Please excuse any lack of word, misspellings, missuse of frases and/or words and so on - I'm Swedish.

All characters, enviroments and eventual magic are Co. J. K. Rowling and taken from or inspired by her series about Harry Potter.

She stood outside the giant gate, gazing upon the large emblem of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with a puzzled look upon her face. The pooring rain made her eyes flicker and caused her to relax her neck and stare straight ahead again, through the bars and over to the breathtaking grasslands which stretched all the way up the hill to the castle.

In her left hand she still held a firm grip of the letter she had received not one week ago. The envelope was slightly yellowed and green ink wrote her name in flourihed letters that spelled:

Ms. Eleanor Iceleaf,
47 Red Valley,
Second Door at the White House with the Blue Knots,
Sweden

Apparently the postman had had no difficulty reading English, because it had ended up in her mailbox just the same, giving her more than one reason to ponder about why Katty hadn't mentioned it when they saw eachother at the postoffice only hours later. After reading the letter inside she got other things to ponder about, though.

"Dear Ms. Iceleaf,

it has come to my notice that we have overseen your existence for quite some time and for that I am truly sorry. Now that you have come of age according to the muggle (non-magic people) laws of your country and decided to change your last name to the one of your mother, Susanna, finding you became much easier for me.

Though you are too old to restart school I am still willing to make amends - I might have an offer for you." ...

The letter continued explaining the strange disappearance of one Mr. Dellowberry that had something to do with a couple of ferrets and a fierce prank that either went very wrong or, -"rather likely", as the author put it-, very well. Either way the letter ended:

... "I am sending you this ticket for the Hogwarts Express that will leave King's Cross Station in London at the end of the holidays. Date and time will be printed on your ticket. Feel free to use it if you are intressted in my suggestion.

Albus Dumbledore,
headmaster.

PS.
And do please bring Zider, she is most welcome, just as you are."

At first she had had no idea of what the letter ment or who this Dumbledore could be, or if he was even serious. Had she not been serching her mind for any sign of explaination at all, the thought of her mother would never have come to her. "Susanna". That's what he had written. Not "Susan", wich had been her mothers name as long as she could remember. "Susanna Iceleaf", she knew, had left Britan for "Susan Happi" and the less reknown and markably more sufficient Sweden. And than it was that other thing ... The magic thing.

Before she had decided anything she found her self packed up, with Zider in her cage, handing a set of keys to a fish-feeding-flower-watering-soon-to-be-partying-all-night younger cousin and ready to go. The flight had been quick and smooth enough, but finding platform 9 3/4 had been worse. It wasn't until a sweet girl with jet black braids had asked her if she was trying to find the Hogwarts Express and guided her through the pillar, that it actually struck her what she was about to do. Or rather, what she could be doing. She didn't know all the details of her precense there at the school, after all, but she had still left without a doubt. Well, without thirtyfour doubts, to be honest, and the first thirtythree where all the same: am I doing the right thing leaving?

"You must be Ms. Iceleaf, I presume?"

The hoarse voice shoke her into presence again and she looked upon a grave, pale man at the other side of the bars, all dressed in black robes. Afraid that her wide, blue eyes would seem fit to light up a UFO, she rapidly looked away from his harsh gaze.

"Yes...yes, I am. Are you professor Hagrid?"

"I most certainly am not."

The hinge creaked as he opened the gate, but his face hadn't shown a slightest emotion other than great discomfort. She waited a moment for him to introduce himself with his proper name, but when the introduction never came she knelt down and grabbed her bags. He apparently took this as a sign of her being redy to verture up the hill to the castle, for he stood aside and let her enter the grounds, closing the gate behind her.

"The headmaster wants to see you straight away. Follow me."

She followed his black shape, having to nearly run to keep up with his haste to escape the rain, and that was no easy task to try to do uphill, with two stuffed bags and a catcage. Zider didn't sound very pleased about the situation either.

She had been given directions that all of her shopping would be taken care of when she had arrived at the school, so she had done nothing to swop her jeans and jacket that she now wore to something less ... common - something that had made her feel strangely exposed at the train. Well off it, all of the students had swiftly put themselfs in what seemed like enginedriven carts not to suffer the rain to badly, while she her self had stood still awaiting a certain professor Hagrid which, the headmaster had written, should come to meet her. After scarcely half an hour of waiting she had grabbed her bags to start walking towards the castle by her self, feeling rather anxious about this new but not completely strange world. This grave-looking, black striped bookworm was not what she had expected to see in a world of magic.

The castle walls were filled with pictures of every sizes, and inside the frames the different characters moved and talked, either to eachother or to the occasional students that crossed their way. She had only seen a fraction of the wonders that are Hogwarts Castle when they suddenly stoped in front of an ugly-looking statue.

"Liquorice pipe."

Before she had even a chance of giving her guide a sceptical glance the statue and wall moved. Without any explanation he himself stepped up upon a step of a, what would show, spiral staircase; a movement she quickly imitated. She followed the stairs movement til the top, where a massive wooden door were and on which they were about to knock.

"Come in, come in, by all means! I've been expection you."

The words came from the other side of the door so her guide let down his hand and turned the handle.

A wide, circle room came into veiw, and because it was showered with the most remarkable things and furnitures all along the walls she had a hard time discovering the bearded headmaster sitting in his chair behind a large, heavy desk.

"Thank you, Severus."

The blackdressed man nodded, went out and closed the door with a sneer look upon his face. She took the liberty of putting down her lugage; she was soaking wet from carrying it all the way from the station in the rain and around her feet had a moist spot started to grow.

"I am sorry no one came to meet you at the station. Hagrid had a small distraction to take care of which I just heard of, and so I had little time to assamble someone else to fetch you. Luckily professor Snape volunteered."

The old man had risen from the chair and was now standing opposite her with his hand outstreched for her to grab.

"I am Albus Dumbledore, headmaster here a Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and you, I belive, are my new Muggle Studies teacher, professor Eleanor Iceleaf."

A bit awkward about her new title she smiled and let out a short laughter before she shook his hand.

"Yes, that ought to be me. It is nice to finally meet you, headmaster."

"Ah, your English is excellent. I was afraid that would be a problem, but it seems we have nothing to worry about."

A comforting smile reached her from the innerst of his white, overwhelming beard. As the well-mannered girl she has been broght up to be she smiled back, but in her mind she kept wondering how he could mean that their largest obstacle could be a rosty pronunciation, when she in fact knew no magic at all and very little about everything else at this side of the mirror.

"Pleased to meet you too, and welcome to Hogwarts, professor.", he smiled.