Harry Potter didn’t like the States. He didn’t have to be rolling down a hill in a runaway tram full of muggles to know that, but it definitely helped.

Sure, working for the Ministry of Magic was never going to be easy, especially when he had plucked the title of youngest auror from Tonks. Strangely, even if all his friends disagreed, the Ministry was still willing to send him out into danger, presumably because most of their work was hunting down the last of the Death Eaters, and they were almost completely, collectively terrified of him. An eighteen year old boy.

He wasn’t sure if he found it more pathetic or more desperate, but he’d found after a year at school, finishing his education, that he couldn’t just sit back and let the rest of the Wizarding World pick up the pieces of the war. He missed the adrenaline, and he felt personally accountable. Which was why he’d found himself in San Francisco to begin with.

The Death Eaters weren’t stupid. They’d gone abroad, because they knew the Ministry would have more trouble tracking them down if they had to deal with a foreign government and a foreign magical council.

Frankly, Harry was amazed they hadn’t done so before; he could remember Mad Eye saying something similar, once, but at the time he’d dismissed it as the man’s usual paranoia. They’d been laying low until the Ministry had thought to look for them, and as soon as they’d known that they were, all hell had broken loose. The Ministry were trying to relieve the bodies of two fallen aurors, and Harry had demanded a chance to try and talk them down. Hermione and Ron had come too, though of course when something actually happened – they’d been here a week, and nothing had – he’d only gone out to post a letter, and they were back in the hotel.

The Death Eaters had blown the brakes on the tram and then disapparated. At least Harry knew faces, and if he looked around the tram long enough he could probably do the muggle thing and find a DNA sample, but right now he had to deal with the panicking populace. The driver was doing all that he could but Harry hadn’t a clue what had been cut, and he couldn’t fix the brakes.

Nor could he really risk exposing himself, but it was the only thing that he could think of right now if he was going to save everyone on board the train and live to report the whereabouts of the bastards who’d done it. He just had to work out how to expose himself to begin with. Hermione was the brains, she would have had ten ideas in a matter of seconds. Harry’s gift was his instincts.

He pulled his wand out of his pockets with an exasperated sigh, pressing the tip against the door, pushing past a screaming woman and her child to do so, and hissing a far-too-loud alohamora. As soon as it swung over – the crowds going silent as a new threat came into being, and backing away from the madman – Harry swallowed his fear and gripped the roof, climbing up and out and pretending that he was only riding a broomstick.

The momentum nearly threw him off the roof and into the path of the runaway vehicle, but he clung on for dear life and managed to scramble to the back of the tram, using his feet and his hands for balance. From there, conscious of cameras and phones being pointed at him, the idea suddenly came to him. Of course last time, it had been a blue Ford Anglia.

Merlin’s beard, he hoped this worked.

“Wingardium Leviosa!”