some little cafe or bookstore at each major airport that 
was invisible to Muggles and had a fireplace connected to the Floo 
Network, so they could Floo to Hogsmeade. From Hogsmeade to Hogwarts 
as above. 

Or possibly there is a wizarding air taxi service, consisting of a 
couple of crazy young men who rebuilt antique biplanes, put 
invisibility spells on them, and fly from a grassy strip on the 
outskirts of Hogsmeade. 

Wizarding Air Taxi does sound like something that would use 
broomsticks... fly low, under the radar, at airports, and high, over 
eyesight range, elsewhere, and try to look like birds... There may be 
broomsticks that are big and strong enough to carry passengers and 
luggage (with a luggage rack sitting behind the passengers? With 
the luggage hangingn down like a hobo's bindle?) 

All Harry cares about so far is racing broomsticks, but we saw an 
advertisement at the Quidditch World Cup for the Bluebottle, 'a broom 
for the whole family'. Does that mean safe enough for children to 
fly, or big enough for the whole family on one broom? 

You expressed concern about the weather and 'umbrella spells'. I'm 
sure that, with what I have heard of the British climate, UK wizards 
are all good at anti-rain Charms like the Impurvius! that Hermione 
put on Harry's eyeglasses, and anti-cold charms as well. However, I 
don't know how long a big, slow broomstick would take for the trip, 
and there has been debate about whether a Muggle could fly a 
broomstick: is the entire spell already on the broom, or does the 
rider have to add some magic of hiser own? 

I wonder what means they have to make commercial air travel less 
unpleasant: to shrink their legs or expand their legroom without the 
Muggles noticing? Can they Accio! their luggage without waiting for 
it to fall down the carousel, or would that be too hard to conceal 
from Muggles? Can they at least put some kind of "homing" spell on it 
so that it always gets put on the right cart, plane, etc?

Hagrid used the Knight Bus to take Buckbeak to London and back for 
his trial. The Knight Bus has the advantage of being able to book a 
trip from anywhere to anywhere (within the island of Britain, I 
believe) rather than being limited to railway station to railway 
station. It has the disadvantage of the amusement-park type ride and 
is not instantaneous.

I suspect that Portkeys cannot be used on Hogwarts grounds, with a 
special exception for the Portkey (Triwizard Cup) that was supposed 
to dramatically carry the Winner to the Winner's Circle, and that is 
why evil Barty had to hack the Triwizard Cup Portkey, to insert a 
middle stop, instead of simply turning Harry's toothbrush into a 
Portkey, and that is why he spent a year messing around to make Harry 
win the Tournament.