"Get up, you two!" Ginny shouted into Harry and Ron's bedroom. "We're going to be late for Hermione!"

Ginny left and Harry sat up groggily, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. What time is it? Harry sat up and took in his surroundings. Ron's room had hardly changed at all in five years. The walls were still bright orange, with moving pictures of players from the Chudley Cannons Quidditch team. He looked to his left and saw Ron in his orange and black bed, sitting up just as he had done. The fish tank by the window was filled with algae-infected water, and a tadpole was barely distinguishable through the murky glass. Sitting on top of the tank was a birdcage with Ron's tiny owl, Pigwidgeon, flying around animatedly, hitting the walls of the cage every few seconds and bouncing off. The bed Harry was in was completely different than his orange and black surroundings: it had a bright blue bedspread and birght bluesheets. Mrs. Wealsey had conjured it from thin air when Harry arrived at the Burrow two weeks ago. The ghoul in the attic clanked noisily above Harry's head, and he turned toward the small bedside table on which a slightly rusty clock sat. 9:35, Harry thought. He slumped back into bed and closed his eyes. Wait…when did Hermione want us to meet her? Harry vaguely recalled that they were to Apparate to her house at 10:00.

"Harry, get up! We have twenty-five minutes until we have to go!" said Ron's voice nearby.

Harry sat bolt upright. Twenty-five minutes? Wondering why he didn't realize that when he saw the clock, he jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. A few seconds later, he started the shower.

By the time he and Ron had dressed, eaten a rushed breakfast, brushed their teeth, and dragged their suitcases (or trunks) down the stairs into the family room, it was a few minutes past 10:00. Harry saw Ginny waiting for them with a cross expression, as she was unable to Apparate herself.

"'Bout time," she grumbled. However, her mood lifted as she grabbed Harry's hand and the three of them left after saying a hurried goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

They arrived with the usual pop next to Hermione's new car to see an annoyed looking Hermione pacing up and down beside it.

"Finally! I was wondering when you'd show up! You're late you know," she added.

"Only five minutes!" Ron said, exasperated.

"I was just about to go check on you guys. What took you?"

"Harry and Ron slept in," Ginny said.

Hermione narrowed her eyes slightly at Harry and Ron but her expression quickly cleared. "Here, take your bags and put them in the trunk of the car," Hermione said, popping the trunk with the small portable car device.

Ron didn't move. "What is that thing? Is that some kind of Muggle wand?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Of course not, Ron. It comes with the car. Now put your suitcase in the trunk so we can leave. You already put us behind schedule!"

Ron got into the front passenger seat and Harry and Ginny sat in the back. Hermione came around and opened the door on the left, and sat in the driver's seat. "Are you ready?" she asked excitedly.

"Wait!" Harry said. "Where exactly are we going anyway?"

Hermione pressed a button on the dashboard, and with a loud whirring noise, the hood slowly started securing itself over their heads. "Disneyland!"

"Where's that?" Ron asked.

"You'll see." Hermione started the car and backed down the driveway, an expression of glee upon her face. She drove down her street until she found a desolate country lane, where she turned.

"I'm going to perform a complex spell, and then we'll be hurled through nothingness and land in California. Do you all have your seatbelts on?"

Harry realized that he, in fact, had not put his seatbelt on and quickly buckled it into place as Hermione revved the engine and zoomed down the lane. He put his arm comfortably around Ginny, who leaned into him.

"Aren't you going rather fast?" Ron asked, nervously, as he peered into her speedometer, which read 75 MPH. He gripped his seat tightly, his knuckles white with the strain.

"Don't bother me right now, Ron, I'm trying to concentrate." Hermione took her right hand off of the steering wheel and grabbed her wand. With a look of deep concentration on her face, she began to perform a spell.

"Keep both hands on the steering wheel!" Ron exclaimed as they past within feet of a large tree at freeway speed. He shrank down in his seat and clutched the door handle like a lifeline.

"Shut up Ron, you're breaking my concentration!" Hermione shrieked angrily. After a few more seconds, she raised her wand and shouted "Mobilia!"and gave the dashboard a sharp rap with her wand.

Immediately, a flash of golden light enveloped the car, and it lifted off the ground. Harry and Ginny, who had just started kissing in the backseat, lurched apart with an "Ouch!" when their heads clunked together. Ron made a shrill noise of horror, and suddenly, they were rocketing away through what appeared to be complete blackness.

"Augh! I've become blinded!" Ron shouted.

"Don't be silly Ron, we're just traveling through a –"

But what they were traveling through, nobody found out because at that precise moment, the car magically fell out of thin air and bounced a few feet off of a foreign street and then came back down again, maintaining a steady 75 MPH, the engine roaring all the while, the car without the slightest scratch.

"OH MY GOD!" they all shouted simultaneously. Hermione hit the break and, unfortunately, they realized that somehow the antilock break feature had not been included in the new car.

The car skidded about a block down a city street, leaving long skid marks behind them, and came to a complete stop right at a red light at a busy intersection, narrowly avoiding a black BMW in the process. Fortunately, none of the Muggles seemed to have noticed in the slightest that a Ford Mustang appeared out of thin air and skidded a rather long distance to a busy intersection.

"My tires!" Hermione exclaimed in horror. "Reparo," she said casually, waving her wand at the tires, which instantly became brand new again.

"Hermione," Ron said, breathing heavily, "Maybe you should let Ginny drive."

Hermione ignored him and pulled out a map of the Los Angeles area.

"Hermione, where are we?" Ginny asked, looking around and massaging her forehead where she had bumped into Harry.

"I'm not sure. Obviously, I thought we were going to appear on I-5, but this is a city, not the freeway…. I'm not sure what happened."

The light turned green and Hermione drove through the intersection, which she noticed read Hacienda and West Los Positas. A grocery called Albertsons was on her right and a gas station called Shell was on her left.

"Ron, this is your fault!" Hermione suddenly exclaimed.

"What? How is this my fault?"

"You were distracting me while I was doing the mobilia spell, and now we're in the wrong place!"

"You didn't tell us what you were going to do at all! It's not my fault that I panicked when you starting crashing into a tree at 75 miles per hour!"

"I didn't crash into that tree, I drove well clear of it."

"That isn't the point! You should have warned us ahead of time that you were going to do something stupid and dangerous!"

"Ron, you're so frustrating! Just from now on, don't distract me when I'm about to do something 'stupid and dangerous'!

"So you admit that what you did was stupid and dangerous?"

"How thick can you get to –"

"Look, there's a D.M.V. office over to the left. We might be able to get some maps there," Harry interrupted loudly to stop Ron and Hermione's constant bickering.

Hermione turned on her left turn signal and drove into the Department of Motor Vehicles parking lot, and quickly parked. The four of them got out of the car, and the honk of the horn signified that Hermione had locked the doors.

"Excuse me," Hermione said to the lady behind the counter. "What city are we in?"

"Ah, not from around here, are ya?" the lady said, obviously noticing Hermione's accent. "You're in Pleasanton." She whipped out a map of the state of California and pointed to the dot labeled 'Pleasanton.'

Harry raised his eyebrows as he saw the large distance between the dot labeled 'Pleasanton' and the huge yellow area labeled 'Los Angeles' and saw Hermione do the same.

"Um, what is the quickest way to get to the Los Angeles area?" Hermione asked.

"Highway 5."

Hermione did a poor job suppressing annoyance in her tone as she said, "And how do I get to Highway 5?"

"Just take Highway 580 East and merge onto 5 at the interchange around Tracy." She paused and when Hermione didn't say anything, she said, "I suppose you're going to want to know where the 580 East ramp is? Just turn left onto West Los Positas and then right onto Foothill Road. . . . The big one up there." She pointed behind her. "Then you'll stay on Foothill until you get to the 580 East ramp. It'll be on the right side."

"Thank you," Hermione said, relieved.

The lady smiled. "Why don't you take a map of California too? Then you won't have to keep getting lost. . . ." She handed her a map and they left.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to drive there," Hermoine said once they were all in the car. "By the looks of this, it could take six to eight hours. It's going to be a long ride, so buckle up."

As they pulled out of the parking lot, Harry distinctly heard her say under her breath, "Thanks to Ron. . . ."