Chapter 1

"Rachel," one of my best friends, Jessica Tanner said to me solemnly as she rolled over and looked at me with her piercing green eyes. Her short black hair falling dramatically into her eyes as she made her face look as earnest as possible.

"Yep?" I asked as I distractedly went through my DVD's trying to find a good film to watch.

"Did you know that I love you?" she said, a hint of drama in her tone. I turned and looked at her, some of my hair falling out of my ugly messy bun and obscuring my vision.

"Oh, my," I remarked calmly before returning my attention back to the box of DVDs, "A love confession. Be still, my beating heart!"

"And you know that everything I do, I do out of only the purest of pure loves for you?" she continued. My other best friend, Alicia Cooper watched bemusedly but didn't see the need to add anything. She was the quietest out of the three of us. She was also the cleverest.

"Oh dear me!" I crowed, furrowing my brow in concentration and sticking my tongue to the side as I read over all of my DVD titles.

"So," Jessica then purposefully rolled herself off of the couch she was laying out and landed on the floor with a THUMP! "Why is it," She then followed that up with a simple, purposefully clumsy looking forward roll (she was actually fairly athletic) and landed right next to where I was kneeling, "that you refuse to use Netflix?" she demanded, all lovely pretenses gone, "We've been siting here, waiting for you to pick a film for the better part of an hour! Just hurry up or let me sign in to my Netflix account! "

I scowled at her but I noticed I did take an absurd amount of time, "Fine. Hey Als, would you mind if we kept it classic and watched a Harry Potter movie?"

"Fine by me... Padfoot," Alicia said cheekily, reminding us all of how we used to roleplay as the Marauders. It was an endearing and slightly embarrassing childhood memory.

"Rightie-o, Moony. How about you, Prongs?" I turned to Jessica.

"Yeah, alright," Jessica shrugged, "Haven't watched Harry Potter in a while. I kind of miss our geeky little pseudo Marauders gang too, Padfoot, Moony."

I just smiled and, after another cursory glance at the DVDs, I pulled out Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. While the movie started to play I got up.

"Anybody want me to make any popcorn?" I asked, redoing my messy bun quickly.

"I'll take some," Alicia said decisively and Prongs, er, sorry, I mean Jessica got up. I took a swift moment to remember when we used to refer to each other with those names more than we used our real names with a fond smile on my lips.

Jessica went and opened my fridge and pulled out some Sprite and Coca Cola, pouring one glass of Sprite for Alicia and a Coke for both herself and me. After the popcorn had popped, Jessica and I returned to my living room where Alicia was watching the movie diligently, her clear frames slipping off her face. She didn't really seem to notice us returning until Jessica plopped her glass of Sprite down onto the coffee table in front of her. I put the bowl of popcorn onto the table as well.

"Awe, thank you!" Alicia said gratefully as she reached for her glass of Sprite just as there was a rather loud crack of thunder outside, causing all three of us to jump and for Alicia to accidentally slap the glass off of the table.

"Jeez." I said, my hand flying to my chest.

"That was loud," Jessica said, agreeing with my sentiment and going up to the window and peering out of the curtains. As soon as she lifted the curtains I felt a blast of electricity hit me. It wasn't painful because it was simply too overwhelming. I don't know what happened to us afterwards since everything suddenly just went black.

When I awoke, I immediately swallowed a mouthful of salty, disgusting water. My eyes burned and I flailed around. I was in some kind of body of water? I was a fair swimmer and I looked up, holding whatever minuscule breath I had the best I could. There was a lot of light which meant the surface wasn't fair off. I kicked as hard as I could. It was strange but my legs felt smaller? Disregarding it, I swam, up, up, up...

I broke the surface and took in great, heaving breaths as two pair of arms grabbed me and pulled me up. Pushing my sopping wet hair out of my eyes, and breathing heavily I looked around in an almost wild panic. I was on some kind of lake where a bunch of boats were all floating, going towards some castle. I looked to the people who had rescued me and my eyes met a pale looking girl with a brown bush of hair and a nervous looking boy with dark hair, grasping a toad that seemed interested in going where I had just come from. Where the hell am I?

"You should be more careful, you know. Roughhousing in the boats doesn't make for a very good first impression. You could have drowned and now your robes are all wet!" the brown haired girl said to me, sniffing rather dramatically in distaste.

"Robe-?" I began, looking down at myself in a sort of terrified shock. I was wearing robes? And I was so small! I looked like I was...

I froze and looked at the two again. They looked like they were eleven? Was I... Eleven?

"Rachel!" I heard a familiar voice call and I turned to look. A very young, frazzled-looking and also sopping wet Alicia and Jessica waved at me from two separate boats, "Are you alright?" this time it was Alicia.

I tried to figure out how to respond, turning back to the Emma Watson and Matthew Lewis look-alikes looking back at me, one in disapproval and the other in shy curiosity.

I made a strange sucking sound with my mouth in thought and turned to my friends as their boats neared mine.

Our boats continued up to the castle as my mind worked furiously to determine just what in the hell was going on.

"Quite alright."