"Ron, I need my wand!"
When they left the house, Harry and Ron had packed their things together. Thinking they wouldn't need their wands on the train, they had stuffed them into their trunks.
"It's in the bag in the backseat! Get it yourself—I'm trying to steer! And grab mine while you're at it!"
At that moment, Harry suddenly recalled the "wizarding combat uniforms" Julien had casually mentioned in one of his letters. It seemed he really did need to get his hands on a set.
Harry struggled to unbuckle his seatbelt and crawled into the backseat amidst the violent turbulence. The moment his fingers closed around his wand, he felt a familiar, reassuring thrum of magic.
"Incendio!" he roared, firing a jet of red light through the rear window.
The spell missed its target by at least thirty feet, dissipating harmlessly in the air.
The high-altitude crosswinds, the violent jolting of the flying car, and the fact that he was attempting to shoot while moving at high speeds—something he had never done before—made accurate spellcasting practically impossible.
"It's no use!" he scrambled back into the passenger seat. "Can't you keep it steady?!"
"That's going to be tough, but I know how to make them unsteady!" A gleam of madness, rarely seen in a Weasley, flashed in Ron's eyes. "Hold on tight!"
He violently yanked a yellow lever labeled: Emergency Evasive Maneuvers (Do Not Touch).
For the first time in its life, the Ford Anglia executed a barrel roll, completing a full 360-degree spin in mid-air.
Harry felt as though his stomach had been left behind at their previous angle, while the rest of his body had been flung into another dimension.
The pursuing riders clearly hadn't expected this maneuver either. The closest one couldn't swerve in time, and their broomstick scraped right past the car's undercarriage, their cloak snapping violently in the slipstream.
"It worked!" Ron laughed maniacally. "I call that the Dodgeball Tactic!"
But the respite was only temporary.
The lead rider—judging by her build, it was a woman—raised a peculiarly shaped short wand. A mass of pitch-black energy began to gather at its tip.
It wasn't a spell they had ever seen in any of their textbooks. The air around the energy warped and twisted, as if reality itself was being torn apart.
"What is that—" Harry's voice was drowned out by a deafening boom.
The black light slammed into the side of the flying car. It wasn't an explosion, but rather some bizarre form of corrosion: the car's metal rusted and flaked away at a visible rate, exposing the complex magical circuitry hidden beneath the chassis.
The Ford Anglia now looked like a goldfish that had had its scales scraped off, its rusted, mottled body exposed to the sunlight.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it—" Ron slapped the steering wheel in panic. "The car isn't responding properly!"
As if it were genuinely injured, the car sputtered and shook, rapidly losing altitude. It wasn't until they were moments from a catastrophic crash that Ron finally managed to regain control.
"Look ahead!" Harry screamed.
They were hurtling toward a railway track. But it wasn't just any railway—a crimson steam engine was roaring down the tracks, billowing white smoke, the silhouettes of passengers vaguely visible through the windows.
It was the Hogwarts Express.
If they maintained their current trajectory, they were going to smash right into the back of the train in thirty seconds.
Ron's face was deathly pale, but his hands were remarkably steady. He yanked the steering wheel hard while simultaneously slamming a random button (neither Ron nor the author knows which one it was).
Just as the car's bumper scraped against the rear carriage of the train, Ron finally managed to pull the car up, forcing it to ascend once more.
Seeing that the car had caught up to the Hogwarts Express, the lead rider—perhaps fearing further complications—accelerated again. Throwing caution to the wind, she shot forward, her broomstick crackling as she prepared to deliver another crippling blow to the car.
But just as her wand tipped toward the edge of the car, a streak of golden light shot over from the distance.
"In the name of the Ministry of Magic, cease fire immediately!"
Four crimson-robed figures descended from the sky and entered the fray. Aurors.
They raised their wands in unison, weaving a net of golden light in the air that instantly enveloped the unknown attackers.
"Damn it!" the female rider cursed. "Retreat!"
The three broomsticks spun around in perfect unison, carving an arc through the sky as they bolted toward the safety of the clouds. The Aurors immediately gave chase.
Meanwhile, the Ford Anglia Ron was driving seemed to have completely exhausted its remaining strength, once again plummeting toward the earth.
"Pull up! Pull up!" Ron wrestled frantically with the controls, but the steering wheel was completely dead.
Harry watched as the Hogwarts Express grew larger and larger below them. He could clearly see the terrified faces of the students pressed against the windows.
People had spotted them. People were screaming.
And then, a mere twenty feet above the train, the flying car's engine let out one final, agonizing groan and died completely.
---
Julien had first noticed the anomaly when the car scraped against the rear of the train, causing a noticeable shudder.
Percy and the twins had already returned to their own compartments, and Julien was sitting across from Ginny, trying to distract her with casual chatter about Quidditch.
Then, the train violently jolted.
"What is that—" Ginny was the first to point out the window.
Julien turned his head, just in time to see a Ford Anglia plummeting from the sky.
It was tumbling and flickering in mid-air, its Invisibility mechanism failing erratically, making it look like a dying fish thrashing helplessly in the sunlight.
"Oh my god, it's Harry! And Ron!" Hermione gasped, covering her mouth in horror.
"Ron!" Ginny's piercing shriek nearly ruptured Julien's eardrums.
The flying car was nose-diving straight toward the empty ground beside the moving train.
There was no time to think. Julien's body reacted before his mind could—he vaulted out of his seat, shoved open the door leading to the carriage connection, and sprinted toward the rear of the train amidst the violent shaking.
Fortunately, their compartment was already in the second-to-last carriage. In seconds, he had burst out onto the observation deck (also known as the caboose) at the very back of the train.
"What are you doing—" Hermione's voice echoed from behind him.
He didn't answer. His wand had already snapped into his hand. The silver lime wood felt warm as jade, yet at this moment, it sent a strange, resonant vibration up his arm.
"Arresto Momentum! Up!"
It was the Slowing Charm, a spell typically used in emergencies or disaster relief, and its power was in a completely different league than the standard Levitation Charm.
Students usually learned this spell in their fifth year, but it wasn't a mandatory exam topic; it fell more into the category of extra credit or elective coursework.
This time, Julien gripped his wand with both hands, carving a wide arc through the air. A deep blue ripple of magical energy materialized directly beneath the falling car.
It was as if the car had plunged into a pool of thick resin; its descent visibly slowed.
However, because the distance was too great, the spell began to dissipate. Julien gritted his teeth, feeling his magical reserves draining at a terrifying rate.
Then, a second beam of light joined his.
"Up!" The voice came from another section of the train.
Julien turned his head and saw Cedric Diggory of Hufflepuff leaning out the window of another carriage, the tip of his wand glowing with the exact same light.
"Up!" This time it was a girl's voice. It was Cho Chang, an older Ravenclaw student. She was holding onto the train door with one hand, her other arm pointing her wand straight up at the sky.
Immediately after, over a dozen more beams of light shot out from various points along the Hogwarts Express. Threads of blue and pale gold intertwined, weaving a soft, luminous net in the air.
The flying car smashed into the net of light, and its plummeting speed was instantly arrested. Like falling into water, it drifted slowly toward the ground through the invisible resistance.
When the car finally hit the earth, it inevitably landed belly-up, its wheels spinning pointlessly in the air. A massive cloud of dust plumed upward.