Prologue

"Butterbeers all around!" Professor McGonagall shrieked clumsily, slopping her own bottle down her robes. Her hat had fallen off moments ago, and now she reached up with one hand and tore her bun out, allowing her hair to cascade down onto her slim shoulders, making her head appear much larger than it really was.

"Hear hear!" Shouted the Weasley twins, or at least Arden recognized them as the Weasley twins. She found this odd since she had never seen the Weasley twins in her life. They had left Hogwarts a long time ago. Arden watched, eyes wide and vomit rising slowly and steadily up her throat as Fred and George climbed onto the staff table, seized their own beers and began to dance with McGonagall.

"Good show, isn't it?" said the boy next to her. Arden whipped around; she'd thought she had been alone at the Ravenclaw table. She was certain she had been, but that wasn't the case anymore. There was a boy sitting next to her with blonde hair and a pale face. She knew him to be the kid who was Sorted into Slytherin the evening before.

"You aren't supposed to be here." Arden said to him. "You need to be over there." She pointed at the Slytherin table, where Professor Flitwick was sitting with Professor Sprout, playing checkers and slapping Galleons onto the table as bets.

"I don't mind." The blond boy said. "My world is—"

"DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE!" Professor McGonagall suddenly screamed, throwing her now empty Butterbeer bottle at Arden. She ducked—

"Holy shit, Ard!"

Arden blinked, heart pounding as she looked around, taking in the room around her. Slowly, she began to realize that she was standing on her bed in the Ravenclaw dormitory. The hangings were open, like she always left them, and her best friend Dom was sprawled on the floor with her trunk upside down, oozing it's contents over the floor.

"What...what happened?" Arden said very loudly. "How did I get to do the standing thing? I was in the Great Hall…"

"You were dreaming." Dominique said exasperatedly. "And then you stood up. I thought you were awake so I said 'Morning' and then you screamed at me and started freaking out. What the hell kind of dream was it?"

"A scary one." Arden assured her, climbing shakily down from her four-poster, the blue bedspread in a tangled mess on the floor.

"As long as you have a good reason for it." Dom said, rolling her eyes. You made me jump so much I fell over.

Arden quickly apologized. She knew how much Dom hated falling, or tripping, or being any kind of clumsy. Her mother was beautiful, graceful and so far from clumsy she could hardly comprehend the idea. Dom's eighteen year old sister, Victiore was the spitting image of their mother, and her younger brother who had not started at Hogwarts yet, Louis, might now have been the most gorgeous boy in the world, but he was so small and stepped so light that he could avoid any obstacle anyway. Dom, on the other hand, was the awkward middle child. She had always been certain that she was adopted, because she didn't look like her dad, like Louis did, and she didn't look like her mom. She was much shorter and had long, reddish-brown hair and silver eyes that could send chills down your back. Her dad said she looked like Grandpop Delacour, but she didn't see where the compliment was in this, as her Grandfather on her mother's side was plump and bearded.

Arden, on the other hand, looked exactly like her mom. She couldn't compare herself to her dad, who had left the family shortly after her birth, but she did have the blue eyes that her mother didn't. Arden Rosenberg was slight and had short black hair that didn't reach her shoulders and that somewhat hid her thin face, but not by much. She had no siblings, but was glad of it. She could hardly bear a thought that she might have a younger brother or sister that would be stuck at home with her drunk, violent Muggle mother while Arden was off at Hogwarts.

After getting dressed, Dominique and Arden went down to the common room. Arden collapsed into a comfortable blue armchair as soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs. She wasn't a morning person, quote unlike Dom, who was already nattering away about something or other; half the time Arden just let her talk without drinking in a word. This habit had caused several fights between the girls over their last four years at Hogwarts, and some things had turned a little nasty, but now that they entered their fifth year, they were long past everything that had happened previously.

"Arden." Dom said testily. Arden curled up and buried her face in the chair cushion.

"Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnn." She moaned back.

"Aaaaand a very merry morning to you too, my love!" Said a loud, cheery voice. Arden sat up at once.

"Sander!" She shouted, scrambling out of her chair to greet the new arrival, a tall boy with blonde hair and bright, twinkling brown eyes.

"Now she gets up." Said Dom, amused.

"Oh, she was just waiting for me, Dom." Said Lysander in his carrying voice, tugging both girls into a bear hug. "How are my girls?"

"We're fine." Arden said as he released them. "Dom flipped shit at me this morning, though."

"Already? That's what, eight hours you lasted without fighting?" Lysander said. Dominique punched him in the chest.

"She was screaming at me in her sleep." Dom explained as they walked down the stairs and along the corridor below, heading to breakfast.

"Screaming? Screaming what?"

"I have no clue. Something like 'he's escaping'"

"No, it was 'don't let him escape'" Arden chimed in, remembering the exact content of her dream. "Professor McGonagall screamed it." The were just stepping of the stairs onto the first floor when Lysander suddenly spoke again.

"Wait…so you were Professor McGonagall in this dream?"

"What? No!" Arden said. "I was watching her dancing on the table in the Great Hall—"

"Oooh, having erotic dreams about Professor McGonagall, are we?"

"I am NOT having erotic dreams about Professor McGonagall!!" Arden said, very loudly.

"I beg your pardon?" All three of them wheeled around. Standing in the corridor, clearly on her way to her classroom was Minerva McGonagall, Transfiguration teacher and Headmistress of Hogwarts.